Dear Ubisoft Entertainment,
This petition has been created in response to the recent announcement of your latest DRM system, which you have stated will be used for all future PC games published by your studios.
While your implementation of some form of DRM is understandable, the methods this version uses to combat piracy will only alienate those ready, willing and able to purchase your games through legal means. This new, draconian format alienates the PC gaming community, forcing its members to:
A) Submit to an entirely unfair standard of DRM which punishes ONLY the willing consumer,
B) Purchase the games in question on other platforms/ignore the game entirely, or
C) Pirate cracked versions via torrents, warez sites, etc. to escape the strict measures of DRM.
The final option not only harms Ubisoft Entertainment, but also the PC gaming community: for as the number of pirates grows, corporations like your own are forced to seek fiercer forms of copy protection. Large-scale piracy is something that neither party desires to see happen: Ubisoft Entertainment desires to protect its intellectual property and we [the PC gaming community] desire to purchase/play your games without being treated like common criminals.
Therefore, we ask:
1) That you seriously revise your future plans for how DRM works in single-player games (such as the soon to be released Assassin's Creed 2): in particular, an internet connection should not be constantly required. There are MANY players out there who are not in possession of stable internet connections, or even in possession of internet connections at all: to these people, this new DRM scheme means that they will be incapable of enjoying your products.
2) That Ubisoft Entertainment look at other DRM functions of the past (implemented not only by yourselves, but by other companies as well) and see how easily they are broken by pirates. We ask you to understand that the use of DRM only causes problems for the gamers out there which legally acquire copies of your games. The consumers must suffer through such potential issues as servers going down, logins not working correctly, backround security programs (such as Securom) slowing down their computers, etc: while in the meantime pirates can play without such harsh (and sometimes invasive) problems thanks to their ability to bypass your software's security protocols.
I hope that those in charge of the implementation of DRM of Ubisoft Entertainment will take note of this petition, the many articles published across the internet on the subject of DRM, and the general response said articles have received from the gaming public.
.
