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Ubisoft's Draconian DRM Patched?
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Ubisoft's controversial DRM scheme launched last year that required players to have a permanent connection to the Internet has been patched to no longer stop the game when connectivity drops, though an Internet connection is still required when starting the game."
While I previously had a fast constant internet connection, this year I moved to Asia and got to see how bad the internet connection can be at times.
Requiring an internet connection to start the game isn't really a problem, there aren't really that many situations where I would even want to be without one, but if the connection drops or becomes really slow at times it creates problems.
While I don't know how long this has been in effect, I haven't had any problems with my copies of Settlers 7, Assassins Creed 2 and Splinter Cell. Now I'm also more happy to buy HAWX 2, which I've been thinking of doing for a while.
That being said, I can predict this story will once again have just comments dissing DRM in general. Personally, I just want to enjoy the games and I'm getting too old to just rant about it while I can have actual fun too. As long as the DRM works, there is no problem for me. Combine this with the easiness of Steam and I'm more than happy to buy games.
Crackers get the better stuff while legal users getting banned.
The guy who thought this up is a dope.
"Hey, let's make our product shittier and harder to use, I bet that will make us some money!"
I hope Ubisoft fires the moron who first pitched this idea to them over a year ago. I haven't purchased an Ubisoft game since they announced this last February.
As we all know, DRM puts a stop to copyright infringement. If they make it less effective (you have to try to piss off your customers as much as possible when developing a DRM scheme), then they'll surely crack it (completely unheard of)! This was just a bad decision all around. What they need to do is have it so all of their customers must beg for access to the game before they are allowed to play it.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Reminds me of a UserFriendly.org comic from a few years ago...went something like this:
"Someone is force-feeding you 5 bricks while kneeing you in the crotch. Suddenly, they decide to feed you only FOUR bricks. Do you THANK them?!?"
"Microsoft killed my company, I hold a personal grudge. I don't use Microsoft products and neither should you."-JWZ
That's funny, they conclude with
"Well as a publisher I’d have to ask myself why bother releasing a game for the PC at all? Why don’t I just give it away for free?"
After stating a minute earlier that the PC version made nine and a half million euros in sales. Given it's on an xbox already, the art and level design is all done, etc, etc. Yes why not not take 9 million euros that's on the table, that'd be rational.
As long as the people still buy the games from Ubisoft, they will not drop any DRM. My guess is that it was calculated (i.e. x% are pirats, y% are pissed, z% will still buy) and it makes more profit with the DRM then without. A lot of people just don't care until the servers are stopped or changed for a new game. In that case it will be just a press release "We are very very sorry but we have to terminate the activation service. Look at the EULA it's perfectly legal and you can do shit about it. So please just forgot this game and buy our new games now with more DRM because the pirates are forcing us to protect our IP.".
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Then start Steam, it'll detect there is no internet connection available and ask to start in offline mode. Since you only prefer singleplayer games you should be able to run them no problem, if Steam says the game is unavailable leave the Steam window open and go into Steam\SteamApps\Common, look for your game folder and run the exe directly - it should work fine :)
Have you metaroderated recently?
Hmm...
unplugs ethernet cable, disables 802.11
Didn't quite work out that way. Got a "Steam needs to be online to update" message. Perhaps the Mac client differs substantially from the Windows version.
But DRM doesn't do that. Quite the opposite. Especially when it goes berserk like that recent development of "always online" DRM and the server outages during release.
Imagine this talk on the schoolyard.
"Hey, got the new $game already?"
"Yeah, but it sucks, I couldn't play it at all, their servers are down."
(smug grin) "Oh, I had no problem. Here, I'll show you how...
And another happy copyer converted away from buying. Because the list
1. Buy game.
2. Install game.
3. Go online, try to register, try to get a server to accept your key
3a. Get irate when you notice that your key has already been used by a keygen user and call their support, try to convince their supporter that you are the honest customer.
4. get frustrated when their servers are overloaded and you can't play.
5. punch a hole into wall
6. return from hospital with your fist in a cast and notice that you FINALLY can register and play.
can be reduced to
1. Download game
2. Install crack
3. Play
And it doesn't take a genius to see which one is more user friendly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When they shipped a single product with this, they went off my vendor list.
Forever.
There are way too many companies making games for me to deal with one like that. Same deal as with Belkin and their router which randomly redirected sessions to an advertisement. You screw up that blatantly or obviously, even once, and you're off the vendor list unless you are a genuine monopoly on something I really need.
Since Ubisoft can never be a monopoly on much of anything, they're gone.
Note that this is not an attempt to make them behave better. That would be "off the vendor list until you fix this". That is a recipe for companies like Amazon, which patent troll and spam, then back off a little bit until the complaints die down. I don't want to deal with companies I have to watch constantly because they've learned to just go ahead and do evil stuff and see who complains.
For utterly replaceable companies, the policy is "you're gone, bye". If they eventually die, great! Everyone wins. If they merely stop selling me stuff, because I don't buy from them, at least I win.
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When EA starts to take away all of Ubisoft's sales. Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe Ubisoft's sales won't be impacted, however the fact that they patched it implies that they have. Perhaps their new games have not sold as well on the PC as they wanted. They figured with their new DRM they'd have far more sales, and in fact have had significantly less. If that's the case, and people keep boycotting it, it may go away eventually.
After all EA has backed WAY off on their PC DRM and they seem to be doing quite well. They seem to have found a balance between checking for pirated copies but that doesn't interfere with legit uses at all.
I can speak only for myself, but I won't buy Ubisoft's new games. Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers 7 were on my list to buy, but I have not sue to the DRM. I didn't pirate them instead, I've just given them a miss. There are plenty of good games out there, I have games I've not yet even installed that I own, so I do not lack for options. If others do like myself, well it'll continue to hurt Ubisoft and in fact have the opposite effect of what they want. Their DRM will cost them more money to implement (as it is fairly complicated) but they'll get less sales as a result.
I'll meet companies half way. I can accept some DRM. Steamworks is ok, for example. However it can't interfere with my ability to play and enjoy the game. Requiring a net connection to play counts. Part of the reason to have single player games is to have something to play when my net connection dies (which let's not kid ourselves still happens even with good ones) or when I'm traveling.
People who will take NO DRM EVAR remind me of OSS fanboys, who sit running very few applications and having to pick and choose hardware carefully to maintain the "purity" of their systems, all while claiming "It is better here! Really it is!"
Some people are pragmatic about DRM. I'd be one of them. I'm ok with it. While I question its usefulness, I understand that publishers need it to feel safe so I'm ok. I'll meet them half-way. My requirement for DRM is that it doesn't interfere with my gameplay. I need it to not mess with what I want to do, like being able to play whenever I feel like, install on my desktop and laptop, not jump through hoops, and so on. So long as it meets that, I'm ok with it. I'd rather it not be there and think it is kinda a waste of money, but I'm pragmatic. I won't be a zealot about no-DRM if they won't be zealots about draconian DRM.
So I'm ok with Steam. In particular because the package provides great benefits along with the DRM, notably the "Install as many times as you like from an easy, fast download repository." That's a nice feature. The whole Steam package is pretty nice (installs, achievements, communication, etc).
Thus I won't buy games with Ubisoft's DRM, but I will buy games with Steamworks. I'd rather zero DRM, but I'm not going to be a zealot about it.
Ownership is defined (at least in my law) as having the full rights to an object. That includes being allowed to sell, rent, use, retain, modify and destroy it as you please.
If I may not do any or all of those things with an object, I do not own it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.