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."

Comments

Re:Ubisofts DRM

[amiga3D]

DRM shouldn't get in the way of enjoying the game for legal owners. I hated companies that made my old 1541 disk drive hammer itself into oblivion with their crap copy protection. I'd end up finding a cracked copy that would load in 15 seconds instead of 4 and a half minutes. I don't mind paying for something useful but I hate buying crippled shit. I really don't play games anymore but if I did I wouldn't want anything that forced me to put up with a bunch on needless BS.

Re:Ubisofts DRM

[ScytheBlade1]

"When it works" isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is this disclaimer at the bottom of the steam page:

> A PERMANENT HIGH SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION AND CREATION OF A UBISOFT ACCOUNT ARE REQUIRED TO PLAY THIS VIDEO GAME AT ALL TIMES AND TO UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. SUCH CONTENT MAY ONLY BE UNLOCKED ONE SINGLE TIME WITH A UNIQUE KEY. YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 13 TO CREATE A UBISOFT ACCOUNT WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT. UBISOFT MAY CANCEL ACCESS TO ONLINE FEATURES UPON A 30-DAY PRIOR NOTICE PUBLISHED AT http://assassinscreed.com/ ... which to me says, "we can nuke your access to the game at any point in time, provided we give you 30 days notice on a website you're never going to check."

I own AC1, but I don't own AC2 or HAWX 2 for this very reason.

DRM is likely here to stay, at least to some degree, but this frightens the ever living crap out of me. Why would I throw money at a game where they can cut off access to it at any point in time for ALL of their customers, just because they don't want to pay the bill on those servers anymore?

That's what bad with DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Crackers get the better stuff while legal users getting banned.

Re:That's what bad with DRM

[Opportunist]

And that's exactly what's wrong with copy protection: It hurts the honest customer and rewards those that copy the content. DRM is free market in reverse. And, oddly, the studios wonder why it fails.

When you usually buy something (compared to buying it "off a truck"), you get something extra. You get warranty, you get additional goodies packed with them, mail in rebates (ok, dubious value, but still), you get support, you get all the "comfort" you will lack when you buy it from some shady source. The honest customer that buys it legally gets additional protection and additional bonus material for his money.

With content and DRM, it's exactly the opposite. You don't get any sensible warranty anyway, you don't get any goodies anymore with your bought games (remember those good ol' days when there were some tidbits and trinkets packed with games? Or even a manual worth the name?), hell, you often don't even get sensible packaging. And on top of it all, you get your computer infested with drivers of dubious quality that sometimes also open up gapping security holes in your system.

As someone copying the content, you don't get anything "extra" either (so there's no difference here), but you also do not suffer from those copy protection drivers, "insert CD" nagging, mandatory online connection or are subjected to other patronizing.

Is it me or is it just plain STUPID to artificially devalue your product? Especially if you're up against someone who already hands it out for free?

Dear studios: The old tale of sun and wind betting who could get someone out of his coat applies fully here. You can NOT force people to buy something. You can convince him, but for that you have to give him what he wants! How much does it take to get that through your skull?

Re:Ubisofts DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

or games which only use Steam for DRM

Steam cultist remind me of Apple fanboys. "Oh but it's Steam, it's GOOD DRM!" Hilarious! It's still DRM that can disable your games at any time of their chosing.

Re:Morons

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who works at Ubisoft, I can guarantee you that this practice will NOT stop. The CEO pretty much said so ... often.

Re:Just buy a console already

[nedlohs]

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.

Too little, too late.

[seebs]

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.