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Ubisoft's newest DRM...

S

Stallion

Sea Dog
Public Relations
http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-settlers-7-paths-to-a-kingdom/1063391p1.html

Guess they don't want me buying any of their games anymore. xD: Sounds no different than Steam, which I despise.
 
I remember the days when there were two big incenctives to buy a game legally rather than get a pirate copy. The legal version would come with a nice, big paper manual, while the pirate version would often come with malware.

These days what manual there is comes in a file on disk (just like the pirate version always did), and the legal version is the one which often comes with malware. You'd almost think some publishers want you to pirate their games...

Personally I don't pirate games, but I do check in advance to see what sort of DRM they have, and if it's something unacceptable then I just don't get them at all. Ubisoft is well on the way to getting a permanent boycott without requiring advance checking.
 
:rofl I remember the hype about Spoor

followed by the rage about the DRM on SPOOR

followed by the exponential rise in Piracy of SPOOR

:rofl and then the poor Pirates finally wised up

they had wasted their time pirating SPOOR

time that could have been used to play a decent game.

:cheers Ubisoft
 
Sounds like EA is pulling the same stunt with C&C4 as Ubisoft, but are claiming it's not DRM. No, Sir! It's not DRM, but, if it looks like sh*t an' smells like sh*t, well...

http://forums.commandandconquer.com/jforum/posts/list/35920.page
 
Comprehensive report on Software piracy.
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

It's section on DRM:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_9.html

Steam and "Starfart":
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_9.html

Assassin's creed 2's DRM:
http://www.tweakguides.com/AC2_1.html
 
Pretty unbiased report, but half the studies mentioned that make software piracy look super bad were done by either the software companies themselves or by somebody they hired. :urgh That's like Toyota testing the defective Prius cars, then claiming there's nothing wrong with many of them. xD:
 
Ubisoft compensated legit owners of Assassin's creed 2 with free DLC and the Prince of Persia game for the server failure.
 
Why? What is so horrible about their DRM?



I Don't Like This DRM!


Let's be clear: like most people, I don't particularly like any form of DRM. However the reality is very different from the pro-piracy propaganda you may read on sites like Torrentfreak. Ubisoft's new DRM appears to be relatively unintrusive and does not affect system performance or stability in any way. It does have the benefit of removing install limits and disc checks, and provides online storage of saved games. Recall if you will the way in which people were calling for boycotts and dreaming up all sorts of nightmare scenarios when Activation was introduced in Windows XP, or the early days of Valve's Steam online gaming platform. In the end these people were proven wrong - misinformation and hysteria are of no benefit to anyone.


Obviously the major drawback of this system is that if you live in an area where your Internet connection is not stable, it may impact on your ability to play this game. If you're seriously concerned about this, I urge you read various accounts from different owners of the game. Wait for any potential problems to be smoothed out before purchasing the game yourself, or if you're certain your Internet connection is not up to it, don't buy the game at all. Note that on the day of its release, the protection system has already been patched to improve the way it operates, so it is clearly evolving.


Bear in mind however that without a doubt, this protection system has been forced upon us solely due to rampant piracy of PC games. My PC Game Piracy Examined article provides all the relevant facts if you're interested. Single-player PC games in particular are now pirated to such a degree that without protection, they are simply not viable for release on the PC platform anymore. All offline methods of protecting single-player games simply do not work.


For several years Ubisoft has been experimenting with DRM. The first Assassin's Creed was used to passively collect data on the general level of piracy of the game, and confirmed that piracy was being conducted on a massive scale. Then the most recent Prince of Persia game was released without any form of DRM, and in the face of massive piracy, confirmed that simply removing DRM is not a viable solution. Indeed many other games without any form of intrusive DRM have been pirated so heavily over the years, it counters the myth that people pirate games due to DRM. Valve's Steam has also proven unsuccessful in protecting single-player PC games, as it is easily removed and pirated copies abound, the latest example being the 'Steam-only' Aliens vs. Predator release. Steam is very profitable for Valve as a reseller of other companies' games, but is not a secure protection system for single-player games. The end result is that sales of single-player PC games are now a fraction of what they used to be, and many, many times less than on the consoles, despite the technical superiority of the PC platform and the roughly equal install bases of gaming PCs and consoles.


Contrary to popular belief, PC game piracy is not a victimless crime. Games development is an extremely expensive, highly risky, lengthy and complex process. Major games now cost tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours to develop, and securing that sort of investment in the face of rampant piracy is increasingly difficult. Piracy has already skewed games development towards consoles in recent years, and has resulted in the death of PC exclusives which take full advantage of the power of the PC as a gaming platform. Even those games which are ported over to PC are typically delayed to ensure that piracy of the PC version doesn't undermine sales on the consoles, and they also exhibit signs of their console heritage.


In the face of rampant game piracy, it is now quite likely that quality single-player PC games will soon be a thing of the past, and multiplayer-focused games, especially MMOs, will become the PC's only viable niche. We have only the pirates - people who believe they are entitled to other peoples' work without contributing anything towards it - to thank for this. All the usual excuses for pirating games do not stand up to scrutiny: good games get pirated more, not less; games with demos are pirated just as much as those without; games without DRM are pirated rampantly; cheaper games are pirated just as heavily as more expensive ones; and whether a small struggling studio or a major company releases a game, the piracy rates are equally as high across the board. These facts, along with the incorrect claim that "DRM doesn't work", are covered thoroughly in my PC Game Piracy Examined article.


If you don't wish to accept this new form of DRM, that's perfectly understandable. The solution is simple: do not purchase Assassin's Creed 2. However do not pirate it either. There is absolutely no excuse to pirate AC2 or any other game; a game is a luxury item and not a necessity. Piracy will simply force Ubisoft and other companies to either try even more intrusive forms of DRM, or abandon the PC as a platform for major games, particularly quality single-player games.


Make no mistake, the ultimate victim of piracy is PC gaming itself. PC gamers are slowly killing the hobby they profess to enjoy. In many ways, it may already be too late. Ask yourself this: are pirated games really worth risking the continued decline of the PC as a gaming platform?



Update: Note that misinformed reports of this new DRM system being cracked are false. Any pirated versions available cannot be played without glitches, and there are confirmed reports that they are all incomplete - i.e. the game cannot be played all the way through. The details are provided here. As such the protection system has already been sufficient to prevent successful day-zero piracy of AC2.


Update 2: Recently some European players of AC2 could not connect with the authorization servers to play AC2. Ubisoft has confirmed that this temporary outage was actually a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack which lasted around 7 hours. Clearly, there are people out there who do not wish legitimate purchasers to play this game and have no qualms about inconveniencing them to supposedly make a "point" about this DRM.


Update 3: Ubisoft has sent an email to all owners of Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 providing compensation for earlier outages of their DRM servers caused by DDOS attacks. Depending on the edition you purchased, the compensation ranges from free additional content to a free game such as HAWX or Prince of Persia.


Update 4: One month since AC2 was first released, a new successful crack for its DRM has become available. Various accounts place the crack at approximately 90-99% complete, so essentially the DRM held up for over a month before being effectively cracked.
Click to expand...
 
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