Thanks to DRM, Some Ubisoft Games Won't Work Next Week

hypnosec writes "Several of Ubisoft's biggest titles won't be playable as of next week thanks to a server move by the publisher and the restrictive DRM that was used in their development. This isn't just multiplayer either. Because Ubisoft thought it would be a smart plan to use always on DRM for even the single player portion of games like Assassin's Creed, even the single player portion of that title won't be playable during the server move. Some of the other games affected by this move will be Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7. The Mac games that will be broken during this period are Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell Conviction and The Settlers. This move was announced this week as part of a community letter, with Ubisoft describing how the data servers for many of the publisher's online services would be migrated from third party facilities to a new location starting on the 7th February. The publisher didn't reveal how long the transfer would take."

Comments

I Must Be Missing Something Here

[eldavojohn]

1. Install software at new site.
2. Test software at new site.
3. Lock writes and edits to old database.
4. Dump old database.
5. Migrate old database to new site and populate.
6. Switch DNS or whatever directs traffic to point at new site.

That should be a matter of minutes and since I would guess this is largely just a reading and verifying service, there shouldn't even be an interruption for game validation. There are other strategies to employ if that database dump takes a long time but nothing that should require an unknown downtime.

Uh, I do this stuff with two-bit websites that I don't even make a profit on. What the hell is money monger Ubisoft doing?

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[mcavic]

That would require duplicate hardware at the new site. It's hard to convince people to shell out, even when their pockets are deep.

The real question is why you need DRM on a game (or anything else) that's been purchased outright. And a related question, why do you need an Internet connection to play a single player game?

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Drinking Bleach]

Not hiring you, apparently. In seriousness, it is a very good question. I've done similar things not just for sites that don't make any money, but for sites that just sink more money than they ever have hope to make. Ubisoft is just showing a prime example of their incompetence here.

oh and since it's probably oblig: Guess who this move affects the least? the pirates.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[NeutronCowboy]

No, this is exactly how it is done. I work with some of the largest data centers in the world (not on the scale of Google or Facebook, but close behind it), and the only difficulty with scale is that moving the data takes a whole lot more planning. Especially if you're planning to keep writing to the old db for almost the entire time of the move. It took us a while, but we now move massive data clusters between geographically disparate data centers in what appears to be a 5 minute window. The reality on the backend is of course very different - but that's the point. Our customers don't give a rat's ass about how difficult the move is - all they care about is that they're paying us to make that problem go away. And therefore, we do.

What Ubisoft essentially did was the cheapest, dumbest way of moving a data center: switch of the database(s), replicate for a few days, start it back up.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Moryath]

Are you kidding?

This is the basic problem with DRM. It treats every customer as if they were a criminal.

Pirated game: always works.
Non-pirated game: customers suffer through shit like this.

And the companies wonder why things like no-CD cracks have been rampant basically forever? I mean fuck, we wound up hand-rewriting the stupid "black text on dark fucking red" sheets from games like Zak McCracken in the old days, and it wasn't a question of piracy, it was just so we didn't have to stand under a 300W floodlight to read the goddamn sheet!

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[TWX]

One could always split existing hardware between a couple of sites if there's enough duplicate equipment, and suffer moderate outages instead of full-blown darkness, then once the switchover has happened, move the rest.

Or set up a virtual network between the two banks of hardware at different physical locations, and switch the traffic routing and whatever other addressing is necessary, and once the new location is up and working and backfeeding the old location, then down the old location and move the rest...

But I agree, it's stupid to use DRM for a purchased game, especially beyond initial activation at the time of installation. If I remember correctly, the id folks intentionally removed DRM once they'd sold enough copies of their software, and actually credited piracy with increasing the popularity of their games to the point that they became a known force...

