Ubisoft busting out the online DRM beams

Shens

This Ubisoft DRM idea is baffling. I thought publishers realized by now that paying customers are more annoyed by intrusive DRM than the pirates. The pirates have it cracked on launch day. I guess I wont be playing Ubisoft games for a long time. :x

Axen

Perhaps people at Ubisoft (and other Dev houses) are simply unaware of how pirated games (and/or cracks) work?

Or perhaps they do and do not care because they think (and maybe correctly) that it is more important to appease investors.

mrt144

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

The thing that annoys me is that publishers know that DRM doesn't stop piracy. The problem is, they have a duty to please their shareholders, who know nothing about the gaming industry. They go, "I heard that piracy is a problem! What are you doing to prevent it?" The publisher feels they can't say "Nothing!" and expect their share prices to remain high.

I think shareholders of such companies by and large understand that there is no magic bullet to piracy.

JihadJesus

I just don't get DRM from the publishers point of view as a strategic approach to deterring piracy. Now not only is the pirated version cheaper than purchasing but it's also simpler and just generally better all around.

Good strategy that, punishing your paying customers. I predict it'll work well.

cooljammer00

Also making them wait the extra three months.

Pata

Raiden333 wrote: »

The example I use is Rifftrax. For those who don't know, the guys who did Mystery Science Theatre moved on to rifftrax.com, and they make funny commentary tracks that you synch up to a DVD to get the Mystery Science Theatre effect. However, a couple of my friends think that synching it up is too much of a hassle, so they just download a pirated version already synched up with the video file.

If you ignore the legal/ethical problems with it and examine it from purely a utility standpoint, this makes it a HELL of a lot easier to watch a pirated version than to synch up a bought one with a legal DVD, and frustrates people like me who have to do it the normal way.

..why don't you just rip the movie from your DVD, put on the Rifftrax, and then watch it?

Raiden333

Pata wrote: »

Raiden333 wrote: »

The example I use is Rifftrax. For those who don't know, the guys who did Mystery Science Theatre moved on to rifftrax.com, and they make funny commentary tracks that you synch up to a DVD to get the Mystery Science Theatre effect. However, a couple of my friends think that synching it up is too much of a hassle, so they just download a pirated version already synched up with the video file.

If you ignore the legal/ethical problems with it and examine it from purely a utility standpoint, this makes it a HELL of a lot easier to watch a pirated version than to synch up a bought one with a legal DVD, and frustrates people like me who have to do it the normal way.

..why don't you just rip the movie from your DVD, put on the Rifftrax, and then watch it?

That's what I do when it's good enough that I know I'll want to watch it again. But it takes effort to do that, effort my (admittedly lazy-ass, considering it takes all of 5 minutes) friends don't want to bother with. Like, the money isn't even an issue, they still donate to rifftrax to pay for what they watch.

Edit: Or at least they tell me they do because they know I'd kick their asses if they told me they stole from Mike and the crew.

Elvenshae

Raiden333 wrote: »

Edit: Or at least they tell me they do because they know I'd kick their asses if they told me they stole from Mike and the CROOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!.

Fix'd.

Jaunty

I guess that's the advantage Valve gets from staying a private company. A lot more power to experiment, at the cost of keeping a smaller team and longer dev cycles. I think that model is pretty advantageous to the consumer though.

TetraNitroCubane

JihadJesus wrote: »

I just don't get DRM from the publishers point of view as a strategic approach to deterring piracy. Now not only is the pirated version cheaper than purchasing but it's also simpler and just generally better all around.

Good strategy that, punishing your paying customers. I predict it'll work well.

There's something to be said about this in terms making PC games unappealing for the purpose of boosting console sales. Over on the 2K forums someone was talking about a phone call they made to customer support regarding their implementation of GFWL on BioShock 2. Apparently the answer he was given was 'Buy a console and you won't have these problems'.

Combined with the 'delay' release of the PC version of Borderlands, and I wonder if 2K isn't trying to bolster their console-based sales over the PC versions. And I don't care what anyone says about that delay for Borderlands - There was no way any additional optimization done during that period of time.

Edit: Ah, here's the guy's screed about 2K. A bit long, though, so here's the choice bit:

In the past 24 hours alone in dealing with 2K, I have received partial answers, contradictions and from phone support, flat out refusal to discuss BioShock 2 as well as derogatory remarks made about PC gaming and the suggestion to just "Move to console if you don't like DRM" from one support representative who pretty much trashed the last shred of faith I had in 2K.

