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Ubisoft DRM Problems Remain Unsolved
ocean_soul writes "More than three weeks after the release of The Settlers 7, with the controversial 'always on-line' DRM, a lot of people still can't connect to Ubisoft's DRM servers. The forum threads where people can post if they are unable to connect keep growing daily. One reason for the lack of fixes or responses from support seems to be that the people responsible were on vacation during the Easter holiday, despite the promise of 24/7 monitoring of the servers. The moral of this story seems to be that it is a bad idea to buy a game just before a major holiday."
Or perhaps that it's wise to avoid games with such DRM altogether. So far, Ubisoft hasn't shown any sign that they're reconsidering the requirement of a constant connection. They've recently said it's "vital" to the success of their games and promised that their DRM would "evolve and improve" over time.
It's clear they don't really care about addressing the problems people are having today. They have already accepted that there will be issues, and they just plan to react and evolve the DRM, but to never remove it. They're in it for the long haul, and if a few eggs get smashed along the way, they're quite fine with that.
They've recently said it's "vital" to the success of their games and promised that their DRM would "evolve and improve" over time.
Improving the DRM won't improve the game itself. A game would have to be pretty damn good to make me pay AT&T $60 per month for the ability to play it on a laptop. I've bought exactly one game published by Ubisoft (Lumines for PSP, a franchise that Ubi has since lost to Disney), and if anyone working at Ubi is reading, I'm not buying any more until your company starts considering laptops without mobile broadband.
Antagonize your own customers at your own risk.
This is a "bet the company" move, and I'm betting this leads to Chapter 7.
--
BMO
...where are all the class-action lawsuits? Here's a place where people should be suing the hell out of a company. Why isn't this happening?
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
I didn't give them any money. They can take their DRM and go circle the drain....bye guys.
If piracy is as widespread as they say, and if pirated copies really detract so heavily from sales, then the sales of this game should be abnormally large. Are they?
I realise that's hard/impossible to measure, but it warrants some discussion.
Fuck 'em, then...
Read my blog. Or not. Whatever.
If any of their games were selling particularly well I'm sure they'd be shouting from the rooftops: "See it works!" But they're not so I imagine its for the par at least. What will be really interesting is the five year outlook, I've already decided to do my part to kill Ubisoft: I will never buy another one of their games, theres always something else to choose.
Shh.
DRM only punishes people who actually pay money to buy.
I just had a great experience with Ubisoft DRM a few weeks ago. I decided to replay Farcry 2, which I really didn't play that much when I bought it a year or so ago. I'm military, I move a lot, can't find the stupid booklet with CD key, so being a legitimate customer who BOUGHT the damned game I go on their site and ask for help. Game apparently needs a CD key that activates itself online and requires registration and account creation (which I did create, and logged in with that account...). Their reply summed up is "Send us 5$ + S&H and we'll send you a new CD key. Check/cash/money order will do". My reply was taking 5 minutes to find a 24k cracked .exe file that allowed me to skip through all their BS. That was the last game I buy from Ubisoft.
This new DRM scheme is even worse. For me for example, I deploy, I don't have internet everywhere. Which means I can't play an uncracked version of Settlers 7. I've never even played Settlers, I don't know what it is, nor will I ever get exposed to it because I know of their retarded DRM schemes. I imagine that this will turn away a lot of other paying customers from Ubisoft franchises.
PS: Farcry 2 sucks, no wonder I played it for an hour when I bought it a year ago.
They've recently said it's "vital" to the success of their games and promised that their DRM would "evolve and improve" over time.
Microsoft said the same thing when they started product activation. Although, in fairness to Microsoft, their DRM works better than this disaster.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The funny thing is, when the new Splinter Cell Conviction comes out over here in the UK
I was going to actually buy the PC version
but after reading the above and this http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/16/splinter-cell-dev-defends-ubisofts-always-on-drm/
I'm actually really tempted to pirate the thing
(or perhaps get an xbox given that Sony's screwed me over with the whole otheros thing)
Notice that somewhere along the way with PC purchases that generally you lost your ability to resell your purchase? Just another casualty in the piracy wars. At least I can go into EB Games and buy used Xbox 360 titles, PC titles nope and the PC title section seems to be getting smaller and smaller...
