Ubisoft's Constant Net Connection DRM Confirmed 631
A few weeks ago we discussed news of Ubisoft's DRM plans for future games, which reportedly went so far as to require a constant net connection, terminating your game if you get disconnected for any reason. Well, it's here; upon playing review copies of the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, PCGamer found the DRM just as annoying as you might expect. Quoting:
"If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected. The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers.' The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen — all my progress since it last autosaved was lost."
Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the article is good enough to tell us which games to avoid due to horrible DRM. Maybe they're making some kind of 'level of DRM annoyingness' versus 'copies purchased' graph.
Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let'see.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, I might be willing to pay more than retail for a DRM free version.
Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a graph of how much of my money they're going to get over time
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so what changes if that 85% didn't pirate? oh right, nothing. the profit doesn't change because that same 15% still bought the game. more draconian drm just pisses off the legitimate buyers who have to put up with it, the pirates strip it away. publishers are killing their golden geese because they're immature childish control freaks.
New /. drinking game (Score:3, Funny)
... more draconian drm...
Every time someone uses the phrase "draconian DRM" take a shot. Cue liver failure in 3... 2... 1...
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except there are plenty of people who don't go to bars precisely because it is too expensive, a lot of these people drink at private parties (where you bring your own beer or the host provides beverages), how many of these people do you honestly think would start spending $100 per night in bars if "home use" of alcoholic beverages was made illegal?
/Mikael
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be there at 7
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:4, Interesting)
No the parent is NOT correct, because he has not (nor has any development exec) demonstrated that DRM has ever stopped even 1 pirate. The evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary, drm ONLY inconveniences paying customers while doing nothing to solve the problem of piracy.
Do I blame developers for trying to do SOMETHING to stop game piracy? Not really. But I do blame them for pointlessly inconveniencing their paying customers and decreasing the value of their product to the point that the pirated version is a superior product, without ever preventing any piracy. All drm does is ENCOURAGE piracy by making the pirated version a superior product for a lower price.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
If there aren't any cracked versions available for the first months, most players who want it (including those who would had pirated it) are going to buy it as everyone else is playing. That's what counts mosts to the companies, since most sales are made during that period.
If a pirate has to wait several months to get their version, it's a huge win for the publisher. And with this case exactly that will happen, because it's completely new system and relies on online parts. It won't be cracked anytime soon.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If there aren't any cracked versions available for the first months, most players who want it (including those who would had pirated it) are going to buy it as everyone else is playing. That's what counts mosts to the companies, since most sales are made during that period.
You mean they don't care about sales to me anyway? I never by a game right away. I always wait until it's patched, there are some mods, prizes go down, and hopefully there's a no-cd patch out.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
If there aren't any cracked versions available for the first months
What's the last game you remember that didn't have its crack ready at release day, usually a few days before? The newer and more invasive the DRM, the more the cracker groups egg each other on to be the first to crowbar it.
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You're oversimplifying it. It's trivial to add encryption to the protocol, which means you're going to be disassembling and debugging the code. Majority of those unlimited number of programmers drop off.
Then the new server will need to implement saving/loading and all other features the Ubisoft server does. OK, still fair enough.
What about when the game dynamically pulls some small pieces of content or gameplay scripts for the game when you reach specific parts? You can't program that in to your generic ser
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't blame them either, and until recently, before the push for more and more insane DRM hoops to jump through set in, it was actually a good way to discourage at least "casual" copying.
But when it comes to DRM, it is all about acceptance. And I mean acceptance on the user's side. And of course comfort. Hence Steam and similar platforms are popular. They are convenient and the invasion is (at least to the eye of the casual user) minimal. Hey, nonexistant, you don't even need to search for that CD!
When the nuisance exceeds the acceptance level, people start to look around for a solution. It's no longer comfortable to "just buy" the game. Cue schoolyard:
Geek: Hey, I got me now $cool_game!
Non-Geek: Yeah, me too, but it sucks, I get booted off every few minutes 'cause $provider stinks and discon's me.
Geek: Huh? You bought it?
Non-Geek: Yeah sure, why?
