Ubisoft's Draconian DRM Patched? 233
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Ubisoft's controversial DRM scheme launched last year that required players to have a permanent connection to the Internet has been patched to no longer stop the game when connectivity drops, though an Internet connection is still required when starting the game."
Ubisofts DRM (Score:2)
Requiring an internet connection to start the game isn't really a problem, there aren't really that many situations where I would even want to be without one, but if the connection drops or becomes really slow at times it creates problems.
While I don't know how long this has been in effect, I haven't had any problems with my copies of Settlers 7, Assassins
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM shouldn't get in the way of enjoying the game for legal owners. I hated companies that made my old 1541 disk drive hammer itself into oblivion with their crap copy protection. I'd end up finding a cracked copy that would load in 15 seconds instead of 4 and a half minutes. I don't mind paying for something useful but I hate buying crippled shit. I really don't play games anymore but if I did I wouldn't want anything that forced me to put up with a bunch on needless BS.
That's what bad with DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Crackers get the better stuff while legal users getting banned.
Re:That's what bad with DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly what's wrong with copy protection: It hurts the honest customer and rewards those that copy the content. DRM is free market in reverse. And, oddly, the studios wonder why it fails.
When you usually buy something (compared to buying it "off a truck"), you get something extra. You get warranty, you get additional goodies packed with them, mail in rebates (ok, dubious value, but still), you get support, you get all the "comfort" you will lack when you buy it from some shady source. The honest customer that buys it legally gets additional protection and additional bonus material for his money.
With content and DRM, it's exactly the opposite. You don't get any sensible warranty anyway, you don't get any goodies anymore with your bought games (remember those good ol' days when there were some tidbits and trinkets packed with games? Or even a manual worth the name?), hell, you often don't even get sensible packaging. And on top of it all, you get your computer infested with drivers of dubious quality that sometimes also open up gapping security holes in your system.
As someone copying the content, you don't get anything "extra" either (so there's no difference here), but you also do not suffer from those copy protection drivers, "insert CD" nagging, mandatory online connection or are subjected to other patronizing.
Is it me or is it just plain STUPID to artificially devalue your product? Especially if you're up against someone who already hands it out for free?
Dear studios: The old tale of sun and wind betting who could get someone out of his coat applies fully here. You can NOT force people to buy something. You can convince him, but for that you have to give him what he wants! How much does it take to get that through your skull?
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That was one of the best anti DRM argument I have ever heard.
Agree 100%.
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Dear studios: The old tale of sun and wind betting who could get someone out of his coat applies fully here. You can NOT force people to buy something. You can convince him, but for that you have to give him what he wants! How much does it take to get that through your skull?
The answer, of course, is for everyone interested to buy shares in Ubisoft. Then, as a shareholder, you can demand that the company work to improve the value of "your" investment. Now, since DRM clearly drives away customers, you can
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I don't mind paying for something useful but I hate buying crippled shit. I really don't play games anymore but if I did I wouldn't want anything that forced me to put up with a bunch on needless BS.
Same here. I hate paying for crippled products. I still play games, but specifically avoided buying the latest Ubisoft games: Anno 1404 with TAGES drm, Settlers 7 and Assassins Creed with this always online stuff. I own most other games in these respective series, but preferred not playing these to throwing money at their drm garbage. I don't think this new patch will change my mind. It is too little, too late. I guess Ubisoft can be happy - I don't pirate their games. I stopped playing them altogether. Pro
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But DRM doesn't do that. Quite the opposite. Especially when it goes berserk like that recent development of "always online" DRM and the server outages during release.
Imagine this talk on the schoolyard.
"Hey, got the new $game already?"
"Yeah, but it sucks, I couldn't play it at all, their servers are down."
(smug grin) "Oh, I had no problem. Here, I'll show you how...
And another happy copyer converted away from buying. Because the list
1. Buy game.
2. Install game.
3. Go online, try to register, try to get a se
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They said that the AC1 lagged due to it's DRM, not because it ways 'aways on'.
