5 ms·

Ubisoft’s newfangled DRM scheme requires you to be online to play

16 points by psawaya 17y ago

gprisament 17y ago
I hate it when I spend money on software just to be treated like a villain. What happens when the license server gets taken down? I still play 27-year-old NES games on occasion. Will Ubisoft even be around in 27 years?
- RS14 17y ago
  I just recently declined to buy (or pirate) an otherwise great game for this reason. I sent a polite email to the developers explaining this. It's really quite disappointing.
samdk 17y ago
The important bit: "Every time you lose your Internet connection the game boots you to the main menu, and all progress made from the last save point is thrown out the window. This isn’t an MMO, mind you, but a plain ol’ single player game." It's like big-budget PC publishers are begging me to not buy their games.
- WorkerBee 17y ago
  My home PC is on the internet over wi-fi. It goes down sometimes. If a game decided to go abort when this happened, even though nothing was actually wrong. I'd be angry. I'd call the game defective.
- anupj 17y ago
  I agree. And I don't believe that this whole be online to play tactic is hard to hack. It will only add another obstacle for the crackers to overcome, but cause real pain to customers who actually buy their game.
teamonkey 17y ago
The advertised benefits to this method over other methods of game DRM are that you can install on an unlimited number of machines (but only play on one at a time); you don't require the game disk in the drive after installation; and save games are stored online (so you don't need to copy them to a flash drive between, say, home and work). From what I can tell, it doesn't install any device drivers and it doesn't require that any special ports be opened. (Disclaimer: I work for them but I'm not involved with the development of this system. I'm just adding a bit more information about it.)
- ericd 17y ago
  Those advantages you mention are pretty handily outweighed by the additional inconvenience of this. Does DRM actually make a dent in piracy? My feeling is no since pirated disk images come with cracks for the DRM scheme du jour, and that that is why they're going to this crazy scheme. What makes them think that pirates aren't just going to bundle something that intercepts all the traffic that this thing sends out, and then reply with the appropriate response? Why not accept that a certain percentage of users are never going to pay for software, and that they aren't potentially paying customers anyway? It would make life easier for your actual paying customers, and you should be trying to make them feel like kings. (I know you're not in charge of this/responsible for this, I'm just curious as to whether you have insight into why this is happening)
  - teamonkey 17y ago
    The only conclusion I can come to is that DRM does work (for some definition of "work"). This isn't a poorly-studied field. Piracy rates have been carefully tracked by every major publisher for years but the information is rarely made public. Ubisoft has experimented with several DRM methods in the past, including having no DRM at all on 2008's Prince of Persia. I figure that someone's come to the conclusion that using DRM makes more profit than not using it. And also those at every other major publishing house after studying their own figures.
    - anupj 17y ago
ahi 17y ago
What happens when the servers get hit with a DDoS attack the first week of release?
philk 17y ago
To be honest it's like game manufacturers (Ubisoft in particular) are trying to make piracy the better option. Look guys. I have decent money, want to support creators and don't feel like fucking around trying to pirate a $50 game and making sure that it doesn't have viruses or anything along with it. Stop making me feel like a moron for actually giving you my money.

16 points by psawaya 17y ago

I hate it when I spend money on software just to be treated like a villain. What happens when the license server gets taken down? I still play 27-year-old NES games on occasion. Will Ubisoft even be around in 27 years?

RS14 17y ago
I just recently declined to buy (or pirate) an otherwise great game for this reason. I sent a polite email to the developers explaining this. It's really quite disappointing.

samdk 17y ago

The important bit: "Every time you lose your Internet connection the game boots you to the main menu, and all progress made from the last save point is thrown out the window. This isn’t an MMO, mind you, but a plain ol’ single player game." It's like big-budget PC publishers are begging me to not buy their games.

WorkerBee 17y ago
My home PC is on the internet over wi-fi. It goes down sometimes. If a game decided to go abort when this happened, even though nothing was actually wrong. I'd be angry. I'd call the game defective.
anupj 17y ago
I agree. And I don't believe that this whole be online to play tactic is hard to hack. It will only add another obstacle for the crackers to overcome, but cause real pain to customers who actually buy their game.

teamonkey 17y ago

The advertised benefits to this method over other methods of game DRM are that you can install on an unlimited number of machines (but only play on one at a time); you don't require the game disk in the drive after installation; and save games are stored online (so you don't need to copy them to a flash drive between, say, home and work). From what I can tell, it doesn't install any device drivers and it doesn't require that any special ports be opened. (Disclaimer: I work for them but I'm not involved with the development of this system. I'm just adding a bit more information about it.)

ericd 17y ago
Those advantages you mention are pretty handily outweighed by the additional inconvenience of this. Does DRM actually make a dent in piracy? My feeling is no since pirated disk images come with cracks for the DRM scheme du jour, and that that is why they're going to this crazy scheme. What makes them think that pirates aren't just going to bundle something that intercepts all the traffic that this thing sends out, and then reply with the appropriate response? Why not accept that a certain percentage of users are never going to pay for software, and that they aren't potentially paying customers anyway? It would make life easier for your actual paying customers, and you should be trying to make them feel like kings. (I know you're not in charge of this/responsible for this, I'm just curious as to whether you have insight into why this is happening)
- teamonkey 17y ago
  The only conclusion I can come to is that DRM does work (for some definition of "work"). This isn't a poorly-studied field. Piracy rates have been carefully tracked by every major publisher for years but the information is rarely made public. Ubisoft has experimented with several DRM methods in the past, including having no DRM at all on 2008's Prince of Persia. I figure that someone's come to the conclusion that using DRM makes more profit than not using it. And also those at every other major publishing house after studying their own figures.
  - anupj 17y ago

ahi 17y ago

What happens when the servers get hit with a DDoS attack the first week of release?

philk 17y ago

To be honest it's like game manufacturers (Ubisoft in particular) are trying to make piracy the better option. Look guys. I have decent money, want to support creators and don't feel like fucking around trying to pirate a $50 game and making sure that it doesn't have viruses or anything along with it. Stop making me feel like a moron for actually giving you my money.