Shh.
From the first CD Rom game that would not allow me to play without the CD in the drive I have been a game pirate. I remember listening to my mid 1990's grunge bands like Nirvana while playing games and all of the sudden some game I forget which told me I could not do that. So I took it back to the store and never looked back.
Yep Yep, and for me it was the same thing with online advertising. One day online there was a flashing annoying popup ad and I got pissed off, so from that day onward I have run Squid with an ad blocking blacklist as my proxy server and all of computers save my android devices have ad blocking software on them as well.
Funny thing is, I don't mind Steam's DRM because over a period of 4 years I have not been able to play a total of 1 day. Google Text Ads are fine too but what has happened is that even small picture ads piss me off now and the slightest inconvenience in playing a game I bought will make me instantly crack it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I use Game Copy World, esp on old DRM that requires the CD/DVD to be in the drive all the time. There is simply no reason why we should be tolerating DRM on any media, it would be like requiring a Captain Crunch decoder ring to read a book.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
When your DRM requires you to have a working internet connection for no other reason than the DRM, you're doing something wrong. It's supposed to be seamless and unobtrusive, using channels already in use by the game. Soon enough the system requirements will be elevated just to accommodate the DRM. Oh yeah.. that's why safedisk exists.
It's time to let them know how bad of a move it was. Don't buy their games (even though no full cracks exist) - buy direct competition, scan the receipt and send it to them, explaining that this money was originally intended to go for their product.
I'm a long time Splinter Cell fan. I own all four PC versions and was looking forward to play Conviction. Criticism about making the genre more action packed aside - I was still looking forward to the game. Now I'm not going to buy it, because such DRM is just ridiculous. I'm going to buy Alpha Protocol and send Ubisoft my receipt.
There are two kinds of people - those who are radioactive and those who have already decayed..
Ubisoft DRM becomes self-aware. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
DRM fights back.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
In corporate America, game plays you!
avoid gams that done work.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I sympathize for the people who bought this without knowing about the DRM, and hope they hold it against Ubisoft only and not PC Games in general. I have no sympathy for the people who knew about it and bought it anyway.
The above mentioned process made millions of game sales possible. Not DRM, not other anti-piracy policy or provision, just the ability to entertain 10 plus nerds on a single copy. Despite whatever other goals game developers may have, selling copies is the ultimate goal. That being said, things like DRM, and excessive prices (which would be much less without having to pay DRM developers) dissuade gamers like me. Oh well as long as nubes are dumb enough to buy games they have to pay for monthly, or have the digital equivalent of the great wall of China protecting against their copying their games, game makers will keep on plodding along.
-Oz
Steam actually adds value (download to any PC anywhere, never need a CD, etc) in compensation for the loss of certain freedoms associated with their DRM system (no resale, etc.)
.. This stuff happens.. but wait.. its a steam game! No need to go back to the store! Launch steam, enter the product key, latest version downloads with all patches applied, and off I went killing zombies....
Nobody elses DRM is adding value.
An example of the value its given me: I purchased Left 4 Dead from Walmart a year or so ago I guess, but when I opened the product, the CD was broken. "Aww crap!"
"His name was James Damore."
its like the 'legolas' of pc games. it caters to a huge gamer demographic ranging from 12 years old to 30 years old. with the hype and cult around the first game, ac 2 was bound to be a success REGARDLESS of what happened.
maybe thats why they chose to debut their shitty drm with ac2 instead of any other game.
Read radical news here
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5496065/Assassin_s_Creed_2_Crack_(Final_and_complete)
What's broken with the tagging here on Slashdot that this article is not tagged defectivebydesign?
Hello Pirates, or shall I say AHOY!
I am not against piracy, I think it's a terrific method to get free shit. However for this situation, using the "Im going to Pirate this game to stop teh 3\/i! DRMers" is an counter-productive move.