I guess I look at piracy differently. Sure, there are some people who would have bought a product that now won't, but there are lots and lots of people who end up with pirated copies of something that never would have purchased it in the first place, or never would have purchased it at a price that the seller is willing to sell it for. One cannot count those kinds of pirates as lost sales, since there never would have been a sale. There is a third case though, where someone pirates something and exposes their associates to it, who then go out and buy it because it appeals to them.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Kenja]

The whole point is that they dont think they have customers. They have thieves who have been thwarted.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Firehed]

The procedure is reasonably accurate. Although to further minimize downtime, you dump your pre-move database while things are still running, keep the remote site up with replication, and don't write-lock it until you've switched your DNS (you've been dropping the TTL over the last couple days leading up to the move, right?) and put a static "site moving, refresh in a minute" page up on the old site. Obviously too simple for something of Facebook scale, but it worked quite well for a site with a handful of servers.

Of course, Ubi's setup for DRM servers will likely be wildly different than a bunch of web servers and a couple of DBs. I imagine a bunch of open connections with almost no data flowing over them

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[alen]

this involves spending money to support games that have already been sold

the smart way is to turn off the servers
load into truck
move to new DC
unload
rack them
turn on and change configs

sure people can't play the game but the revenue is ours already. not like they can return it

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[ae1294]

It doesn't matter what mechanism Unisoft use.
The technology is available today to make the impact of this change be no longer than it takes BGP to converge on the internet if they move the IP addresses with them... or around the duration of a TTL expiry for a DNS record.

There is NO reason why it has to be any longer ..

No there is a reason. UBISOFT DOESN'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Technician]

MS is guilty of this dumb move early on. Back when optical mice where the new item, I bought a MS optical mouse for a system I was building on my coffee table. In the software installation, the optical mouse driver hung up the install looking for an Internet connection to register the software. I was like WTF and returned the mouse as defective and unable to function on a stand alone system.

Not everyone who plays stand alone games are connected with an always on connection. Many locations are still on dial up. Multiple machines mean many are not connected while waiting for the phone line. Tying up the phone line for hours is not an option either.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Hatta]

I'm not a gamer, but I was wondering why some clever geek hasn't just fired up snort to see what their server's saying to the game, then built a 'bot that interacted in the same way with it locally.

The same thing that prevents some clever geek from just firing up snort to see what your bank's server is saying to your browser, and building a bot that interacted with it in the same way locally.

I have no idea if they've actually done it properly, but public key cryptography can be used to prevent exactly the attack you described.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[idontgno]

And that's a critical point. Support is not a revenue center. If they could get away with it, a large fraction of business would wash its hands and walk away.

If their own revenues (like, e-commerce servers) were at risk during this transition, you can be for damn sure that there would be a live warm cutover of a full parallel installation at the new site, with dual operations and a slow de-constitution plan at the old site for fallback purposes.

But a DRM server? Meh. I suppose we should feel grateful they're bothering to stand the things back up at all.

Which is why I don't buy single-player software which requires a live phone-home. Even Steam is pretty close to verboten, though not necessarily (since the games I'm thinking of can run without Steam authentication, at least for a while).

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Seq]

1. Install software at new site.

Maybe DRM prevents them from installing in two places?

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[VGPowerlord]

The problem with locking writes to the database is that all the games mentioned save their save games to Ubisoft's servers. Meaning that as soon as the DB is write locked, players are (essentially) locked out of their games.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Mr.LightFoot]

I do this for a living. Migrating sites for major companies the size of FB and MS and the like. I can tell you, with a well planned execution w/database moves, loads, etc., it takes months of planning to make sure everything works well. The general plan above is accurate in terms of the basic/high-level steps. There will be outages. For a DB such as this, I'd estimate at least 1/2 a day is required but it can be several days to get all the bugs worked out post migration. DNS takes about 15-30 min to replicate to the TLD and then spread across the DNS caches out there which can take up to 24-48 hours depending on where you are located and what ISPs do. Some ISPs cache DNS for a longer than TTL so I've seen up to a week when we migrate large sites before it becomes available to end users. Mileage may vary.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Jason Levine]

