PC Gamer recently caused an uproar when it revealed just how malevolent Ubisoft's awful PC DRM was, informing the world that future Ubi games will kick you off your session if your Internet connection ever drops. While right-thinking people believe this is pathetic behavior, Ubisoft has defended itself. Or tried to, anyway.
"As long as you do not quit the game, the game will continue to try to reconnect for an unlimited time," says Ubisoft, as if that makes it better. "Once the game is able to reconnect, you will immediately be returned to your game.
"Where exactly you are reconnected in the game may differ from title to title. Settlers 7 reconnects at the exact point where the connection was lost, AC2 reconnects you at the last checkpoint. There are many checkpoints so you're back to the point where you got disconnected in no time."
According to Ubisoft, everything is alright because the game only boots you if the Internet connection is down for a prolonged period of time and it won't kick you if the connection slows. Of course, this still means that you can't play Ubisoft games on a laptop outside of the house and that if your network is down for any reason, you're not allowed to use the software you paid upwards of $40.
In short: F*ck you, Ubisoft. This DRM is pathetic.
Official explanation of controversial Assassin's Creed 2 DRM [Ars Technica]
Contest:
10:00 AM on 02.19.2010 | 
Ubisoft can lick some skank ass brownstar.
I can't say I approve of Ubi's method, but I can see why they want it like that. Still, this is no excuse of being a cock about it.
Nice going Ubisoft.
and its because of piracy.
Ubisoft is trying to create something that might be able to actually fight piracy and all you guys do is bash it. "OMG HOW CAN I PLAY THE GAIMZ?!?!?!?! I NEED INTERNET!!"
seriously? wake the fuck up.
Ubisoft doing this is most definitely not fighting piracy. They can fight it all they like but the reason people pirate games is simply because it's so easy and they can. Using ineffective and annoying methods are counter productive. What else they could do I have no idea, but it is most definitely not this.
Trying to fight piracy in this way is what is retarded, pal. DRM only ever affects the people who buy the game. If you've pirated it, you've already subverted the DRM. People should not be punished for legally buying a game.
Wake the fuck up.
But some people don't have reliable internet, or internet all the time. I lived in Iowa for two years, and in small towns out there you can only use dial-up, if that. Some of these towns are college towns (albeit small colleges, but still there none the less). Pretty much they can't play games (or at least keep playing them) because of Ubisoft's stupid policy.
What developers need to seriously consider is if there is a correlation with tightening DRM and a decrease in piracy. From what I've seen, this hardly seems to be the case. Spore had crazy DRM and was the most pirated game of all time. So who did the DRM actually effect? The people who bought the game legally.
The fact that pirates and any hardcore gamers just laugh or eyeroll DRM off and then crack their games should be proof enough that DRM doesn't do the job. There are better ways to fight piracy (like, say, Steam?) that aren't completely moronic and intrusive.
DRM is, however, a vicious cycle. People pirate the game so DRM is added to stop piracy, the pirates crack the DRM and the game is stolen. The next game has stricter DRM to avoid piracy and then that's cracked. It just goes on.
Those who pirate the game because of DRM, IMHO, are making the issue worse and I refuse to take them seriously. If they don't want DRM then they shouldn't pirate the game - It's as simple as that.
Why? Now the High & Mighty PC Elitists can suck a cock.
How's that 'superior platform' workin' out for ya?
And this coming from someone who's first(and favorite, its my avatar FFS!) PC game was Half-Life. Now I game on consoles and DRM isn't even in many of my console-brethren's vocabulary.
I love Steam, it got me to stop pirating games. Now I just wait for Steam sales. Hell some of the deals are practically stealing without the dirtied conscience.
The platform is still superior. It is the developers fault for putting inferior, hampered software on unquestionably superior hardware.
"If they don't want DRM then they shouldn't pirate the game - It's as simple as that."
If [the developers] don't want piracy they shouldn't DRM the game - It's as simple as that.
I've always wondered (it may have happened before so please correct me) what would happen nowadays if a large, huge budget game would come out with absolutely no DRM whatsoever. Probably nothing as those that will buy it will buy it. Those who will pirate it will pirate it. DRM doesn't really make much of a difference.
As for this DRM I do not like it, it punishes paying customers and continues the nasty trend of attacking customers that the videogame industry seems to love. That said, I am always online... I am never offline... I get like one brief blip in service a month, if that... so this DRM really does not effect me much, and actually I would say it is better than limited activation DRM, espcially if they are promising to patch it out when they shut down the servers.
So... don't like it, but also not a big deal to me.
Dude would you kindly take you head out of your ass and realize that this method is only encouraging piracy.Even people that have never pirated a game would rather play the cracked game and not have to worry about the session cutting off cause of a bad connection then have problems playing the legit copy and have to worry every time an action sequence takes place.