If you pirate these games simply 'on principle' software companies will adjust themselves with stronger DRM.
For these games, the publishers are willing to give up a certain portion of their profits in order to change the culture of PC gaming towards the standardization of using Draconian DRM Systems (DDRMS) in their games. Their goal is to make it 'normal' for players to buy games w/ DDRMS.
The most effective methods of fighting this DDRMS from least to highest are:
6. DDoS the DRM servers (I do not condone this action because it is illegal)
5. Do not buy the game
4. Do not buy the game and evangelize to friends and gamers why THEY should not buy the game
3. Buy a non-DRM game
2. Download an Open Source video game
1. Donate to an Open Source video game.
The most effective methods of HELPING this DDRMS from least to highest are:
4. buy the game
3. buy the game and tell your friends how awesome the game is
2. pirate the game
1. Donate money to UbiSoft to help they promote the DDRMS (I expect that other companies are quietly backing UbiSoft here)
Don't pirate it.
That means the game could be remembered for any positive aspects.
No, the bastards don't deserve for their software to make it into our culture. Buy someone ELSE'S game.
exaggerate much? The worst thing that can happen to Ubi is that they stop using the DRM and go back to being pirated.
Yeah, the moral isn't that it's a bad idea to buy a game before a holiday, but that it's a bad idea to buy a game with DRM.
Here's the thing. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the most prolific pirates are also the most voracious consumers, purchasing far more material than the average, casual gamer. These companies don't seem to understand that piracy does not correlate to a loss of sales. If anything, as a recent Arstechnica article mentioned, it may *increase* sales as people are able to legitimately sample the product and decide to buy either the current or future releases.
The real problem is that the executives and CEOs of these companies are performing their duties on behalf of the shareholders. The shareholders see people using their company's product for free, and like greedy little children who want to have their cake and eat it too, equate every torrent download with a lost sale. Even if it's not a true correlation, they can't stand the idea of someone using their stuff without adding to their pockets. If the shareholders don't recognize the value that targeted piracy, or even *demos* as the recent article about Crytek demonstrated, can have for a company, then nothing is going to improve, and the CEOs will keep shooting themselves in their foot trying to "stop piracy", all the while punishing their customers in the process.
What we need are more studies conducted by independent third parties to assess the true affects of piracy on sales. And I don't just mean a straight-up numbers analysis. I'm talking about determining the sociological implications of piracy, and its effects on buyers' habits over the long-term. Once these studies are performed we need to educate people about the *actual* conclusions, not some made-up garbage by the RIAA or other entrenched schemers.
Seriously why do people put up with this treatment by game developers? Its not like a cracked version wont be comming out within days if not hours of the games release. This just seems like a very good reason to say "Fxck you, i'll take the free version thanks". If I like a game, I buy it. I refuse to be bullied into it by a bunch of money orientated tools.
I'm amazed you were actually able to return a game to a store for that reason.
'Round these parts (Central Ontario) most stores only accept returns on software because of defective media, and usually even then all they're willing do is exchange it for another copy. It's been that way for about 15 years, to my recollection.
Or in this case, what you deserve.
The best solution is to just boycott this kind of companies. Stop buying their products. Educate others to do the same.
Basically you need to talk to them in the language they understand: money.
But once the protection has been figured out, future cracks will be faster. When a new DRM is introduced, it does take some time for crackers to figure out how it works and get around it. The more different it is from past DRM, the longer it takes. Thus this DRM, being custom Ubisoft stuff that's never been seen, takes longer than SecuROM or the like.
Ok but one they figure it out, and they have, well then in the future it'll be much faster. While the details will change, the base workings are going to be the same and thus not take so long. In this case it may be even easier as the method used seems to be to just emulate the server.
No matter, it is a losing battle for Ubisoft. They can invest the time and money to make a totally new DRM system for each game if they like, but they'd lose money due to the development expense and it'd still get cracked.
