Ubisoft's New DRM (fail)

Maximilian

Just read this on RPS.

Beggars belief. Setting Internet Rage-Implosion Countdown now. Secure the brass tubes plox.

aidan_walsh

I presume this would be harder to kill than a HOSTS file entry and a loopback adapter...

Maximilian

aidan_walsh wrote: »

I presume this would be harder to kill than a HOSTS file entry and a loopback adapter...

I'm not sure but I think I just got insulted.

Creature

Wow yeah thats pretty harsh. Surely this sort of thing is just gonna encourage moar piracy? *shrugs*.

when Bioware/EA’s servers suffering extended maintenance meant all his Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 DLC was deemed unauthorised, which in turn prevented him from loading any savegames which used that DLC.

I was playing Dragon Age yesterday during that down-time and was able to use my save with Shale and DLC items no problem.

Grimebox

I'll never be able to pirate the game at this rate

oceanclub

Absolutely crazy DRM system, even by the usual standards.

P.

D4RK ONION

Probably a stupid question but do you think this is going to be easily cracked? I don't download or anything, but I am intrigued with the speed these things are usually cracked at, leaving only the paying customer suffering...

calex71

D4RK ONION wrote: »

Probably a stupid question but do you think this is going to be easily cracked? I don't download or anything, but I am intrigued with the speed these things are usually cracked at, leaving only the paying customer suffering...

Cracked before it hit's the shelves with a Jolly Rodger flag flying high, the pirates love a new challenge. They will just do what they do and spoof the servers like they do with other games, no biggey.

Edit: reminds me of something someone said to me when dvd's came out and there was all that stuff about coping and then blueray and drm music....... "If it can be played it can be copied"

/ Awaits to see how many bogey copies of new splinter cell will surface with *proper in the title


Edit Edit: ANyone playing Mass Effect 2 on xbox ? Takes a full 2 minutes for me to get the resume option on my slow connection while it connects to skynet cerberus :mad:

super_furry

It'll be cracked and up on the Torrent sites within a week and the pirated version will actually be better than the retail version.

Maximilian

super_furry wrote: »

It'll be cracked and up on the Torrent sites within a week and the pirated version will actually be better than the retail version.

That's the stupidity of the whole thing. In this case, the pirated copy without a shadow of a doubt will provide a smoother play experience. Have Ubisoft learned nothing?

gizmo

That's assuming they find a nice away around it. I point you to the likes of pirated Adobe products which have proved similarly irksome to crack and indeed temperamental staying that way. Time will tell I guess...

As per usual though, I don't blame Ubisoft for trying new ways to combat piracy. The original game was one of the most highly pirated games of 2008 with over 1 million downloads from public torrent sites so it's hardly a small number. That being said, I don't think this approach is the best way of doing it either, especially the fact that you lose your progress from your last save if you internet goes down. There'd be no harm in creating a temporary slot which saves your exact position in the world and informs you of the connection problem.

Look on the bright side, at least it's better than Starforce on your PC.

Nick_oliveri

calex71 wrote: »

Cracked before it hit's the shelves with a Jolly Rodger flag flying high, the pirates love a new challenge. They will just do what they do and spoof the servers like they do with other games, no biggey.

Correction, they love getting one over on the other scene, or being first to crack it. Piracy is about group exclusives now.

And IMO, games aren't about games anymore, they are about profit. Look at EA and IW. Same with Music and media.

oceanclub

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62403

"A dozen EA games are scheduled to lose online multiplayer support over March and April when their servers are shut down, the video games colossus has revealed, including The Godfather on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and Mercenaries 2 on PC."

Some of these games are only 18 months old. But at least people can still them play single-player.

There's absolutely no way that Ubisoft can assure us that they won't shut down their authentication servers in a similar way. It's very possible that someone could buy Assassin's Creed 2 now, to find that in 18 months time, they can't play it at all.

P.

Azza

Normally I would say that previous complaints from the PC gaming public about DRM where not entirely justified but this DRM goes to far for sure. Complaints about Starforce where never proven for example and I have had dozens of games installed with SecuROM and a fair few with Star Force and never had issues. Same with other DRM systems like TAGES. Did breifly have issues with activating Bioshock it for a few hours because of server activation overload but that was about it.

I pitty people who play games on a laptop while there travelling or are while away on holiday and don't have net access. Kills mobile gaming. Shame as ACII was mean't to be a good game. Oh well I think I will give any Ubisoft game a miss while they use this copyright protection.

stevenmu

oceanclub wrote: »

It's very possible that someone could buy Assassin's Creed 2 now, to find that in 18 months time, they can't play it at all.

P.

Or possibly worse, they could pick it up from a bargain bin in 18 months and never get to play it at all

Azza

Ubisoft have said if the service is every stopped running they will patch that will allow the game to run.

They stated it here in this FAQ.

http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

However they also state that you won't be able to resell your games after words. Persumable due to them being tied into your Ubisoft account pretty much the same as Steam.

Of course an irratating and time consuming work around is to simply create a new Ubisoft account everytime you get one of there games.

Cuddlesworth

I give it a week before its cracked. This auth system has been tried and failed miserably in a few recent games.

