Ubisoft DRM Causing More Problems

Joe Helfrich writes "Ubisoft's Settlers 7 servers have been causing problems for over a week for users worldwide, and Australian gamers are hardly able to connect at all. 'The problem reportedly strikes after the game has already confirmed an active Internet connection, and prevents the user from playing even the single-player campaign, returning the error "server not available." But they are available, because other people are logged into them and merrily playing away.' Wonder how they're going to describe this one as an attack."

Comments

Settlers 7

[sopssa]

I won't be buying Settlers 7 before they remove this DRM. Settlers is one of my favorite series and Settlers 2 probably my favorite game of all time, and what I've read about Settlers 7, it again has more emphasis on economy and all the other aspects that used to make Settlers series great before they changed the game play too much. Settlers 7 would had been a nice strategy game fix right now, but I can surely wait for the upcoming Civilization V too.

That being said, while it's an intrusive and assholish DRM, every game that uses it's remain uncracked (before you post links to torrent searches, everyone of those are badly cracked or only contain a tutorial and not rest of the levels and so on). Silent Hunter after 1.5 months, Assassins Creed after a month and now Settlers 7 too. It will most likely make Ubisoft want to use it even more and more, and it most likely does lead to more sales from the pirates front as they can't play the game otherwise. I also suspect it leads to fewer sales from those who always buy games (from me and probably rest of the slashdot crowd), but most of the people aren't as technically savvy as we are. Too bad you can't really compare how a game would sell without any DRM or with a draconian DRM like this one.

But in the case it gets cracked, I won't be even pirating it - I give my time and money to the companies that do it correctly. Pirating it isn't a good answer either because you're still getting your gaming fix from that company and most likely ignoring other companies games that don't have such DRM in place. The only way to get a change is to ignore companies that use draconian DRM and support those who don't.

Re:Settlers 7

[MrHanky]

Assassin's Creed 2 still hasn't been cracked successfully, and doesn't seem to sell particularly well. At least not enough to indicate that every pirated game is a lost sale.

Re:Settlers 7

[Nemyst]

It's also led to one of the worst backlashes ever. I mean, half of the PCGamer review of AC2 was about the DRM scheme and how it sucked. This thing is so intrusive and aggressive that people WILL notice it, even the less tech savvy. Further, those same non-geeks won't get what's going on (people who do understand what's happening might just wait, knowing there isn't much else to do), will angrily flood Ubisoft's tech support asking for answers and thus maybe one day Ubisoft will understand that it may not be the best way to go.

Re:Settlers 7

[Rallion]

I plan to find a way to get in contact with Ubisoft and tell them WHY I'm not buying RUSE. I played the beta a bit, and I really like it, and I can honestly say that the DRM will cost them my money. But not buying it isn't actually helpful, because they will twist any sales numbers or piracy estimates to mean whatever they want. We've reached a point where the only way that we can actually communicate with the publishers is to actually directly spell out our feelings to them in verbal or written form.

If they misinterpret a letter that says "I would have purchased this game if it didn't have this awful DRM, instead I will give my disposable income to your competitors," we really know that it's a lost cause.

Re:Settlers 7

[Opportunist]

I pay for a game I want to enjoy. I do not enjoy games that treat me like a criminal. Thus I do not pay for it. I know it's hard to imagine that someone actually manages to do without something he wants in this time and age, but people still allegedly exist who simply abstain from using something if they do not agree with the terms of use.