Ubisoft Says Always-On DRM, "A Success"

[TheEndlessSleep]

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.

Steam isn't DRM is it? It has an offline mode...

Not sure if I have the definition completely right, though

 

[The Wooster]

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.

Steam isn't DRM is it? It has an offline mode...

Not sure if I have the definition completely right, though

You still have to connect to an authentication server and such before playing your game. It's still DRM, it just does other things (Fairly well I might add, though it used to suck balls back in the day).
To quote Steam's Wikipedia page:

"Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation."

 

[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.

Not necessarily. Steamworks comes with a lot of hard copies these days, too -- including Civilization V and Fear 2. Even in cases where the game was purchased online, constant re-authorization doesn't make sense, especially not for singleplayer games. I'll accept that I can't play TF2 when I don't have internet; the singleplayer may as well be nonexistant on that one. What bugs me is that games like Half Life, Bioshock, and VVVVVV refuse to work because I can't connect to the internet to play my singleplayer game. In any case, having to re-authorize my games after I've already done it is unacceptable; Steam and Ubisoft require it, but Impulse, Gamer's Gate, Good Old Games and pretty much every other online distributor is either completely DRM free, or uses a form of DRM that is significantly less intrusive than Steam. As I said before, the only reason Steam doesn't take more crap for its draconian DRM is because the games are so cheap. I don't like that my game purchases have gone from sales to lifetime rentals, but when the rental fee is about $2.49 on average, it's a lot easier to swallow.

No argument there. Like I said, I'm not going to defend the retail games, where you have a hard copy, that require Steam to be up and running. I consider that to be very similar to Ubisoft's method. It's still better in that it does allow an offline mode, however annoying it is to use, but it's still not a fair situation.

I got bit by that lightly, when I got Fallout New Vegas at a midnight sales event at my local Gamestop. I get home and try to install the damned game and it won't let me. Why? Because it wasn't unlocked in Steam yet, because Steam operates on Pacific time, not Eastern. I had the physical copy and couldn't even install it, all because Bethsoft used Steamworks. I was a bit put out, if by "put" I mean "pissed" and if by "out" I mean "off". That didn't endear me to either Bethsoft or Valve that day, as you might imagine.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Wha?

Success? It was circumvented within 24 hours...

The DRM costs money to produce/license, and then they have to spend more money to run and maintain the authentication servers... Lots of bad PR and pissing away of profits.

The pirates are laughing.

 

[winter2]

I wonder where Ubi is getting the numbers from. How can they even quantify that?

For me it has really driven home the point that the Ubisoft of old is long dead and I see no reason what-so-ever to buy their products.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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.

I'm not sure I understand.

You could put it down to people not wanting to regress, buying increasingly more botched games.

Or you could come to the conclusion that they aren't our authority figures(of course they aren't), we don't have to be happy with what we are given. They should be working to please us in order to get our money, investing money in making their products shittier isn't seen as a viable business model by anyone with sense.


Gabe Newell understands the importance of not pissing everyone off, and is currently dominating the PC market as a result.

 

[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?

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

I understand that, but that's an argument FOR the more strict one, right? I'm not sure what's the best solution, but I can understand Ubi's reasoning.

 

[AMMO Kid]

DRM never stopped me from buying their games. Who really cares? Apparently everyone but me.

 

[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.

Did you ever watch the first season of house when the overly threatening black guy comes in and gives the hospital 100 million dollars and simply asks to be on the board of directors, to basically hold votes and be apart of hospital matters?

If not, it was at first a good idea. He had the intention of using this money to find new cures to previously incurable diseases. However, directly in the middle of the episode with his first appearance, it was quite clearly stated that he thought of a hospital more as a business than as a place of healing.

Now, I'll tell you why I'm bringing that up and draw a parallel. Any and every business is automatically a customer service business. Whether it's providing an actual service, or making a quality product, the consumers (we the gamers who buy games) are the one major thing that makes a business a business in the first place. WE give it life, WE keep it going, and WE are the ones that matter for who the product is made for.

Then along comes DRM. At first, it's just some one-time activation codes mainly to just stave off piracy. Doesn't do much, so it has to evolve. It then becomes something far more insidious, and that's the "You must be connected at all times to play this game" DRM.