Why don't they just offer better value like steam. Give discounted prices over retail, the ability to never lose your keys/games and social gaming all tied into one space? Why restrict things even further? this is whats driving people to piracy.

wayne040576

Does anyone remember the whole Anno 1404 tages DRM debacle from last year when eveyone got pissed off and pulled out their hair with rage (probably not because it's no longer the flavour of the month thing to bitch about)?
Ubisoft patched out that DRM (this wasn't discussed much on message boards for some strange reason) after a few months.

I think their upper management believe that if they can stop the a crack version appearing in the first few weeks then it's a success, so no more need for the DRM. I don't think that game was cracked immediately.

They're probably taking the same approach here although if you don't have a connection you won't be able to get the patch easily.

gizmo

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I give it a week before its cracked. This auth system has been tried and failed miserably in a few recent games.

As far as I'm aware this is the first time a single player game has been released which requires a constant net connection.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Why don't they just offer better value like steam. Give discounted prices over retail, the ability to never lose your keys/games and social gaming all tied into one space? Why restrict things even further? this is whats driving people to piracy.

Steam prices for new releases are generally insane, the best value is always to be had a few months after release or during their fantastic sales. While the rest of your points are correct do remember it takes a lot of resources to create a system like this, Valve were at it for a number of years before it was finally released to the public. On top of this investment you also need to bear in mind that Steam is so useful because it doesn't just distribute Steam games. I really can't see any publishers outside of the platform holders going down this path in the near future.

wayne040576 wrote: »

I think their upper management believe that if they can stop the a crack version appearing in the first few weeks then it's a success, so no more need for the DRM. I don't think that game was cracked immediately.

This appears to be the general consensus among most publishers. Take Bioshock for example, the week long delay for it being cracked was hailed as a success by 2K and although I'm sure they'd prefer if it had never been cracked, it does appear most of the damage caused by piracy is in the week before and week after launch.

Azza

I also believe what most publisher wish they do is try as much and possibel reduce day zero piracy. Seems they have reasons to believe its the most harmful type of piracy to them.

There success with DRM as a counter to zero day piracy as been rather hit and miss though.

oceanclub

Azza wrote: »

I also believe what most publisher wish they do is try as much and possibel reduce day zero piracy. Seems they have reasons to believe its the most harmful type of piracy to them.

There success with DRM as a counter to zero day piracy as been rather hit and miss though.

Steam already offers day-zero anti-piracy measures - when you unlock a game on PC, you're basically downloading the EXE.

I don't know if they went ahead and implemented "Custom Executable Generation", a unique EXE for each user:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/25/steam-and-games-for-windows-live-add-more-piracy-protection/

It would be better for Ubisoft to try to leverage an existing system, rather than trying to come up with their own and making a cack-handed PR mess of it.

P.

Azza

Thing is Ubisoft may see Steam as a competitor in the publishing market so therefore may not want to tie in their own games to Steam.

Burgo

Azza wrote: »

Thing is Ubisoft may see Steam as a competitor in the publishing market so therefore may not want to tie in their own games to Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/publisher/Ubisoft/ :pac:

cherryghost

Azza wrote: »

Ubisoft have said if the service is every stopped running they will patch that will allow the game to run.

They stated it here in this FAQ.

http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

However they also state that you won't be able to resell your games after words. Persumable due to them being tied into your Ubisoft account pretty much the same as Steam.

Of course an irratating and time consuming work around is to simply create a new Ubisoft account everytime you get one of there games.

heres a crazy thought. nobody buy the game, the servers are shut down, then we all go buy the game at less than half the price it was originally tagged at

Venom

Jesus Christ that's one over the top DRM system.

PogMoThoin

As usual this will hurt legit customers much more than pirates. Drm does more to promote piracy than prevent it

Agricola

Its definitely just about limiting piracy in the first few days of release. Thats all they can really hope for. Their not stupid enough to think that this is the DRM to end all DRM.
Its piss poor though. I was really looking forward to this and now, aside from any moral principles I might have about not buying it, I just cant buy it anyway. Im on a wireless broadband service out in the sticks which basically drops the connection for afew seconds all the time. If this game required a constant connection, Id be booted out continually. Fúck that. Ill way till the internet storm dies down and hope that Ubisoft patch it out 6 months down the line. Theres plenty of other top games coming out anyway.

The Recliner

Not sure if anyone has posted this yet but it is a good take on it

CTRLALTDEL

sarumite

PogMoThoin wrote: »

As usual this will hurt legit customers much more than pirates. Drm does more to promote piracy than prevent it

I agree. Although what are they supposed to do...without DRM games are pirated to hell, with DRM games are being pirated to hell. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if single players games like Assasins creed become console only. I have Dragon age on the PS3, my friend saw me play, said he loved the look and feel of it and went home and downloaded it of a torrent site. It was a game he would spend money on it, it wasn't that he couldn't afford it....Whats the point of Bioware making games with the most basic DRM for the PC and porting them to consoles (like dragon age...wish I had a good enough PC to run it) when people are just going to go on the first torrent site and pirate it.

super_furry

Which is another, very valid, argument that developers will use in droping PC support now and in the future. Someone who pirates a game on the PC will never buy it on a console.

wayne040576

super_furry wrote: »

Which is another, very valid, argument that developers will use in droping PC support now and in the future. Someone who pirates a game on the PC will never buy it on a console.

They already use it as an excuse for delaying the pc release of games.
We have ubisoft delaying the pc version of ACII, Capcom delay their titles. Street fighter 4 was a few months late getting released even though the game was developed on the pc.