By Phill Cameron on May 11th, 2010 at 5:47 pm.
I just euthanised Sam Fisher.
It was the right thing to do. I couldn’t let him go on like that, constantly trailing off mid sentence, sometimes for minutes at a time, before carrying on exactly where he left off. Or he’d pull himself into safety behind a piece of cover, only to get seemingly distracted, vacant stares as all around him was chaos. When he finally returned to reality, he would just as likely be somewhere entirely different to when he started.
I don’t blame him though. It’s not his fault he’s like this. It’s Ubisoft, with all their talk of good intentions and protecting their creative license, that have really killed him, not me. It wasn’t me who decided that it was time to fight the pirates at all costs, even if it meant that the only true victim would be the paying customer. It wasn’t me who waged this war over copyright infringement. I’m just collateral damage.
I’m well aware that my suffering isn’t representative of the wider picture, but at the same time it’s certainly not an isolated event; I happen to be caught in the uncomfortable cigar shape caught in between the two large circles of the Venn diagram that is ‘People Who have Fast Internet’ against ‘People Who Can’t Play Ubisoft Games’. I could just get angry, hell I am getting angry, but damned if I’m not going to let you all know about it.
So, Ubisoft decided that, in an effort to combat piracy, they’d implement a DRM system so draconian it’d make us pine for the days of SecuROM. Requiring a constant internet connection, the ‘service’ provides a steady stream of data between your computer and the Ubisoft master servers. What this boils down to is that if you don’t have a fast internet connection, or, like me, you’re on a less-than-reliable wireless connection, you’re going to see this screen a lot.
There’s a bit of a character to that screen. It reminds me of an overbearing parent that doesn’t want me to play too many games. You’ll go an hour, maybe two, without anything, then, all of a sudden, it’s a polite, but curt ‘time to stop playing now.’ You ignore it, then a few minutes later it flashes up again, a little longer this time. ‘I’m warning you. Time to stop.’ Stubbornness arrives, you set your jaw, and continue. And then, for me, the sign comes back once more, but this time it’s here to stay.
The only cure is to shut down the game, because when it arrives like that it’s there to tell me that it’s just shut down my entire internet. I can guess a few reasons, primarily being that it’s overloaded my connection with data, but seeming as I can play any number of bandwidth intensive multiplayer games with no issues, it doesn’t seem right.
So yeah, that’s fucking annoying.
It ends up with a situation where, each time I load up the game, I’m playing connection roulette, wondering if I’ll be able to get from one checkpoint to the next without my connection conking out due to the horrendous barrage between my computer and Ubisoft’s servers. The game no longer feels like a single player experience to be enjoyed on my own. I’m not battling with Ubisoft, to see if I can get from one checkpoint to the next as fast as humanly possible without them deciding to shut me out.
Of course, such personification of a completely abstract and arbitrary system is hardly useful, but my anger at it is enough that I’m willing to create a face out of anything I god damn like. I’ve got half a mind to attack my chest of drawers; it’s been eyeing my like that for days.
The only course of action left to me was to delete the game from my computer, out of fear of my mental well being. Which is a shame, because I really did enjoy what I got to play of Splinter Cell.
All this has happened a week after grappling with the arbitrary nature of the Games For Windows Live connection. I’d been wanting to play multiplayer, and because it couldn’t connect, I couldn’t play. In the end, I didn’t really mind too much, if only because it made at least some sense that if I couldn’t connect to their online service, I couldn’t play online.
But that’s not the case here. I’m locked out of an entire game purely because Ubisoft can’t deal with the idea that the pirates that copy their games aren’t paying for them. What I want to know, as someone who hasn’t pirated their game, and yet has been landed with all this horrific DRM, is was it worth it? Did they see a significant rise in sales on these products with the DRM? Have they noticed any increase, hell, anything at all that’s different with these games compared to any they’ve published before?
Because if they haven’t, they need to get rid of this. Right now.
sounds.. just awesome
not huge into splintercell, so didn’t pick this up yet. but I guess neither assassin’screed2, silenthunter5 or settlers7 had as much data as conviction run remotely, haven’t had that happen at all with those. I guess they stepped up the crackers challenge, was conviction cracked yet?