Game companies really need to knock it the fuck off. You can't make an uncrackable game, so stop wasting your money trying. Also all the people pirating are NOT lost sales. The vast majority would simply do without if they couldn't get it for free. Make good games for a reasonable price with nice extras for paying customers (things like achievements) and you'll find that your game sells fine. Pull shit like this and you'll lose sales because people don't want to deal with it. I was planning on getting AC2 and Settlers 7 but both are off my list because of the DRM. There are plenty of other good games out there (too many in fact, I don't have enough time to play all the games I've got) that have non-invasive or no DRM.
I'm not unreasonable, I'll meet publishers half way, I can deal with some DRM so long as it doesn't interfere with my ability to play the game. However shit like this is a no go.
Of course since the game has been opened, it can't be returned. It would be interesting to go the Credit Card approach that the item was not substantially as promised and provide the attempts at resolution that have been made.
Execute a chargeback, and then when you're in the clear destroy your copy of the disk.
(Personally then go outside and get some fresh air, but not everyone can do that)
Already posted, but good post.
Pirating games only supports DRM, and even better than just not playing the game is supporting games which do not use DRM.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Stealing is when you take something away from someone. When you copy something, the author still has it. Therefore it's not stealing. That doesn't mean it's not illegal. You can argue that it loses money to the author if you do it; but you can say the same thing about slander/libel/defamation. Surely if someone slanders a competitor, he stands to gain and the competitor to lose. Yet you're not calling it stealing, are you? Why don't you call copyright infringement slander, libel, or even identity theft or embezzlement? It's neither of those, anymore than it's stealing.
One of Denmark's leading national news papers, Politiken, has a really fun review of Settlers 7:
Don't buy this outstanding game! (Danish article Translated article)
Even rated the game 5 out of 6 but the DRM 1 out of 6
And then they followed it up with one entitled " New Copy Protection Punishes The Law Abiding " (Machine translated article)
If you're talking about VAC-banning then you're just factually incorrect. If not then I'd be interested to know of an example, because I've never heard of somebody's entire Steam account being banned. Phished, perhaps, but not banned.
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
No, the worst thing that is *likely* to happen is that. The worst thing that *can* happen is they hold on to it too long, damage their reputation beyond repair, and then even if they drop DRM completely, no one buys any of their games, thus leading to Chapter 7.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Then, uh, don't get banned? It's a fairly simple thing. Don't cheat. That's pretty much it. There's incredibly few false positives, and Steam's customer support is good enough that you can appeal if it was *actually* an unfair banning.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Yep. Not to mention the frequent 50-90% off sales. I can't remember the last game I bought over $20.
It also has a lot of convenient features - like when a friend of mine needed Left4Dead, I just copied it over to his computer, and his Steam picked it up. Saved him a huge download!
Redetecting games if you have to wipe or upgrade your OS (but not your game partition) is handy, on occasion. Saves HOURS reinstalling games.
And all the time saved keeping things up to date.
Or for most games, not having to deal with crappy DRM or separate account signups...
Steam is great! GOG is also great (and DRM free), but Steam has all the new games on it.
FTS,
"The moral of this story seems to be that it is a bad idea to buy a game just before a major holiday."
Um, no the moral of this story is that DRM is beyond USELESS and only punishes the honest customers. I am sure that as usual the "pirates" are playing the game just fine.
Another moral to take away is don't give your money to people that want to treat you like a thief EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE ALREADY GIVEN THEM MONEY.
I'm about to go on vacation and figured I'd redownload Farcry 2 again and play it some while I was idling ... Thank you for reminding me that it sucked ass compared to one and ... I too stopped playing it about 2 hours after I started.
Saves me several gigs of downloading, heh.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
With big companies like EA and Ubisoft, every detail in a game is solely designed to get to to pay for it. (I’m not using the term “buying” since you’ll not own anything.)
If you’ve done that, then why should they care? They got the money, and everything else doesn’t matter.
Now you will of course say, that people won’t buy the next game, because they will vote with their wallet.
