Australian Gamers Struggling Under Ubisoft DRM

[Eleima]

Well... they're French? I dunno, I feel like I'm insulting the general French populace at this point. I apologize to any French people.

Apology accepted. But it's the geniuses at Ubisoft Montreal who came out with this idea, so it's the Canadians' fault.

Seriously though, this is just one more example that DRM *just*doesn't*work*... Hopefully, the gaming industry will get the hint and stop using DRM. There's got to be a better solution.

 

[Galad]

Like Australia really need more bad mojo. Poor guys.

At least they have the Mana Bar to redeem themselves

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

...excuse me while I once again do the "I told you so"-dance.

This DRM is actually stopping piracy, which is a industry first (well, except for splinter cell chaos theory). AC 2 still not cracked after almost a month out.

It was my impression that AC2 actually has been cracked. I don't really follow that sort of thing, though.

It's partially cracked. You can play it up until certain points where there are triggers missing or somesuch. AFAIK you can only get past those points by using a savegame from beyond the trigger, so while the crack does allow you to play the game, not all of the security has been removed.

Still, I don't doubt that it will eventually get cracked. When a DRM as radically different like this one is used for the first time it takes a bit longer to crack since the crackers aren't familiar with it, but eventually they always get what they want. The first cracks for Arkham Asylum also got you stuck at a certain point, but eventually new cracks fixed that problem too.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

And they still think this is a good idea. For god's sake, the pirates are just laughing their arses off while we struggle with the servers!

As much as Ubisoft will try to deny it the pirates won after little over a week of the games being released. Face facts Ubisoft, your losing more legitimate customers and turning them to piracy more than your gaining them.

 

[Asehujiko]

This DRM is actually stopping piracy, which is a industry first (well, except for splinter cell chaos theory). AC 2 still not cracked after almost a month out.

The crack works, it just requires ubisoft's servers to be offline(like now). It's cracked, it just has a bunch of hidden phone homes that nobody bothered to remove because nobody expected the servers to work.

And if if the DRM did work, what is the point in stopping piracy if it doesn't gain you any sales? That kind of scorched earth policy would only make sense if the pirates are all donating money to a rival publisher every time they download something, which they don't(except for the guy who sent $60 to DICE because of MW2).

 

[nolongerhere]

This DRM is actually stopping piracy, which is a industry first (well, except for splinter cell chaos theory). AC 2 still not cracked after almost a month out.

It also has the potentially unwanted side effect of stopping anyone play the game, which could be construed as some kind of failing, I guess.

 

[Abedeus]

This DRM is actually stopping piracy, which is a industry first (well, except for splinter cell chaos theory). AC 2 still not cracked after almost a month out.

Yeah, but while without DRM there would be copies on Torrents, also lots of people would buy the game.

If, you know, we hadn't expected something like this happening. And we did.

 

[Mromson]

This DRM is actually stopping piracy, which is a industry first (well, except for splinter cell chaos theory). AC 2 still not cracked after almost a month out.

I'm sorry, I CERTAINLY wasn't playing AC2 the day it came out without paying for it. No, sir! Not me. I wouldn't do that!

 

[Arec Balrin]

Considering that one given reason for piracy is to test a game before buying it, then the cracked AC2 torrent does its job and Ubisoft loses. Enough of the game is playable for a person to weigh up if they want the full thing, but with a ball and chain on their ankle.

That really is the point: not the stop piracy but to increase sales, which are supposedly missing because people pirated instead. Ubisoft make the mistake of every publisher by assuming there is only one kind of pirate and that this kind of pirate is specifically the kind that would have otherwise definitely bought the game if piracy wasn't an option.

 

[Suskie]

You know something? Assassin's Creed II was my favorite game of 2009, and I really want PC gamers to enjoy it as I did, but if they're not getting screwed over by this horrible DRM scheme, then they're ignoring the game altogether (for a perfectly legitimate reason, albeit one that has nothing to do with the quality of the game).

Ubisoft makes good stuff. It sucks that they're making silly decisions like this.

 

[Callex]

The thing is, not even pirates get the 'full game experience' for multiplayer focused games like the settlers (even when the game is eventually cracked). The pirates lose, the consumers lose, the developers lose - nobody wins here...

 

[Antari]

If everyone keeps buying Ubisoft's games, this will only get worse. I am done with them, perminantly. I don't care if they come up with a different system, or the best game in history. I'm not interested in any more of their ideas.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Well, at least I wasn't particularly interested in that title (also, I don't live in Australia). Not that I would have bought it even if the DRM wasn't causing issues, as I'm boycotting any and all Ubisoft products until the end of time or removal of this DRM (whichever is sooner), which I would still do if they managed to make it work flawlessly all the time. The principle of the thing alone is enough to get me fired up, that their stupid consumer-punishing system doesn't freaking work properly just reinforces my ire.

 

[Starke]

I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been a class action suit against Ubisoft yet, over this mess. Someone with more familiarity with Australian law may be able to help me, but from what little I know of it, Ubisoft would be hosed.

 

[Starke]

I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been a class action suit against Ubisoft yet, over this mess. Someone with more familiarity with Australian law may be able to help me, but from what little I know of it, Ubisoft would be hosed.

Class action lawsuits are fruitless wastes of time. Look at the "Hot Coffee" lawsuit against Rockstar, which netted participants up to thirty bucks each. Yeah, hardly worth the legal expenses or personal time.

Far better to boycott than sue.

On the other hand, the Hot Coffee suit was basically merit-less. If you turn around and present a product, that a company sold, knowing full well their product would not be able to function. That's class action territory.

 

[ma55ter_fett]

Hell, I knew that UBISOFT was demented and evil long ago

and so once again;

DAMN YOU UBISOFT! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

 

[Bob_F_It]

Soon the servers went down on the same day that Ubisoft make their [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99432-Ubisoft-Apologizes-for-DRM-Troubles-With-Free-Games"]free game apology[/a]. I have my suspicions...