Geek: Dude, I haven't bought one in ages. I'll get you a copy tomorrow.
Non-Geek installs and is happy. Next day:
Non-Geek: Thanks a bunch, that fixed it. What's that?
Geek: Cracked copy. Got it from $torrent_site.
Non-Geek: Uh? Can ya show me how?
Geek: Sure, drop by after school.
Let's rewind and see that dialogue with CD only DRM:
Geek: Hey, I got me now $cool_game! ...
Non-Geek: Yeah, ain't it awesome? They really make the movments and gore look realistic!
Geek: Yeah, tried using a rocket launcher into a packed room? Paint it red, baby!
No discussion of how to get the game or how to get rid of the game stopper. Sure, Geek didn't buy the game in this version either. But he will not anyway. No matter what you do. It is not possible to stop a professional cracker (professional in the sense of "knows what he does", not "does it for money") from cracking a game. And ONE crack, world wide, is enough to crack the game for good, distributing it via the internet is trivial and fast.
So the difference in DRM only affects whether Non-Geek buys the game. Nothing else.
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And like every DRM scheme before it, this stops piracy... how exactly?
The people buying the games are choosing to do so. It's best not to cripple the game to the point that the pirate version is inherently superior to the one that costs money.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:4, Funny)
...even then I couldn't play the game, bombing out with a nondescript securom error message. Turned out it considers sysinternals' Process Explorer a "dangerous thing to have running" - like, wtf?
Just wait for V2.0!
SecuRomV2.0 Error: SecuRom has detected your OS is fully-patched and up to date, you have a properly-configured firewall & antivirus, and your OS appears to be free of malware/spyware. You obviously are far too competent at computer administration to be allowed to run this game as you present a high piracy risk. Please downgrade your computer-related knowledge & abilities and re-install.
Strat
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, DRM seems to more often inconvenience the people who DO buy the game rather than those that pirate it. Pirates crack the game so it doesn't need the CD, doesn't need an online connection, etc. Sure, DRM might be difficult for most pirates to overcome, but it only takes one pirate to crack it, and then the rest have access through torrents. Then the only people inconvenienced by DRM are the legitimate purchasers, who can't play when their internet goes down or when Ubisoft's DRM server is down. Also, if someone wants to replay a game 10 years from now, will Ubisoft still be running the server?
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It doesn't seem that way. It is that way.
DRM is usually no big deal to overcome for cracker groups. As you correctly identified, it only takes ONE group to overcome it. And after it's gone, the only ones affected by it are the ones that bought the game honestly.
Nobody who ever downloaded a game ever crossed anything resembling DRM. It's been stripped clean before the game reaches them.
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Nobody who ever downloaded a game ever crossed anything resembling DRM. It's been stripped clean before the game reaches them
Not true. There are some that use more subtle checks that corrupt the game, and yes, these have made it to the wild. GoG recently got bit by one of these, it wasn't properly removed by the publisher. I recall some other game (Spyro?) that couldn't be completed with a cracked build, it made some things unavailable.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:4, Insightful)
A PC copy protection scheme on a major game will attract the attention of professional reverse engineers. These guys are likely paid to do it, because pirated games a the perfect way of getting people to install viruses and malware. The "pay per install" scene is largely based on torrents because it's so much easier than finding browser 0days.
Really? I don't think I've ever seen a 'scene' release that contained any kind of malware (apart from the occasional false positive due to the mechanisms involved); that's not to say that 3rd parties don't *replace* cracked files and keygens with malware and torrent them, but the people actually breaking the copy protection really don't seem to be involved in anything (additionally) nefarious. Besides, it's not in their interests; the scene groups largely do what they do for kudos and churning out malware-infected releases would seriously damage their reputation.
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I'll go a step further and say, in the 14 years I've...had a friend who knows a guy who has downloaded warez, said guy has encountered one malware, and that was in a keygen. Not only do the various distributors have reputations to maintain, but people just in the scene tend to point out any malware pretty quickly.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a sad, sad day when illegal underground crackers care more about their reputation than the company that makes the games they're cracking.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Informative)
Actual crackers have a very dim view of virus writers. These are two
entirely separate groups of people. Crackers are also a distinct group
from professional pirates that sell cracked works for money. Real
crackers despise this sort of person too.
