Ubisoft Says Always-On DRM, "A Success"

[Drago-Morph]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

Probably because this punishes legitimate customers more than pirates. I'd buy one of their games, but I'm not going to waste my money on a game I can't play if my Internet goes down. I pay for their product, but I can't be sure that they're going to let me use it.

We're not mean spirited children; we're customers purchasing an item that we want to be able to use whenever we Goddamn please without the people we bought it from stopping us because we missed out on paying our Internet bill. This is piracy too, you know. They're taking our money and not giving us a game. If they want to steal from gamers, then they force gamers to steal from them.

 

[Calvar Draveir]

Ubisoft Says Always-On DRM, "A Success"

It is, however, worth noting that popular torrent site The Pirate Bay, lists a copy of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, minus DRM, as one of its most popular PC game downloads.

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/28/ubisoft-our-drm-is-a-success/]

Permalink

WTH is that supposed to mean? You JUST SAID in the beginning of the article that Brotherhood had no DRM, and now you're trying to spin it as DRM not stopping piracy?

Anyways, this isn't the best solution, but quite honestly most PC users have an internet connection, and if they're losing money because of pirated games, I really can't blame them. It's basically like playing a CoRPG online, like Guild Wars 1. Not that big a deal.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it.

Well, Shamus has already explained it far better than I can. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/5930-The-Impossible-DRM]

But, generally, if you buy a product, it is seen as rude, crass, unhelpful and irritating for you to continually prove that you've not stolen it.

Especially if this means that you are unable to use the product you've bought unless the manufacturer says so. And they make little effort to say anything.

In a nutshell: If a product is easier, cheaper and more effective to pirate - than to acquire legally - DRM is working in reverse.

Effective DRM, like Steam, provides bonuses for the constant "receipt-carrying", but it's still a trade-off. Ubisoft's insane DRM doesn't even work for legitimate customers. It's better if you pirate it - in every way.

(Note: Root does not condone piracy. Just leave them alone and play something decent like Witcher 2)

I read that article and I understand that DRM is never going to be perfect. No security system is. Yet the policy of treating customers like criminals and having invasive security is not unique to digital media. If I go to the store and buy a shirt, and the shirt has one of those ink packages that explodes if you try to steal it that the cashier has to remove or it has an electronic signal that sets an alarm if at the door that the cashier has to disarm isn't the store treating me like a crook? Aren't they immediately supposing that people are going to steal and forcing everyone to have to go through the process of removing security measures to buy something? On top of that, shoplifters steal stuff from stores all the time. The protection of store security no matter how advanced is not prefect.

And as soon as you pay for it, you're free. That destroys your counter-argument.

 

[Low Key]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

DRM is a pretty wide reaching term but usually when users condemn it they're talking about specific products, like SecuROM, Starforce or Ubisoft's DRM scheme. Quite often people's opinions on DRM doesn't extend to things like Steam or Battlenet, purely because they don't recognise them as such.

I don't know about Battle.net, but I know at least with Steam, a person doesn't have to be online to play the games they paid for.

No but you need to be to install them, that prevented me from playing Half Life for over a year after I bought it. That's some pretty harsh DRM and needs to go away.

What prevented you from installing the game?

I had no internet connection so I couldn't even install an old game. It made no sense to me at all.

I don't want to be critical of you or anything since that is certainly a con of digital downloads, but I do have to say an internet connection is kind of a prerequisite for that sort of stuff. They store it on their servers until you're ready to install it and if you decide to uninstall it, it's off your machine completely. But that's why I like owning the disc.

 

[Atheist.]

Pretty sure they're shit was cracked quite early on. Their always on DRM was a complete failure, and circumvented rather quickly. Things like this only appear to make the crackers and pirates more interested in, rather than not.

 

[puffy786]

About the multiplyer. Yeah you can find cracks for the multiplayer to play cracked servers. It's supposedly available for only popular games. However, its still possible.

 

[Gardenia]

...And while I was waiting on ubisoft's servers to come back online, my little brother was stabbing away on his pirated version of Assassin's Creed 2.

 

[Royas]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

DRM is a pretty wide reaching term but usually when users condemn it they're talking about specific products, like SecuROM, Starforce or Ubisoft's DRM scheme. Quite often people's opinions on DRM doesn't extend to things like Steam or Battlenet, purely because they don't recognise them as such.