GnomeTank

Shens wrote: »

This Ubisoft DRM idea is baffling. I thought publishers realized by now that paying customers are more annoyed by intrusive DRM than the pirates. The pirates have it cracked on launch day. I guess I wont be playing Ubisoft games for a long time. :x

The technical grunts and middle managers in most of these companies probably DO know all of that. The ones who don't know, or flat don't care, tend to be the upper management, executives and board members.

It's really a catch-22 for a lot of us. The adage "vote with your wallet" doesn't really work, because the data is being misinterpreted by the business policy makers. We stop buying the games, they think they're losing money to pirates, so they make the DRM worse and worse, and thus we buy less PC games...it's a vicious cycle that the people who make business decisions need to figure out.

subedii

TetraNitroCubane wrote: »

JihadJesus wrote: »

I just don't get DRM from the publishers point of view as a strategic approach to deterring piracy. Now not only is the pirated version cheaper than purchasing but it's also simpler and just generally better all around.

Good strategy that, punishing your paying customers. I predict it'll work well.

There's something to be said about this in terms making PC games unappealing for the purpose of boosting console sales. Over on the 2K forums someone was talking about a phone call they made to customer support regarding their implementation of GFWL on BioShock 2. Apparently the answer he was given was 'Buy a console and you won't have these problems'.

Combined with the 'delay' release of the PC version of Borderlands, and I wonder if 2K isn't trying to bolster their console-based sales over the PC versions. And I don't care what anyone says about that delay for Borderlands - There was no way any additional optimization done during that period of time.

Edit: Ah, here's the guy's screed about 2K. A bit long, though, so here's the choice bit:

In the past 24 hours alone in dealing with 2K, I have received partial answers, contradictions and from phone support, flat out refusal to discuss BioShock 2 as well as derogatory remarks made about PC gaming and the suggestion to just "Move to console if you don't like DRM" from one support representative who pretty much trashed the last shred of faith I had in 2K.

I am sure knowing that there are activation limits on all GFWL titles comes as a surprise to many of us, company's have kept consumers in the dark about DRM for a long time, there is a great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding and fear surrounding DRM, when you mix that with legitimate anger from customers whom have been harmed in some way in their dealings with DRM and you have an explosive and volatile mix.

Wait what? Can anyone shed some light on this comment? I'm not intent on trawling through that whole thread.

If this is actually true it takes my dislike of GFWL to a whole new level.

zychi

surrealitycheck wrote: »

I don't like the idea of saves that aren't on my computer. Seriously, my cable line gets downed and suddenly I can't load?

A cracked version will actually be the only version you can play when offline. HOW RAD IS THAT

YES GUYS THE BEST WAY TO STOP PEOPLE PIRATING YOUR SOFTWARE IS TO MAKE IT THE ONLY OPTION WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE INTERTUBES

How are you going to get the crack if you dont have internet?

Peewi

subedii wrote: »

I am sure knowing that there are activation limits on all GFWL titles comes as a surprise to many of us, company's have kept consumers in the dark about DRM for a long time, there is a great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding and fear surrounding DRM, when you mix that with legitimate anger from customers whom have been harmed in some way in their dealings with DRM and you have an explosive and volatile mix.

Wait what? Can anyone shed some light on this comment? I'm not intent on trawling through that whole thread.

If this is actually true it takes my dislike of GFWL to a whole new level.

I've heard at some point that a GFWL cd-key can be activated 15 times and if you want to use it after that you need to contact Microsoft. I don't know whether that's correct, though.

TetraNitroCubane

subedii wrote: »

I am sure knowing that there are activation limits on all GFWL titles comes as a surprise to many of us, company's have kept consumers in the dark about DRM for a long time, there is a great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding and fear surrounding DRM, when you mix that with legitimate anger from customers whom have been harmed in some way in their dealings with DRM and you have an explosive and volatile mix.

Wait what? Can anyone shed some light on this comment? I'm not intent on trawling through that whole thread.

If this is actually true it takes my dislike of GFWL to a whole new level.

I don't even know, and I've been following that thread for days.

I do know that BioShock 2 is using Non-Server Side Activation codes for GFWL. This means you can activate the game 15 times before needing to call up Microsoft to get more activations. It's not clear what constitutes an 'activation', though, as they've also claimed that reinstallation doesn't count.