Most of the virus problems I have ever heard about with games has been
with the official factory stamped copies.
The idea that cracked game -> virus is just industry propaganda.
Silly rabbit (Score:3, Informative)
BTW mod this informative.
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I wish I had your internet. Here in Spain I can count on telefonica dropping my connection a couple of times a day.
This actually reminds me of one of my co workers last year. He bought a PC and a bunch of games and then ended up having to go hunt down a cracked version of one of the games because it required internet access to install and we didn't have internet access at home yet.
And on that note. What about Laptops? What if I want to play something during a two hour layover somewhere and internet acce
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Horseshit. Around forty percent of the US still do not have broadband and dial-up has never been reliable about disconnects. Even on broadband, if your line quality isn't top notch you're looking at a complete inability to play the games for hours at a time. That is not an experience I'd care to pay money for.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except laptops capable of playing games are more popular than ever - and laptops are frequently taken to locations with no internet access.
Re:BRING IT ON !! (Score:5, Interesting)
If your customers somehow took 85% of your revenue
[citation needed]
Ubisoft: 3rd quarter sales (Feb 9, 2010) 495 million pounds sterling. [slashdot.org]
Now let's see if I get the math right, if 495 million is 15 percent, then 33 million is 1 percent, therefore 3.3 billion pounds is 100 percent.
So, according to you, a company like Ubisoft should be selling 3.3 billion pounds PER QUARTER? Just as a minor comparison, General Dynamix (a small defense company that makes oh, fighter jets and boats) only sold 2.1 billion DOLLARS last quarter.
I absolutely LAUGH at "piracy hurts sales" whiners who start throwing BS numbers like that 85% about. You are full of shit.
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Maybe they're making some kind of 'level of DRM annoyingness' versus 'copies purchased' graph.
Wish there was, but the only thing you'd measure was whether the game itself was a hit or a flop.
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"Thousands Of People Avoiding Or Pirating Ubisoft Games Confirmed"
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Blade Runner (Score:5, Insightful)
"Time to die"
Would you people PLEASE stop shelling out your hard earned cash on companies that insist on fucking you over like this? Mod me flamebait if you want, but Ubisoft should die and their stockholders should all lose the money they invested in the company. It's the only way this shit will stop. If DRM kills Ubisoft, other companies will think twice about these stupid DRM schemes.
I guess they learned from Sony that even putting a rootkit on music CDs won't stop people from buying their poison products. Jesus H. Christ, people, stop letting these bastards fuck you over. Put them out of business.
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I agree. If they put out a great title I really want to get, I will just buy it. My internet isn't really even that unstable - I'm running ssh sessions for days, even months without disconnections. I don't even remember when I've last time had an actual internet downtime, previous disconnection was because electricity went off for 1-2 seconds. Good luck trying to play your game with that "disconnection" too.
As long as the system works good, then sure, fine. I don't like it, but I can't really care that much
Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like this concept, but I'm not willing to change my behavior for somebody else's crusade...
You mean that you don't value your rights as a consumer or care about what you purchase being usable in a few years. That's the real problem with any DRM that has activation limits / requires online activation - at any time they can turn off that activation server and the software / media you bought is useless. You being dumb enough to buy it is exactly why they put this crap in - because they know that you'll buy it no matter what. You're like the dumb girl who keeps going back to her abusive girlfriend. YOU are the cause of the problem.
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Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that it's rarely "$1" plus $1 times a shit ton of games / downloaded ebooks / mp3's / movies is a LOT of money. This DOES effect everyone because the companies ARE trying to push it to a pay-per-pay system where you are nothing more than a renter paying every time you use what you purchased
I'm well aware that asshole companies and people like you who just bend over and take it will destroy the gaming industry. When that happens, I'll simply stop getting new games and just replay all the ones I've built up over the last couple of decades.
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I would rather pirate and crack, if i purchased i would feel i had bought a defective product and had to jump through extra steps to make it work.
Re:Let'see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the answer.
