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DRM PC Games (Games) Games

Ubisoft Ditches Always-Online DRM Requirement From PC Games 218

RogueyWon writes "In an interview with gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Ubisoft has announced that it will no longer use always-online DRM for its PC games. The much-maligned DRM required players to be online and connected to its servers at all times, even when playing single-player content. This represents a reversal of Ubisoft's long-standing insistence that such DRM was essential if the company were to be profitable in the PC gaming market." The full interview has a number of interesting statements. Ubisoft representatives said the decision was made in June of last year. This was right around the time the internet was in an uproar over the DRM in Driver: San Francisco, which Ubisoft quickly scaled back. Ubisoft stopped short of telling RPS they regretted the always-online DRM, or that it only bothers legitimate customers. (However, in a different interview at Gamasutra, Ubisoft's Chris Early said, "The truth of it, they're more inconvenient to our paying customers, so in listening to our players, we removed them.") They maintain that piracy is a financial problem, and acknowledged that the lack of evidence from them and other publishers has only hurt their argument.
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Ubisoft Ditches Always-Online DRM Requirement From PC Games

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  • About damn time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    'nuff said.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      'nuff said.

      No, not quite. Now that they are ending their oppressive DRM, I will end my purchasing boycott.

    • With what are they replacing it?

      rootkit?

      • Nah, they would get sued.

        they are going to force you to hook up a electrical cord to your mouse (fees for cord seperate from game) if they think you are pirating software they shock you. Sure, logically, anyone who has the special hardware would also have the game, but piracy is killing there sales and online DRM wasn't working so someone needs to do something.

        Maybe they wont go that far, but i suspect the logic will not change, just the system.

        • Their DRM hasn't prevented me from enjoying their games. It's their shitty beta level release code. Splinter Cell: Conviction didn't work until months after release. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier didn't work until months after release. Despite buying GR:FS, I played the scene release version a week before the game was out. It installed fine, ran ok and didn't crash once. Then when it was released on steam, I uninstalled scene release and downloaded the steam version. It didn't want to install. It finally ran

  • Yeah Right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:34PM (#41237615)

    I'll believe it when I see it, not when they say it.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:54PM (#41238571)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • True, but at least it's an indication that they might move in the right direction. I'll be happy if they prove it before the Wii U comes out so I can remove them from my Ban list and buy ZombieU. I've been missing out on things like Assassins Creed and other thing over the years because of their DRM so I'll just be glad it's over if they follow through.
  • Financial issues? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:35PM (#41237625) Homepage

    Hmm, maybe that doesn't stem from piracy so much as the constant firehose of low-quality games from Ubisoft?

    You can fool people for a while, but eventually they're going to notice you're charging $50 for what other companies would release as a $10 DLC.

    • Re:Financial issues? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Psyko ( 69453 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:46PM (#41237755)

      Agreed. Last title I picked up from them I think I paid like $50 for it, messed around with it for like a week. Then removed it and their stupid drm launcher/rootkit.

      Publishers can quote piracy all they want but I think crap content is a bigger detriment to their financial base and word about that gets around just as quick as draconian drm.

      Honestly, if there was a mechanism in place to get a refund on some of the garbage software I've bought over the years I think there's only a hand full of stuff I would actually keep.

    • Seems like most companies that should be in theory creating content, they put far more effort into squeezing every last dime they can from what they've already created than they do actually creating. To the point of being counterproductive.

      Movies, it's not just DRM. Making a good movie comes second if that to marketing the movie.

      I'd guess, having never worked in such an industry, that the suits making these decisions are more likely to listen to other suits pushing DRM or marketing than they are t
    • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      Ironically, piracy could have hurt them. Someone pirates a copy, finds out it's crap, and deletes it, when he may have gone out and bought a copy if it was any good. This is what many so-called pirates do; it isn't about being cheap, it's about not wanting to be ripped off by crap. The first time you get ripped off by a shitty $50 game you wouldn't have paid ten for, you're going to want to test drive the next one before buying.

      You would think these people would learn from history, the same thing happened t

  • Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by History's Coming To ( 1059484 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:35PM (#41237627) Journal

    they're more inconvenient to our paying customers

    Finally somebody starts to get it. When you make it more convenient to pirate the game than to pay for it there's something badly wrong.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Yeah. Now they can hurry up and patch it out of Settlers 7 so I can buy it!

      • Haven't the "pirates'[sic] already done that? I'm sure you could find DRM-free versions of their game on torrent sites by now.

        • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ZeroSumHappiness ( 1710320 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:26PM (#41238203)

          It's the principle of the matter and it follows logically from the following axioms:
          1. I will not purchase DRM'd content from Ubisoft because I refuse to support Ubisoft's DRM scheme.
          2. I will not pirate games because studios see it as cause for ever more restrictive DRM.

          Therefore I cannot, in good conscience, purchase or pirate Ubisoft games.

          Though I agree that there may be a few games I'll buy if this actually happens.

        • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Oh I could pirate if I really wanted. But I do like the settlers series. See it's the whole principal of the thing, the whole idea that the DRM is so bad that I won't even pirate it should be key as well.

    • by guises ( 2423402 )
      Sure, they "get it" all right. People roll over for software activation now because companies like Ubisoft have won a place for it by threatening something worse and then relenting. The damage is done though - the sea change in DRM came with activation, that's when you gave up ownership of your media, quibbles over when and how often you need to activate are a straw man that they've thrown out in the (successful) hope that people will parrot crap like, "Well, I only need to activate once. That's nothing, lo
      • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

        Games have been doing activation for decades. How old is Diablo II now?

        • by guises ( 2423402 )
          Diablo II is twelve years old, not decades, and did not require activation. Are you talking about the key needed to log in to Battle.net? I don't think there has ever been an expectation that by purchasing a copy of Diablo II you also gained ownership of Blizzard's online service. You're really stretching the meaning of a plausible interpretation here.

          A better example might have been the WON authentication for Half-Life, where you needed to authenticate with valve in order to log into a third party's serv
    • Finally somebody starts to get it. When you make it more convenient to pirate the game than to pay for it there's something badly wrong.

      On top of that, DRM eats away at their revenue for each year that they support their customers. For example, if I install Spore right now, EA has to have some server somewhere grant me access to it. They pay people to code that service, maintain the servers, and man the phones for the cases that go wrong or if I go through too many activations.

      I really don't understand why they think this is a viable alternative especially when they cannot actually point to an empty bank vault where a bunch of money is mi

      • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

        You are wrong. EA only has to keep the servers running for Spore for as long as they like, which is likely to be as long as it's making them money. They have no requirement to keep the servers going indefinitely.

        Witness MS's PlayForSure.

  • by DarkFencer ( 260473 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:37PM (#41237659)

    If they patch existing games to not use this as well, I may consider purchasing one (Heroes 6). I've held off on this purchase specifically because of this.

    • Not mentioned anywhere that I could find. Though it was asked in one of the comments on RPS. If Ubisoft DOES patch their older properties, then myself (like others, possibly) will be willing to look at some of their older games. I'd certainly be interested in trying out Settlers, as Civilization V was an effing bad joke.
      • by Seedy2 ( 126078 )

        I made the mistake, not only of buy Civ V, but playing it again recently.
        I had to get out my GoG version of CTP2 to get the bad taste out of my mind.
        I haven't played Settlers since it was by BlueByte

        • This is the most telling to me:

          Civilization IV "sucks" [google.com] About 113,000 Results
          Civilization 5 "sucks" [google.com] About 3,160,000 results

          I abstained from purchasing V, so I can't say from firsthand knowledge... but I followed and participated in numerous threads on civfanatics.com; had many conversations with long-time modders, and fans of CIV4 ... and watched countless threads on civfanatics devolve into haters vs defenders. The most amusing part being that the defenders would always claim that "this is how it always

  • by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:39PM (#41237671)

    ...to pirate. This will make no difference in the piracy rate, but it's nice for their user base.

    • by Spuffin ( 466692 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:48PM (#41237773)

      I think that's entirely the point. DRM or no DRM does not affect the piracy rate but it DOES impact the end-user. If the end-user's experience is affected by something that does not affect the illegitimate users then they need to re-evaluate their goals. There are extra costs in development and overhead with the implementation of DRM which must be factored into the ROI. It appears they are coming to the realization that their implementation negatively affects the end-user experience, impression of their brand, and does not provide any additional sales (which is the whole point, really) so they're on the wrong end of that ROI.

    • Indeed, yet legitimate users will now have a better product.

    • by SeinJunkie ( 751833 ) <seinjunkie@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:00PM (#41237919) Homepage

      The people who are pirating will probably keep pirating, but it's not because of some other justification. It's because the vast majority of them are in a country or culture where it's the norm.

      To countries like Armenia [tumblr.com], they don't even consider that there is DRM in a game at retail because they usually are acquiring it via bootleg salesmen or pirated downloads. It's as if the DRMed game never existed.

      And that's why the one, two, and sometimes three or more layers of DRM doesn't do anything but hurt the customers in the culture where paying is the social norm.

