Ubisoft Online DRM: It's Worse Than Expected

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Requiring an internet connection to play a single-player game is complete, utter bullshit.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Apparently private servers and generally hacking it to save locally haven't occured to Ubisoft. Yay losing money because you think DRM is the answer!

 

[Plurralbles]

I like hte fact that in order to pirate you need to be online. Hmm... Who's the only one that it fucks over... The person who has the shit connection or none at all.

Actually, a small patch/crack to remove the DRM from a legally purchased copy would not only not be illegal, it would be very small, a few megabites.

If I do come round to buying this game, that's what I'll do.

This is like half pirating,

I like hte fact that in order to pirate you need to be online. Hmm... Who's the only one that it fucks over... The person who has the shit connection or none at all.

actually, you're wrong, you need to be online WHILE pirating it, then once it's downloaded, you never need to be online again.

I am connected to an expensive fiber optic network, I have a nice computer, and I run regular maintenance, but you know what? every so often connection drops for a minute or two, it just happens, and with a pirated copy, people won't have to deal with that. Not only that, but what if you're traveling or something?

This DRM is stupid every way you look at it.

You completely ran to the opposite room of what I was saying. I was saying that the person without the internet connection at all, but has money for Ubi, can't play this game at all. And UBi is completely ignoring that small minority fanbase of loyal customers.

 

[Rednog]

So, you won't be able to play a game until you reconnect to the internet or maintenance is done.

Big deal? Are we games so pathetic that we need to be playing our games, and the occasional disconnect makes us wet ourselves?

Although this does REALLY suck for people whose wireless internet is shoddy. Like mine. But my PC is where the internet is hardwired to...And isn't that the case for most people?

I do somewhat agree, yes most people can probably live with this with no problem. But for a handful of people, including myself, this can/ probably will be hell.
There is also a question of people's internet quality, say the save game is somewhat beefy, a slow connection takes maybe what 5 minutes to send the data back and forth, then you might be hesitant to save often because you just don't want to sit there and wait. I'm actually a bit curious as to how an autosave will work, because AC2 does it a lot, I can just imagine auto save...please wait...for slower users. Losing even an hour or so does kind of suck, I mean say some one comes up to you on the street and asks an hour of your time for some bs survey, people won't do it because that hour was wasted, but in a gaming case you not only lose that hour but have to play that hour again.

My personal case is somewhat extreme, but maybe since I suffer from it some other players might too. I'm stuck in a place where I can't play games for 9 out of 12 months in the year, when I get home I need to plow through games to satisfy my inner starving gamer. Especially since a lot of new games come out on the last few days before I have to go back to being unable to play losing any time is pretty horrific and would make me rage. Heck, maybe my net is down for maintenance for a day or two (it actually does happen a few times a month), I have the game but no way to play.

I'm also a bit curious as to why you need a constant connection, why not make it that you only have to log in initially for getting your save, and at the end when you send your save? At least then you don't have the off chance of being screwed?

 

[galaxygamer]

I think this is more accurate:

Ubisoft announced in January that as part of its ongoing effort against piracy second-hand sales of games, all of its future PC releases would require gamers to connect to the internet and log in to Ubi.com in order to play.

That looks about right.

On a related note: Gamers think the future of this medium is a future that honors and respects the consumer to use media as it sees fit as long as it doesn't infringe on copyright. Yeah right. As long as the second-hand market for used games exists, DRM will exist. Ubisoft, and every other media company including TV-Movie studios and the music industry would love to force the consumer to pay an access fee every single time media is accessed. The video game medium was the first to implement this kind of payment feature in the form of "subscription fees" for MMOs. And we ate it up! Movies and TV shows will be next, followed last by the music industry.

The future of media is going to be really expensive, and annoying, with all the fees and multiple levels of DRM. Wait for it.

 

[CoverYourHead]

So... harshly punish those that pay for your game. That's a great deterrent! Makes piracy sound like a damn good idea in comparison.

 

[Spaghetti]

I'm going to call on Mr. Jon Stewart to show something that resembled my reaction to reading this news.

Moving on...What?!? Days within the release of AC2 the Pirates will have run circles around Ubisofts new DRM disaster and it'll just be honest gamers who will suffer, particularly with those who have a terrible internet connection (i.e. Me!) or those who have none at all.

Congratulations Ubisoft! You've just created more Pirates than you've killed, well done, have a cyanide cookie.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Wow... There goes the student purchase! Most universities' firewalls seem to block online gaming due to bandwidth issues. To be told I can't play single player games either... Not cool!

 

[saregos]

have a cyanide cookie.

Ooh, ooh, can I have one too?

 

[Destal]

I didn't really have the intention of ever buying this game, but I will flat out refuse to buy any game with DRM like this. I travel a lot and don't always have a connection, so they can go to hell.

 

[Turtleboy1017]

Like this will actually solve any piracy problems anyway...

 

[irrelevantnugget]

Calling it, a couple of months after release: "Ubisoft blames low ACII sales on piracy".

 

[Eggsnham]

I have never experienced a problem like this on a console. Just saying.

EA is shutting down servers on a dozen XBOX 360 games over the next two months. You can't hide on consoles any more than you can on PCs.

Servers getting shut down for games I probably never play < A company fucking with it's customers just to prevent some vague and obscure problems.

 

[Jerious1154]

The simple fact is that when you buy a game, it is yours. That copy of the game belongs to you, and you should be able to use it whenever and however you want, as long as it's not against the law. Ubisoft has no right to dictate when you can use something that you own.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

BioShock 2
Assassins Creed 2
C&C 4
StarCraft 2

What's next?

So far it's looking to be a cheap year for me to buy games, seeing as I won't be buying any of those I had planned on. Oh, well, that just leaves more money to be spend on gog.com.

Right now it seems I'm stuck with indie games, Impulse, gog.com and the games EA manages to release without a lot of DRM.

Hell, back to replaying Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[SmugFrog]

You know, while I'm out to sea for months at a time, there's nothing I love more than loading up a game on my laptop to kill some time.

Thanks Ubisoft! You've basically just told me that in order to play your game, I need to pirate it. Arrrrr.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

It's like they're trying to kill PC gaming.

 

[Sewer Rat]

Well... at least its not SecuROM... Gotta love how publishers make honest players suffer while the pirates find a way around it in less than a week.

 

[josh797]

ok well i guess ill be buying assasins creed 2 and splinter cell conviction and then crack them. fuck you ubisoft! fuck right off and take your goddamn DRM shit with you. i cant play on the plane? i cant play when my web decides to die? i cant play when your servers are down? and what happens when you guys shut down the servers? i cant play anymore?

FUCK YOU UBISOFT!!! FUCK YOU ALL RIGHT TO HELLLL!