In the midst of all this, 2K said they wanted to stay away from Server Side Activation (SSA) keys, because they 'heard the community and that's what they wanted', or some slag like that. SSA keys can only be activated once, but are tied to your Live account, and can be used anywhere you log in (think like Steam). They said that the Non-SSA 15 activation method would be better - And someone along the way claimed that ALL GFWL games that don't have an SSA key use activation limits.

I really don't know if that's true, or just overdramatics. I remember that DoW II had GFWL, and I was able to use it offline fine.

Axen

zychi wrote: »

surrealitycheck wrote: »

I don't like the idea of saves that aren't on my computer. Seriously, my cable line gets downed and suddenly I can't load?

A cracked version will actually be the only version you can play when offline. HOW RAD IS THAT

YES GUYS THE BEST WAY TO STOP PEOPLE PIRATING YOUR SOFTWARE IS TO MAKE IT THE ONLY OPTION WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE INTERTUBES

How are you going to get the crack if you dont have internet?

Actually this situation happened to me last year.

I moved in to my new house which did not have internet at the time. In fact I was still renovating a good deal of it. :P Anyway, I went and bought Far Cry 2 and went home to install it. However when I went to go play it I needed to activate it online. I was a bit disappointed at that. So I went down to the local McDonalds, got myself a double cheese burger, used their free WiFi, and got me what I needed. Went home again, played the game, and had a good ol' time. When I finally did get internet I was able to legitimately activate the game.

Granted, not having internet to activate a game would be a rare enough occurrence that 99% of the people who buy the game will not have any problems activating it. So it is understandable that companies do not take that in to consideration. Does it suck when your internet is down and can't play? Yes. However it is such a small minority of gamers that would be effected by this that it is basically a non-issue for publishers/developers.

Besides, if you ever have any problems with DRM you are only a 10 second download away from having it fixed.

Mechanical

Axen wrote: »

Perhaps people at Ubisoft (and other Dev houses) are simply unaware of how pirated games (and/or cracks) work?

These are the same people that patched RSV2 with a no-cd crack.

Axen

Mechanical wrote: »

Axen wrote: »

Perhaps people at Ubisoft (and other Dev houses) are simply unaware of how pirated games (and/or cracks) work?

These are the same people that patched RSV2 with a no-cd crack.

Hahaha! I had forgotten about that! Oh good stuff, good stuff.

Spoit

General_Win wrote: »

I would like to see the game they think people will tough this out for.

When Blizzard makes dumb decisions about how they're going to release SC2 its okay, because people are going to buy SC because its SC.

What game do they think they make where people are going to over look this and be like: welp it can't be that bad.

Well, the first game scheduled for it is....Settlers 7....yeah...

Rent

surrealitycheck wrote: »

OP

I am rather unsurprised by this, being that this is Ubisoft, who have stolen a patch from pirates to fix their own broken as shit PC game

Man, fuck Ubisoft. If they didn't make awesome games they'd be shat upon as much as Activision

Barcardi

i give it three days before AC Drm is hacked.

72 hours

GnomeTank

I'll say that AC's DRM is hacked before the PC version makes it's street date. I don't know of a single PC game in recent memory that wasn't leaked, cracked and available two to three weeks before the street date.

Barcardi

Also "cloud computing" is the new "nanotechnology" or "AI"

Rent

General_Win wrote: »

I would like to see the game they think people will tough this out for.

When Blizzard makes dumb decisions about how they're going to release SC2 its okay, because people are going to buy SC because its SC.

What game do they think they make where people are going to over look this and be like: welp it can't be that bad.

Modern Warfare 3

Ooh I can't wait till the inevitable protest group on Steam sprouts up and someone screenshots when MW3 drops! Oh the preemptive schadenfreude is delicious

Barcardi

Along those lines, isnt MW2 the most pirated game of all time already?

Rent

Barcardi wrote: »

Along those lines, isnt MW2 the most pirated game of all time already?

Well, in Ubisoft's defense the piracy made MW2 into a massive bomb

I mean, come on, such an enormous loss of that magnitude to the company has not been matched before or since

TetraNitroCubane

subedii wrote: »

I am sure knowing that there are activation limits on all GFWL titles comes as a surprise to many of us, company's have kept consumers in the dark about DRM for a long time, there is a great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding and fear surrounding DRM, when you mix that with legitimate anger from customers whom have been harmed in some way in their dealings with DRM and you have an explosive and volatile mix.