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Day 1 or close to it
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they even cracked the multiplayer, you can play in ubisoft’s servers
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This was the first game I’ve been tempted to pirate in a long, long time. Funnily enough after all their efforts to curb pirating, they basically have managed me to want to pirate this game (50% stick it to the man, 50% don’t want to deal with that shitty permanent net connection thing)
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And the best thing is, pirates have cracked this system long since. And who’s left with the crap? The paying customer.
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It’s funny that Ubisoft hasn’t made a PR release saying something like: We’re deliberating over what to do in regards to the DRM situation, you’ll have our decision along with a press release shortly.
Instead, it’s silence. What does silence say? “Eh, you’re probably a minority and we don’t give a toss about you. Ho ho ho ho!” Fools that they are. If this isn’t hurting their sales yet, it will as people learn about this nonsense. Even the more average gamer will shy away from their games on the shelves, and then they’ll have to embarrass themselves in order to win any of us back.
Good show, Ubisoft. When you do finally come to your senses, make sure you grovel a bit, it’s going to have to be pretty funny if you’re going to win back any favour.
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You know the worst part? Conviction is currently one of the top 5 most seeded PC games on the Pirate Bay.
Way to go.
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Yes, splinter cell was fully cracked on april 30th, three days after its release. The pirates have been enjoying a perfect gaming experience sans DRM disconnects ever since. As usual.
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Theres no DRM but unfortunately they didnt fix the rest of the game :P
This game is a travesty, infinite ammo in a splinter cell game? what the fuck seriously
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I’m sure they have noticed a difference. I’m sure sales must have dropped.
The price on Assassin’s Creed 2 plummeted within a few weeks of its release. Will be interesting to see if this follows suit.
When it does, I just hope they’re not so arrogant / stubborn as to claim that this has been anything other than the utter debacle that we all recognised it would be the instant it was announced.
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Preaching to the converted but correct in every way. I haven’t even contemplated buying a Ubi game since this DRM came in. My connection can be flaky at times and I’m just not up for the frustration.
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Yours and mine both, and sometimes I can be off for 5 minutes when my ISP does that insane thing they do that baffles me that results in my router rebooting, one of four routers I’ve tested, and it happens to all of them.
Don’t they realise that only a small per centage of the world have a completely perfect Internet connection? Eesh!
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Wulf, of course they realise that, and that’s why they made their servers unreliable – they don’t want anyone to feel left out.
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I have to swap my network cable ends randomly at points throughout the day, otherwise my router will insist my computer doesn’t exist. When I phoned ISP-that-shall-remain-nameless to moan about it, they insisted the cable swapping solution was one that 90% of their customers were happy with (perhaps the server rooms at Google are haywire with employees reeling cat5 all day into a huge web every time a server goes down, I don’t know). So I dunno, I guess I’m stuck with it. Much like Ubisoft’s DRM. Because it’s a non issue for the majority of users in their starry eyes and mysterious world of money ghosts so I doubt this lamentable DRM will be going anywhere soon, and will probably gain momentum if EA follow suit as they are seeming to. However, neither company will get a red cent from me on any platform if I’m required to be online for more than the fleeting minutes it takes to activate (which I do grudgingly anyway) because I can think of better things to do than swap cables for 20 minutes a day to see a cutscene.
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“At times”?
You lucky dog, you. I can’t even get through an hours worth of TF2 without my internet all but coughing up blood for the rest of the night. Hell, one time after playing for just half an hour, my internet was down for a night, and on and off for the next 2 days.
Hence why if I do decide to get an Ubi game, I will be nice and buy it legally, and will then apply any cracks that stop that internet hogging shite.
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Sounds like you’ve got one of the old BT Home Hubs. Ring up BT and tell them that it keeps dying, and they’ll send you one of the nice new ones, or should do.
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terry that just doesn’t make any sense. You are literally take one end of your network cat 5 cable and plugging it into where the other end is?
That uh … I’m no physicist but that doesn’t make any damn sense.
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@Walsh; As a guy who works with networking a reasonable amount as part of my job, I am firmly convinced that it is actually a form of Voodoo. Sometimes you just have to perform the correct ritual to please the cable gods.
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@Gwyn: Bingo. I’ll give them a ring and see if they’re amiable enough to send me a better one. Thanks for the tip.
