Ubisoft managed to screw up big time

[Broken Blade]

*slowclap* Wow, Ubisoft. This is truly an impressive achievement. Did you not TEST THIS before launching it? Or did this very large company somehow miss a glitch that huge? Unless this was intentional so you wouldn't have to make PC games anymore.

 

[Savagezion]

I broke my boycott of Ubisoft to get From Dust for $1.74 and give them another chance after 5 years. I considered Anno 2070 but figured $1.74 would be a safer bet. Boy, am I glad I went that route instead. It cracks me up a little actually that people have been supporting a company like this for the past 5 years. Ubisoft treating paying customers like shit because piracy exists is not even remotely shocking anymore. Ubisoft just made whatever their cut of $1.74 just to go back on my boycott list. Shame too because I love the Anno series. Rather than give Ubisoft money in the hopes I can play the game I bought, I'll just invest that hope in the IP gaining new ownership. Both are just as likely.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You can always count on Ubisoft to fuck up big time. Does anyone actually like Uplay? It's completely useless. Who is in charge of their PC division anyway? They are retarded. Pleasing PC crowd isn't that difficult. Just release your games on Steam for fuck sake. Throw in some TF2 hats and weapons and THAT'S IT! Of course, optimizing your games for PC first would be a stellar idea.

 

[malestrithe]

Honestly, it does not bother me. People, if you have to play games on PC, you need to expect something like this happening. A game is more likely to be pirated from PC than gotten legitimately. Sorry, but whether true or not, that's reality.

Yet, I can play From Dust whenever I want on my PS3 without having to resort to online checks like this. Sure it might be slower because I can never have the right graphics card, but I can still play it whenever I feel like it on or offline.

This is another notch in the consoles are better side of the argument. We don't have to worry about companies screwing over our gaming experiences with meaningless and mandatory DRM like this.

Excuse me while I await a post from the person that always replies to stuff like this.

 

[VoidWanderer]

I believe you all know what I mean when I say that Ubisoft has and has always had a severe case of dysfunctional DRM addiction. The starforce DRM back in 2005 and the 2010's always-online systems are among the most notable. Well they have finally done it. They managed to make their games completely unplayable.

You remember Uplay, right? the novel but ultimately forgettable service Ubisoft has been forcing onto their customers along with the Game Launcher and the DRM thing since Assassin's Creed 2? Well as it turns out, they made a new uplay client for their games. It downloads automatically, it is impossible to avoid when you want to play the games you bought and it does not work.

As of now, you can not play any ubisoft game that uses Game Launcher. Ubisoft has released no statement on this. there is no proper error message showing, no maintenance notice. The client keeps telling you that your password is wrong, no matter how many times you reset it.

Here's the link to the official uplay formus. There's quite a movement going on among the enraged paying customers who can't play their games. They range from upset cries, through pleads aimed at community magagers all the way to threats of boycott, piracy and even a lawsuit or two.

http://forums.ubi.com/forumdisplay.php/259-Uplay

what do escapists think of this?


EDIT:
One of the customers contacted support and this was the response he received:
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/691193-Cannot-log-into-Uplay?p=8473097&viewfull=1#post8473097

Haven't just suffered a slight version of that exact problem myself. I gave it time to sort itself out and I logged in this morning when I got home from work.

It worked first time.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Whelp, that explains why my Steam copy of AC:R hasn't been working.

Although in my case I can't even get to the login screen. It just says "unable to find game launcher".

Ugh.

Why the fuck do I even need a game launcher?

I thought they got rid of the online thing. Last time I played AC:B, I could play offline.

OT: I stopped buying games from Ubisoft quite some time ago, you people should start doing the same. And for anyone who says "Well it doesn't effect me because I play on , fuck off. A company is willfully screwing people over and you support them? Way to be passive and apathetic. This is why companies think they can treat us all like shit and walk all over us as consumers.

Also, if they don't care about PC games, then why bother even making them? Probably because it actually makes them money.

 

[RA92]

Honestly, it does not bother me. People, if you have to play games on PC, you need to expect something like this happening. A game is more likely to be pirated from PC than gotten legitimately. Sorry, but whether true or not, that's reality.

And their game launcher will stop pirates from cracking their games. Sound logic.

 

[TheCommanders]

I can't wait to see if they can come up with as "brilliant" a spin for this as the EA PR team did after the Mass Effect 3 fiasco:

(Link for those who don't remember)

EDIT- I was trying to find a link, but everywhere I looked I could only find broken links. Perhaps the dunces at the EA marketing department actually realized how insulting the poster sounded.

It was the poster about: oh we've had 75 perfect scores, and the ending is the most talked about in gaming history.

EDIT to the EDIT:

Found an version of the image that contains a rather aptly voiced response to the insulting marketing tactic:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y204/Nef77/onlineimagelinks/MEcounterADenhanced.jpg

 

[orangeban]

I like to think that all the game publishers in the world are working together to see who can troll the user the most without being properly called out.

