Ubisoft Online DRM: It's Worse Than Expected

[The Undoer]

As a PC gamer, does Ubisoft not realize we are an unforgiving bunch? Do they also not realize we complain like there's no tomorrow?

Yeah! We should boycott the game! That ALWAYS works.

*Cough* BioShock 2 *Cough* People were going to boycott that over the install limit, but it got changed. Also. What the banana Ubisoft? I meen, my internet is pretty much gone at the drop of a hat frequently, I used to be on a 154 kb/s connection during the day, would that slow down single player? I purchase games like AC (not that I would purchase it, couldn't stand the first) for a long singleplayer game, to play when my Internet is down.

Edit: I suspect most of us PC Gamers have Steam, yesterday I tried to run it in offline mode while my net was down. "Can not perform this action, please visit www.steampowered.com for more details", I know it's barely related but it's amusing and "can't play games without the 'net" related.

 

[Typhusoid]

Is it just me, or do all publishers seem to have it in for us PC gamers?

 

[The_Healer]

Victory to the console gamers!!!

Enjoy it boys... next one might be a while coming.

 

[The Undoer]

Bleh if you want to fight piracy make everyone register online with the cd key the first time they install the game, not this. Its not a f-ing mmo rpg its a single player game. Whats with all the big releases f-ing us pc gamers in the arse?!

because the big companies like ubisoft and EA hate PC gamers because some of us pirate so they fuck us over with rediculous shit like this. and do you know who doesnt fuck PC gamers over... VALVE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

You're my new hero. Valve <3

 

[Hawgh]

Well, I was going to get AC2 for my 360.
But now I'm thinking that I'll be getting a pirated PC version instead.
Because, bother these fascist bitches up where the sun doesn't shine.

 

[SMOKEMNHALO2001]

That is a terrible idea. Simply terrible. And the worst part is that the only people who will have to deal with it are those who legally purchase the game.

Your avatar is AWESOME! I love that character and show.
OT: This idea is awful, especially if you have AT&T for an internet provider, that network will crap out if clouds even covers the sun.
This DRM crap is getting ridiculous, it won't be long before we console gamers will have to suffer with crap like this.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

So that's the reason you shouldn't buy original games, rather that download an illegal one with crack and save yourselves the trouble. (not meaning I'm using pirated games)

 

[Ninjamedic]

I'm just glad I got out of pc gaming while the getting was good. I'll stick to pre-2006 games, enjoy your STEAM induced DRM Nightmare folks! Seriously my hl2ep2 needed to be constantly online to work, you have only have the people you worshiped to blame for this.

 

[xDarc]

Well, I guess I could blame Ubisoft, but it's their product that's stolen. I hate pirates.

You can't steal a digital copy of something that no one intended to buy in the first place. You can claim you lost potential revenue, but you'd still be talking out of your ass since the only way most people will play pirated games is if they're free.

Eliminating piracy wont magically increase your sales. It will just cause people looking for CHEAP ENTERTAINMENT to go do something else.

Fighting piracy like this is a waste of time and it only hurts your business. Not that I was gonna buy this game anyway : ) Hell- it's not even worth a download.

 

[HuntrRose]

And there goes my plan to buy AC2. Guess I'll use my money on and AvP instead and get AC2 of piratebay or so.

Seriously, this is absurd.

 

[mooncalf]

I propose tr;db.

Too retarded, didn't buy.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It's a licence to pirate.

One things publishers NEED to understand. When the pirated copy is easier to use than the original copy, then people WILL pirate it.

Games are sold on their ease of use these days - that's what the console market is all about.

 

[Wicky_42]

Spoiler: snip

Well, I guess I could blame Ubisoft, but it's their product that's stolen. I hate pirates.

Wow, way to mis-lay the blame. How many games have you pirated? Hmm? Now, how many producers are assuming that you did? If the latter exceeds the former, you should be feeling at least a little indignant.