It's not whether you have it or don't have it, but whether you are willing to put down money for it and whether the money you are willing to put down is what the seller is asking. Suppose you were willing to purchase Photoshop for $100 but Adobe won't sell it to you for less than $500. If you go out and pirate it, your action is not a lost sale. Absent any pirated copies of Photoshop, you wouldn't have plunked down $500 for it. Perhaps you'd have gone with Paint Shop Pro for $100 or GIMP for free, but you wouldn't have given Adobe your money. (In an odd way, your pirating could be a "lost sale" for one of Adobe's competitors, but only in the most abstract sense.) However, if you would have been willing to pay Adobe's price for Photoshop, but decided to save that cash and pirate the software instead, then your actions would validly be a lost sale.

The problem is that many content owners see pirates and think "these are all lost sales." In reality, some are lost sales and some aren't. Furthermore, some use piracy as a "trial version." If they like the pirated version, they'll pay for the non-pirated version in order to give money to the creator of the product. For these people, piracy actually increases purchases because they might not have bought the item had they not had the "trial version" via piracy.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[Hatta]

You're right. But if you're going to modify the game executable it makes more sense to remove the protection entirely, than it does to reverse engineer the cryptography and reimplement the authentication server.

Re:I Must Be Missing Something Here

[AmiMoJo]

This really harms brick and mortar game shops too. I can't just go in and buy a game I like the look of any more, I have to research it online first to see if the DRM will fuck up my PC or make it too much of a hassle to bother with. And that usually means reading Amazon reviews, and since I'm there already now I might as well just order it from them too.

You get what you pay for

[argStyopa]

Complaints about this will NEVER MATTER until it impacts the bottom line.

STOP BUYING UBI GAMES.

Unless and until publishers see a recognizable impact on their sales that they can attribute to repressive DRM, they won't stop.

And remember, a lot of these guys BELIEVE the bullshit line about every pirated game is a "lost sale" so the negative impact of DRM would have to be a pretty massive number.

Re:You get what you pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

I WRITE random WORDS in caps SO I can YELL LOUDER for no apparent REASON

Re:You get what you pay for

[RogueyWon]

This is what I did - across all platforms for games whose PC release contains this particular DRM. Actually, it's been surprisingly easy. Despite consuming games at a voracious pace (see my various journal posts etc), it's been quite striking how few of the Ubisoft franchises I actually care about. There have been times I've been vaguely irritated to be missing the Assassin's Creed sequels, which do look interesting (better than the first one, which I played on PS3 before the DRM plans were known), but even there... there's no shortage of alternatives.

I did buy one game by accident which included an "always online" DRM requirement - Command & Conquer 4. It wasn't made particularly clear when you bought the thing and, with it not being an Ubisoft game, I assumed it wouldn't be pulling a stunt like that. Ultimately, though, the best form of copy protection that C&C4 had was the fact that it was so utterly shit that nobody would want to play it (and I say that as somebody who liked C&C3).

Re:You get what you pay for

[sakdoctor]

I suffer FROM eTourettes you INSENSITIVE CLOD .

Re:You get what you pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sadly, and I speak from experience, if you don't have some DRM your game will be pirated and you will make zilch."

This is simply wrong, try the humble bundle http://www.humblebundle.com/, no DRM and plenty of profit. The games which lack DRM and make no money are usually not very good or have made the Proun mistake ( the only difference between the demo and the pay version is access to a single map, not enough incentive to buy it for most people)

I just...

[trunicated]

There's just so much wrong with this... it's amazing...

• They're locking users out of game they have paid for
• They're unable to move a set of servers without preventing downtime for customer facing attributes
• They're completely oblivious to the reasons why these are bad things

It just leaves me completely flabbergasted. I can't imagine this entire process coming to this point without someone, somewhere in the decision process saying "Who gives a shit what they think? Just do whatever's cheapest right now"

Re:I just...

[Rary]

You're missing the best part. They're creating a period of time during which the only people in the world who can play the game are the pirates.

