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.

ShadowHearth

omfg you have to be constantly online to play single player game?!!?! are they fecking mad?!

so example: i am moving soon to a new house, and i wount have internet connection for awile, i need time to sort it out. So if i had AC2 i wouldnt be able to play it at all?!!?!?!?!!

i know loads of people who dont have internet connection but love to play single player games .....

i wount buy anything from ubisoft now... or if i will, i will just pirate it( which i havent done for 6 years! ).

sarumite

wayne040576 wrote: »

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.

Since the profit margins on PC games are lower compared to consoles it wouldn't surprise me if they devote fewer resources to developing a game on the PC platform.

sarumite

ShadowHearth wrote: »

omfg you have to be constantly online to play single player game?!!?! are they fecking mad?!

so example: i am moving soon to a new house, and i wount have internet connection for awile, i need time to sort it out. So if i had AC2 i wouldnt be able to play it at all?!!?!?!?!!

i know loads of people who dont have internet connection but love to play single player games .....

i wount buy anything from ubisoft now... or if i will, i will just pirate it( which i havent done for 6 years! ).

even if you do have internet, you shouldnt need it for a single player game...what if I am waiting in an airport or in a hotel on work...

Auvers

ShadowHearth

sarumite wrote: »

even if you do have internet, you shouldnt need it for a single player game...what if I am waiting in an airport or in a hotel on work...

true,its bullcrap...good old times.... pop in fallout2 and play it away.....

soon you will have to give your DNA to be able to play solitare with DRM....

Ri_Nollaig

Peglegged wrote: »

...

I actually have a fairly large DVD collection, including a few blu rays now. But as I found it so much easier to watch films from the 360 with a HDD connected I ended up just downloading again and putting them on it.
For example, I have that massive futurama collection boxset, But its just too much effort to actually swap the 15 disks and skip all the crap at the start, like the menus are just annoying.
Fighting piracy is one thing, but adding crap like this will probably make it worse! you really have to wonder what the dicussion was like during the meeting when they came up with this.

I would also assume its only the high end of the management who insist on this, the actual people who created the game know full well its a joke.

Fnz

sarumite wrote: »

I agree. Although what are they supposed to do...without DRM games are pirated to hell, with DRM games are being pirated to hell.

As illustrated by Peglegged's post - make the experience better for those that don't pirate than it is for those that do.

Accept that there will always be piracy and concentrate on super-serving your paying customers. Make it so that Joe Public gives a damn whether or not your products are successful. If you can foster a community around your brand you could even win over some of those pirates.

Maximilian

sarumite wrote: »

Since the profit margins on PC games are lower compared to consoles it wouldn't surprise me if they devote fewer resources to developing a game on the PC platform.

Obviously the margins on selling PC games digitally, with no manufacturing costs, retail cut, distributer's cut, console platform holder's fee etc. is lower than with console games.

sarumite

Fnz wrote: »

As illustrated by Peglegged's post - make the experience better for those that don't pirate than it is for those that do.

.

You mean like very limited DRM....say what Bioware put on Dragon age....and people still pirtate. Put no DRM and people will pirate. Although peglegged is obviosly exaggerated to show the genuine problems, the simple fact is that piracy is rampant on the PC and its not always because "its easier" or "less hassle" than the retail version....from my limited experience, in most case it is because people want the game but figure if they can pirate it, why bother paying for it.

sarumite

Maximilian wrote: »

Obviously the margins on selling PC games digitally, with no manufacturing costs, retail cut, distributer's cut, console platform holder's fee etc. is lower than with console games.

PC retail prices are usually lower than console game prices, so those factors are usually represented in the pricing. As en example. on play.com Bioshock 2 is €52 for xbox 360 but only €32 for PC.

gizmo

Quite right sarumite, it goes a little something like this.

Include no DRM -> see your product pirated.
Include DRM -> observe outrage from the internet...see your product pirated
Reduce the price of the PC version considerably -> see your product pirated
Try to include more incentives for people to buy the game new at retail -> see your product AND the incentives pirated

And then people wonder why publishers are so reluctant to invest in PC titles? Of course they know they'll never put a stop to piracy with measures like this but as I said before, I can see where they're coming from in at least trying to delay it or reduce it in some manner. It's also amusing when people take the "well **** you Mr. Publisher Man, I don't like that DRM so I'm going to pirate this game", a person who is then added to the statistic of people pirating games thus increasing the publishers resolve. :rolleyes:

Genghiz Cohen

I don't mind waiting a month for a game to come out on PC, give a nice amount of time for Average Joes to review it.

Maximilian

sarumite wrote: »

PC retail prices are usually lower than console game prices, so those factors are usually represented in the pricing. As en example. on play.com Bioshock 2 is €52 for xbox 360 but only €32 for PC.

My point was that PC games sales are going one way - digital. Sales on Steam alone more than double every year or so they claim. The same no doubt is the case for Direct2Drive or whoever. The margins must be huge compared with retail, since it's just bandwidth and whatever Steam or whoever charge. You say the opposite is the case; I think you are completely wrong.

It makes sense to me because I have bought maybe one boxed game at retail in maybe two years. As far as I'm concerned, traditional retail is dead as far as PC games go. The shrinking shelf space neither surprises nor alarms me. The margins on console games have to be a lot lower. The volumes of course are much higher.

Personally I think pricing is the major driving factor for piracy (along with differing release dates between Europe & the USA). When the prices are sensible, most people will buy rather than pirate. I think that's why the Steam sales were such a success. I think everyone I know on my Steam friends list bought at least one game last December during the Steam sale. To those who have pirated games, if the price of a new AAA game were say, 20 euro, would you have bought rather than pirated? I suspect many would answer yes.