Answer is to not either pirate or buy it, but spend the money on competitors product who is doing it correctly. That's the only way to fix things, otherwise you're just telling the company you love their products but they need even better DRM, and since you're spending your time on their pirated games, their competitors wont get your business either.
Well, THAT'S certainly one way (Score:2)
to step on the ol' weenie with track shoes...
[Carnac] "What is 'people staying away in droves?' [/Carnac]
Let your opinion be know. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't buy the game, and send them letter to let them know why you're not buying the game.
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But it's Settlers VII :(
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I have abandoned all hope of society in general ever standing up to this type of thing.
It's just that not everyone have the time, interest or knowledge to fight it everything. Of course we here on slashdot care about it, but as long as it works good enough generally, it doesn't matter to most people.
Just like we probably aren't interested if the latest barbie doll came with no gloves, but the previous ones did. Would you write an angry letter about it to Barbie Corporation even if you just don't really care?
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Many high end software packages require dongles to work (e.g. high end 3d or CAD/CAM packages). And those have been cracked same as any other DRM solution.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Very true. Case in point: CoD: Modern Warfare 2. PC gamers were up in arms about lack of dedicated server support, console port, etc. Talks of boycotts over missing features and the price ($60 v/s $50). What happened when the game was released? Biggest video game debut ever? PC gamers who signed boycotts and joined Steam boycott groups were seen playing the game.
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This is the truth. No one has the balls to stand behind their convictions. It's much easier to just use this is stupid justification to pirate it. Then whinge again next time when the next DRM comes out.
Get with the times, post a Blog or Forum entry! (Score:4, Interesting)
Send a letter? What is this, the 1970's? Get real, nobody is going to read your letter or care what it says and it will be junked as soon as it is opened. They are not going to rush your letter to the CEO personally letting him know that you are unsatisfied. The upper management won't care about some complaining doofus still writing letters, griping about something or other. You're targeting the wrong people with your letters and there is not enough distribution to them.
Instead write a Blog entry or a Forum post and get vocal about the reason why you won't buy the game. Have some people reply to what you wrote and start up an angry thread. Target the people who care about the issue, because obviously the game company doesn't otherwise it wouldn't be implemented, and try to reach a wider audience regarding your grievance. The more people who hear about the problem the more they know and the less likely they will be to spend money on some game where everyone is complaining about.
Would you buy a product that had terrible reviews online and by word of mouth because everyone and their aunt knew it sucked and they found out about the suckyness beforehand?
Normally I try not to hack my games, but... (Score:2)
Pirates will be remembered as archivists, scribes (Score:5, Interesting)
And I wonder, in this never ending holy war against pirates, what they think that Pyrrhic victory after Pyrrhic victory will earn them? Countless fortunes? Unending wealth? Do they think that making your game difficult to play will somehow make it sell billions of copies?
Re:Pirates will be remembered as archivists, scrib (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pirates will be remembered as archivists, scrib (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Case of "pirate archivism" (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever heard of Metropolis? Famous movie from the silent film era?
Parts of it were lost, but a few years ago most of those were dicovered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(film)#Rediscovery [wikipedia.org]) on a 16mm copy in Argentine that was not destroyed (as required) after showing the film.
Technically that makes the cinema owner from the 1920s a pirate, but thanks to his breach of contract(?) Metropolis is almost complete again.
Well done Ubisoft (Score:2, Insightful)
I was going to buy this, but they can shove that rubbish fair up their arse.
Another fine case of screw the people who actually paid for it and the pirates don't have to put up with any of it.
Well done UbiSoft, you are a complete bunch of arsehats.
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Someday, Windows will be like that (Score:2)
If this becomes acceptable, someday Windows PCs will require a network connection to operate at all.
With each new release, Microsoft Windows becomes more dependent on servers in Redmond. Someday they'll have an outage and the whole world will stop.
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Mail servers are all like that.
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SMPT is a store and forward protocol designed to operate with sporadic network connectivity. Your SMTP daemon will keep accepting mails from the local machine and network even when the outbound network is down.
Re:Someday, Windows will be like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comparison is completely inappropriate.
1) I can perfectly use IMAP or POP to download my Gmail emails and read them offline.