Total FAIL

[NeutronCowboy]

Failure in implementation of DRM, failure in how to build the DR portion of the datacenter, failure on how to do the transition, failure on how to provide some measure of compensation for intentionally breaking your customers' games.

Hello Ubisoft. Meet Sony. They'll show you around my shitlist.

Yarr!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand. I seem to be unaffected by this.

Now, on t' more pressin' matters. Where did I put that bottle o' rum?

Reward the pirates

[MetalliQaZ]

Since their DRM is ineffective at actually stopping pirates, here we have the perfect example of "defective by design". Anybody with a DRM-cracked pirated version will not have any disruption. Nice job, Ubi.

I get heated over this kind of thing every time I pop in a DVD from Netflix. They send you discs without any special features that are loaded with up to 15 minutes of unskippable advertisements and previews. If I had just downloaded the move, I could jump right in. I am willing to pay, but I see nothing but disincentives to do so! Fools.

Re:Reward the pirates

[Chris Burke]

I get heated over this kind of thing every time I pop in a DVD from Netflix. They send you discs without any special features that are loaded with up to 15 minutes of unskippable advertisements and previews. If I had just downloaded the move, I could jump right in. I am willing to pay, but I see nothing but disincentives to do so! Fools.

If you popped the DVD into a Linux system and used one of the Linux players, then you could skip all of that stuff since they ignore the "unskippable" bit.

It's still illegal, since it depends on the DeCSS code for breaking the encryption (fuck you DMCA). Morally, though, it's perfectly fine.

Does Netflix streaming service do that? I have only limited experience with it, when a friend used his account to stream movies to the Wii that another friend had brought, and I don't recall any ads unskippable or otherwise.

Re:Reward the pirates

[Tom]

It's still illegal, since it depends on the DeCSS code for breaking the encryption

I host it on my site till this day, despite being a named defender in the DVDCCA case. They served me papers, but they never served me an order to take it down.

No, it's not as easy as that. We've had three court cases around DeCSS. The one in Norway was dropped, DVDCCA vs. The Internet was decided in our favour and Universal vs. Reimers was decided against us.

Poor System Architecture

[ackthpt]

This is news?

Next thing you'll be telling us Credit Suisse has bad data ...

oh, wait.

Far Cry 3

[headkase]

I really want to buy Far Cry 3. Chances are however I will not be. Because Ubisoft is no doubt going to put their "always on" DRM on it. This article is the exact reason that that is unacceptable to me. So, Ubisoft can go about all they want championing how they're "putting it to those evil pirates" (roll-eyes) but in the mean-time they are losing out on me, yes, the person who wants the game but isn't going to submit to their idiocy. So, I lose because: no executive with a testosterone problem is going to back-off and admit he has shit for brains. And the cycle continues.

And as Gabe Newell so succinctly put it: Piracy is a Service Problem. So what's Ubisoft doing? Creating more value in the pirated versions. Way to go guys, golf-clap.

Re:Far Cry 3

[Ihmhi]

Buy it used and then crack it? You get the game, Ubi doesn't get a new sale, and you don't have to deal with the DRM.

Re:Far Cry 3

[headkase]

It's not a case of "damage to be routed around": unless the unthinkable happens and Ubisoft does a 180 I'm not buying it in any way, shape, or manner - or going to pirate it either. I have plenty else to play and I don't want to have anything to do it until they smarten-up.

Put it another way: the extreme Ubisoft is taking makes me feel dirty by having anything to do with it so I won't.

Dont worry. Ubisoft has great technical support

[unity100]

that fixes those things before they become an issue. they even have their own trendy name :

razor1911

DRM works

[sakdoctor]

First I stopped buying.
Then I stopped pirating.
Then I stopped caring.

"Delivering better uptime"?

[daveewart]

You can "deliver better uptime" by not using DRM in the first place. Voila, 100% 'uptime' with no infrastructure required.

You wouldn't steal...

[SJHillman]

You wouldn't buy a new car that you had to call the dealer for permission every time you wanted to go for a drive.