Wait what? Can anyone shed some light on this comment? I'm not intent on trawling through that whole thread.

If this is actually true it takes my dislike of GFWL to a whole new level.

Okay, I did some digging after my earlier post. It turns out that any game using GFWL is in fact saddled with limited installs.

Here's a thread on the Steam forums about someone using all their activations.

Here's a DoW:II community tech support FAQ. If you search it for 'Activation', you'll find the following:

** I'm getting some sort of error about activation limits **

For those who cannot sign into LIVE due to an error message indicating they have exceeded the maximum allowed number of activations, please:

1. Go to <!-- m -->http://www.xbox.com<!-- m -->
2. Select “Support”
3. Select “Contact Support” and find a phone number for your region/language

When you speak with a LIVE representative please explain that you are using Games for Windows LIVE with DoW2 and you are being told that you have exceeded the maximum allowed number of activations. They will likely ask about how many times you have installed the game and other relevant information. The customer service representative should be able to assist you in getting the game running again.

So apparently, GFWL has always been sticking us with undisclosed activation limits this whole time.

subedii

TetraNitroCubane wrote: »

subedii wrote: »

I am sure knowing that there are activation limits on all GFWL titles comes as a surprise to many of us, company's have kept consumers in the dark about DRM for a long time, there is a great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding and fear surrounding DRM, when you mix that with legitimate anger from customers whom have been harmed in some way in their dealings with DRM and you have an explosive and volatile mix.

Wait what? Can anyone shed some light on this comment? I'm not intent on trawling through that whole thread.

If this is actually true it takes my dislike of GFWL to a whole new level.

Okay, I did some digging after my earlier post. It turns out that any game using GFWL is in fact saddled with limited installs.

Here's a thread on the Steam forums about someone using all their activations.

Here's a DoW:II community tech support FAQ. If you search it for 'Activation', you'll find the following:

** I'm getting some sort of error about activation limits **

For those who cannot sign into LIVE due to an error message indicating they have exceeded the maximum allowed number of activations, please:

1. Go to <!-- m -->http://www.xbox.com<!-- m -->
2. Select “Support”
3. Select “Contact Support” and find a phone number for your region/language

When you speak with a LIVE representative please explain that you are using Games for Windows LIVE with DoW2 and you are being told that you have exceeded the maximum allowed number of activations. They will likely ask about how many times you have installed the game and other relevant information. The customer service representative should be able to assist you in getting the game running again.

So apparently, GFWL has always been sticking us with undisclosed activation limits this whole time.

Oh what the hell. Seriously, why is that even necessary? It's most pointlessly stupid idiocity I could imagine, I can't even believe they've implemented it that way.

DoW2 is on Steam, a system that only allows one concurrent user at a time anyway. WHY saddle on top of that a system that has install limits? But wait, we thought of that, so we expanded the install limit to 15 to make the whole system completely pointless anyway AS WELL as an unnecessary addition and restriction.

It's like my brain cannot even process the amount of utter fail behind such stupid, stupid implementation of such a bad idea.


EDIT: Seriously, DRM apologists, it's crap like this that is both completely nonsensical and utterly pointless we're talking about. It has about as much reason to exist as concrete life-vest.

surrealitycheck

How are you going to get the crack if you dont have internet?

I has irregular intertubes, not zero intertubes

GnomeTank

DoW2 isn't steam exclusive. You can buy it on a DVD, which is, I would imagine, why they did it. Yes, you can still buy PC games on DVD. Shocking, I know.

It also doesn't make the system any less retarded, but it's a reason at least.

subedii

GnomeTank wrote: »

DoW2 isn't steam exclusive. You can buy it on a DVD, which is, I would imagine, why they did it. Yes, you can still buy PC games on DVD. Shocking, I know.

It also doesn't make the system any less retarded, but it's a reason at least.

I BOUGHT DoW2 on a DVD. It ties into Steam and becomes part of your Steam account, as such I do not find it freaking "shocking". The game cannot be run without Steam, and it updates through Steam. That is not a freaking reason.


EDIT: That came off as unnecessarily catty, sorry. But no, that's not a valid reason when it comes to DoW2.

Suriko

GnomeTank wrote: »

I'll say that AC's DRM is hacked before the PC version makes it's street date. I don't know of a single PC game in recent memory that wasn't leaked, cracked and available two to three weeks before the street date.