Then how is disconnecting the Internet proof of DRM causing a slow down? If it isn't always on (and AC1 wasn't) then the internet status wouldn't make a difference. It is more likely that there was some other background task going on. Maybe even some virus.
I can't say for sure that Ubisoft's DRM doesn't cause slowdowns in AC2 because while I played #1 I avoid #2 for this reason.
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I don't own a game that I DON'T use a no-CD crack on. Who wants to cart around a spindle of CDs just in case? (I do all my gaming on a laptop wherever I happen to be, YMMV, of course)
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Heck, we don't even use our movie and music disks for d
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:5, Informative)
"When it works" isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is this disclaimer at the bottom of the steam page:
> A PERMANENT HIGH SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION AND CREATION OF A UBISOFT ACCOUNT ARE REQUIRED TO PLAY THIS VIDEO GAME AT ALL TIMES AND TO UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. SUCH CONTENT MAY ONLY BE UNLOCKED ONE SINGLE TIME WITH A UNIQUE KEY. YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 13 TO CREATE A UBISOFT ACCOUNT WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT. UBISOFT MAY CANCEL ACCESS TO ONLINE FEATURES UPON A 30-DAY PRIOR NOTICE PUBLISHED AT http://assassinscreed.com/ [assassinscreed.com] ... which to me says, "we can nuke your access to the game at any point in time, provided we give you 30 days notice on a website you're never going to check."
I own AC1, but I don't own AC2 or HAWX 2 for this very reason.
DRM is likely here to stay, at least to some degree, but this frightens the ever living crap out of me. Why would I throw money at a game where they can cut off access to it at any point in time for ALL of their customers, just because they don't want to pay the bill on those servers anymore?
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I throw money at a game where they can cut off access to it at any point in time for ALL of their customers, just because they don't want to pay the bill on those servers anymore?
So don't. The more of us who refuse to buy games which allow them to cut off users at any time, the less games will be released with such draconian DRM.
Personally I now only buy games that are DRM-free, or games which only use Steam for DRM as it can be run in offline mode.
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Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I only make an exception for steam when it's a ridiculous price, or I'm only interested in the data files.
Personally I don't remember the last time I paid more than $9.99 for any game, be it from Steam, Gog or retail. The market is so competitive these days there's really no need to pay more than that.
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I paid $20 today for Divinity II. That's the most I've paid for a PC game since Ultima IX.
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
or games which only use Steam for DRM
Steam cultist remind me of Apple fanboys. "Oh but it's Steam, it's GOOD DRM!" Hilarious! It's still DRM that can disable your games at any time of their chosing.
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Steam cultist remind me of Apple fanboys. "Oh but it's Steam, it's GOOD DRM!" Hilarious! It's still DRM that can disable your games at any time of their chosing.
a) Steam is likely to be around for a long time and has a strong incentive not to cut off old games since it's a distribution system as well as a publisher. If they cut off old games for publisher X, then people are going to stop buying all their other games too.
b) I've read that Steam has already been cracked, so if it does shut down I'm sure there'll be a 'permanent offline mode' hack within days.
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether Steam is or can be cracked is irrelevant, Steam is helping to push us farther and farther down the path of us "leasing" our games instead of buying them. As it stands now, when I "buy" a Steam game I really have no idea whether I'll be able to play the game five years from now or even a month from now when the game makes its mandatory check in with their servers. All I have to go on is the good will of some faceless corporate entity and the assurances of Steam fans that this could never happen or that there will be some wonderful work around that will be less convenient than just being able to install my game and play like I should be able to.
The worst part is, it's as easy pirating a game today as it was 10 years ago when all that was on games was Safedisc. Really brings home how ridiculous all of these inconvenient measures are, right?
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Well, it can't get harder. When everything's said and done, you're still dealing with the same assembler instructions that can be disassembled just as easily as a decade ago.
And the fact that more and more companies rely on standard tools to create their games doesn't really make it any harder either.
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or games which only use Steam for DRM
Steam cultist remind me of Apple fanboys. "Oh but it's Steam, it's GOOD DRM!" Hilarious! It's still DRM that can disable your games at any time of their chosing.