Fnz

sarumite wrote: »

You mean like very limited DRM....say what Bioware put on Dragon age....and people still pirtate. Put no DRM and people will pirate. Although peglegged is obviosly exaggerated to show the genuine problems, the simple fact is that piracy is rampant on the PC and its not always because "its easier" or "less hassle" than the retail version....from my limited experience, in most case it is because people want the game but figure if they can pirate it, why bother paying for it.

I wasn't arguing that piracy isn't a problem. I was offering suggestions to help increase sales on the platform. "Limited DRM" on Dragon Age hardly means that buying a legitimate copy of the game is more attractive than pirating it.

Services like Steam Cloud add value to the product being sold. Same thing with being able to access game saves from any PC by logging into your account. It would be beneficial, in the fight against piracy, for companies to find new creative ways to build services like these around their games.

gizmo wrote: »

Quite right sarumite, it goes a little something like this.

Include no DRM -> see your product pirated.
Include DRM -> observe outrage from the internet...see your product pirated
Reduce the price of the PC version considerably -> see your product pirated
Try to include more incentives for people to buy the game new at retail -> see your product AND the incentives pirated

And then people wonder why publishers are so reluctant to invest in PC titles? Of course they know they'll never put a stop to piracy with measures like this but as I said before, I can see where they're coming from in at least trying to delay it or reduce it in some manner. It's also amusing when people take the "well **** you Mr. Publisher Man, I don't like that DRM so I'm going to pirate this game", a person who is then added to the statistic of people pirating games thus increasing the publishers resolve. :rolleyes:

More sad than funny if people are genuinely being pushed away from legitimate copies due to draconian DRM. Also sad if they acknowledge it's not going to stop piracy but continue annoying legitimate customers with the unintended consequences that can arise. Strange if, as you suggest, they find DRM reduces piracy as all it takes is one cracked copy to appear on the torrent sites for everyone to be able to acquire it.

I think the stick method is doomed to failure, more work should be put into the carrot method.

sarumite

Maximilian wrote: »

My point was that PC games sales are going one way - digital. Sales on Steam alone more than double every year or so they claim. The same no doubt is the case for Direct2Drive or whoever. The margins must be huge compared with retail, since it's just bandwidth and whatever Steam or whoever charge. You say the opposite is the case; I think you are completely wrong.

It makes sense to me because I have bought maybe one boxed game at retail in maybe two years. As far as I'm concerned, traditional retail is dead as far as PC games go. The shrinking shelf space neither surprises nor alarms me. The margins on console games have to be a lot lower. The volumes of course are much higher.

Personally I think pricing is the major driving factor for piracy (along with differing release dates between Europe & the USA). When the prices are sensible, most people will buy rather than pirate. I think that's why the Steam sales were such a success. I think everyone I know on my Steam friends list bought at least one game last December during the Steam sale. To those who have pirated games, if the price of a new AAA game were say, 20 euro, would you have bought rather than pirated? I suspect many would answer yes.

I agree with you about steam...although it should be noted that Steam is a DRM platform. My point was that when games companies put games out without DRM, they are pirated. Ubisofts approach to DRM, as I mentioned earlier, is stupid however Valves approach to DRM is much smarter....but both are selling games using some sort of DRM.

Dragon age is €20 on Play....and my friend still pirated it.

sarumite

Fnz wrote: »

I wasn't arguing that piracy isn't a problem. I was offering suggestions to help increase sales on the platform. "Limited DRM" on Dragon Age hardly means that buying a legitimate copy of the game is more attractive than pirating it.
t

The dragon age DRM requires a one time only basic disk check that does not require onine authentication....pirating it means you have to find the torrent, wait for it to be downloaded, replace the original files with the cracked files etc.....its a lot more work to pirate it....although it is more attractive to pirate coz it doesnt cost you any money.

Cuddlesworth

sarumite wrote: »

I agree with you about steam...although it should be noted that Steam is a DRM platform. My point was that when games companies put games out without DRM, they are pirated. Ubisofts approach to DRM, as I mentioned earlier, is stupid however Valves approach to DRM is much smarter....but both are selling games using some sort of DRM.

Dragon age is €20 on Play....and my friend still pirated it.

But its a DRM which offers me a huge number of advantages(download at any time, automated patching, no cd keys, social networking integrated into games) which none of the other DRM's do. Everybody I know who has Steam is 100% happy with it.

Fnz

sarumite wrote: »

The dragon age DRM requires a one time only basic disk check that does not require onine authentication....pirating it means you have to find the torrent, wait for it to be downloaded, replace the original files with the cracked files etc.....its a lot more work to pirate it....although it is more attractive to pirate coz it doesnt cost you any money.

Why are you still quoting me? Are we disagreeing somewhere?

Not to be rude but, in my posts, I do expound on the sentence, or two, you quote.

Overheal

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

But its a DRM which offers me a huge number of advantages(download at any time, automated patching, no cd keys, social networking integrated into games) which none of the other DRM's do. Everybody I know who has Steam is 100% happy with it.

Yeah but Steam isnt even as Anal Retentive as Ubisoft's new BS. Steam contacts the Auth Server Once at Launch afaik, or Not at All if you're in Offline Mode.

Only rarely will you get booted out of TF2 for something when the Stat Server crashes, but this is rare enough where I give 2 ****s, and it doesnt kick me out of the program or anything, I just rejoin the match I was in.

I think I'd rather Buy the Game then download a cracked version. Which is about what I had to do when my copy of Call of Duty got annihilated by the dog. Didnt get the CD Key though!

cherryghost

gizmo wrote: »

Reduce the price of the PC version considerably -> see your product pirated

PC versions are cheaper because theres no licencing fee. Windows is an open platform, unlike consoles.

Things like GFWL and DRM give PC gaming a sense of a closed platform, but people will always want things the best way anyways, so... yarrr pirate.