2) For all kind of web-based communications such as emails, HTTP or SSH I do expect to need a network connection. It does not need to be Gmail, but my personal email system is exactly the same. What you say is equivalent to: "I need a phone connection to be able to phone? What a scandal!" This is not the case for a game though, wghich I expect to work on a plane, a train or on a remote holiday location with no internet access.
Re: (Score:2)
Man, if when you go to remote holiday locations you need to play computer games, you should pick better destinations. :)
But I completely agree with you about the rest. Games should not need a net connection under any circumstances, unless playing online.
And... (Score:2)
And the subsequent increase in piracy of this game will be blamed on DRM that wasn't draconian enough.
Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
At last, they've made DRM so obnoxious, intrusive and butt-fuckingly annoying that even the average Joe will become enraged at the audacity of the thing. Hope Ubisoft has a team of people standing by ready to explain to people with shaky wireless routers or traffic-shaping ISPs why their game keeps booting them out.
I'm calling it - less than three months after release before they patch this out due to overwhelmingly bad press. Christ Ubisoft, who do you think you are?
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly. Briefly dropping Internet connection is not at all uncommon - quite often you don't even notice it because you're just staring at a web page at the moment, or maybe the page doesn't load, and you shrug and move on. But with this kind of thing, every disconnect will have a very visible, pronounced, and highly annoying effect.
I wonder if Ubisoft could actually be sued over this. Oh, sure, they'll slap "Internet connectivity required" on the box - but it could be argued that a reasonable person's understanding of "Internet connectivity" is the one that isn't five-nines, and if the game can't really handle a typical real-world connection properly - because of deliberate regression - then it's a clear case of malicious false advertising.
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I can just see the following happening:
Player: I'm almost there... I've been playing Assassin Creed 2 for almost 12 hours non-stop and am just about finished... the end is in...
Game: We have lost connection with the Ubiborg mothership. I'm sorry to say that since you have not saved the game, we have no choice but to start you back at the beginning.
Player: AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!
Even if it is just 1-2 hours playing (e.g. finally making it past a difficult section of the game after many tries), this is still going
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
I'm sorry to say that since you have not saved the game, we have no choice but to start you back at the beginning.
I haven't played the series but knowing the types of games these people produce, it's probably a linear "follow the path and the game will auto-save at pre-arranged spots" type of game. Not that sucky game design is an excuse for sucky DRM. But then again considering the intellect that is attracted to this sort of game, they probably are willing to take whatever Ubisoft wan
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I bet they can get away with more if they start with horrible DRM, then lighten up a little, as opposed to starting with typical draconian DRM.
Yeah, fuck that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
fuck the children.
Also, the above comment would probably land me in jail in Australia.
Hmmm, well let me see how I feel about this (Score:5, Informative)
Ah I think I have it: Fuck Ubisoft.
I was likely going to get Assassin's Creed 2. AC1 was pretty damn fun. I didn't get it when it came out because didn't seem like my kind of game, but I got it on sale and man, I liked it. So AC2 was on the list of potentials for me.
Not any more. I will absolutely NOT put up with DRM like this. I have a fairly stable net connection but still, I don't care. This is way too invasive.
I mean I'll meet companies half way. I'm ok with Steam, I can also deal disc based ones that don't cause a problem. However in either case I have to have a way to play if the net goes down. I am not ok with protections that limit the number of times you can reinstall a game (like SecuROM) or ones that need you to be online all the time. Goes double since I know what kinds of server problems companies can have, having played MMOs and such. If my MMO of the day is down, I'm going to be REAL mad if I can't play a single player game.
So, no more Ubisoft games for me unless they change this, because it is retarded. The really funny thing is, of course, it won't hurt the pirates at all. Those versions will have it patched out so they'll have a good game experience. All it will do is drive legit customers away. This is a bigger problem than they might think just due to the sheer number of games these days. Currently, my problem is not finding games to play, it is finding time to play games. I have games I still haven't got around to yet because there's only so much time I can spend goofing off in a day.
So if a given games maker starts being stupid, well I'll just stop buying their shit. Plenty of others to play.
