Ubisoft Clarifies New Online DRM Scheme

[TimeCruiserMike]

I shall be torrenting a cracked version of this game just because of the DRM, heh . . . i might even play it. . . maybe. but atleast i won't be paying for it.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I'm glad I don't have to put up with this (Console gamer, FTW).

I wonder when developers will figure out that everyone hates DRM and stop using it.

Your statement is logical and reasonable, but you fail to see that dumbassed developers and the people that create DRM do not fit into the "everyone" that hates DRM. How about your quantify your statement to say "everyone that isn't involved in making and/or selling DRM hates it"?

Fair enough. But it still begs the question of why developers use this when I'm fairly certain they know we hate this crap.

 

[Altorin]

Spoiler: snipped

I ... it.

I'm sure there was a time when electricity was thought impossible.

I have to say, that first post didn't really do much to sway me to the opinion that you are not an artificial intelligence bent on the subjugation and destruction of all organic life.

Unusual

your ... for.

Your entitlement to do so I suppose.

No, they shouldn't. However we don't live in a world full of care and respect, we live in a world starving for money and desperate for margins.

Yes the current boom of DRM measures is a nuisance, one I could do without as could many others. Your mentioned examples are small however, optional relatively useless items in an overall product.

The issue and solution as far as I am concerned lies with the hardware. Consoles can easily be programmed to have a trip that fries the motherboard - it just costs a bit too much to implement on a grand scale in its present form. DLC for consoles is primarily about the second hand market - it having a DRM esque side effect is just unfortunate. However if you can download you can be online - not so much an issue in this instance.

And ....

Yes, it is. That's the reality.

Except ... [/u].

First of all; good post. With all the abuse and picture spam its pleasant to read something of substance. I'm not going to respond to each point, because from a consumer point of view I agree.

However, this anti-piracy isn't necessarily circling the desire to ensure more people buy your product, its to ensure no one gets it for free.

So many companies would happily burn than to toil for thieves to benefit from their work.

I'll disagree with your final paragraph though, companies can do what the hell they like with their own products, whether that's programming the game to be one use only or to sell you things in pieces. As long as they inform that's what they're doing; no problems. Opportunity cost is what will ultimately guide their decisions so if it proves a bad investment it will go. Like the other DRM presented so far.

As an overall aside however, I like how the companies are coming across as the overlords and the pirates as heroes. It really does seem backward to me.

One final point, with all this quote spam I seem to be quite popular for not falling in line of the shouting hordes so I'll say this:

Consumer point of view I hate this, from a corporate point of view I understand. I won't acknowledge quotes anymore.

SAVE JOHN CONNOR!

EVERYONE ELSE IS EXPENDABLE!

 

[Inuprince]

In our feature story :

The PC version of Assassins Creed II sells 6 copys all around the world.

4 of these people went crazy after having problems, being paused for more than 10 minutes, or being dropped to the main menu while trying to end their current mission because their connection dropped out for the rest of the day. They all through the disk up in the air and shot them to pieces, each individual using different choices of weapons, from revolvers, through shotguns, one user was sent to jail for blowing up the disc with a grenade in his backyard ...

The 2 other customers seem to be well, progressing through Desmonds memories just fine.
We asked them about their opinion:
Robert: I almost got through the game, I love that the DLC's are included, hopefully I can play through the game, without spending any more money - since I started I had to buy two new keyboards, a new mouse, and three routers... I think, next time I will rather break the disc ...
Tim : Well, It's a great game, I like it, my net...it causes problems, but than I just take a pill or two or three or more oh gooood I need to calm down...please call my pschychiatrist!!!! DAMN UBISOFT!!!

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Ideally companies would provide demos for that purpose (and so we can determine if games will run at all before we buy them and then cannot return them since they've been opened hate that so much), but yes, that's one of the few reasonably valid reasons to pirate a game, provided of course you then purchase yourself a copy if you determine you like it.

You've detailed the only way in which a demo is reliable. There have been a lot of great demos for shitty games. Just as there have been a lot of good trailers for shitty movies. Thats what a demo is. A trailer. A cynical showcase of the best the gameplay has to offer, which is intended to imply the rest of the game is as good or better.

Indeed, basing your purchase primarily on what a demo contains is just asking to be taken for a ride by sneaky developers only showing you highlights. What you should take away is a first hand impression of the mechanics, how well it runs on your rig/if it will even run at all, and whether the parts they show you were at all appealing. Then it's on you to do the rest of the research, or live with your only partially informed decisions.