Now, does a company treating you like a criminal make you feel happy about yourself? Do you like LITERALLY renting a game off a company for retail price? Would you happily vote to curtail your rights, so long as someone was telling you that it was to stop bad people? If you answered 'yes' to any of those, I officially have no respect for your opinion as a free-thinking human. Though I'm not going to take your rights away because of it. Unlike some organisations might...

I buy consoles versions. But it's their product and they can decide what to do with it. Yes, I'm partially the victim I suppose, but they wouldn't be doing this if the pirates hadn't stolen it. Therefore, I blame the pirates.

Well, no-one's stolen it yet, so Ubi's kinda jumping the gun here. Sure, it's their software so they are entitled to do as they wish, but outright hostility to their customers? I think all gamers have a right - maybe even a requirement - to be outraged at being treated like that. Do they seriously think that this 'online only' system is going to be an effective anti-piracy measure, when countless other DRM systems have fallen before, doing little more than stoking gamers' ire and hurting legitimate customers?

Fuck 'em - if this isn't a clear advert to move to piracy I have yet to see one.

No, because it's still stealing. It's their product, they can do what they want with it and decide how much people get to use it. If you have a problem with it then boycott it. Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it.
And no, you can't justify stealing unless it's a life or death situation.

To be honest, I don't see how they could react much more harshly, short of forcing you to play the game remotely on their own servers without any client-side data Plus, of course, they'd never know if someone was pirating their game or simply hadn't bought it. They just compare sales data against projected sales which, if past draconian DRM fiascos are any indicator, will show a significant shortfall. So I'll just sit here lol'ing at them, that you all the same.

Oh, and as to "Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it" specifically - I didn't pirate any of their other games, but they still did this. I get the feeling that my actions have no bearing on their policies.

 

[aaron552]

I want someone to tell me how this will stop piracy ANY more than a simple disc check? How is this in any way more effective? I can understand EA's moe towards DLC, that at least makes a modicum of sense, but this move by Ubisoft is just retarded.

If it's cracked it doesn't matter what kind of copy protection you used. Once it's cracked, that's that. A person using the crack doesn't care if the original copy protection was a disc check, required a constant internet connection or demanded human sacrifices every hour. For him it doesn't exist.

But you know for whom it DOES exist? The guy who DIDN'T crack the game, who is using a fully legit copy. Ubisoft isn't combating piracy, they are combating legal sales. They seem to want to reduce the number of units sold. I'm not sure why, but there you have it...

QFT.

The tinfoil-hat wearing part of me says that they want an excuse to stop developing for PC, so they're deliberately trying to push up piracy so they can use that (and low sales) as an excuse.

 

[ffs-dontcare]

Excuse me? It sounds like a testing ground for subscription-based gaming.. this is worse than any sort of DRM to date! Imagine the inability to play games you like again years down the road if they require this.

This is beyond unreasonable for paying customers

GO PIRATES! GO PIRATES! GO GO PIRATES!

This is probably going to bring fire down on my head, but how is this different from, say, Portal? Not a rhetorical question.

To play that game (I got the stand alone, not the Orange box) requires that I be connected to Steam; or did, I don't play it anymore for exactly that reason. Maybe something's changed since. And, granted, I never tested if it would crap out on me if the connection died.

Point being, when I mentioned this before in a different DRM thread, Valve was generally defended for putting that in. As I see it, this kind of DRM is far from new; and yes, it irritates me too.

Steam has an offline mode. [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555]

I'm so sick of people retorting with this.

Guess what! Steam's offline mode only works temporarily (i.e. a few days at the most), and requires you to reconnect to Steam online on a regular basis to "refresh" the offline mode. This isn't good enough, and it pissed me off back when the internet at this house was so shit that it only ever worked one or two days a month (that is, if it even decided to run that month).

Not only that, but your Steam games aren't guaranteed to run even in offline mode. I remember full well how Steam brought up error messages while in offline mode, telling me I couldn't "play this game at this current time" or something along those lines, too many times for me to be okay with it. See this:

Edit: I suspect most of us PC Gamers have Steam, yesterday I tried to run it in offline mode while my net was down. "Can not perform this action, please visit www.steampowered.com for more details", I know it's barely related but it's amusing and "can't play games without the 'net" related.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. It brings me this fucking error message, and then tells me to do something I CAN'T do because my internet is down in the first place!

