Poll: Internet Connection Required

[Kaymish]

no its not DRM its an attempt to make piracy more prolific and to punish people who do not pirate the game
its ubisofts punitive pro piracy measures

though it now sucks to be the OP i make sure to read all the DRM information Before i purchase the game and i am yet to be eaten by any more pro piracy measures

 

[Retardinator]

It's ridiculous! Stupid bloody DRM. I wonder what will happen with all the DRM encrusted games when the company goes down under and the servers stop running. (Example is Xbox Live with it's multiplayer support) What if even Microsoft goes down? Games for Windows live will screw everything up. What if Ubisoft goes down? Piracy becomes necessity. (Oh, the irony!) What if EA explodes? Where will the authentication servers be 10 years from now, you blind, foreshadowless fucks!?
Sorry, they really piss me off. I guess it'd be nice from everyone to get an anti-DRM patch or something before I lose the ability of playing anything that's dear to me.

I don't really believe, however, that anyone will want to play EA's games after such a long while. After all, they've got enough time to create two remakes of the original.

 

[Koganesaga]

Console games on disc no, PC games you installed Via disc no, Games that are strictly software with no hardware component yes, it will cut down slightly on piracy. That and you downloaded it, internet shouldn't be a huge issues anyway.

 

[Tharwen]

Basically, Ubisoft is run by idiots. I don't see how they expected millions of people to be unable to hack this software. Effectively, only the customers lose.

 

[Rainboq]

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

But if I wanted to play an MMO I'd buy WoW. Why must they force me to interact with other people. I work with people, they annoy me. Can't I have one thing I can do alone?

Its DRM man, the whole point is to prevent people from downloading the game illegally, but it doesn't really work, so just wait for the crack to come out and you fine

 

[KwaggaDan]

Also, I decided to check on the "ubi.com" website, to see if any one has mentioned it on the threads. And the kind Webmasters locked all those threads, so no one could complain. Well played. Very well played.

 

[Audioave10]

I'm starting to use Steam now and its so much better (I had not used it for 4 years). They
have a strong system and is about as safe as it can be. When AC2 came out, the next Sunday afternoon UBI's servers went down for almost 4 hours. FAIL.

 

[Saint_Zvlkx]

No. After living for 15 years in an area with dial-up only, just no. It means that Mister Paying Customer (me) buys a game, then gets fucked over when he learns he can't play the game he legally bought, so why not just torrent it?
(Not advising pirating, just making the point that pirates win out in this situation).

 

[KwaggaDan]

No. After living for 15 years in an area with dial-up only, just no. It means that Mister Paying Customer (me) buys a game, then gets fucked over when he learns he can't play the game he legally bought, so why not just torrent it?
(Not advising pirating, just making the point that pirates win out in this situation).

Once again the game, or entertainment industry at large, shows a need to shoot themselves in the foot. With a bazooka.

 

[Xanadu84]

All I can picture right now is an African American guy living in seclusion in the North a few years after the Civil War ended, getting called a nasty name by a southerner, then walking into a room filled with recently freed slaves and saying, "Man, you know what, I just found out that those confederate guys are jerks".

I'm certainly sympathetic, and I'm not surprised that legit customers are getting screwed over without their knowledge, but this is kind of funny because that DRM...has been kind of a big deal lately. In video game circles, at least, it seems like the only thing people want to talk about. And don't worry, everyone thinks that the DRM is a phenomenal failure, except maybe 2 dudes at Ubisoft.

 

[Jandau]

No, it shouldn't. A single player game shouldn't require a constant internet connection under any circumstances. Even if it has some online features, they should be optional or at least have some sort of offline mode.

On a related note, I'd just like to point out that cracks for pirated software also work on retail copies, so if you don't want the software you bought to syphon your net connection constantly, look into one of those. I did it for my (used) copy of Assassin's Creed 2, to great success.

 

[Deadlock Radium]

I've got an excellent internet connection, but I still answered "no" in the poll because about once a month, me any my family spends a week-end at our summerhouse where it isn't any internet.
And it's boring there, so playing games there, even though there are no internet, is a lifesaver.

 

[squid5580]

The DRM isn't that bad. Normally it's just registering the game, unless I don't really understand DRM.

Still, it's an assumption that everyone in the world has great internet. My internet on the other hand is about as stable as a bi-polar at the suicide hotline...

DRMs are different. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are CD keys, some are limited installs and some are well this. None of them have proven to actually be effective.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

I would suggest waiting a little while for when a crack comes out for it and then using that

I bought Assassin's Creed 2 and just downloaded a crack for easy use if I ever happen to not have an internet connection (I can't see this happening to be honest, but better to be safe)

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Rule number 1 In customer relations: Don't treat your consumers like criminals.

Unless you own a privately run prison.

 

[Treblaine]

WTF! I voted yes but it didn't register!

No seriously, I think PC games could have mandatory internet connection this but only on one condition:

The Developers take advantage of this requirement and make games better for it

Think about all the things a good developer (like valve) could do if the people who played their game were always plugged in?