    • by Artraze ( 600366 )

      Eh.... I wouldn't be so quick to say. Especially if one is to believe that piracy is around 93%+ like they (?) claimed the other week. I mean, sure, the lion's share will still pirate. However, if even 5% of people are pirating because got sick of having to deal with the DRM and/or crack it anyways, that would represent a relatively significant sales boost. Not to mention it may cut down on perceived piracy because less buyers would be downloading cracked versions (though this depends on how they are me

    • People will pirate every game, that's for sure. But in the end of the day, what matters is how many will find some justification to buy it. And being less of an ass to your clients will make it easier for them to justify giving you money.

    • by Nyder ( 754090 )

      ...to pirate. This will make no difference in the piracy rate, but it's nice for their user base.

      I doubt it, Ubisoft makes some really crappy games. I tend to pirate everything that comes out (always have, not to keep, but to check out whats going on) and I find most ubisoft games to suck badly to not be worth the download time.

    • Piracy numbers don't really count for much any way it makes no difference to the bottom line if there is 1 or a 100 million pirate copies (although if people do not want the game for free then realistically it is never going to be a commercial success). If you consider zynga many people playing their games do not pay but they do encourage other people to play and some of those will pay even if it's just to catch up with their friends.

      The real figure that counts is the user base.

      If Drm is having a negative i

  • by heypete ( 60671 ) <pete@heypete.com> on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:41PM (#41237693) Homepage

    DRM serves to inconvenience legitimate users and does little to stop pirates: all it takes is one smart cow [wikipedia.org] to open the gate and all the other cows can follow.

    Steam seems to provide a good service to game sellers and players: reasonable DRM to reduce casual piracy while not being hideously obnoxious (you only need to be online once to activate the game, after that you can play offline), fast downloads, decent anti-cheating protection for multiplayer games, frequent sales, millions of regular viewers (so promotions are more effective), automatic updates, very simple click-to-buy procedure without any hassle, etc. Why wouldn't game developers sell games on Steam rather than creating their own obnoxious systems?

    • I'd agree with this, i only buy games off steam because it eases the inconvenience of reinstalling games between formatting and keeps track of all the older games i play less frequently.
    • by cheekyjohnson ( 1873388 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:09PM (#41238023)

      reasonable DRM to reduce casual piracy

      How casual? If they seriously cannot apply a crack, I highly doubt they can figure out how to use Steam.

      But I don't believe "reasonable DRM" exists, anyway. Steam itself would be okay if you could optionally detach the games from it so that you could run them without it, but not being able to do so is what makes it DRM.

      • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        Civ V is the only Steam game I have that I play in 'single player' mode. I was curious about if I would be able to play the game without having an internet connection because the game launches through Steam.

        I d/c'd my internet connection one day before booting up the computer. Then I tried to load Civ V. It sat there for about 2 minutes (normally just a few seconds) before finally giving me a dialog box along the lines of "internet detection could not be found. Would you like to play in off-line mode?
        • As far as I know, though, you still have to run Steam to play the games. I'm aware of offline mode, and I certainly think Steam is better for having it, but having to run Steam is still undesirable for me.

      • by heypete ( 60671 )

        "Casual" in the "here's a DVD-R or ISO of the game disc and a keygen, just install it" sense.

        Sure, various cracking groups have cracked Steam DRM for quite a few games. They always will, and I'm sure Valve (and others) take it into consideration. There's always some group of people who will never pay for anything, but there's nothing effective that one can do about that.

        Steam provides a decently-priced integrated marketplace for games from a variety of producers. They have well-connected download servers al

    • by robmv ( 855035 )

      Steam is the less evil of the game stores DRM. I know that something like digital goods resale will need legislation because it will not fix by itself (I want transfers because I always gave my old games to younger family member), but the worst thing that bothers me is not allowing than others family play my games installed using my account, on my machine, using their own Steam users, at least give us subaccounts or something like that. The console ecosystems (at least the PS3) allow other people to play ga

      • That's my issue, and why I can't buy games on Steam anymore.

        I was playing Portal2, and my wife wanted to play something like Braid. They were two single player 'offline' games. When she pulled up the other computer Steam pitched a fit because I was already logged in on another machine.

        Two games, purchased independently of each other, irrevocably tied to each other and blocked from 'simultaneous' usage.

        It bugged me on a personal level, because it was the first time I ever got my wife to try out a video gam

    • Why wouldn't game developers sell games on Steam rather than creating their own obnoxious systems?

      Some of them don't care for the model. Some of them don't want to incur the extra costs of Steam. Some of them have contractual obligations. But primarily, companies don't want to lose control of their distribution method.