@Walsh: Seriously. I was pretty surprised too, and when I tried to cajole the CS into explaining the situation he got very mysterious and mumbled something about “network floodings” that made no sense. If this is a widespread thing, I guess its a defect with the early hubs they sent out and no-one knows what the fuck.
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@terry
if all you’re doing is swapping one end of the cable for the other then, well, that makes no sense.
My guess (as an occasionally competent network admin) is that disconnecting, and waiting for as long as it takes to swap the cable will also work.
In which case, using the ‘Repair’ option (in XP it’s just a right click away, I forget how you get there from Vista/7) will probably do the same thing.
Also we have the fastest (==most expensive) broadband Virgin do, and we still get the odd bit of disconnection or slow speeds, so I dread to think what would happen if we paid less.
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@phuzz
The cable probably has a clot of 1s and 0s in it. A quick jolt might free it up. Also, switching to a sans-serif font might help. The hooks at the end of the 1 can wreak havoc on an Internet connection.
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No, you see, what’s happening is that as the signals pass along the cable, some spare electrons are getting dropped off at the computer’s end. Eventually they clog up the wire. So you have to reverse the cable so they flow in the other direction, until it gets clogged up again. Makes perfect sense! Well, about as much sense as Ubi’s DRM policy, anyway.
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” What I want to know, as someone who hasn’t pirated their game, and yet has been landed with all this horrific DRM, is was it worth it?”
this is what I have been wondering, since I have so far taken the stance of not buying any of their games that have this “service” built in… and I know at least 2 other friends that havent, so thats 3 sales lost right there… might not sound like much, but im sure other people are in the same boat as me.
what really pisses me off is that Ubi’s recent games have been ones I’ve been looking forward to for ages now, AC2, SC: conviction and the upcoming ghost recon title would havemaybe interested me… it all just seems to pointless and ass backwards, by putting in this system, people who would have bought the game, have decided not to.
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Gamasutra’s article on casual games piracy suggests a ratio of 1,000 to 1–that is, for every 1000 illegal downloads prevented the company gains 1 sale. This is a statistic from 2008, pertains only to casual games, and was an extremely rough approximation to begin with, but let’s run with it.
Ubisoft’s unbelievably moronic PR has cost them sales from just about everyone in this thread, if these anecdotes are any guide. Taking the gamer population as a whole, I think it’s not unreasonable to assume that several thousand people worldwide would have bought at least one Ubisoft game if not for the DRM hassle that comes with it. Multiply by a thousand, and we have (at conservative estimate) 2 million. That’s the number of pirates Ubisoft would have to stop with this DRM in order to just break even–and that’s with the openly ludicrous assumption that every single one of them couldn’t just wait three days for a crack. Factor in the long-term losses to the Ubisoft from alienating their entire customer base, and the fact that the people who did pay for the game are unlikely to buy anything from them again…yeah.
It wasn’t worth it.
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Erm…that was supposed to be “long term losses to the Ubisoft brand.” Although I just may start referring to them as “the Ubisoft” from now on.
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I was just thinking the same thing when reading the article.
Ubi must have lost the same number, or more, customers due to implementing this DRM than would have pirated their software anyway.
Chances are they will go back and blame pirates for poor sales post-DRM anyway.
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Good to see industry journalists actually tackling this. We’ve been saying exactly the same thing in the forums since the start.
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“Tackling this” in gaming blogs will have no effect at all. Who tackles that in the gaming press? Does anyone know if there are journos who had the balls to mark down games because of this? And if not, why?
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I’ve seen several reviewers make significant note of Draconian DRM in their published reviews.
For example: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesettlers7pathstoakingdom/review.html
Gamespot’s review of Settlers 7, “Even if you are only interested in The Settlers 7 for its single-player features, you have to be connected to the Internet and signed into Ubisoft’s online portal to play. Unfortunately, server problems occasionally make the game inaccessible for hours at a time, which is an issue that does not appear to be improving as the weeks pass.”
I also get the sense that the reviewer would have given the game higher marks if this had not been an issue.
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PCGamer UK has been downright thorough in mentioning the DRM in every Ubisoft interview. Concluding paragraphs have mostly been on the theme of “Good game. Don’t buy it.”