All this news about constant internet access makes me want to cancel my pre-order for SP: Conviction. God knows its DRM situation won't be any better, and it's price got jacked up to $60.
Any one know any game that i can change my pre-order to? I already have BFBC2 on pre-order :P.
"PC gaming is dieing"
Anytime you find yourself typing PC gaming is dead", you know you're wrong. People have been spouting this off for.. what.. a decade now? Yet, PC gaming goes strong, and is arguably still one of the funnest platforms to play video games on.
Do you really think PC gamers give a shit about Assassin's Creed 2, in general? They have entire genre's that don't exist on consoles tailor made for them. In fact, we should wager a bet right now. I'll bet your Xbox/Ps3/Wii will die before PC gaming does (by die, I mean.. support will cease for it). How much do you want to put down?
Back to "I love video games". The more profitable your favorite games are the more likely you are to see more of them. Since I love video games, I want the creators to piss gold and continue selling me my titles. I want them to have my money. In other words, pirating is your enemy and you should support all efforts to thwart these criminals so you can enjoy your favorite passtime for years to come. RIP Dreamcast.
the biggest punishment is that PC gaming is slowly dieing instead of growing like the consoles are. it does nto matter how much DRM free your games are if in 10 years you dont have games to play on your PC. and thats all you should be whining about.
before you cry about this DRM you need to know if it actually works or not. you are assuming it does not work before it has been implemented for no reason at all.
all the big games this past months were available on torrent sites on average a week before being released.(Cod6, ME2, Bioshock2, etc) i dont need to tell you how much that hurts legal sales of the game.
this DRM will at the very least stop that. and thats already a major victory. depending on how well it is implemented it might do a lot more than just delay cracked versions of the game.
100 bucks on PC gaming :))))
Hey Ubisoft! Fuck you =)
This will just push people away from PC gaming and legal purchases.
I lived there for two years from 2005-2007. The town in question that was having internet problems was Fayette (by Decorah) in north-eastern Iowa. I was there on my Mormon mission, so I pretty much got tag-teamed to a bunch of smaller towns (Mt. Vernon, Charles City, among others).
I just remember working in Elgin and Fayette and people having really bad internet access. Who knows, it might be better now, but in the towns with only 100ish people the internet was pretty awful. :P
people have reasons to play on PC instead of console and its not the need for internet connection that will change that, this is not 1990.
but ye, this can people will prefer pirated versions. too bad that they were not be available if this DRM is properly implemented. its as simple as that.
if this DRM fails and does not reduce piracy significantly then it will be ditched cause its alot of money they are putting in something like this.
either way you win. unless you have no internet connection or a really crappy one.
I should've expected such idiocy from Ubisoft.
You are a real retard sir ;< Why is it exactly good for you if someone can't play a game if it's for the PC? Sterling has the point, and it's unbeatable (imho).
The devs at Ubi can't think off anything new, so they are forcing their shitty solutions on gamers instead. Can anyone recall Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory?
Try to imagine the horrible and unimaginable fact that yet its 2010 there are shitty internet isps and bad internet connections. Maybe you are a lucky person who can't believe this because you live where you live, but it's true. You know there are countries out there in the world wich are poor, or not that advanced as the one you live in.
Oh and for a single player only game (or mainly) why would anyone need any connection?
Regarding a potential crack for the game, from what I understand, the constant connection isn't just to authenticate the game, but for storage of the saved game.
Depending upon how well they code & encrypt their save data storage, it might be a tough one to crack - or unreliable if it's done. You could potentially capture the data packet and write that to a dummy address mapped to local storage, but if Ubi's smart they'll insert nonsense information as well to be discarded on the server side. [sorry for the TLDR post]
My current internet operates via wireless, and the connection is pretty crappy... my connection is always low and it drops A LOT. It's one of the reason i generally don't bother with games where i need to be online for prolonged periods of time. And quite frankly i don't have the money to get anything better; especially not when i have all kinds of software and hardware i need to get for my work. My connection is crappy, but its always been enough for my needs, most of my PC games are one player and steam has an offline mode that has always worked well for me... though ubisoft demands even more...
It is a FACT that many PC gamers do not have fast and reliable connections, and that you can not find a wireless connection just anywhere... these are the ones that will suffer most from this DRM...
and one question i would ask if it is possible for Ubisoft to patch there games later to work without the DRM... because if they can't or are unwilling to do so, then the downside of this DRM is that for many people ACII will NEVER be playable for them.
What on earth makes you think this will not be cracked? Do you have any idea of the extents which people have gone to to break through every kind of drm there exists to date?