It's kind of sad that they don't; Steamworks is almost as bad as Ubisoft's DRM. The only real difference is if you lose your connection in the middle of a game, you don't lose anything on Steam, whereas you do with Ubisoft. In either case, if you don't have internet in the first place, you aren't playing your game, even if you've already registered it. I know Steam has an offline mode, but it only works if you're already online and you have to go off for some reason; there's no starting Steam in offline mode. Oh, it gives the option, but it almost never actually works, and it definitely doesn't work if you try to use online mode but it can't connect because there's something wrong with your internet connection. Case in point, I'm on vacation at a mom and pop hotel with horrible internet, and I can't log in to steam, which is keeping me from playing a substantial chunk of the games I have installed. I don't understand how anyone puts up with Steam for any reason other than the sales, which price games in the rental range -- which is a fair price, since it's just a glorified rental.

There is a huge difference between this bag of crap and Steamworks, my friend. With Steam, you are buying an online product, that you have to download (mostly, there are a couple of retail games that require Steam, I'm not going to defend those). It's pretty fair to expect you to be online to play a game you had to get online. With Ubisoft, you probably have a physical copy you bought at a store, it's not nearly so reasonable in that situation. And given that Steam does have an offline mode, I think we are looking at two different breeds of DRM here.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Exactly, I'd like to know why people are so fast to condemn what is perceived as "drm" so quickly.

Here you go, courtsey of Wil Wheaton and Colin Ferguson.


If the legitimate customer has more to fear than the thief, why should people pay?

 

[Royas]

Nobody has bought a game since the mid-1990's. Since shortly after their inception, end-user license agreements have been stating quite clearly that the end-user has the right to install and use game software, but does not have ownership of anything more than the physical media (if that) and the license itself. Realistically, that's not the problem, since when you pick up a game, you're looking to install and play it.

This isn't as cut and dried as you make it sound. While they publisher wants you to believe it's just a license and that you have to adhere to the EULA absolutely, the courts have presented us a mixed bag of decisions. In some cases, the federal courts have applied such things as the Doctrine of First Sale to software that was technically licensed, basically saying that it was a product sale, period. Other Federal courts have upheld parts of the EULA. Only two states in the USA explicitly makes EULA pretty much automatically enforceable, and that's because they adopted the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act over the Uniform Commercial Code.

Just because it's in the EULA, just because a publisher says it's so, doesn't necessarily make it so.

 

[BRex21]

I kinda chopped up your post because there were just a few things in it i wanted to point out and it was quite long and i will be adding my own wall of text. Anyone who wants context should scroll up and read it.

As above, immediately saying "doesn't work, drop it" is dumb. If we used that logic we would never get anywhere. If scientists gave up the first time they tried and failed to get perfect results they we'd still be using stone tools. No DRM will ever be perfect but no security measure will ever be perfect. That doesn't mean we just give up. Every store in America knows that they can't stop all thieves but they can put up countermeasures to stop some of them. Now I don't know if DRM can go further and be refined into something worthwhile and less annoying but I do know that not even trying to see if it could be made as efficient and practice as any other store's countermeasures is stupid

My father has a car that doesn't have a key. It has a small device that sends out a wireless signal that tells the car that you have the "key" to it and thus are the owner. If he forgets it the car wont start and if the batteries in it die then he needs to replace them before he gets the car going. I know its not the same thing but isn't it interesting?.

This isn't really a matter of trying to refine it into something worthwhile. Assassins Creed 2 was released with full DRM and was widely available for pirate on release day (in fact available to some before the release date), not only that if you DID pirate it, you ACTUALLY got to play it as opposed to anyone who legitimately purchased it who couldn't when the servers went down. It inspired this comic : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/7265-Stolen-Pixels-175-Ubisoft. Imagine if your local Wal-mart brought out a new security measure in which they took away your bags after leaving the till. If i go and purchase something from them legally they will take it away when i try to take it home and use it, BUT if i stick it under my jacket, i can do whatever i want with it. You also say stores treat me like a thief by putting up countermeasures, I have never had a shopkeeper come into my home and prevent me from using his merchandise, and don't think many actually would even if I DID steal it. Ubisoft itself ADMITTED there DRM was ineffective and removed it from several games. What they are doing isn't, as you put it, trying and failing to get perfect results, its more like scientists who are still trying to prove gravity falls up sometimes, by dropping apples on the floor until they get the desired result. They aren't trying anything that has been effective in the past, or anything new, or even anything they tried in the past and think needs a little tweaking to make work. They are re-using the same old and failed system and stating that it works. Steam is a DRM system that is widely accepted by most people, and while i still personally have my problems with it, the vast majority of users love it, why not build off of that instead of brushing off your already failed system for another go.

