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

[MrMista_B]

"Don't buy and don't download cracked games. Maybe then all these idiot companies will get the message."

I'm afraid your wrong.

They will simply decide that your lack of a purchase is proof of your piracy.

People aren't buying their games? It must be piracy!

Re:Settlers 7

[Shihar]

This isn't going to lead to a sales boost. When I was 14 and a pirate I pirated because I was poor. Every game I didn't or couldn't pirates wasn't a game I bought. It was just a game I didn't own.

Well, now I am twenty something and out of college with an engineering degree. I am single, make a tidy pile of money, and have pretty much no expenses beyond student loans. I buy every single video game that catches my fancy without thinking twice. I never pirate because I don't need to. I just pass on DRM titles. There are more than enough without DRM that it isn't a hard decision.

Ubi has lost money from me. I would have bought Assassins Creed 2 and Settlers 7. Hell, I was even eying Silent Hunter 5 a little. Instead though? I just went out and got Bioshock 2, both Empire and Napolian Total War, the new STALKER, the new Dragons Age, and Mass Effect 2, on top of a couple of small indie games. Metro 2037 and MW2 are in my list of games to buy as soon as I catch up on the pile I have already bought.

I really doubt Ubi has "forced' pirates to buy any games. They might not be playing any Ubi games, but what good does that do if they don't buy the game either? For people like me though, I have not and will not buy any Ubi games. Keep a pirate from playing and you gain nothing. Make me and people like me not want to play, and you lose a few hundred bucks.

Re:Settlers 7

[billcopc]

I don't really think it leads to more sales. Let's suppose I'm a pirate (*ahem*). If I can't play Settlers 7, or Assassin's Creed 2, or whatever hot-game-of-the-minute, I will find something else to occupy my weekend. I'm not going to feel the overwhelming urge to go "haha, ok Ubisoft you win this time" and give them $70, when there are hundreds of other recent titles available right on the first page of my torrent site. In fact, if something is known to be "uncrackable" a pirate is more likely to NOT want to buy it, for fear that it will rootkit their PC, mess with Daemon Tools, or phone home with a list of all the other ill-gotten software they have.

Now I'm going to take a rather offensive stance: I, as an occasional producer of (low budget) software, pirate my own stuff. By that, I mean I routinely package the product that I myself created, throw in a valid unlock code, and seed it on torrent trackers, push it through Usenet, stick it on Rapidshare. Why in the fuck would I do that ? Because pirates make up the oldest and largest social network of all time. I shit you not, I have been making more money and more repeat sales. The reasoning ? There are several types of pirates, I lump them into four main categories:

    1. Hardcore pirates who won't pay for software, ever
    2. Casual/bored pirates who will download whatever's new and try it out
    3. Average Joe who shares stuff with a few friends and relatives, might do group buys
    4. Try-before-you-buy types (yes they do exist)

#1 is most likely 12 years old and/or living in the 3rd world, might as well forget about them there is no hope for this category

#3 is small peas, blue-collar cheap-ass. Even legit businesses don't spend much on marketing to these types

#2 and #4 are GOLDEN. The try-before-they-buy types often become life-long supporters. These are the guys who will chat you up in the forums and spread your gospel to coworkers and acquaintances. The casual pirates are similar, but they won't buy your product: their friends will. The casual pirate will blog about your app or mention it on IRC/Facebook, proportionate to your app's quality and apparent ease-of-use.

I know these observations don't directly scale to these big-name game houses. Obviously there is a greater benefit to indie guys like myself, but on some level, people will always buy a certain portion of their software... for some it's 100%, for others it's zero, and I don't think DRM has much influence on that.

Piracy is a constant. You can't kill it, no matter how clever you get, it's still just a software or hardware lock, and both can be broken by someone with a bit of smarts, time and motivation. DRM is nothing but a series of small pyrrhic victories and each incremental tightening of "security" leads to an equal or greater increment in the cracker's knowledge and skill. The only ones who truly profit from DRM are the people selling DRM.

Re:The pirated version has none of these problems

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I know, it hasn't been cracked yet. Neither has Assassin's Creed 2, at least not satisfactorily. The only problem Ubisoft now have is that people aren't buying their games because of the bad publicity around the DRM- Assassin's Creed 2 is down to £15.98 already on Amazon UK, a sure sign that it's not selling very well.

Re:The pirated version has none of these problems

[Jurily]

DRM doesn't affect pirates

Everyone repeat this until it sinks in. It only takes one DRM-free copy from some ubercracker.