But fact is: People will buy the next game anyway. Just like they vote for the same lying party over and over again.
Somehow a bit of marketing makes them completely forget what happened in the past.
And I’m sorry, but there really is no reason for a company that only cares for money, to care about its clients, after they already paid.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
blarkon,
As far as DRM being the last chance for PC gaming, I call BS.
I find it entirely ludicrous that on one hand you insist that without DRM they don't make enough money to make it worth staying in the PC market AND YET the games released on platforms with uncracked (for the most part anyway) DRM cost MORE than the games on the PC.
Anytime a publisher gives up the PC platform, it just makes room for better more able companies to get games out on the shelves.
It will seriously be no real loss to the PC gaming community if ubisoft takes their ball and goes console.
As to it working fine for you, that may well be, I'm glad for you.
However it is evidenced that it does not for many many people who also paid good money for a product they cannot use.
As to your TV analogy,
I pay for my on line TV the exact same way I pay for over the air TV, I watch the COMMERCIALS.
That system has worked on broadcast TV just fine.
Here's a fun fact, Commercial time on hulu costs MORE per min on a given show than the broadcast commercials on the same show AND the advertisers have a much better accounting of how many people have seen their ads.
Technology changes things, time changes things, as a matter of fact change is pretty much the ONLY constant.
If their customers would just grow a pair. Send that crap back, demand a refund. It's defective. Let them know, and that you'll FOLLOW THROUGH, by refusing to spend another dime on their DRM-tainted software. Faced with no (or very little) revenue *with* this ridiculous DRM, or a much healthier revenue stream without, they'd have only two options - concede their stupidity and remove it, or close up shop.
It's not even true though - a VAC ban prevents you from playing on VAC-enabled servers, but does not stop you playing on other servers that do not have VAC monitoring. It does not delete your games either - the account carries on just fine.
What is does prevent you doing though is moving those games to a *new* account, so if you cheat and want to play on VAC servers again then you need a new account, and you are not allowed to move your purchases/CD keys over, and the old account is banned from VAC servers forever, for all old and new games added to it. You can still play the games though, and play on non-protected servers.
The resolution was simply not to by their shit. The resolution was in fact there before the problem.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I'm sure that right now as thousands of people are struggling to play there games the Pirates that this resource was meant to stop are playing it probably with a custom hack/patch or whatever. I sometimes wonder if crazy DRM is used to catch pirates Pirate :I was playing Settlers 7 all day today.
Ubisoft: How could you the servers were down! all day because Joey, The Data Center Tech. decided to cook a cheese burger on the 24 core servers CPU. Pirate! Get him!
I miss the old DRM days. you had a little pin wheel and it prompted you with a code and it was good!
If you're talking about VAC-banning then you're just factually incorrect. If not then I'd be interested to know of an example, because I've never heard of somebody's entire Steam account being banned. Phished, perhaps, but not banned.
Google "disabled Steam account". They ban people for various things, mostly related to billing issues. If you want to experience it yourself, try purchasing something with a credit card, then dispute the charge. Poof, no more account.
So right now everyones logging in with there AWESOME DRM servers with Ubisoft. But what happens when they stop supporting those servers. Then your great game becomes a $50 waste of money.
DRM is menat to solve the piracy issues. Advocating that people make the piracy issue worse for Ubisoft is only going to result in Ubisoft putting more effort into making an effective DRM solution.
When software executivies see statistics regarding pirated copies, they are going to assume that every pirated copy would have been a sale for them if the software was not possible to pirate. This is of course a false assuption. It is not going to account for people who could not afford the game. It will not account for users who bought 1 copy legitimately and then made 3 or 4 copies so he could play at work and at a friends. It is not going to account for those users who are dipsh*ts and will just rip / steal illegal copies even if they were available for 2 cents each.
Pirating a game is not a clear message of anything other then a user having an 'unauthorized' copy. If you want to indicate that the DRM is a factor you need to do something else, like starting a protest campaign that involves sending Ubisoft executives a small rock or some other useless object that has an obvious tactile presence. Mass e-mail and forum rantings can be dismissed as a few isolated and vocal cranks. But sending 6 tons of gravel from thousands of users who are annoyed sends a message that there are enough individual users who are pissed off to cover the cost of postage for 6 tons of gravel.