Your argument is that it can't just be about crappy internet connectivity, there has to be some ulterior motive. Well my friend, that's the exact line of thinking Ubisoft and so many other company's using this form of DRM have. It's the notion that it's unlikely for anyone to have a non-constant internet service at this day and age and anyone who says they do are either lying to try and pirate the game or are legitimately internet-less, and those people are a small loss for the companies profits.

You see how it's now turning into the big threatening black guy with a hundred million dollars?

First, the notion that someone who says "I don't have constant internet activity" is assumed to be a pirate is dead wrong. Pirates have circumvented DRM before, including the constant-internet ones, and they can do it again. There is no call or evidence for this.

Second, the idea that I have to stay connected and send them constant information just to play a game I legitimately bought is a profound invasion of my privacy as a consumer. It violates my ownership rights in my opinion. Afterall, do I have to have a construction worker standing next to me to verify that I indeed bought a shovel just for the purpose of using that shovel? If I buy a phone service, do I need to contantly dial my service provider to let them know I'm legitimately using this phone service?

Why should games be any different? I understand the need to prevent piracy, video games are a fair chunk of our economy especially considering MMO's like World of Warcraft with something like 13 million subscribers at this point I think.

But constant-internet DRM is an invasion of privacy and nothing less. It's an illegal search and seizure every single time you want to play the game.

So yeah, even if I have an internet connection perfectly suited to deal with DRM to play Darkspore, and I have the money to buy it, am I actually gonna deal with that? Hell no, I refuse out of pure principle to play any game that violates what I believe are my basic ownership rights. And you and everyone here should too.


Oh, and one small other thing. With this whole DRM issue, it really doesn't help that games like the assassin's creed series blows serious chunks. Frigging awful excuse for a game. No one should have to play and immediately be frustrated with just the controls before getting past the tutorial.

Please refer to my previous posts. I know I worded the original post funny but essentially what I mean is that this DRM fails because of one faulty thing is not a good reason to condemn all DRM. People are acting like since this one DRM has a problem that's a valid excuse for why DRM as a concept fails. So they screwed up and they got their heads up their ass, we all know that, a dozen posts saying "Ubisoft fail" doesn't help anyone. I just wanted to point out that no matter how many times we point and say "this DRM failed, we will only like it when its better" its never going to make things better. Continuously saying "this one failed because X" and doing nothing more does nothing. What we need is something more proactive, like a discussion on what a good DRM would look like. I want to have at least one news story that doesn't get buried under a mountain of one line sarcastic jabs at Ubisoft and DRM and does something more. People keep address them with simplistic methods like talking about things as if they were physical items, they arn't there data and data needs to be treated specially. Companies don't know how to do that, we don't know how to do that, nobody knows how to proper secure information and not intrude on customer's rights and this needs to be discussed.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Nobody knows how to fix it and that's why there needs to be talk beyond simply saying "this one failed, try again or I'm not playing."

I'm seeing a lot of talk, but nothing solid. All of your postings have been summed down to "DRM isn't bad - Companies need their profits", when quite obviously it is because it hurts the legitimate customer, drives legitimate buyers to pirates AND has only a small impact on pirates.

Wil Wheaton has said that the Entertainment Industry should be providing all region capable.
Team Meat/Neil Gaiman say that piracy isn't an issue because it spreads the word and legitimate customers actually purchase more of their product.

The only people defending DRM are the ones who have created it. And it's the same as the wheelclamp, spam or full page adverts. No-one is monitoring the purchases lost to it (Spore being Amazon-bombed, for example) because it's been accepted that it's now a part of life because "MILLIONS ARE LOST EACH YEAR".

That's where the problem lies. DRM is trying to get back money (like Wil says) that doesn't exist. That's why it fails.

You're playing Devil's Advocate, Twilight_Guy, and taking snipes at a certifiable bad idea is a reasonable discussion. It shows that there's a potential customer that's being turned into a potential thief just by the idea of this game having supernasty DRM.

Mr. Pirate will just take out his DRM key, crack it in a few hours/days and then sell his DRM free copy to the people who didn't want to buy it.

Steam transcends that, and the pirates, by offering a better system of trade/messaging/purchasing. That's why Gabe can afford his pit of money. He "cares" about the legitimate customer.