But even the most cynical interpretation of demos will still conclude that a man who's read extensively on a title and played a demo will be a better informed consumer than one whose only experience with it is vicarious.

I rather doubt that people using cracked copies of the game to demo them comprise a significant portion of the overall piracy statistic, but they do represent a segment that is potentially going to give you their money, so it baffles me why more companies don't put out demos - you would think that encouraging potential customers to not download illegal copies of your software would be more of a priority.

Let's face it, if you've just played a demo and really enjoyed it, and you're not cripplingly poor or otherwise adverse to buying things, odds are you want to go buy the full version now so you can play the rest of it. If you've been playing a pirate copy of a game and determine that you really like it... you could just keep playing because you already have the full version right now.

It's a lot easier to do the honorable thing and buy your games when you don't already have them sitting there on your hard drive after all.

 

[The Undoer]

Let me give you all a fact: Piracy is bad. I said it, now let me say this: Screw you Ubisoft, I'm your friendly neighbourhood pirate now! Avast! Do I get a cookie for the Avast? 'Ows 'bout a drop o' rum? Okay, I'll stop, but seriously I don't agree with Piracy, I don't think it's right, but sod it, I want to play this game, if they won't be reasonable, neither will I.

 

[Bob_F_It]

It's still going to be extremely flow breaking for the game to go "gimmie a minute here, your internet connection just copped out". And as Shamus Young pointed out, you can't stop the game being copied if everything gets loaded into the memory. Remember what happened with Spore?

 

[Altorin]

-snip-

While everyone else is mocking you with terminator inspired quips, I'm actually concerned. You seem to honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

Every hardware based copy-protection is circumventable because anyone with a screwdriver can access the hardware and anyone with limited knowledge can figure out what parts of the hardware need to be bypassed (to use your example, the seemingly extraneous bit with a direct connection to the power supply) in order to allow pirated games.

Same thing for software. Even if you encrypt the software, it has to be decrypted somewhere to be playable.

If it can be built, it can be rebuilt without copy protection.

I find it's funner to think of him as a robot. I mean, his means of cutting our posts to the first and last words of the paragraphs really seemed weird. Seemed almost like, a glitch in the matrix or something.

 

[Obrien Xp]

Thank god this is a capitalist society. Its time to vote with our wallets!

Single player geared titles shouldn't need internet!

 

[Altorin]

Thank god this is a capitalist society. Its time to vote with our wallets!

Single player geared titles shouldn't need internet!

even if you have DLC components. my big gripe with Bioware (more appropriately EA)

 

[samsonguy920]

It might be time to start teaching publishers and developers whose game it really is once it leaves the shelf. They are not making the game for themselves, they are making it to sell to US. We put down a good portion of our paycheck for these, we should deserve better than this. So what it is getting pirated? It happens. Most cases that I can tell when a game(or even movie) is pirated, it is straight from the source before it is even released. Gee I wonder how that happens?
Actions like these only make pirates feel more justified in their actions, and I can't really blame them myself anymore. Not with this retard maneuver.

The game is all grown up people, cut the cord.

 

[ninjapenguin981]

The irony is that they'll blame piracy when they don't get many sales.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

This will most likely be cracked the very same day the game comes out, so what the hell is the point of all this? It stops nobody. Anyone who knows how to download a pirated game knows how to overwrite an original exe with a cracked one.

This really effects people like me, living in Australia with a very shaky internet connection. But either way, its bullshit. It's a singleplayer game, requiring us to be connected to the internet is pointless.

People who pirate it get the better game, because they don't need to be connected to the internet while playing.

Really, I just don't understand the logic behind it all. How does this achieve anything for Ubisoft?

 

[DonTsetsi]

ACTUALLY, they have made hard to hack games before. Both Prince of Persia:The Two Thrones and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory weren't cracked for months! (I know, POP:T2T was playable once you unhook your disc drives, but that is not a crack.) Of course, Ubi didn't get an increase in sales. Many legitimate customers had problems, though....
P.S. Still, no protection for multiplayer is just as idiotic. Unreal Tournament 3 is a prime example. Gamespy on a multiplayer only game... What morons.

 

[Altorin]

It's very easy to look at one side of a coin.

It's impossible to look at both sides of the same coin at the same time unless you have eyestalks, like a slug.

Or are a robot with multiple cameras at different angles.