Or it can disable your games just because your connection isn't working. After I paid off my last credit card, I thought, okay, that was a stupid thing to agree to, so why would I ever agree to it again? And, so far, I haven't gotten another one.
I'm not so worried about DRM for games because, really, I don't need to play them and on the occasions where I can't it always forces me to do something more productive with my time. But, I definitely do find that it pushes me away from buying a game at all. It's ju
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I boycotted Steam for a very long time until I got drunk late one night and bid on the Orange Box on eBay. It sat around for many months until I finally got an ADSL line at home to use it. Since then I have purchased quite a few things from the service, but since I don't ever really own the titles, I only pay 2nd hand game prices for anything. Nothing over $5. My average price is $3.74 right now. This includes buying multi-game packs cheap and dividing the purchase price between each game.
If Steam has somet
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By then he probably got quite a few hours of entertainment out of it. At 3.74 bucks a game, hell, if every game gave him an hour of entertainment, he's still coming out way ahead of most other forms of entertainment I could think of right now.
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I miss two things about disc-and-box games: Being able to resell them, and the box. I do prefer my first-sale doctrines un-eroded, and I'm sitting in front of a bookshelf of old MicroProse games.
Steam is very palatable DRM because Valve is working on adding features to their platform - your save games follow your Steam account, you can install a game infinity times on infinity computers, you can still patch your games after the developer's site goes down, and Steam games don't make you hunt for a Ventrilo
Re:Ubisofts DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
I miss two things about disc-and-box games: Being able to resell them, and the box. I do prefer my first-sale doctrines un-eroded, and I'm sitting in front of a bookshelf of old MicroProse games.
I liked a suggestion I saw recently on how to reclaim your first sale rights on Steam games. Simply create a new Steam account each time you buy a game from them (yay for unlimited GMail addresses). Then if you get tired of a game and want to resell it, sell the account it is tied to. Steam ToS says that you can't do that? Well, too bad for Steam. If corporations go to convoluted lengths to take away rights, then the customers can return the favor and go to whatever lengths are needed to reclaim those rights.
Maybe they are just pragmatists (Score:3)
People who will take NO DRM EVAR remind me of OSS fanboys, who sit running very few applications and having to pick and choose hardware carefully to maintain the "purity" of their systems, all while claiming "It is better here! Really it is!"
Some people are pragmatic about DRM. I'd be one of them. I'm ok with it. While I question its usefulness, I understand that publishers need it to feel safe so I'm ok. I'll meet them half-way. My requirement for DRM is that it doesn't interfere with my gameplay. I need i
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Settlers 7, R.U.S.E., two games I wanted. Badly. Want with a capital W. I rarely buy games at full price, these would have been the two for that year.
Guess it's UBI soft doubling as my conscience, telling me I should not pay full price for games.
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RUSE doesn't use the same DRM. That just adds to my suspicion that Ubisoft is just doing this to convince shareholders that the PC is dead and console games shouldn't get PC ports by killing the sales of their PC ports (except RUSE because that's the main version of the game).
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Wonder how long they can tell their shareholders that pirates get better and better at cracking their DRM the more and more they tighten it.
Because that's what has to happen, right? The more they tighten their DRM and the more DRM they add, the fewer boxes they sell. Following the "pirates" school of logic, this can only mean that the more DRM you pack into a game, the more interesting it becomes for pirates to crack it. It must be that nerd honor thing, the harder some obstacle is, the more interesting it
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And here's my problem: I WANT to give them not only a red cent but I WANT to buy that game legally. I DO NOT want to pirate a game (and hence I don't do it).
But there are games that I really, really wanted to have. Wanted to buy. Wanted to play. Yet I will not be able to do that because I am not willing to reduce my system security to zero and bend over to get an anal probe every time I want to play a friggin' game!
This is exactly the problem I'm facing here.
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And here's my problem: I WANT to give them not only a red cent but I WANT to buy that game legally. I DO NOT want to pirate a game (and hence I don't do it).