Speaking of which, I think I'll go play Mass Effect 2, which just has a simple disc check. It does like to talk to EA for content updates and such, but as I found out a couple days ago, doesn't mind at all if their servers are down and it can't connect. Game runs with no problems. That, I can live with.
Re:Hmmm, well let me see how I feel about this (Score:4, Informative)
As a South African with a very limited and unstable connection, games using this draconian system will prove (almost) impossible to play.
Not to mention the fact it will eat my limited cap.
I call for a boycott of Ubisoft until they remove this ridiculous system.
Record sales (Score:2)
Oh man, they are going to sell so many copies... of this DRM technology to other companies.
I mean, no one will want the games anymore, but if they market this DRM to delusional companies disproportionately outraged over piracy, they could make a fortune.
DDOS (Score:5, Interesting)
so, if someon DDOS their servers, all people on the world will be kicked out and lose their progress ?
hmm . . . what a great idea.
Re:DDOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Or another ship cuts the trans-Atlantic internet cables. ...
Or a power cut that takes out your router.
Or someone adding a wireless router in the same channel as the one you are using.
Or microwaves/other device/weather interfering with the wireless signal.
Or
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost certainly not enough spare bandwidth to deal with a halfway decent DDOS--which if a piracy/bot ring wants to convince people to install their infected/pirated version, best way would be to use their botnet to bring down the server a few times.
Cloud gaming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
starting to? They have been since WoW became so popular. Why do you think starting with BF2 it became required to "login"... with 2142 you had to purchase the game to login.
Once again, the bittorent copy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't do shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
This will just annoy the people who did buy the game. The real issue is that most users aren't technical and will just buy it, put up with the shit and accept that's the state of affairs. One day somebody will offer them a crack and suddenly they'll realise the shafting they got.
What's worse is that I predict that there will be an enormous amount of cracks and hacks for this game. It'll be so bad that all software companies will use it as an example of why we need even more and better DRM and how evil consumers really are.
New round of pirates incoming (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubisoft is creating a new round of pirates from formerly legitimate customers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, pirating only sends one message: the pirated version is a superior product and lower cost.
That developers are too stupid to understand it is irrelevant, there is still only one message being sent.
Trying to up the cost of piracy with DRM is a losing proposition because it always damages the value of the real product faster than it can increase the cost of piracy (which, let's face it, will pretty much never be anything other than just north of zero), and the equation remains tipped in piracy's favor.
The
The great battle of wit (Score:2)
In the right corner we have Ubisoft, with their incredibly stupid idea that deserves nothing less than a Dilbert strip to glorify it permanently.
And in the left corner we have a large herd of sheep called game customers, who in recent trend have even been defending DRM schemes or believe it to be some type of chocolate bar.
Will Ubisoft succeed in shoving this latest endeavour with enough lube or will the bleating consumer do a back kick? Stay tuned as we find out just how high of a clif
Only a matter of time. (Score:5, Insightful)
This - or something this annoying - has been coming down the line for years now. It was only a matter of time.
I can see the day where a game is going to come out and basically not sell - except for the number of copies required to crack the game.
In other words, the question's been less and less ambiguous as to whether DRM actually hurts sales and drives people to piracy. It's been obvious to *me*, but I could see how a reasonable person might think otherwise.
We might be at the point where a reasonable person can no longer lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of outrageous DRM.
On a sidenote - in 25 years when we want to play Bioshock again and relive the experience, what will most people think of the pirates? I'd imagine that we'll come to think of them as archivists putting themselves at risk but allowing us to enjoy a classic game.
Super Mario Bros came out in 1986, almost 25 years ago. Imagine if Nintendo required an always-on direct modem connection to Nintendo of America to play - and they shut off the modems 15 years ago. What would we think of the "dirty rotten pirates" who got a ROM dump and hex-edited out the watchdog code? It's not far-fetched to say that they'd come off like Robin Hood...
Don't pirate Ubisoft games (Score:4, Insightful)
Piracy will help archive the games, ultimately rewarding Ubisoft for their contribution to culture.