Fuck Valve. Their games might be alright but Steam definitely has issues that need solving before I'll respect their stance on DRM.

 

[oppp7]

Spoiler: snip

Well, I guess I could blame Ubisoft, but it's their product that's stolen. I hate pirates.

Wow, way to mis-lay the blame. How many games have you pirated? Hmm? Now, how many producers are assuming that you did? If the latter exceeds the former, you should be feeling at least a little indignant.

Now, does a company treating you like a criminal make you feel happy about yourself? Do you like LITERALLY renting a game off a company for retail price? Would you happily vote to curtail your rights, so long as someone was telling you that it was to stop bad people? If you answered 'yes' to any of those, I officially have no respect for your opinion as a free-thinking human. Though I'm not going to take your rights away because of it. Unlike some organisations might...

I buy consoles versions. But it's their product and they can decide what to do with it. Yes, I'm partially the victim I suppose, but they wouldn't be doing this if the pirates hadn't stolen it. Therefore, I blame the pirates.

Well, no-one's stolen it yet, so Ubi's kinda jumping the gun here. Sure, it's their software so they are entitled to do as they wish, but outright hostility to their customers? I think all gamers have a right - maybe even a requirement - to be outraged at being treated like that. Do they seriously think that this 'online only' system is going to be an effective anti-piracy measure, when countless other DRM systems have fallen before, doing little more than stoking gamers' ire and hurting legitimate customers?

Fuck 'em - if this isn't a clear advert to move to piracy I have yet to see one.

No, because it's still stealing. It's their product, they can do what they want with it and decide how much people get to use it. If you have a problem with it then boycott it. Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it.
And no, you can't justify stealing unless it's a life or death situation.

To be honest, I don't see how they could react much more harshly, short of forcing you to play the game remotely on their own servers without any client-side data Plus, of course, they'd never know if someone was pirating their game or simply hadn't bought it. They just compare sales data against projected sales which, if past draconian DRM fiascos are any indicator, will show a significant shortfall. So I'll just sit here lol'ing at them, that you all the same.

Oh, and as to "Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it" specifically - I didn't pirate any of their other games, but they still did this. I get the feeling that my actions have no bearing on their policies.

Ya, but just because you don't have a large influence on them doesn't mean you should stop. Try boycotting the game and emailing them about it.
Aslo, aren't some companies coming out with something where all games are played on their data so that even the worst computers can play good games? Forget what it's called but I think cloud is in the name...

 

[Jandau]

I want someone to tell me how this will stop piracy ANY more than a simple disc check? How is this in any way more effective? I can understand EA's moe towards DLC, that at least makes a modicum of sense, but this move by Ubisoft is just retarded.

If it's cracked it doesn't matter what kind of copy protection you used. Once it's cracked, that's that. A person using the crack doesn't care if the original copy protection was a disc check, required a constant internet connection or demanded human sacrifices every hour. For him it doesn't exist.

But you know for whom it DOES exist? The guy who DIDN'T crack the game, who is using a fully legit copy. Ubisoft isn't combating piracy, they are combating legal sales. They seem to want to reduce the number of units sold. I'm not sure why, but there you have it...

QFT.

The tinfoil-hat wearing part of me says that they want an excuse to stop developing for PC, so they're deliberately trying to push up piracy so they can use that (and low sales) as an excuse.

The problem here is that it wouldn't make that much sense either. As long as the cost of converting a console version of the game to the PC is smaller than the income generated by the PC version, it pays off to make a PC version. If the costs are greater, then you can stop making it without any excuses since it's simply not profitable.

I can understand the decision to delay the PC release for a month or two, and then pop out a PC version to rake in the customers that didn't buy it on the console and won't pirate it. But this makes no sense...

And as for piracy, I distinctly remember seeing AC2 for the 360 on torrent sites about a week before release, with thousands of people downloading/uploading it. Yeah, Piracy is a PC problem... [/sarcasm]

 

[andrewbrownster2]

What the hell?.... Boy I'd love to live in the Ubisoft offices, innuterupted connections 24/7...