But there are games that I really, really wanted to have. Wanted to buy. Wanted to play. Yet I will not be able to do that because I am not willing to reduce my system security to zero and bend over to get an anal probe every time I want to play a friggin' game!
This is exactly the problem I'm facing here.
If you really really really want to play it and make sure the publisher gets compensated, but don't want your system compromised, then the obvious solution is to purchase it legally, keep the box safely sealed on your shelf, then download a cleaned up version. Publisher doesn't like that? Well, call the wahmbulance for them. They got their money and you have proof that you are legally authorized to use the product that you purchased and paid for. And this is another way to reclaim first sale rights. If
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Yeah, they really managed to keep me away from their Steam deals with their DRM bullshit. My connection can be pretty wonky and I don't want the game to commit suicide over something that shouldn't have any impact on it!
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Even if I were too old to rant about it, there's still some practical steps I can take. Between work and school, there's no way I can spend that much time on games, so I choose the ones I actually play carefully.
Put it this way: Why would you play a bad game when you can play a good one? There are so many games to choose from, it's actually getting reasonable to boycott DRM altogether. It's even getting reasonable to only play games which run natively on Linux.
I'm more than happy to buy games. What I'm not
Non-Ubisoft games are easier to play (Score:2)
So I recommend those annoyed by this game to play those instead.
Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hey, let's make our product shittier and harder to use, I bet that will make us some money!"
I hope Ubisoft fires the moron who first pitched this idea to them over a year ago. I haven't purchased an Ubisoft game since they announced this last February.
Re:Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I won't be buying until they back off quite a bit more. I personally don't think that a failure to have internet access is a valid reason to keep me from playing a game I've paid for. Well, unless it's an online only game, like a game which has no single player game play.
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No, they should fire the management involved in that decision.
Re:Morons (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who works at Ubisoft, I can guarantee you that this practice will NOT stop. The CEO pretty much said so ... often.
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Hope you're in management. Productive people get downsized first when the sales drop.
He may change his mind eventually (Score:4, Insightful)
When EA starts to take away all of Ubisoft's sales. Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe Ubisoft's sales won't be impacted, however the fact that they patched it implies that they have. Perhaps their new games have not sold as well on the PC as they wanted. They figured with their new DRM they'd have far more sales, and in fact have had significantly less. If that's the case, and people keep boycotting it, it may go away eventually.
After all EA has backed WAY off on their PC DRM and they seem to be doing quite well. They seem to have found a balance between checking for pirated copies but that doesn't interfere with legit uses at all.
I can speak only for myself, but I won't buy Ubisoft's new games. Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers 7 were on my list to buy, but I have not sue to the DRM. I didn't pirate them instead, I've just given them a miss. There are plenty of good games out there, I have games I've not yet even installed that I own, so I do not lack for options. If others do like myself, well it'll continue to hurt Ubisoft and in fact have the opposite effect of what they want. Their DRM will cost them more money to implement (as it is fairly complicated) but they'll get less sales as a result.
I'll meet companies half way. I can accept some DRM. Steamworks is ok, for example. However it can't interfere with my ability to play and enjoy the game. Requiring a net connection to play counts. Part of the reason to have single player games is to have something to play when my net connection dies (which let's not kid ourselves still happens even with good ones) or when I'm traveling.
Re:Morons (Score:4, Interesting)
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Given the 90%+ piracy rates these sorts of games see, they'd need to lose a hell of a lot of users to bad DRM if it's actually effective at stopping piracy.
It is possible to be 100% effective at stopping piracy and still not improve their bottom line one iota - if all the former pirates just decide to focus their attention elsewhere. That would probably be a net loss since a 90% drop in userbase would probably translate into a major loss in word-of-mouth promotion too.
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Or even if they just do without because they couldn't afford the game in the first place. In some cases because their parents won't buy it for them.
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All* DRM schemes are cracked shortly after they are released. Some of them are cracked even before they are released. That happens because, despite your sugestion, it is impossible to have a proper cypto system doing it. It is impossible to create a challenge/response that pirates can't beat in a blink.