      It's like asking why companies don't want to put their app on the Android Market/Google Play, and why other marketplaces exist. Putting all their eggs in one basket is risky.

    • Why wouldn't game developers sell games on Steam rather than creating their own obnoxious systems?

      Greed.

    • Why wouldn't game developers sell games on Steam rather than creating their own obnoxious systems?

      There are some rare cases when they have no choice but to do so.

      For instance, Mac game publishers are oftentimes entirely separate companies that license the rights to create a Mac port of a game from the original Windows publisher. Since Steam does not have any way to meaningfully distinguish between Mac and Windows gamers at the time of purchase, they only allow a single company to receive payment for each purchase made...including on SteamPlay titles that include both Mac and Windows versions of the game

    • Basically offer a good product, at reasonable price, that is very easy to obtain. Add just enough DRM you discourge any casual pirating. Heck even the 1990's solution of a code wheel was/is sufficent.

      Someone that is prepared to put effort into pirating your software IS going to pirate your software one way or another. However that is besides the point, as that person is very unlikely to ever buy it anyway. So while it might make you angry, it isn't really affecting anything really.

      So long as it isn't super

    • by dstyle5 ( 702493 )
      Why wouldn't game developers sell games on Steam rather than creating their own obnoxious systems?

      Valve takes about 30% of a cut of game sale. Now factor in DLC, in which they take their cut again and developers HAVE to use Steam for DLC when a game is sold on Steam. EA wanted to sell DLC directly to customers via an in-game store and Valve said no no no, we want a piece of that pie too. It gets pretty expensive for a company like EA who has alot of franchises and DLC when using Steam, hence they spent
  • by ckblackm ( 1137057 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:42PM (#41237713)
    If we could only get Blizzard to do away with the requirement for Diablo III.
  • by Jaysyn ( 203771 )

    Good. Let me know when it's patched out of Anno 2070 & I'll buy it on Steam.

  • I love when companies try to force new ideas that are obviously flawed, based solely on some projections and high ups getting creamy over their great idea to end piracy. Instead of getting anything out of this DRM strategy, they just look like dicks.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:57PM (#41237881)

    When companies start realizing that they're not losing money to pirates because pirates aren't customer (or even potential customers) they can focus on things their real customers are interested in.

    • by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:28PM (#41238235)

      Please mod parent up insightful. Far too many companies believe the fallacy Pirate Copy = Lost Sale.

  • by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @01:57PM (#41237887)

    I bought Assassin's Creed 2 on sale a while back, even downloaded it a few weeks ago, but only recently tried to play it.

    Holy crap, did it take forever. First it had to install roughly twenty million different runtimes and libraries. Then it had to install some "UPlay" bullshit. Then that had to update itself, despite having been just installed. Then it had to "update" the game, something I would have thought Steam would do automatically (I'd bet money that someone at Ubisoft had to actually force Steam to not update it, rather than it being some failing on Steam's side).

    After waiting about twenty minutes for this all to go on, I gave up. Cancelled it out, started a different game ("Stacking") and was in-game within a minute.

    Yeah, them getting rid of their pointless DRM is good even if all it changes is how long it takes to start playing.

    Now if only EA would actually learn to let their customers access the DLC they paid for without going through more hoops than the average basketball...

    • You bought their game on Steam and it still installed UPlay?

      • Yup.

        That's not the only game to try something like that. Battlefield 2 tried to install Gamespy Comrade, but I found you can cancel out of the installation, but it will continue on. It still tries to install it every time, but I can just deny the UAC prompt for the installer and be on my way.

        • by heypete ( 60671 )

          Steam actually mentions when third-party DRM is required. For example, with Anno 2070 they mention in the description "3rd-party DRM: Solidshield Tages SAS
          3 machine activation limit". I intentionally avoid games that have this.

      • UPlay is part of their always on DRM...

        its funny you seem to think they would let you install their game without it...

        UPlay also seems to have a tendency to be offline during major holidays, and thus is why i will no longer buy an UBISOFT game as long as they insist on keeping the always on DRM.

  • by socrplayr813 ( 1372733 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:01PM (#41237939)

    How long will it last this time?

    They've scaled it back in the past and it just comes back in another game. In six months or a year, if they've kept that crap out of their games, maybe I'll consider giving them money again. Maybe.

  • Too Late (Score:4, Insightful)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:05PM (#41237975)
    Due to their past transgressions, I will still never buy an Ubisoft game. I'm sure they will consider my lack of purchasing as piracy instead of voting with my wallet, but I don't care. Companies need to learn that years of treating your paying customers with contempt will take a LONG time for people to get over, even when the company finally starts to do the right thing.
    • It's never too late for me... I swore I'd never buy an Ubisoft game while the DRM was so obnoxious so I didn't. And unlike others, I didn't pirate. I just didn't play their games. Now that they've focused more on the paying customer experience (and my personal inability to insure I had internet access at all times) I can again look at their library of games.