In any event, Ubisoft's games are multi-platform, and piracy is less of an issue on the consoles. Even if no one purchased any PC games from Ubisoft, the end result would be that they would just stop supporting that platform. It would not put them out of business.
END COMMUNICATION
only 4 weeks?
HA! your super DRM was defeated in just a month!
Screw you, Ubisoft!
and same with many MMOs. Like it or not tying DRM to a server or hardware can work. Not that I expect Ubisoft to make it work properly any time soon.
you're basing your opinion on previous DRM where the same type of protection is repeated, i.e. cd-rom check. With server DRM you have far more options because you can make content dependent upon the server. It's much more than a simple check. A well designed system would keep game logic on the server so pirating the client is pointless. You'd need someone on the inside to leak the server code and even then you would still have a lot of work to do. Ubisoft's implementation was rather weak given the possibilities.
Do you know their economic situations of all pirates?
They obviously have an above-average computer and are interested in the game, so why do you give them the benefit of the doubt?
I've met plenty of pc gamers that pirated single player games but always had money for their warcraft subscription.
Yes Ubisoft is pissing people off with this but it's probably a last attempt at supporting pc gaming. Pirates are the real problem, it isn't as if DRM free games are pirated any less.
there are options other than piracy here.
Let's ask a hundred thieves if they only steal because they have to.
Oh wow almost 100% respond yes.
Let's just ignore the cases where they are stealing luxury entertainment for their own personal enjoyment.
Companies can handle their own marketing. They'd rather not lose potential sales so they can have their game mentioned in a warez forum. When pc games are pirated at over 80% it's a joke to suggest that it is anything but negative.
And what does have to do with VAC?
VAC is the anti-cheat system, and have nothing do with steam itself (billing, etc)
And OP is partly correct.
If you get banned in a source game (by VAC) you're VAC banned in ALL source games.
VAC bans on the engine.
This information is even on the wikipedia page, so not exactly a secret.
But how's that associated with DRM, I do not know.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Clearly the game was a runaway success, but the DRM was just not strong enough.
It never is.
Or, in case I'm wrong, it almost never is.
So rather than making good games, is the game industry really in the business of inventing and attaching to games the DRM schemes which win the arms race against crackers?
It seems that if you limit your talent pool to paid staff whom you subject to performance reviews, and the cracker army enlist the free time of passionate volunteers, the cracker army may be smaller in terms of wall clock hours, but it has better morale. If Sun Tzu is as correct as he is well known, we should expect the crackers to win, right?
(In terms of human motivation and organization, the crackers work similar to the open source movement, I think)
I agree with you (the parent) more than your parent (my grandparent).
That is, I agree with your conclusion but disagree with your arguments.
Not everything that has the same outcome is the same thing. [...] Theft requires a physical deprivation. That's the critical point.
Okay, so let's edit what your parent said:
I don't think you have disproven "things are equal if they have equal outcomes". Your parent just didn't describe the outcome in sufficient detail.
And second hand sales doesn't prove your parents way of defining things wrong either: add the extra requirement that the previous owner of the game (the seller) has a freely accepted compensation---this distinguishes them from cases of theft.
As a very philosophical point, the only description of outcomes that is sure to be sufficiently detailed is a complete description of the state of the world, suitable for your Laplacian Demon. Sometimes less will do, but you might need to keep adding more.
Hmm... interesting. Thanks for making me think a little about this :-)
...the solution is simple.
The game is not "fit for purpose" and, as far as I'm aware, that gives you rights as a consumer in most countries to return the game and get a refund of your money in full.
Therefore you should either be going back to your local game store and creating a scene until you get a refund, or ringing up your bank/credit card company to put the card transaction into dispute if you bought in online.
