Ubisoft Brings Back Always-Connected DRM For Driver: San Francisco

Last year Ubisoft introduced DRM for their PC games that required a constant internet connection, going so far as to terminate single-player games if the connection was interrupted. After facing outrage, boycotts, and DDoS attacks, Ubisoft seemed to have softened their stance, issuing a patch for two games that allowed offline play. Unfortunately, it seems the change wasn't permanent; Ubisoft's upcoming racing game Driver: San Francisco marks the return of the contentious DRM.

Comments

That's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll re-institute my boycott of Ubisoft, and nothing of value was lost.

Re:That's ok

[Mashiki]

Obviously since you refuse to buy it, you're just a filthy pirate.

Arrr. At least according to Ubisoft.

Re:That's ok

[mcgrew]

Agreed, it's not just Ubisoft, and it's not just for DRM, and it's not even just games. My GF got pissed at Comcast because when she decided she didn't need both a landline and a cell (she's on SS and rather poor), the cable price didn't go down so she just dropped Comcast.

Her daughter gave her a camera for Xmas last year and it was full, she wanted me to help her put the pictures in the PC. As soon as I turned it on, Norton complained that it needed to download updates. These days why do you even need AV without a net connection? The AV insisted on a net connection.

I plugged the camera in and Kodak demanded an internet connection to download its software. It didn't even need the damned software! after killing some processes, Windows happily downloaded the pictures from the camera.

People need to understand that a computer isn't a phone and has a lot of uses besides just surfing the web. We used computers without a net connection for decades. There is no reason whatever, from a customer point of view, for all these damned companies to demand an internet connection for a device or program like an AV or a camera or a single player game.

I pulled out my phone and emailed complaints to the damned companies, not that it will do any good.

If a single player game won't work without the internet, PLEASE don't buy it!

Re:That's ok

[Abstrackt]

It seems to be human nature that each time we are outraged by something, the impact each time it happens slowly diminishes until we accept it as part of life.

That seems to be true. At first I was outraged that I wouldn't be playing any Ubisoft games anymore but now I'm actually okay with it!

And "From Dust"

[Elbart]

"3rd-party DRM: Ubisoft Online Service" http://store.steampowered.com/app/33460/

Re:And "From Dust"

[ultranova]

"3rd-party DRM: Ubisoft Online Service" http://store.steampowered.com/app/33460/

I guess the choice will be the Pirate Bay Edition, then.

So? The game will just repeat itself.

[Opportunist]

They return to using the same harebrained DRM scheme, we return to boycotting it. Why does UBI think it will be different this time? That we somehow magically now accept that kind of crap? If anything, the people who got burned by their previous attempt at it will now be wary and also abstain.

Re:So? The game will just repeat itself.

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but if the maker of a game I want to play requires me to be connected to his server all the time just to play it, I will not accept this deal. It pretty much means that this maker will dictate for how long and under what circumstances I may play the game. He can change the rules later and impose even more drastic control over it and I could not do anything about it. He could turn off the server and I doubt I'd get my money back if he does. Essentially, I pay for the game, but the control over how, when and if I play it remains in the hands of the entity who sold it to me.

The console "look and feel" due to more and more games being nothing but cheap ports after being developed for a console is a problem, agreed. But invasive DRM is not the answer. We won't get better games just 'cause DRM will keep the PC gaming platform alive. They will still do cheap ports without adjusting for the different controls and stack the DRM on top of it. But it has its advantages. When I saw R.U.S.E., I wanted it. Badly. I saw the DRM and I abstained. By now, I now that it's just a cheap console knockoff and hence I'm pretty glad I didn't waste my money on it. If more games had invasive DRM at release, I would have let a few more slip and wouldn't be angry at me now for buying a game that pretty much requires a console controller to be played sensibly on a PC.

pirate it

[Tom]

well, that game just went on my "download a pirate copy, just because" list.

I just realize that this has been a trend for me for years now. If I read "DRM free", I feel zero inclination to go on btjunkie - either I like it and buy it or I don't and don't. But the more DRM there is in the crap, the more I'm inclined to most definitely not give them my money.

Too bad we're not in the majority. Just imagine if putting DRM on your game were a surefire way of having close to zero sales, but being on the top of the torrent lists. The whole thing would disappear so quickly, we'd wonder if it was all just a dream.

Because in the end, these guys are just about money.

Re:pirate it

[flimflammer]

This is why I don't understand DRM these days. DRM doesn't stop pirates. Pirates never have to deal with DRM, and even this advanced form Ubisoft is throwing around has been rendered useless in previous games infected by it. All this sort of thing seems to discourage is actually purchasing the game at all.

I don't boycott much

[ledow]

But I do boycott overbearing DRM schemes. Seriously, this serves nobody's interest at all. It's now more difficult for me to even *look* at buying your games because I have to check if it has junk like this attached to it. So when it comes to purchasing decisions, if I see "Ubisoft" I have to expend more effort to check the product first before I buy it. That means that unless it's something fabulous, the chances are I just won't bother, and the name Ubisoft will put me off everything (it's already starting to now!).

And this time next year Ubisoft will be saying that sales of game X slumped because of completely unverifiable piracy when in fact it was just people annoyed with either previous or new purchases that have shite like that and either pirate or stop buying that and other, completely unrelated, products from Ubisoft.

Not everyone has a perfectly stable Internet connection, not everyone has a perfectly stable wireless connection, not everybody wants their PC constantly communicating online and taking up bandwidth for no good reason (how small the bandwidth is is irrelevant - it's more than it should be and adds up if every game were to go this route, you play a lot, and you have low bandwidth caps in the nation you're in). Just someone uploading photos as you try to do something can kill the average ADSL connection, now it means the game pause/saves/quits.

The people who don't have that stuff will be buying single-player games or games with lots of single-player content and still you force a completely ridiculous requirement on them.

A reliance on a constantly-available Internet connection to a third-party server in order to play a game is ridiculous. Hell, I might as well VNC into a damn computer on the other side of the world and play that way, there's little difference in practical terms between that and this DRM. Connection lost? Bye-bye game, or at best constant pauses and saves because it thinks it's gone.

In work, I have literally told companies to get lost after they tell me that the new iteration of their software is an online-only, access over the Internet, lose your session if it dies, affair. It's not that it won't work most of the time, but the point is that we lose control over when it does work. If local software dies, I can restore an image, or rebuild a machine, or do something to get it back and working. If remote software dies, we just have to twiddle our thumbs until their support line frees up.

It's a ridiculous thing and solves no problem that exists. Pirates will crack round it in days. Consumers don't have any problems without it but have massive ones with it. And console versions OF THE SAME GAME don't have that stupid requirement, despite consoles being online nowadays.

I loved the original Driver. The series got a bit lost after that but I was actually eyeing this up on Steam with the intent to buy it. Saw a thread on the steam forums pointing to those same articles, read them, saw the Twitter comment from Ubisoft itself and instantly removed it from my wishlist. My life is too short for that shit, my gaming time is gaming time, not tech support time. Ubisoft has forgotten that they are providing entertainment - that means "get everything out of my way because I want to have fun". Strangely, I don't want to be diagnosing my wireless/Internet in the middle of a game session, and will just choose a game that doesn't require that.

P.S. The game also doesn't support steering wheel controllers. A driving game. Seriously.

Boycott is the wrong answer...

[cypherljk]

We're going about this the wrong way. We should all buy copies of the game and then return it the next day because it won't play without the internet. That will cost Ubisoft thousand of dollars handling returns / RMA's from their various vendors and send a clear message about the DRM.