The best thing to do is to NOT pirate the games. Obviously, don't buy them, either. But, also, don't review them. Mention them in the same hushed tones that ET for the Atari 2600 is mentioned with.
New Business Opportunities? (Score:2)
What they are doing is like telling the customers WE DON'T TRUST YOU and that ain't the way to run a business.
Granted, most of the game players are kids, so basically they are bullying kids with all those dreaded DRM thingies.
There lies a silver lining though --- game players are there, throngs of them.
If they don't play this game, they will play another.
Business opportunities opening up whenever there is some screw-ups and this one ought to be big enough for others to invest in an all-open online gaming pl
Re:New Business Opportunities? (Score:4, Interesting)
What they are doing is like telling the customers WE DON'T TRUST YOU and that ain't the way to run a business.
Actually I feel it sends a much stronger message than that: I interpret this as telling me, "If you give us your business, we will punish you." Well, I can think of better companies to do business with: Ironclad, 2D Boy, GOG.com, Stardock ...
Incidentally, this DRM has pushed Rock, Paper, Shotgun [rockpapershotgun.com] to boycott all coverage of any aspect of the game henceforth, other than DRM.
Incredible. In-cred-i-ble. It’s like someone taking away your food mid-meal because your napkin’s fallen on the floor. It makes us want to pull an expression we’re not physically capable of, like this. It’s also worth noting this is a day on which EA have turned off multiplayer servers for games that are only a year old – so it’s hard to have faith that Ubi’s activation servers will be around for many years hence.
If you're getting journalists that pissed off, you know you're really doing a good job, right?
"adds ubisoft to personal blacklist" (Score:2)
Its nasty stuff like this that makes me not want to buy their games anymore.
The EA DRM as applied to Red Alert 3 is acceptable as I only need to connect to the internet once to authenticate the game AND I can un-authenticate that copy anytime to install on another PC or reinstall Windows or etc. (the DRM system in question uses hardware activation to lock the game to your PC)
This kind of DRM that requires a permanent internet connection just to play the single player is NOT something I will accept and I wou
DRM fights used game sales, not piracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? (Score:2)
Seriously?
A case of DRM driving people to Pirate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know others have said what I am going to say. But this is nuts.
With people moving more and more to various wireless net connections more and more people are going to have intermittent connection issues. People are simply going to download the hacked version in order to play the game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that people will once again learn that the hacked version of the game is the most user friendly.
This DRM tactic is going to kill any potential profits.
MORONS.
I remember looking forward to SPORE. This game took forever to hit the market. Then what do they do. They put crippling DRM on it. So what happens. It becomes the most pirated game in history. I simply gave the game a miss all together.
DRM failed for the music industry. It's failing for Video. It is and will fail the game industry. DRM is only there to make greedy execs comfortable. It only results in yet more lost money and it hurts the customer.
Is it the connection to Ubisoft or just the net? (Score:4, Insightful)
If games are dumped out when a connection to an Ubisoft server is lost, then there is a serious problem awaiting and an obvious target for attack as well. Send a DDoS to Ubisoft's servers and kill all games running everywhere. I think that is quite likely to happen. It reminds me of what happens to Blackberries when RIM's network goes down... it gets a LOT of attention and people get pissed off when they realize how dependant they are on this single vendor.
So, a simulated Ubisoft server? I expect to see some pop up in 5, 4, 3, ...
Re:Jumping to conclusions... (Score:5, Informative)
Because um.. well lets see.. From the Fine Article:
But i guess actually reading anything is beyond expectation for an AC.
Secondly, from Ubisoft's own FAQ [ubi.com].
Re:Jumping to conclusions... (Score:4, Insightful)
The added services to the game (unlimited installs
Wow, they make it sound like they're doing me a FAVOR by allowing me to install the game more than once. Screw the right of first sale, they're going to be charging you per install in a few years.
Re:Jumping to conclusions... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they should hire some of the hackers... apparently they can add these "services" without requiring a permanent online connection -- and they don't even need the original source code.
Re: (Score:2)
You kiddin, right? (Score:2)
With the online DRM which will boot you out every single time you have a dropped line, no one, not even those with pirated copies, will be spared.