Anno 1404. Took two weeks (and of course was bandied about as "uncrackable" by obnoxiously astroturfing developers). To their credit, they did eventually patch out the DRM (or so the wiki page says).

That said, Anno 1404 was a somewhat niche citybuilding game. Assassin's Creed 2 is a AAA big name title.

TetraNitroCubane

Suriko wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

I'll say that AC's DRM is hacked before the PC version makes it's street date. I don't know of a single PC game in recent memory that wasn't leaked, cracked and available two to three weeks before the street date.

Anno 1404. Took two weeks (and of course was bandied about as "uncrackable" by obnoxiously astroturfing developers). To their credit, they did eventually patch out the DRM (or so the wiki page says).

That said, Anno 1404 was a somewhat niche citybuilding game. Assassin's Creed 2 is a AAA big name title.

That probably has a lot to do with it. Due to popularity, I'm going to guess that Assassin's Creed 2 will be leaked by someone in the development, testing, or distribution teams before the disks are pressed. That's usually how these things get into the net before they've even been loaded onto the trucks.

Axen

Install limits is one form of DRM I have never understood the reasoning behind. I mean, online activation I can understand somewhat, CD-checks of course, CD-keys being a no brainer, but limited installs is such a dumb idea. People who pirate the game are not using up any limited "installs". The only people this effects at all are legitimate consumers. Sure you can make the argument that 15 installs is a lot and it may be unlikely that you would have to deal with Customer Service, and I would agree, but there shouldn't even be an install limit to begin with.

Spoit

Suriko wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

I'll say that AC's DRM is hacked before the PC version makes it's street date. I don't know of a single PC game in recent memory that wasn't leaked, cracked and available two to three weeks before the street date.

Anno 1404. Took two weeks (and of course was bandied about as "uncrackable" by obnoxiously astroturfing developers). To their credit, they did eventually patch out the DRM (or so the wiki page says).

That said, Anno 1404 was a somewhat niche citybuilding game. Assassin's Creed 2 is a AAA big name title.

Again, the title they announced this DRM for is the Settlers 7, which comes out after AC2

-Loki-

subedii wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

DoW2 isn't steam exclusive. You can buy it on a DVD, which is, I would imagine, why they did it. Yes, you can still buy PC games on DVD. Shocking, I know.

It also doesn't make the system any less retarded, but it's a reason at least.

I BOUGHT DoW2 on a DVD. It ties into Steam and becomes part of your Steam account, as such I do not find it freaking "shocking". The game cannot be run without Steam, and it updates through Steam. That is not a freaking reason.


EDIT: That came off as unnecessarily catty, sorry. But no, that's not a valid reason when it comes to DoW2.

I was rather surprised by that actually. I bought it retail, and installed it. Being a completely new PC, I hadn't installed Steam yet. Then the Steam install comes up and all I think is 'huh, this is a Steam only game?'. Not that I mind, it's the best of both worlds - updating via steam and using steam as DRM means not using the disc. But I still own a disc, which I like.

urahonky

So how exactly do you think they'll crack something that requires an internet connection?

The only way I can think of is that the game goes to some Ubisoft server, gets a validation key, and then sends it back to the game allowing playtime. The crack could possibly send a "validation" key to the game allowing it to play. But what if the key is uniquely tied to the game to allow the game to accept said key?

I think the best form of DRM was Batman: AA for the PC. They put out the game themselves in the torrent sites, and the game didn't allow you to use Batman's glide ability, effectively stopping you from being able to play after about 20 minutes into the game.

cooljammer00

They'll find a way.

TetraNitroCubane

Yeah, they always find away around this stuff. GFWL has been cracked out of GTAVI, and that game required a GFWL connection just to save the game, if I recall correctly.

Also, while I really think that the Batman AA approach to DRM is freaking cool and awesome, I'm pretty sure that got circumvented in short order, too.

Because it's relevant, I want to link to the "Piracy & PC Gaming" post that a Stardock representative made on their forums. It's a refreshing take on the issue from a developer who obviously knows what's going on. (Link is a little wonky for some reason. Just click through the object moved page.)

strebalicious

Any time I hear about DRM, I always think back to 2D Boy and "World Of Goo".

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21123

I think people are slowly (very slowly) coming to the realization that people who pirate probably wouldn't bother buying the product anyway.