If we're having a discussion, let's hear your PoV.

Root you clearly are not getting what I'm saying and I'm clearly not expressing it in any decent way. We're never going to convince each other and this isn't the first time we've had to have a big discussion over this. We're not getting anywhere so I'm just going to let this go.

 

[Gitty101]

*Shakes head*

This is so messed up. What is someone meant to do during a power-cut, or if their router drops out? I can imagine that getting pretty tedious very quickly. At least Ubisoft don't release any good games these days, otherwise it'd be a shame...

 

[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.

I'm not sure I understand.

You could put it down to people not wanting to regress, buying increasingly more botched games.

Or you could come to the conclusion that they aren't our authority figures(of course they aren't), we don't have to be happy with what we are given. They should be working to please us in order to get our money, investing money in making their products shittier isn't seen as a viable business model by anyone with sense.


Gabe Newell understands the importance of not pissing everyone off, and is currently dominating the PC market as a result.

Newell also has his hands on a proprietary DRM that everyone supports. I'm getting tired of saying this over and over but gamers are being shortsighted. Not everyone is going to use Steam's DRM and not everyone is willing to just go DRM free. DRM isn't going to go away because gamers kick and scream unless they organize a boycott on DRM games (which will probably kill several large studios) which no boycott of gamers has ever work ever. Therefor if we have to work with DRM we can at least go from one line "lol, drm fail" posts to an intelligent discussion. "this DRM failed because it was invasive, how could it be designed better?" rather then "Ubisoft fails again, lol asscreed sucks." I want something more then a gaggle of idiots treating the Escapist as if it was the goddamn TF2 forum on the Valve website. I want a website that pride itself on having a brain to show it. I'm not going to sit on my opinion that this is short sighted and do nothing.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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.

I'm not sure I understand.

You could put it down to people not wanting to regress, buying increasingly more botched games.

Or you could come to the conclusion that they aren't our authority figures(of course they aren't), we don't have to be happy with what we are given. They should be working to please us in order to get our money, investing money in making their products shittier isn't seen as a viable business model by anyone with sense.


Gabe Newell understands the importance of not pissing everyone off, and is currently dominating the PC market as a result.

Newell also has his hands on a proprietary DRM that everyone supports. I'm getting tired of saying this over and over but gamers are being shortsighted. Not everyone is going to use Steam's DRM and not everyone is willing to just go DRM free. DRM isn't going to go away because gamers kick and scream unless they organize a boycott on DRM games (which will probably kill several large studios) which no boycott of gamers has ever work ever. Therefor if we have to work with DRM we can at least go from one line "lol, drm fail" posts to an intelligent discussion. "this DRM failed because it was invasive, how could it be designed better?" rather then "Ubisoft fails again, lol asscreed sucks." I want something more then a gaggle of idiots treating the Escapist as if it was the goddamn TF2 forum on the Valve website. I want a website that pride itself on having a brain to show it. I'm not going to sit on my opinion that this is short sighted and do nothing.

Short sighted?

Short sighted is demanding depth from others whilst completely overlooking how little you have actually offered, yourself...you've said nothing. All you've done is whine about how a DRM system that actively takes value away from the game it's applied to, is universally despised by the consumer. Of course it is...

Ubisoft's approach is tactless, it doesn't seem to be based on anything other than hoping that they can make a game uncrackable. Which is silly, their last online-only DRM was circumvented in less than a day...money well spent.

On the subject of money, they pay through the nose for the DRM, then they have to develop/run/maintain the authentication servers, spending more...on a system that doesn't work. This money could surely have been spent rewarding genuine customers, if not on re-purposing the authentication servers to be streaming bonus content...at least on some stupid collectible trinket to be thrown into the game box for a little extra incentive.

There's a school of thought that says that copyright-infringement is actually a pretty powerful means of advertisement. Given how many songs/film clips I've heard/seen on youtube that have turned me on to new things(that I'd likely still be clueless to otherwise)I'm inclined to believe there is something to that. In this case, there is no incentive to upgrade to the real product, when it's observably shittier than what you've gotten for free.

It's very hard to see anything good about this DRM. I'm willing to bet it was insisted upon by hokey corporate types on the publishing side of things, rather than anyone on the development side of things.