You wouldn't buy a handbag that you had to ask the clerk to open for you every time you wanted to take money out.

You wouldn't buy a TV if you had to wait for permission from Time Warner just to watch the commercials.

So why buy DRM?

Brought to you by the Media Consumer Association of America.

Re:You wouldn't steal...

[mhajicek]

And they wonder why I won't buy Diablo III.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[ackthpt]

How does this make you feel?

Is this Eliza?

>

Might & Magic 6 - seriously failgame

[Anonymous Coward]

* The single-player campaign is available in both online and offline mode (of course! Anything else would be outrageous!)
* However, if you ever lose connection in online mode, you're kicked out.
* Oh, and did I mention that in this overhead map strategy game, where a single map usually takes hours, campaign saves from "offline mode" are not compatible with "online mode" and you must effectively restart the game? LOL YOU CAN OF COURSE PLAY OFFLINE AT ANY TIM.. no, gtfo.
* And that a core component of the campaign mode are "Dynasty Items", "Dynasty Heroes" and "Dynasty Bonuses" which are unlocked during campaign mode and become persistent across games - except that they only work in online mode?
* So the story will make frequent references to wielding the Sword of Legendary Dragonslaying except that you have no such thing in your inventory and will never have it or any other uber-item because you decided like a chump to start in offline mode in case you were worried about losing connection while playing.

And that's aside from any other of the numerous gameplay issues and servers being down. A lobotomy of a game.

No worries

[mwvdlee]

No worries; I'm sure there's a downloadable bugfix to repair these broken games.
Assuming your country hasn't blocked those websites yet.

Small Claims Court

[i8a4re]

Everyone who can't play a game during this move should take Ubisoft to small claims court. Lawyers are not allowed in small claims court, so this is an advantage for you. Just claim the value of the game as damages and the cost to file the claim. If Ubisoft doesn't make an appearance, you win by default. If they show up and you lose, you still caused them to lose far more money than they got from you for buying their game. If you win and they fail to pay your claim, you can put a lien on them or have an equivalent value of their property seized.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[stanlyb]

Gooooooood, especially when i look and i dont see any Ubisoft games on my shelf.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[mcgrew]

How does this make you feel?

Smug. DRM is why I stopped buying computer games a long time ago (I do miss the gaming scene sometimes). Yes, piracy costs sales -- they say DRM is for piracy, and DRM has cost them hundreds of dollars they would have gotten from me had they not treated me like the thieves they are. I'm sure I'm not the only one who refuses to buy anything that has less functionality than if I'd pirated it.

Stupid, stupid corporations.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[idontgno]

Meta-x psychoanalyze-slashdotter

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[durrr]

I hope someone ambushes the convoy and destroys their servers. The backlash from "lol sorry your DRM games are broken forever" would be the most hilarious ever in the history of DRM.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[TheCycoONE]

I buy from gog.com since they seem to be actively targeting the anti-DRM crowd. Of course most of the computer games are quite old - still I didn't own all the good ones when they were new.

Anti Consumer

[poly_pusher]

This really is getting ridiculous. I buy an obscene amount of games. Partly because I want to help support artists and creators like myself. That rationale is starting to wear thin for me now.

For instance, I bought Arkham City, an absolutely amazing game. One of the best I've played in years. I got 89% through the whole game "2nd play through, 440 riddler trophies, most of the challenges, all sidequests," Then there was a problem with my internet connection, entire neighborhood went down. After I got my internet back I started Arkham City up again and oh look, my save files disappeared. The reason it disappeared is DRM. Saves are managed by Windows Live and encrypted to be specific to your system. They were trying to keep people from cheating and instead they've ended up punishing people who play their games.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is not for piracy, regardless what they say. Because guess what... piracy can usually find it's way around DRM. DRM is for the used game market, they simply don't want you to sell back the game you bought from them. That's the real goal of DRM.

But yes, they do say it's for piracy, and the side effect is that they treat all normal players as if they were pirates, while the real pirates work around the DRM and play it anyway.