And that leads to my second point. Almost nobody will stop pirating your software because of DRM, but some people may stop buying (and pirate, or just go without) because of it. You have a situation where yo
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All* DRM schemes are cracked shortly after they are released. Some of them are cracked even before they are released. That happens because, despite your sugestion, it is impossible to have a proper cypto system doing it. It is impossible to create a challenge/response that pirates can't beat in a blink.
It depends on your definition of short. Let me introduce you to Starforce [wikipedia.org].
And that leads to my second point. Almost nobody will stop pirating your software because of DRM, but some people may stop buying (and pirate, or just go without) because of it. You have a situation where you want X*90% > Y*10%, but X is known to be very small. So, you can only hope Y is small too, because if it is even slightly big, you'll lose money.
You mean all the people in other countries have income which they'll actually use to purchase a title? For example in Argentina it's easier to get pirated goods than legitmate, the vendors and the prices are local and "reasonable". This is a world wide problem. Frankly I don't think anyone outside of a 1st world country is a concern of these companies.
BTW Your english is very good, s/academical/academic.
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I could see a different problem moving their way, a "time shifted" drop in sales. Follow this list of events:
1. New, draconian DRM scheme gets implemented.
2. People notice that they can't copy and hence buy.
(so far, the DRM "works" well because it made people buy)
3. People get pissed because the servers are down, their connection drops and they lose game progress when the game shuts down, all sorts of troubles.
4. Company releases next game with draconian DRM
5a. People pissed off from last time turn to copie
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Given the 90%+ piracy rates these sorts of games see, they'd need to lose a hell of a lot of users to bad DRM if it's actually effective at stopping piracy.
Since most people who don't pay for games won't ever pay for them, it only takes a small percentage of actual purchasers being pissed off about DRM to really cause a dent in the bottom line.
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The guy who thought this up is a dope.
"Hey, let's make our product shittier and harder to use, I bet that will make us some money!"
Perhaps it has.
Ubisoft is looking much stronger financially and PC game and digital sales (DLC, PSN and XBLA) have been a part of that. Ubisoft® reports first-half 2010-11 results [ubisoftgroup.com] [Nov 15]
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Amazing, that's how much I've spent this year on electricity, Internet service, groceries, and rent!
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See, I just assumed he meant his parents' basement.
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And yet you not only read but post in an article about games?
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And yet you not only read but post in an article about games?
I'm sorry I missed the commandment that decrees that you can only read and comment on articles in which you have a first person experience. At this point I should also add a "whoosh" as well.
I reckon that is related to the same unwritten rule that seems to cause so many here to declare that they do anal whenever discussing legal matters. ;)
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I don't have any stats in front of me, but I think that PC gaming might be increasing because it is getting easier to get titles due to services like Steam. We might hate the DRM, but the store is great and very convenient. However, you are right that stupid moves by the likes of Ubisoft do make things harder.
The big problem is that this will eventually extend to gaming consoles. Already we see the other bane of PC gaming being copied by consoles - that of buggy initial releases requiring large patches. I c
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I don't have any stats in front of me, but I think that PC gaming might be increasing because it is getting easier to get titles due to services like Steam.
Don't indy developers. Look at Minecraft and World of Goo. Lots of innovative ideas are being pushed by smaller teams.
Already we see the other bane of PC gaming being copied by consoles
I know what you're trying to say but consoles are PCs. Your keyboard is usually virtual but you've got the mobo, optical drive, ram, video, ethernet, and hard disk. I think part of the reason for patches is rushed and/or cheap development. Also look at the development houses which produce the titles that require patching. Not all console experiences are the same and it's possible to make a t
What about the copyright infringers? (Score:3)
As we all know, DRM puts a stop to copyright infringement. If they make it less effective (you have to try to piss off your customers as much as possible when developing a DRM scheme), then they'll surely crack it (completely unheard of)! This was just a bad decision all around. What they need to do is have it so all of their customers must beg for access to the game before they are allowed to play it.
most likely... (Score:2)
They patched this probably more to reduce server load than to field customer complaints. Stupid idea in the first place, of course.