Imagine if your father went to his car one day with that key and the car didn't start, upon calling the manufacturer they told him that due to a large number of the cars being stolen they had disabled all the vehicles until they could get everything sorted out, and then imagine that every time he wanted to start his car, he had to call them and confirm that he was himself, so he sure as hell better not take that car camping, or somewhere there is poor cell reception.

You state a few times that you aren't talking about This DRM but DRM in general, yet you are here, on a topic specifically about Ubisoft's Always on DRM and how they are continuing to use it. This is a system that has punished legitimate consumers by taking there money and offering them nothing in return because conditions weren't ideal. Its the idea that despite me going and purchasing something with my money, the people I bought it from can at any time they want, take it away. To say we need rational discussion about what we hate about DRM in a tread discussing the irrational view, completely unsupported by any data, that software THIS bad was a success is borderline trolling. You want to know why people dislike DRM perhaps you should start your own thread or look at everything Ubisoft did here.

 

[Xathlien]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

It's simple: any reasonable form of DRM, such as a disc check back in the "old days", is non-intrusive.

Any DRM such as always having to have an inet connection is insanely heavy-handed and simply not reasonable, making people feel as if they don't actually own they games they've paid for, but are more "renting" the game.

I've no problem with reasonable DRM schemes, and even with SecuROM, while I hate it, I've never had an issue with it on any system. However, limited activations, always-on connections etc. are simply far too over-the-top and unnecessary.

People lose their inet connections all the time, whether due to power outages, due to moving, or simply because perhaps they weren't able to pay their cable bill for a while.

In regards to a single player game, it's absolutely ludicrous to prevent people from playing a game they paid to own and play at their leisure, by requiring a constant inet connection, particularly when it's a single player game. It's just not reasonable or rational, and in truth, does nothing to prevent piracy in the first place.

It's akin to someone buying an instrument, but being told they can only play it when at the store from which they bought it, under supervision.

There's been no "success" with their always-on DRM, and they have lost more sales to both piracy and people refusing to buy their games, then they're ever going to admit. They're not getting the point: people are less likely to pirate and more likely to buy your games, if you don't act like a Communist State. The more heavy-handed you get with people, the more resistance you're going to be met with, especially when it's something as incredibly and mindlessly unreasonable as this particular form of DRM.

One-time online activation is fine, but this... it's just ludicrous.

 

[Xan Krieger]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

DRM is a pretty wide reaching term but usually when users condemn it they're talking about specific products, like SecuROM, Starforce or Ubisoft's DRM scheme. Quite often people's opinions on DRM doesn't extend to things like Steam or Battlenet, purely because they don't recognise them as such.

I don't know about Battle.net, but I know at least with Steam, a person doesn't have to be online to play the games they paid for.

No but you need to be to install them, that prevented me from playing Half Life for over a year after I bought it. That's some pretty harsh DRM and needs to go away.

What prevented you from installing the game?

I had no internet connection so I couldn't even install an old game. It made no sense to me at all.

I don't want to be critical of you or anything since that is certainly a con of digital downloads, but I do have to say an internet connection is kind of a prerequisite for that sort of stuff. They store it on their servers until you're ready to install it and if you decide to uninstall it, it's off your machine completely. But that's why I like owning the disc.

Not really given all the games I have that don't require any sort of online registration (Dawn of War series before Dawn of War 2, Civilization 4 Complete, Quake 4, Supreme Commander, Command and Conquer the first decade, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, etc etc). All those games don't require any sort of internet connection, you buy it, install it, and play it.

 

[Dan DePuy]

I'll leave out the quotes since it's getting a little crazy.

I think the reason that Steam is not accused of being crazy DRM is because it's not - STEAM is something the user chooses. One of the main reasons to choose steam is that when you buy a game in steam, it works. Steam patches it for you and vouches for you DRM-wise. The only time this is not true is when the developer puts GFWL on top of the game, which is just as bad as if not worse than ubisoft's DRM because GFWL is known to routinely have connectivity issues and punishes users for installing the game more than once.

On that note, Steam does not require a constant connection in order for you to play your games. I have played offline a number of times. There is no need to authenticate the software any time you use it. Unless it's an ubisoft game or a game that uses GFWL. From time to time you'll get the "this game is not currently available" message not because steam is preventing you from playing your game, but because the game's DRM is preventing it from launching. In this case, the magic button appears to be rebooting your pc.