Backbones and DRM are mutually exclusive...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
When the PC version of a game makes up 10% of sales I don't think bankruptcy from losing some of those customers is very likely. It's probably a higher proportion for Settlers, I guess, but I'm sure it's low for AC2. And when there are also figures available demonstrating that frequently even with non-pervasive DRM that pirated copies seem to number several times more than legitimate copies - see MW2 in particular - I imagine that publishers could easily be feeling that they don't have much to lose, regardless of some noise on some forums. (Mostly playing Devil's advocate here because I certainly don't condone this draconian scheme. But at the same time, the PC market is in such a state, and so many of its supporters apparently refuse to support it by actually spending money on the games they play, that I'm unfortunately unsurprised by any of these developments.)
I once thought I might have been banned since I couldn't update or play any games. Turns out my PC had a rootkit that was interfering with TCP connections, and steam didn't like that very much.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
If DRM free games aren't pirated any more, and it seems they aren't, then it's the superior choice. Why? Because the goal of a company isn't trying to prevent piracy, it is to maximize profits.
Ok well DRM costs money. You either have to pay a purchase fee and per copy license in the case of off the shelf DRM, or development costs in terms of in house DRM. There's then additional cost to integrate and test the DRM with your game. You then have support costs to deal with the DRM problems that happen, and they do happen. In the case of online DRM like this, the costs of maintaining the servers as well. Finally there's the cost of people who, like me, just won't buy your stuff.
So you need to add up all those costs, and be realistic about it, to figure out what the DRM actually costs you. Then you need to figure out if it increases your revenues by a non-trivial amount above that. For example:
Suppose your DRM costs you a total of about $1,000,000 for a title. Now suppose you make $20 per copy sold (remember this is the publisher's take, not the retail price). That would mean you'd have to sell 50,000 additional units over no DRM to break even. So if you sold a 250,000 additional units, then it was well worth it. However if you sold only 10,000 additional units, then it was money down the drain.
That is the thing here. DRM isn't free, it costs money in many forms, and I see no evidence it reduces piracy. As such it seems logical not to do it, or at least to only use DRM that is low cost and non-intrusive.
You have to look at it like with a retail store. All retail stores face shrinkage, that is theft of products by customers and employees. Unlike piracy, this is a real loss situation as they lose the item and its associated value, not a potential sale (which they also lose). Now, a store could completely stop shrinkage. They could design a building with only one entrance and exit. At that entrance they could station armed guards, who strip search everyone, employee and customer, upon arrival and departure. This would reduce shrinkage to zero. It would also likely reduce sales to zero as nobody would shop there, and it would cost a ton to implement.
As such what retail stores actually do is put in those scanners that beep if you don't demagnetize the strip, as well as put in some security cameras (some fake, some real). That doesn't stop shrinkage, it isn't hard to get around, but it deters the casual shoplifters and doesn't piss off the customers. There are better things they could do, but they don't because they are either cost prohibitive or they'd make people mad, which is again cost prohibitive.
Same shit with game DRM. Sure, put in some simply, cheap DRM to stop people from handing the game out to all their friends, but stop pretending like invasive DRM accomplishes a damn thing. The pirates will crack your stuff, that it life.
Oops , sorry about the block text, apparently /. does not like either Window's linebreaks or IE.
>> They've recently said it's "vital" to the success of their games and promised that their DRM would "evolve and improve" over time.
Yeah and a lack of DRM is "vital" to my purchasing decision. I promise that my software purchases will "evolve and improve" away from all UBIsoft products and those of any other company that doesn't put the user first.
Lets see who cracks first shall we?
I do as well, which is why I said 'excessive'. Steam isn't that excessive.
I do avoid games with SECUROM and things like limited activations. Crysis, for example. Anything that wants to root my computer for it's DRM - no way.
I also avoided SPORE because of the comments I heard.
I don't read AC A human right
I have a solution: turn the damn thing OFF!
That's because you are "special". And by special, I mean your IQ is about 15.
If you were smarter, you would notice that's just the icon on your desktop, and the actual program isn't working right.