      I mean it's not like they killed people or something. It's a business decision.

  • Games (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:05PM (#41237983) Homepage

    Produce a game I want to play, and make it a program that I don't cringe as I try to install it.

    It's not hard. Hundreds of them are on my PC at the moment. I don't think there's a single Ubisoft one among them (except some really old games before they started bundling pure shit along with their shitty games and trying to sell it for full price).

    The DRM doesn't stop the pirates.
    The DRM does stop me.

    If it's taken you this long to listen, believe and understand what people have been saying to you for YEARS, I see no reason to reward your years of ignorance now.

  • Too late for me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bieeanda ( 961632 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:08PM (#41238005)
    When I haven't been treated like a potential thief by Ubi, I've been treated as a second-class customer. I don't care what they're publishing now, they haven't deserved my patronage for a long time.

    And no, I haven't pirated any of their titles either. I prefer to undermine my arguments in an ethical manner.

    • by debrain ( 29228 )

      I prefer to undermine [reference.com] my arguments in an ethical manner.

      That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    • And no, I haven't pirated any of their titles either. I prefer to undermine my arguments in an ethical manner.

      I use pirated software often when I also have purchased a legitimate copy. Pirated games don't demand always-on connections, having the CD/DVD in the drive, or non-bypassable giant logos that display for 30 seconds. When I launch a pirate game, I get the game, and that's all I want.

      • I did something similar to this once. I pre-ordered Super Mario Galaxy 2 and had it shipped to my home. Problem was that it would be delivered two days after launch. My solution was to download the torrent and play it while waiting for my disc to come.

        I have always wondered how these companies would react to such behavior by customers.

  • There are several cracks and patches online that ditch it for you.

  • by daemonhunter ( 968210 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:24PM (#41238185)

    Can someone explain to me (because I don't own any Ubisoft PC games) how this is different than being forced to log into Battle.net even if I only want to play Diablo 3 single player?

    If it's not any different, why is Ubisoft on the receiving end of such unbridled nerd rage, but not Blizzard?

    • Can someone explain to me (because I don't own any Ubisoft PC games) how this is different than being forced to log into Battle.net even if I only want to play Diablo 3 single player?

      Because "this" is a story about how Ubisoft have ditched the requirement. When Blizzard do the same, Slashdot will no doubt run a similar story about them and we can all have a good dig at them, too.

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      First of all, I think the quality of the game has something to do with it. UbiSoft has not had as much success lately, so their DRM may be the last straw for some games.

      Also, UbiSofts implementation was terrible. Many people had trouble playing a legitimate copy of the game. Blizzard's check is more of a passive system.

      Finally, I think it's perception. UbiSoft did it to stop the pirates in a very public manner. Like the RIAA, they claimed to be losing billions in sales to piracy and these measures
    • Because if I reformat, change my graphics card and motherboard Diablo 3 will still install and let me play. Ubisoft DRM'ed games will not (after a [usually] unspecified number of these events).

  • That's a start. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Culture20 ( 968837 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @02:25PM (#41238201)
    Continue in this vein and I might eventually buy a game.
  • For those of you who are hardcore against DRM, the are ONLY removing the always-online DRM.
    They still plan on using a DRM scheme, it's just you only have to verify it once.
  • Hey, Ubisoft...

    FUCK. YOU.

  • Why this announcement now? There were some interesting titles I would have bought one year ago, but not with these DRM constrains. Now it is too late. I have ditched ubi back when they started getting anal with their DRM.

    Cheers,
    -S

  • the problem with implementing tough DRM measures is that it removes the age-old excuse for lackluster sales: "the pirates are stealing all our profit."

    i'm guessing that after maneuvering themselves into this uncompromising position, they found they still were unable to sell crappy games to an increasingly disenfranchised audience.

    after becoming stuck between a rock (admitting their games are crap) and a hard place (admitting DRM doesn't work), they've finally decided that the minimal loss to piracy is far m

  • by El_Oscuro ( 1022477 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:44PM (#41240723) Homepage
    I only have one UBISoft game - Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition. Instead of CD's, it is a 2G download. It is only a few years old, but suprisling enough it has NO DRM AT ALL. No license keys, no activation codes, no other bullshit. Install it just like any GOG game. I purchased it from their official website so I am assuming it is legit. It almost seems impossible - perhaps the guy who forgot to install the DRM got fired afterwards...

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