-Massively Singleplayer online: see Demon's Souls and how all the people who are playing a game together can interact, collaborate and share their online experience.
-Massive endless beta testing: We've seen Valve do with with online multiplayer, constantly analyse and improve with rebalances, tweaks and redoes, how can this be used to refine single player and how will this impress publishers who always like to know if their money is well spent (i.e. did most player even NOTICE that special effect we spent $100'000 of man hours coding for?)
-Auto-demos and centralised benchmarking: did you perform an amazing feat in single player? Well it's there recorded officially for everyone to know. Make it easy to record demos and store them online in the cloud and share. make it fare easier for developers to give recommended settings and hardware.
-Easy co-op anywhere, any-time: Since you are connected to central servers most of the time
-Server side processing: I don't mean what Online is doing, that is sending video back, I'm talkign help with the physics and AI which is really jsut very small amounts of data beign sent back and forth.
-Variable outcomes: Ubi's DRm works by many of the game interactions being decided not by the data on the stored files but some from data on the online servers. How could that be varied from week to week, there could be new challenges and outcomes all the time.
-Connect to wider web resources: in game you are limited to what is on the install folder, connected online you have potential to access all the data on the developer's server which could always bee updated. There could be virtually limitless video content (streamed in 720p), voice and music as well as virtually limitless data-files that could act as back story to a plot, be be added to as necessary.

I mean think about the potential of a singleplayer PC game if it wasn't just limited to what was in the install folder

Think about Portal and how the VERY FACT that people owning the DRM'd Steam version they got special promotion by new items being added in and even an alternate ending.

Other deals like how if your are on Steam DRM and you already own STALKER 2 you get STALKER 3 at reduced price.

Less fun but necessary things could be:
-in game advertising: the thing about online connection is it can be verified when each ad is viewed, this is TOTALLY different from the product-placement/in-game-ads seen before as PC games have the potential to continuously earn publishers money the more they are played. The makes PC gaming a far more lucrative investment even if it makes up for a smaller market share
-Achievement monitoring: one reason achievements can never be of any worth is because it can never be verified HOW they earned them, if they hacked or exploited their way through them.
-Flexible payment: great for poorer parts of the world (Poland is a lovely place but many young people (PC gamers) are very short on cash) to pay by instalment, this is possible here as the game comes with strings attached in case the default on payments. I mean who would honestly pirate a game if they only had to pay £2.50-£5 a month?

Doing things like that is the ONLY WAY that DRM like Ubi's will work because there will ALWAYS exist a cracked version, but you can't crack a service (as easily), by making a game more than just a stand alone program but an integrated online service then it has INCREDIBLE potential.

I think we need a company like Valve to show Ubisoft how it is done, because this DRM alone is not ANY solution to piracy, it is also a huge missed opportunity.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I think it's really stupid. But that is solely my opinion. I preferred the Blizzard way, they asked you if you wanted to register their game online. If not, skip and play.

It's really, really stupid. To me, it feels like they're giving people an excuse to be pissed at them and pirate their games.

Rule number 1 In customer relations: Don't treat your consumers like criminals.

Rule Number 1 in gaming: Gamers are assholes.

As for the original post: Registering is not DRM. (Unless they've changed that or it's not really registering).

As for the topic: No, I don't think games should require an internet connection unless they are online games. At the same time I know that any game that uses DRM must have something like an Online DRM system because if it can be encrypted it can be unencrypted. When one type of thing fails, you try another. I wish companies would stop putting in DRM and I wish gamers would stop pirating everything but I don't see either happening any time soon.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Never.

Bceause it's fascist.

 

[Marter]

It sucks for those with poor/limited internet connections. I don't have a problem doing it, but I do have a problem with the entire philosophy.

 

[Treblaine]

So, I just purchased Splinter Cell Conviction. Wooo! Except I now discovered that it wants an internet connection, and the data usage, although quite small, amounts to a fair amount.

Now, in SA, the internet is still fairly expensive, and I don't have R900 for uncapped internet. So all I'd like to ask is why is there this obsession with constant internet connection?

I know something like Ubisoft's DRM can seem horrible, and nothing can be said to change the fact that for millions of people it will be a real pain to deal with.

But I think the hardest thing for people is how pointless and ineffective the entire DRM-system is, people don't like to be told a impediment they have to deal with is to counter piracy when surely the very fact that they paid for the game PROVES they are not a pirate.

The way I see it Ubisoft's DRM is a job half done and a job that unfortunately I see as necessary to preserve PC gaming as a lucrative platform.

I think the idea being their DRM is while connected you are GUARANTEED to be owning and playing a legitimate product, but the shortcomings of their plans are revealed when it becomes apparent how easy it is to crack these games, and then how easy they are to then pirate.

See there is so little incentive to stay with the online-DRM un-tampered version.

One thing that is clear is they need to INTEGRATE the need for an internet connection, to developer run servers, so that is makes it MUCH harder to crack the game and also even if a rudimentary crack is made... then people would be worse off choosing it.

At the moment Video and PC games are much like movies and other media, once they are completed they are released into the wild to fend for themselves.

But mandating an internet connection makes games an ongoing service, a constantly evolving experience. That is something that games can do unlike almost any other media, a single player that changes not just on individuals experiences but on the experiences of the ENTIRE gaming group. It could be sold as an infinite number of parallel universes, converging on one final event, the climax of the game, the final boss...

Ubisoft have stumbled I think in the right direction, they have broken the ice on the concept of online single player but now it is time for other developers, publishers and games makers, those who are serious and confident about PC gaming and new innovation to take the plunge and do what everyone hates but I'm sure will bring a new Golden age of PC gaming, leading the way in innovation rather than following.