Finally, Valve has gone on the record saying that they will never allow their users to lose access to their games. If steam ever shuts down, valve is committed to giving the users the necessary tools to authenticate their software even without steam. This is because valve is awesome. Steam doesn't catch hell for using bad DRM because it doesn't use bad DRM. Unfortunately, it can't get around more oppressive DRM measures that developers use. I hope in the future that it will, since steam itself is a solid system wherein a player can only play games he or she has purchased and there is no need for additional anti-piracy measures.

The bottom line is that insane DRM hurts the users who pay for the game - pirates patch out the DRM measures and don't have to deal with it. It's like a shop owner who accuses every single customer in the store of stealing but has no idea how to actually catch anybody in the act.

 

[Centrophy]

Reduces piracy! [whisper]Also reduced legitimate sales...[/whisper] but hey, less of those dirty pirates played our games... [whisper]Hopefully no one catches on to our scheme to stop supporting the PC market...[/whisper] Porting costs money you know! -Ubisoft

 

[Low Key]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

DRM is a pretty wide reaching term but usually when users condemn it they're talking about specific products, like SecuROM, Starforce or Ubisoft's DRM scheme. Quite often people's opinions on DRM doesn't extend to things like Steam or Battlenet, purely because they don't recognise them as such.

I don't know about Battle.net, but I know at least with Steam, a person doesn't have to be online to play the games they paid for.

No but you need to be to install them, that prevented me from playing Half Life for over a year after I bought it. That's some pretty harsh DRM and needs to go away.

What prevented you from installing the game?

I had no internet connection so I couldn't even install an old game. It made no sense to me at all.

I don't want to be critical of you or anything since that is certainly a con of digital downloads, but I do have to say an internet connection is kind of a prerequisite for that sort of stuff. They store it on their servers until you're ready to install it and if you decide to uninstall it, it's off your machine completely. But that's why I like owning the disc.

Not really given all the games I have that don't require any sort of online registration (Dawn of War series before Dawn of War 2, Civilization 4 Complete, Quake 4, Supreme Commander, Command and Conquer the first decade, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, etc etc). All those games don't require any sort of internet connection, you buy it, install it, and play it.

Maybe I don't understand what you are trying to say. Did you buy all of those games on Steam or were they a physical product you got from a store?

 

[UbarElite]

Ubisoft's conclusion with this form of DRM: People without internet connections are pirates.

Ubisoft...ugh. I am glad that my progress in a game has never been cut short by my internet randomly dropping for a second. I suppose that no matter the opinion you hold, someone out there will disagree with it.

 

[an874]

Someone needs to sit these guys down and have them watch this (apologies if this has already been posted):

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy

 

[The Wooster]

Ubisoft Says Always-On DRM, "A Success"

It is, however, worth noting that popular torrent site The Pirate Bay, lists a copy of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, minus DRM, as one of its most popular PC game downloads.

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/28/ubisoft-our-drm-is-a-success/]

Permalink

WTH is that supposed to mean? You JUST SAID in the beginning of the article that Brotherhood had no DRM, and now you're trying to spin it as DRM not stopping piracy?

Brotherhood doesn't use Always-on, it is not, however, DRM free.

 

[Twilight_guy]

You know what I want to see? an actual discussion of what this DRM means. I've seen lots of people who instantly sputter a gut reaction and condemn it immediately but that's incredibly short sighted. There are lots of issues to discuss here, not the lest of which is why people hate it so much (and don't give me that crap about you just hate DRM or your internet connection sucks there is more to it and you know it). I want to know why people keep blasting DRM and why stories keep getting put it. Its not about simply hating the thing, this is on the level of a zealot crusade and I want to know why. As far as I'm concerned though, it's never going to happen because people are just too angry to talk all they can do is yell. Ah well, maybe DRM should treat use like means spirited children, we sure act like it.

Probably because this punishes legitimate customers more than pirates. I'd buy one of their games, but I'm not going to waste my money on a game I can't play if my Internet goes down. I pay for their product, but I can't be sure that they're going to let me use it.

We're not mean spirited children; we're customers purchasing an item that we want to be able to use whenever we Goddamn please without the people we bought it from stopping us because we missed out on paying our Internet bill. This is piracy too, you know. They're taking our money and not giving us a game. If they want to steal from gamers, then they force gamers to steal from them.

See my previous and very long post on the 5 or so other similar arguments. In short, I want to talk about DRM in general. Aside from that, gamers are children for their gut reaction which has lead to "I got burned by DRM once, therefore all DRM is going to burn me forever." Also, "you forced me to steal it" is never a valid argument on a luxury item.