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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 $60 per month for the ability to play it on a laptop. I've bought exactly one game published by Ubisoft (Lumines for PSP, a franchise that Ubi has since lost to Disney), and if anyone working at Ubi is reading, I'm not buying any more until your company starts considering laptops without mobile broadband.
...where are all the class-action lawsuits? Here's a place where people should be suing the hell out of a company. Why isn't this happening?
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
If piracy is as widespread as they say, and if pirated copies really detract so heavily from sales, then the sales of this game should be abnormally large. Are they?
I realise that's hard/impossible to measure, but it warrants some discussion.
Fuck 'em, then...
Read my blog. Or not. Whatever.
If any of their games were selling particularly well I'm sure they'd be shouting from the rooftops: "See it works!" But they're not so I imagine its for the par at least. What will be really interesting is the five year outlook, I've already decided to do my part to kill Ubisoft: I will never buy another one of their games, theres always something else to choose.
Shh.
DRM only punishes people who actually pay money to buy.
I just had a great experience with Ubisoft DRM a few weeks ago. I decided to replay Farcry 2, which I really didn't play that much when I bought it a year or so ago. I'm military, I move a lot, can't find the stupid booklet with CD key, so being a legitimate customer who BOUGHT the damned game I go on their site and ask for help. Game apparently needs a CD key that activates itself online and requires registration and account creation (which I did create, and logged in with that account...). Their reply summed up is "Send us 5$ + 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.
Why pirate it? Is your sense of entitlement so great that you couldn't simply go without a game that goes against your principles?
People need to stop considering piracy as a viable alternative, and start considering other products instead. Making a stand without making a sacrifice isn't going to prove the thing you want it to.
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."
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5496065/Assassin_s_Creed_2_Crack_(Final_and_complete)
Now more and more x360 games are coming with one time only codes that you need to unlock a significant portion of the game. Forza 3, for example, had a bonus track area and a ton of bonus cars. mass effect 2 had a very effective character locked out by default but was unlocked with a one use code. I would expect that in the near future this trend will accelerate.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
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)
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.
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.
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)
Actually, pirating sends a damn better message than not buying/playing. Pirating says "You made a good game, which I want to play, but something in your system has made me not want to reward you." In most cases, that something is DRM. The other alternatives are usually "price," or something. However, "It's a terrible game" isn't one of the options considered."
If you don't play it at all, the message usually comes out instead as "You made a game that isn't worth my time." Thus, no message about the DRM is sent on an individual basis. Instead, you're commenting on the quality of the game. If you're *lucky,* they'll expend more resources in making a better game.
Hell, I'm usually tempted to download games I've no intentions of playing, simply to bump the numbers.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Did not work out, it went into the top 10 and went out straightly after 1-2 weeks in every country, in case of AC2 the DRM really hurt the sales, it probably would be in every top 10 list still if it had not such a draconian non working DRM. :-)
And btw. the game is fully cracked as someone has posted there is a full server emu!
It took ubisoft millions to develop the DRM it took the crackers 4 weeks to write a fully working emulator
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)