Reminds me of a UserFriendly comic (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a UserFriendly.org comic from a few years ago...went something like this:
"Someone is force-feeding you 5 bricks while kneeing you in the crotch. Suddenly, they decide to feed you only FOUR bricks. Do you THANK them?!?"
Re:Reminds me of a UserFriendly comic (Score:5, Funny)
I was thinking more along the lines of 'well mister, I ain't going to rape your butt no more, but you sure have a purty mouth'...
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I was thinking more along the lines of 'well mister, I ain't going to rape your butt no more, but you sure have a purty mouth'...
You, sir, are either as brilliant as I am or you are just as sick and twisted. That's pretty much what I thought when I read the summary.
LK
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"Someone is force-feeding you 5 bricks while kneeing you in the crotch. Suddenly, they decide to feed you only FOUR bricks. Do you THANK them?!?"
If I didn't have a choice in getting fed bricks and kneed in the crotch, then yes. If, on the other hand I paid for the crotch-kneeing in the knowledge that I'd have to put up with the bricks, then no.
Seriously, though, if you buy a game knowing about the stupid DRM measures then I have no sympathy; if the measures weren't made clear before purchase or were foisted upon you after purchase then you have grounds to demand a refund.
I can understand people mocking Ubi for adopting such a customer-unfriendly pol
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The problem is, most people don't even know about DRM. And the studios would certainly not enlighten people how they're bending them over.
It will take a bit for people to catch on. Give 'em time, they will learn.
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Well, I *might* as misdirection as I plot their painful demise once I get free. Just sayin'.
defeats its purpose (Score:2)
Ok, without a required connection during the game, it will be quite easy to crack this scheme: simply make a copy of the machine state just after starting the game. (For most people, this will be not so simple, but crackers can easily do this).
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Like people hadn't already cracked the game before this patch...
DRMs always get cracked in the end. I'm pretty sure the only reason they're put into the game is to ensure that its not cracked in the first 'month' or so when the majority of the sales happen.
as long as people still buy the games (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's why I borrowed my sister's copy of AC2, and I'll borrow Brotherhood. That's one nice thing about console gaming- still easy to just borrow a game from someone else. They haven't started any limiting actions like tying a disc serial number to a console serial number on their servers. Geez, maybe I should just hush up. :-\ My PC gaming these days is older stuff I missed on Steam and GOG.
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They haven't started any limiting actions like tying a disc serial number to a console serial number on their servers.
Next generation, guaranteed.
They've been doing experiments with this on the smaller games that are distributed by download (i.e. WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, etc.) and DS online games, and it's only a small step to expand this to disc games (which would send an activation packet to the company's server, and thereafter would only operate on that one console).
Theoretically, signing should prevent people from modifying the executable as well as allowing the game to verify communications are indeed coming from th
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I guess they didn't calculated that. They can't know how many pirate the game, but made a guess, then they proceed to make the calculation: X are pirates, some n*X (0 < n < 1) won't be able to pirate anymore after we release our DRM, thus, we'll sell n*X extra copies with DRM. People stoping buying because of DRM probably only come on their calculations now, that people actualy stopped buying.
Also, if everybody stopped buying because of DRM they'll just say "Damn pirates!!!" and make their DRM worse a
year without drm (Score:2)
Relevant: http://www.yearwithoutdrm.com/ [yearwithoutdrm.com]
Too little, too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
When they shipped a single product with this, they went off my vendor list.
Forever.
There are way too many companies making games for me to deal with one like that. Same deal as with Belkin and their router which randomly redirected sessions to an advertisement. You screw up that blatantly or obviously, even once, and you're off the vendor list unless you are a genuine monopoly on something I really need.
Since Ubisoft can never be a monopoly on much of anything, they're gone.