 

[Wicky_42]

Spoiler: snippety

Spoiler: snip

Well, I guess I could blame Ubisoft, but it's their product that's stolen. I hate pirates.

Wow, way to mis-lay the blame. How many games have you pirated? Hmm? Now, how many producers are assuming that you did? If the latter exceeds the former, you should be feeling at least a little indignant.

Now, does a company treating you like a criminal make you feel happy about yourself? Do you like LITERALLY renting a game off a company for retail price? Would you happily vote to curtail your rights, so long as someone was telling you that it was to stop bad people? If you answered 'yes' to any of those, I officially have no respect for your opinion as a free-thinking human. Though I'm not going to take your rights away because of it. Unlike some organisations might...

I buy consoles versions. But it's their product and they can decide what to do with it. Yes, I'm partially the victim I suppose, but they wouldn't be doing this if the pirates hadn't stolen it. Therefore, I blame the pirates.

Well, no-one's stolen it yet, so Ubi's kinda jumping the gun here. Sure, it's their software so they are entitled to do as they wish, but outright hostility to their customers? I think all gamers have a right - maybe even a requirement - to be outraged at being treated like that. Do they seriously think that this 'online only' system is going to be an effective anti-piracy measure, when countless other DRM systems have fallen before, doing little more than stoking gamers' ire and hurting legitimate customers?

Fuck 'em - if this isn't a clear advert to move to piracy I have yet to see one.

No, because it's still stealing. It's their product, they can do what they want with it and decide how much people get to use it. If you have a problem with it then boycott it. Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it.
And no, you can't justify stealing unless it's a life or death situation.

To be honest, I don't see how they could react much more harshly, short of forcing you to play the game remotely on their own servers without any client-side data Plus, of course, they'd never know if someone was pirating their game or simply hadn't bought it. They just compare sales data against projected sales which, if past draconian DRM fiascos are any indicator, will show a significant shortfall. So I'll just sit here lol'ing at them, that you all the same.

Oh, and as to "Piracy will just make them react more harshly to it" specifically - I didn't pirate any of their other games, but they still did this. I get the feeling that my actions have no bearing on their policies.

Ya, but just because you don't have a large influence on them doesn't mean you should stop. Try boycotting the game and emailing them about it.
Aslo, aren't some companies coming out with something where all games are played on their data so that even the worst computers can play good games? Forget what it's called but I think cloud is in the name...

Emails are all well and good, but their influence on games companies has been - shall we say - unimpressive? Small concessions to placate the angry voices. You know what they say - actions speak louder than words. If they are serious about waging war against piracy then they need to start winning our hearts and minds, not go for the shock and awe campaign to blitz pirates no matter the innocent cost.

Then again, occupying armies lean that lesson afresh every single campaign, so why should games companies have worked that out after only a few decades? The film industry seems to be trying that track out - there are clips at the start of films in the UK were some woman from the industry asks us nicely to not pirate their hard work as peoples' lively hoods depend on it, in a way that quite contrasts with previous 'you wouldn't steal a hand bag, you wouldn't steal a car' campaigns which were horribly distanced from reality.

As to cloud computing - forget it, lol. What's your internet upload speed? What about bandwidth caps? Do you really want to have to deal with ping and latency in a SINGLE PLAYER game? Do you seriously think that you could stream complete game graphics across current internet connections in REAL TIME, when youtube videos can require time to buffer on a slow day? Again, I'm firing a barrage of semi-rhetorical questions at you, hoping that you see my point.

I'm not really condoning piracy, I just hate being treated like a criminal before I've even thought of committing the crime, and as many people have already said, when pirated games work better, easier and more reliably then game studios need to being re-thinking their tactics. Ubisoft is doing it wrong - there's no doubt in my mind. THEY are the ones needing to be taught a lesson, not gamers.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Question, of the people who are saying "fuck ubi", who are currently polishing guns, blades, and maces?