So far: Valve has been disqualified for providing actual usefulness in exchange for the bullshit. Blizzard has been called out, and Ubisoft is like a kid in an egg and spoon race who throws the spoon away and sprints in the wrong direction without any clothes on. Suffice to say, they got called out.

Personal story, when did I properly get sick of all the bullshit? When I realised that I had a game that required three seperate logins to three seperate systems to play. Can't remember which game sadly, or all the systems, I just remember Steam and GFWL.

 

[orangeban]

Honestly, it does not bother me. People, if you have to play games on PC, you need to expect something like this happening. A game is more likely to be pirated from PC than gotten legitimately. Sorry, but whether true or not, that's reality.

How does this DRM bullshit stop piracy? No, really. Explain it to me in full detail how these measures stop pirates from being pirates.

Don't you see, if no-one can play their games, pirates can't play them either!

Except, y'know, in this case the pirates are the only ones who *can* play the game.

But details, details!

 

[theultimateend]

How many times are you people going to let this happen before you realize that letting the developer control your access to a game after you bought it for anything other than an MMO IS UNACCEPTABLE!?

I realized that quite some time ago, probably why I almost never buy games with this kind of control unless I don't care.

So far the only recent situation was D3 and personally the least offensive thing was that limitation, the rest of the game did enough on its own to push me away. [You may have liked it, holy shit did it disappoint me.]

Ubisoft at least has the good spirit of not really releasing any games worth playing. The AC games can just be gamefly'd or purchased for the console.

Otherwise...the closest another title has come was Settlers and they bogged that down with multiple DRM schemes last I knew.

How does this DRM bullshit stop piracy? No, really. Explain it to me in full detail how these measures stop pirates from being pirates.

If doesn't, the poster forgot the golden rule of not posting when intoxicated.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Sorry, but whether true or not, that's reality.

True = Reality. Not true = not reality.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" - Inigo Montoya

 

[Agayek]

...I think it's FINALLY time publishers in general are done away ENTIRELY.

IF that were to happen, the game market would be gutted. Believe it or not, publishers do far more than distribute the games. They're generally the financial backers of most games out there. If publishers didn't exist, we simply wouldn't get games with budgets over $5,000,000 (which is basically every AAA game in the last 15 years).

Whether that's better or worse than what we have now is up for debate, but it will certainly negatively impact the game market for the short term at least.

What we really need is publishers to start focusing on customer service. Publishers have gotten so lost in the short-term bottom-line that they just don't care about customer loyalty and the like. Their business practices need to make a shift to treating the customers as customers instead of criminals more than anything else.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Well, there goes that company. Too bad, I kinda liked Ubisoft. Ha Ha, just kidding. I don't think this will end them but its going to be a real set back.

On the larger side of things, this is going to set DRM back quiet a ways. Ah well, the issue of DRM has been at maximum rage for so long that it can't get much worse anyways.

 

[Worgen]

Ugh dammit, I thought they pulled the drm off from dust, thats the only reason I bought it, fucken ubisoft, guess I'm calling them tomorrow to ***** about it.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Uh oh... I just bought Rayman Origins on Steam, and got this message upon attempting to launch it: "Video driver failed to initialize. Check readme.txt for more information."

I tried looking through Steam and Rayman Origins files, and I could not find any "readme.txt" anywhere. Is this related? What should I do? (I haven't gotten a response from Steam Support just yet) This game isn't exactly visual-heavy. I've played more content-heavy games on the same machine. Heck, even Plants vs. Zombies, which does the exact same thing with its visuals as Rayman Origins works perfectly!

 

[bfgmetalhead]

so thats why I could'nt get on my Anno 2070 that I PAYED FOR on the summer sale! *rage*

 

[Savber]

Ubisoft has never been kind to PC gamers. It's sad and a pity but it's nothing surprising.

 

[SirPlindington]

Well, Ubisoft's brain is a bit soft, if you ask me. BAM!

Really though, this is just ridiculous, but I can't say this a massive shock. Crap like this happens all the time, this is just on a larger scale.

 

[Aprilgold]

So I dodged a bullet by choosing not to buy Anno 2070? While I hope that this is sorted out quickly so people with Ubi games can enjoy their purchase, I do feel slightly good about sticking to my morals now.

Well, too be fair, 2070 pretty much was all the look and less the gameplay but that is just how I saw it.

How many times are you people going to let this happen before you realize that letting the developer control your access to a game after you bought it for anything other than an MMO IS UNACCEPTABLE!?

Obviously when they learn to be smart customers, which is never.
___________________________________________________

The only game I will buy from Ubisoft within the next few years is Watch Dogs, officially breaking my ban on them.

Don't buy into this shit or they'll keep making it. It's why innovation in FPS has been slown to a bloody crawl because everyone and their damn mum buys modern-military-shooter games.