Slashdot Mirror
Ubisoft's Authentication Servers Go Down
ZuchinniOne writes "With Ubisoft's fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. 'At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.' One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM."
Down or DDoS? We all know exactly how easy it was going to be for an outsider to screw everyone.
Because it pisses off a wide audience, not just the typical Slashdot reader. This may matter when it comes to selling other games. In particular, the people affected are the people ill-informed enough or naive enough to pay for such software. Once Bitten, Twice Shy.
Also because it kills the argument that this DRM isn't a big deal for anyone who doesn't plan to play the game for years. I know I've been told (by Battlefront.com, when inquiring about their system) that I was more likely to stop playing after years due to compatibility issues than because their DRM servers closed. Ubisoft presumably would have said similar, if asked about the end-of-life of their servers.
First time I've heard of a DDoS attack being used to break DRM...
It's as if nobody learned the first time about DRM when Microsoft shut off its MSN Music Store DRM servers, thus having people locked out of their own music they bought legitimately.
For those who got burned, it's not like people weren't warned. If you bought the game, you got what you deserved.
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BMO
Please do not post about illegal activities and or downloads.
The response summarizes the situation appropriately:
WTF I posted a link to google that shows how to play since UBIcraps servers are down and you call it ILLEGAL activities? RAbble rabble! I will never buy another ubisoft product and I advise you to do the same!
Several DRM schemes have only involked a reaction in the tech community such as slashdot while the general public carried on not caring.
This shambles has made it painfully obvious to the masses of the dangers of DRM.
The 45 page thread is evidence of it and is quickly filling up with hatred. Comments such as "I'll never buy from you again" which usually tend to be hyperbole this time ring true.
Hopefully the end result of this is that the public won't have a short attention span and make true on their threats of not buying from them again.
the german law 69d UrhG allows cracking of software that you legally own and that won't work otherwise...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
In Germany, EULAs are non-binding if they're not presented before the sale. There's no way to disclaim fitness for the obvious purpose of the program either. Furthermore, if modifications are necessary to make the program work as intended, then such modifications are legal even without the author's consent: Happy cracking. Last but not least, the vendor who sold the defective product must either take it back and refund the price or fix the problem.
UbiSoft really screwed up.
So everyone not currently flooding the UBIsoft boards with threats of murder, arson and killing of firstborns is suspicious.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It also might trigger the 'interoperability' exemption of the DMCA. After all, cracking the program is only used to let the game work properly..
I'd try to understand why people pirate my games. Off the cuff:
They might not want to pay the asking price. To lower my asking price, I need to either reduce costs or increase sales volumes enough to cover the price change. Without having any studies to investigate this, I would personally suspect that there are too few people who would be willing to pay at any given price below current shelf prices to justify the drop (eg, if you charge 1/2 the price, you won't have 2x the sales, replace "2" with "n" and the statement holds true). I wouldn't bother doing anything about this category of pirate, because they would never pay the price, so I'm just throwing away money trying to stop them playing.
They might not want to wait for the game to be released in their region. I either need to lrn2globalmarket or use an online distribution model. Both are feasible. Both have been done successfully. A game publisher not investigating how they can do near-simultaneous global releases, and ways they can ship electronically, is a game publisher on a trajectory into a dirt nap right now.
They might be fed up with games that don't work as well as the pirated version. This should be a no-brainer. A game should perform better if it's legit than if it's pirated. Simple idea with no real analysis behind it: you can tie in social services. UbiSoft could have a social platform for high scores, game achievement rankings, online guilds and forums, all tied to a CD-key based account, and common across all their games to amortise the cost of development and maintenance.
A company that clearly has done this research is Blizzard Entertainment. They get all three of these things right: older games are cheap enough that the second-hand market is pretty much dead, they can be downloaded (multiple times, tied to your battle.net account), and battle.net offers online play and ladders using game keys, a very simple and cheap to operate protection system. People still pirate Blizzard games, but I doubt it has a very significant impact on their bottom line. And having done their research, they've probably got other mechanisms in place that I haven't even thought of.
UbiSoft, on the other hand, have fucked themselves sideways with a broomstick. They've spent millions on a flaky DRM system, they're offering an expensive product with more restrictions than the pirate copy, and they haven't even released it in the US yet. It's like they've got a CEO with a significant golden parachute clause in his contract that's just waiting to be fired by the board.
What everyone predicted has happened. /b/tards decide to DDOS them for "pool's closed" - they only care that they cannot play the game they BOUGHT) it will become a massive one.
The servers fail just after the game is released, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of customers are highly unsatisfied, not to say irate.
This is already a PR disaster, should the servers keep failing (whatever the reasons - the people don't care if your servers are to weak to handle the load or if some
Oh, and since Silent Hunter 5 was already cracked I suspect a crack for Assassin's Creed 2 won't be long.
So in a way, Ubisoft, you decided to ignore the warnings, now your tears, they taste delicious.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
The original idea of copyright, the whole "exchange" thing going on here, is that a content producer is granted a limited, exclusive time period to profit from a work before it becomes public domain, as the nature of any form of information allows unlimited copying anyway. In the US Constitution, this exchange is established to promote the advance of arts and sciences, and it is a reasonable way to encourage content creation as an actual profession. All understandable...
When a company places nasty digital restrictions management garbage on their information product, especially this kind of phone-home to use / read sort of nonsense, it completely removes the part of the exchange that the public receives. The public, the people, via government allowed a limited time for the content creator to exclusively profit from their work before it enters the public domain, and that is the concept of "copyright." DRM, especially this kind, breaks the agreement. It destroys the very foundation of the concept. Therefore, I do not consider any such work to be copyrighted. I am not a lawyer, etc... but I am someone who understands what copyright is for, and that it has become something else entirely. Unlimited terms (beyond a human's lifetime), means it is not under copyright. Permission-every-time sorts of access models mean it is not under copyright.
I know very well that these matters are settled by throwing money at lawyers and congress-creatures, and therefore, my opinion means nothing in a court of law. I also know that I do everything in my power to ensure that people understand the concept of "intellectual property" is against the very nature of information, and is a disgusting concept that has come about through purchased laws.
Actually, I think that Digital Rights Management is actually the correct and honest-to-God description of it. They just hope you'll misunderstand whose rights they are protecting, and what those rights might be. A lot of people for example seem to think that if it mentions "rights", it might be your rights. In reality, it's about what rights they can give themselves to shaft you. E.g., their unilaterally self-given "right" to revoke your legal customer rights, by preventing you from reselling the game.
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