Re:Tempest in a teacup

[ledow]

So what you're saying is that Ubisoft don't already have a hot-backup to these database that is customer- and business-critical and needs to be up 24/7? They don't have a testing regime with a live copy of the dataset to test against? They couldn't have performed the migration piecemeal? They couldn't have done the migration in the background while the main servers take the brunt of the traffic and then - when and only when it was tested and working - started the background database serving queries instead?

Don't talk shit. This is a large system - millions of customers, always on, etc.etc. It's cost millions of dollars. If you need to take it down for more than a day (especially for PLANNED maintenance), it means you didn't implement it properly, don't test it properly, didn't even spec it properly, don't manage it properly and don't care about your customers. This is why redundant systems exist - for exactly these sorts of systems.

Do maintenance by all means, but taking it OFFLINE to do so with no backup system? That's just shoddy whether you're migrating a handful of MySQL instances or the back end of a large bank.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[jd2112]

Best practices would be to stand up a new server and then transfer the data. If done right downtime would be measured in seconds. But no that would cost more money. Lets instead make the games legitimately purchased by our customers unplayable durrng the move. Once again the legitimate customer is punished while the pirate is unaffected. Chances are some exec thinks that if they can't get the server back online everyone will simply repurchase thier games when they get a new DRM server online.

Re:Thanks to DRM, I stole your FIRST POST

[MogNuts]

You should get back into gaming. I think most people forget that there are SO many games out now that one doesn't have to waste 1 second on a game that is bad, has bad DRM (Ubi), etc. I have so many games picked up on a whim that the next 20 years are set for me. And that's after I go through my library and find a stinker and move on to the next. I haven't played 75% of my collection yet.

Try something different. Always play the same genre? Play something new.

Re:They need it before you can start playing

[dissy]

I don't get why people who normally hate DRM see Steam as acceptable.

That one is easy!
People who hate DRM do not buy Steam games. At all.

Most people do not hate DRM specifically, what they hate is not being able to play a game they paid money for. If DRM is the thing stopping you from playing it, then DRM is the cause of the problem. If it is another thing stopping you, then the other thing is the cause of the problem.
In this sense, Steam has never been a problem, as this doesn't happen.

Will that remain so for all of eternity? I can't say, and don't know. But they have so far given me no reason to think otherwise.
If they ever do change to more restrictive DRM, I will simply krack what games I do have and never make another purchase from them again.
They are fully aware of this, and don't want to lose me and others like me as a customer, so they have plenty of reason NOT to make such a change, and exactly zero reason to do so.

I'll even give you my latest example. Skyrim, the all new hotness of RPGs. I bought mine off Steam.

I can either run the SkyrimLauncher.exe that the shortcut points to (As does the Steam submenu item) and access the steam community while playing.
OR
I can launch TESV.exe in the same directory, and bypass everything steam related.

In fact I have mods installed, one of which is a scripting extender (SKSE for those curious), which is a wrapper around TESV.exe.
I do not have default-allow rules for any executable in that folder, my firewall asks me each time. It has never done this in three months. In fact a week from tomorrow will be exactly three months to the day. There is no checking in, there is no verification, no Internet needed.

Obviously I needed connectivity to download the thing, and it was activated and registered with them then for updates.
It won't be connecting to Steam again until the next major 1.4 patch is released, and only then because I want the update.

Other than multiplayer only games, which obviously must be online to even use, Steam does not prevent you from running games you buy.
And that is what most of us hate. Most don't hate DRM because it is DRM. We hate DRM when it prevents us from using what we purchased.

Ubisoft is a different ballpark all together, as this article shows.
I don't mind activating or registering a game after downloading it. I'm clearly already online, so it's not a problem. If the company doesn't bug me after the purchase, then there is no problem.

Some people are far extreams. Either they hate all DRM with a passion and avoid all DRM.. Or they could care less and buy whatever has the most pretty graphic on the box.
But I believe most people are more in the middle, and would agree with me on this.