 

[Baneat]

It severed my interest in games with it attached.

Is that like.. negative piracy or something?

 

[Dragonsoulq]

They Probably did reduce Piracy.... what it did for sales is a different matter entirely....

 

[dochmbi]

Ubisofts DRM caused me to buy AC2, when normally I would not have. It took 6 weeks to crack it and I got tired of waiting after 2 weeks (normlly games get cracked in less than a day). So as far as I'm concerned, the DRM scheme was a success, but I'm probably one of the only people in the world it affected like it was supposed to.

 

[Kargathia]

The only way to truly know whether fewer people are pirating your game would be to force everyone who starts up the first time to answer the question "Did you pirate this game?".

Well, at least it'll be less naive than this statement.

 

[Garethp]

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.

I'm not sure I understand.

You could put it down to people not wanting to regress, buying increasingly more botched games.

Or you could come to the conclusion that they aren't our authority figures(of course they aren't), we don't have to be happy with what we are given. They should be working to please us in order to get our money, investing money in making their products shittier isn't seen as a viable business model by anyone with sense.


Gabe Newell understands the importance of not pissing everyone off, and is currently dominating the PC market as a result.

Newell also has his hands on a proprietary DRM that everyone supports. I'm getting tired of saying this over and over but gamers are being shortsighted. Not everyone is going to use Steam's DRM and not everyone is willing to just go DRM free. DRM isn't going to go away because gamers kick and scream unless they organize a boycott on DRM games (which will probably kill several large studios) which no boycott of gamers has ever work ever. Therefor if we have to work with DRM we can at least go from one line "lol, drm fail" posts to an intelligent discussion. "this DRM failed because it was invasive, how could it be designed better?" rather then "Ubisoft fails again, lol asscreed sucks." I want something more then a gaggle of idiots treating the Escapist as if it was the goddamn TF2 forum on the Valve website. I want a website that pride itself on having a brain to show it. I'm not going to sit on my opinion that this is short sighted and do nothing.

I think that the reason the Gamers dislike DRM so much is because it's clunky, and the developers seem to care more about the DRM than about the players themselves. You said that gamers weren't backlashing against Steams DRM, and the reason to that (in my opinion), is because it's bundled in a nice delivery system, cheap prices, cool features like voice chat and in game overlay.

Yes, I used to pirate my game. Ubisoft DRM did nothing to stop me. But Steam came around and showed me how easy and fun it was to play a game that wasn't pirated. Before I'd have to find a torrent for a game, check if it worked in the comments, find the patch, find a keygen, hope it all worked, otherwise, back to the drawing board.

But with steam it's literally two minutes to find a cheap game, buy it, and set it to install, which is quick, I don't need serial keys most of the time, and it's a fun experience. Maybe I'm getting a little off track, but my point is that the main reason that people hate DRM like what Ubisoft has got, is because it's too controlling, to authoritarian, and too strong-armed. What happens if my internet DOES go down? What happens if Ubisoft Authentication Server goes down? Atleast with Steam I could go offline.

And sure, we could sit around and think of ways to make DRM better, but it's not my job. It's not my responsibility. I shouldn't have to spend my time thinking of a DRM. And you know what, the perfect DRM is already out there in my opinion. It's called Steam. It makes people want to use Steam. It makes people happy to use Steam. And most of all, there are very, very, very few games that force you to use Steam. You can almost always use something else

 

[SirAxel]

"a clear reduction"
What dose this even mean?Like what are they trying to say that less people are trying to hack their games or what?When I go to the bay of pirates and I look at, for example, AC:Brotherhood I can see that just one person has already hacked been and I can downlaod and play it.My point is that it dosen't matter if one person or 200 are able to hack people need just 1 torent not 200 of them.But I guess it has some effect it's not like Mass Effect which was on trackers 2 weeks before it actually got released.
I don't know they are just trying not to look bad.

 

[Iron Lightning]

You know what, it also reduces sales. I haven't bought any Ubisoft games that have this stupid DRM scheme only because those games have this stupid DRM scheme.

I ask you, Escapists, who among you have done the same?

Let's show them that they will go out of business if they keep punishing the paying consumer like this. This is like if McDonalds decided to slap you in the face before they let you have a happy meal.