Note that this is not an attempt to make them behave better. That would be "off the vendor list until you fix this". That is a recipe for companies like Amazon, which patent troll and spam, then back off a little bit until the complaints die down. I don't want to deal with companies I have to watch constantly because they've learned to just go ahead and do evil stuff and see who complains.
For utterly replaceable companies, the policy is "you're gone, bye". If they eventually die, great! Everyone wins. If they merely stop selling me stuff, because I don't buy from them, at least I win.
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Given how badly the pc version of Black Ops was pirated I don't see much of a future for pc games with single player campaigns
You missed the 'from big publishers who just regurgitate last years game with slightly better graphics' part. If the big publishers abandon the PC for consoles and leave it to the indie developers, I'd be quite happy... I've bought more indie games than big name games in the current Steam sale because so few of the big name games had any appeal.
Of course that will suck for ATI and Nvidia if no-one has a need for the most expensive 3D graphics cards. But there doesn't seem to be much use for them now when mo
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Erh... how?
One of the reasons they could put more detail on some pants is that they simply assume that you have a better rig a year later, can squeeze more polys and higher resolution textures in and your machine will be able to render it.
Doesn't really work with consoles, does it?
Re:Just buy a console already (Score:5, Interesting)
That's funny, they conclude with
"Well as a publisher I’d have to ask myself why bother releasing a game for the PC at all? Why don’t I just give it away for free?"
After stating a minute earlier that the PC version made nine and a half million euros in sales. Given it's on an xbox already, the art and level design is all done, etc, etc. Yes why not not take 9 million euros that's on the table, that'd be rational.
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Beyond that I'm not sure how to interpret the success of Indie developers that release sans DRM or GOG.
I could rule the world. (Score:2)
Given it's on an xbox already, the art and level design is all done, etc, etc. Yes why not not take 9 million euros that's on the table, that'd be rational.
I'd like to have a dollar from every gamer geek who has complained about a console port to the PC.
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Who cares if they complain if they also hand over $12,000,000?
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Rule? You could buy the world!
Granted, not much difference these days...
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Oh, yes, PC people pirate more often than console users. I'll have to ask the question the GP asked agains, since you didn't seem to have read it...
"Why take 9 milion euros that are just on the table if you could just not release on that market and have nobody copying the game for their PCs?"
If you noticed that I was comparing orthogonal values, well, you are very near a rational tought. Run.
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The only reason for more copying on PC is that it requires a LOT less information on the user's part to copy. Even a soft mod requires at least rudimentary ideas how to a) get it and b) get it into your machine. Add the fear of bricking that 400+ bucks of hardware (because you can't just reinstall Windows if you blow it), the tendency to just fail (RROD et al) and you could see why fewer people copy on consoles.
Essentially, the reason is that PCs run copies out of the box, while you have to "adjust" console
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Ownership is defined (at least in my law) as having the full rights to an object. That includes being allowed to sell, rent, use, retain, modify and destroy it as you please.
If I may not do any or all of those things with an object, I do not own it.
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No, he's saying that if you own a PC then you're more likely to go around burgling other people.
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Well, I can understand why people did it. I mean, would you pay full price for something that could have been done as a 5 bucks DLC package?
Don't give Ubisoft your money. (Score:2)
That's fine and good, but you really shouldn't be rewarding draconian companies like Ubisoft with your money. Either abstain or find a rationalization for your piracy. My favorite is, "if they're going to treat me like a criminal then I'll act like one."
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"Adjust the crime to fit the punishment"
I would be. (Score:2)
It may not be as bad as pirating, but what you're doing is sending them a strong financial message: "It's ok to do this shit! I don't mind! I'll give you exactly as much money as I did before, I'll just be slightly more annoyed!"
If a game has enough DRM that I'd have to crack it just to play the way I want, or to protect my system, I'm not going to buy or play that game. I'll buy a different one with either no DRM, or DRM I can live with.
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Hmm...
unplugs ethernet cable, disables 802.11
Didn't quite work out that way. Got a "Steam needs to be online to update" message. Perhaps the Mac client differs substantially from the Windows version.
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Ah, there it goes.
Note to self: Play more games, more often.
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