Ubisoft has revealed controversial new plans for anti-piracy measures on all its PC games. Taking a leaf from the Steam and EA playbook, the European publisher has announced that all of its games will require online activation via an Ubi.com account. The only trouble is, Ubi's gone a step further.
On one hand, the new DRM plans will let you install your Ubisoft games on as many computers as you like. You will also be able to run games without a disc, and even save them remotely on Ubisoft's servers. The catch is that Ubisoft will require you to always be online when you play your games, in order to keep the products verified.
While many PC gamers have a persistent Internet connection, a significant amount do not, and the lack of offline play will surely snub a few customers. The new measures are already generating a potential riot from the always-touchy PC gamer crowd who believe it's a stupid and presumptuous move to assume gamers are infinitely connected to the 'net.
What do you reckon? A bold and respectable move on the part of Ubisoft, or a misstep that will create a significant backlash? I'll give Ubisoft one thing -- the company's got some balls, even if it is lacking in the foresight department.
Ubisoft Launches Anti-Piracy Countermeasures [GameSpy]
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Contest:
3:00 PM on 01.26.2010
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Oh my gosh.
Oh wait, recent Ubisoft games suck balls anyways. Now if only Mass Effect 2 could download faster...
Anyway, looks like the pirates are about to get the better product again. Yay.
Especially for games like Assassin's Creed 2..then upcoming PoP..
Plus if you have some crappy internet then it disconnects in the middle of playing the game..that's just really stupid..
But if this how the future looks for games and other campanys start to follow this tread, its gonna be very grim indeed
One Word. Spore.
Talk about shooting themselves in the foot, goodbye laptop travellers. Goodbye poor students, people moving house, people that simply get by without a net connection. Goodbye to those in regional areas where it's not available or stable.
I swear they don't give a shit about anything other than the US and JP markets and even then, they don't care very much.
Now how exactly does this help with piracy? Because the last time I checked you can always find DRM-less versions 1 or 2 days after a titles release. I was tempted to download a DRM free version because I couldn't even install the damn title I paid for! This sort of crap justifies piracy if not encourage it! IMO that is.
I make all my PC purchases on Steam now because I have a computer at home and at school, but if this kind of DRM shows up even in Steam versions, I guess I'll trust Jim Sterling and not even consider giving AC2 a chance.
*palms forehead*
Like Windows 7/Vista. Never. Telemetry Consolidator Service? Customer Experience Improvement Program? Biometric devices? Location API? Go fuck yourself with a rusty nail.
I reserve my right to privacy. I hope they crack the fuck out of this mechanism and make all UBI's effort go to waste.
The only problem I have with the idea of needing a persistent internet connection is if, god forbid, my connection is down or if for any reason I can't make payment on the account. If there's some sort of emergency offline mode, that would be okay. I'm sure there won't be one, however, since any sort of backdoor like that will make hacking the DRM all the easier.
I'd gladly see PC gaming die off if this is what it's going to come to.
While I cannot define small , I will define big as in the United States. I didn't know that about Japan compared to European countries but that I believe strengthens my argument.
Gotta go with CordableTuna on this one
You gotta love software companies way of dealing with piracy. This is just the ammunition hackers love. When will they figure out that this copy protection "never" works.
Are there any major PC games out there that haven't been torrented? The only people that suffer are the customers who pay good money for shite products.
sometimes a few companies need to look back on the past in other areas they're not involved in to see what they're doing does not inhibit piracy, it creates it and funds it very well.
but, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. but then you can get on that horse and make him run out of energy, then he'll drink.
Remove any of those elements and it fails... as ubisoft will.
Prediction! When they release this scheme, and the PC games fail... they'll blame piracy.
"Some of the commenters here clearly never experienced Internet outages before because some of them seem to think the only way you lose a connection is if you unplug the ethernet from the back of the computer. "
only other thing I can think of is a power cut in which case no power to your wifi/Internet box.
If you want to blame anyone for this move (and this applies to everyone slamming ubisoft for this move) then blame the pirate culture that thinks it can take games and distribute them for free.
Any company wants to protect it's investments and i'm personally sick of hearing people say "it will get hacked/pirated anyway" as if this makes it excusable.
This aside I am getting pissed off with the constant bitching about DRM, does it even affect anyone? I mean really and not just because you want something to bitch about? I think this is why I class myself as console gamer first - even though I play just as much PC games - PC gamers are such whiny shits.
"PC gamers are such whiny shits."
I like your style
umm. That's very VERY wrong.
I imagine they will include an offline mode like steam once its activated and tied to your account.
if piracy was actually this big godam giant threat as ubisoft wants you to believe, they and not one other company would release a thing on the pc. they're doing this as a form of control, and its not to control their interests but yours with whatever spyware is in their "special" servers. i don't see bluray and dvd movies that i have to be online to fuckin watch and piracy effects those more than anything, and avatar was still perfectly fine in setting new records.
and when sales come back negatively because of these deceitful drm packages, ubisoft will blame it on the pirates and not their own actions that forced it to happen. ubisoft sucks anyway, they made haze.