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A newpaper here reviewed the Settlers game and basically said “fun game, but stay away because of the DRM”
And then they gave it two scores. The regular one (4 out of 5, I believe they gave it), and one for DRM (1 out of 5)
It surprised me that even the mainstream non-gaming press is picking up on this.
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Hear, hear!
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You end a paragraph with “you’re going to see this screen a lot” and yet don’t include a screenshot of the screen in question?
Pathetic, Sponge. Simply pathetic. Sloppy games journalism at its worst! ;)
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I’m guessing the screenshot that’s directly under that paragraph wasn’t there when you posted that..?
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Yes. I harassed Phill for half an hour or so and then he put it up.
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The arrogance of this DRM is astounding, I can’t understand how they honestly believed this would help anything. I would love to play this, but I’m not gonna put up with this constant connection bullshit, my wireless is too crap to manage it. Ubisoft, get. a fucking. grip.
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I’ve been wondering about this myself.
Do they keep this in place because it’s working? Are they seeing increased revenue at the cost of their public image? It certainly deterred pirates–for a while, at least–but is that paying dividends?
Or are they slowly working up the courage to bite the bullet and admit this has been an utterly ludicrous disaster for all parties involved? Are they worried about taking a PR hit? I don’t think this system could even get further maligned.
For the love of God, Ubisoft, you are keeping me from buying your games. Do you understand the reality of this? Exchanging my money and being treated like a criminal in exchange for your games–whatever their quality–is not a fair trade to me.
I absolutely do not understand.
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Because they don’t care.
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Indeed. It’s a shame, as I’d otherwise be very interested in picking up a copy of conviction, but I just don’t have the patience for something like this. My list of developers/publishers I’m prepared to buy from grows thin.
(Incidentally, not buying them doesn’t mean I download them either, just to be clear.)
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lol just don’t buy bad games
Number of games with this DRM worth buying: 0
or, y’know, wait ’till it’s cracked and pirate out of spite
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So, I know you didn’t buy them, you said as much. What I’m curious of is whether you pirated them in order to know that they’re (as you say) crap?
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Assassin’s Creed II is a fantastic game, don’t be a dumb-ass. Ubisoft puts out good titles, Settlers 7 and SilentHunter 5 were also good, but crippled by terrible DRM.
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It’s subjective… Don’t be a dumb arse…
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Indeed, I completely agree, whether a game is good or bad is subjective in every conceivable way and can’t really be anything other. What I’m more curious about is whether Iain pirated those games to find out that they were crap. I’m just interested in his position.
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Come on, it’s Iain we’re talking about. The guy who put up a link to the direct download of a Humble Indie Bundle game. Are you really asking that question with a straight face?
What I’d like to know is how many people who pirate games go on to purchase the game if they like it enough?
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good paper RPS
Might feel childish but I’m boycoting UBI’s game, plain & simple. And yes, I would have bought splinter without this DRM.
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Looks like the consoles are about to be hit by a similar bout of idiocy: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/05/11/ea_sports_used_games_tax/
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About to be hit?
Mass Effect 2′s ‘Cerberus Network’ was pretty much the same thing. Not too surprising, given that it’s published by EA.
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Except the EA solution isn’t the same thing, doesn’t require an always-on connection and won’t penalise genuine buyers of the game.
So not really the same thing at all.
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Whoah ok there Mr. Badger. I’m not sure anyone said it was the same thing. And: “and won’t penalise genuine buyers of the game” – I think it probably does. I know we are on the internet superhighway but you don’t need to be quite so antagonistic.
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I think it’s more like consoles are being turned into the pc. Isn’t it just a serial number to play multiplayer just like pc games have always had?
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What this EA Sports thing basically amounts to is a person being forced to buy one product twice.
Why the hell is this amount of antagonism towards used game sales by publishers even allowed to find expression? If a car company issued instructions that anyone wishing to buy a used car had to pay the original launch price of said car or else buy a brand new one at the same price, there’d be a furious fucking uproar, but if I want to go down to Gamestation to buy a hypothetical copy of NHL 2011 that’s got a couple of thousand miles on the clock and a little surface damage that could be buffed out, I get the men from EA shaking me down for more cash once I get home with it.
TANGENTIAL EDIT:
^ A situation that wouldn’t even come into being in the first place if EA would even bother doing PC versions of the NHL series anymore (and nor do 2K games either for that matter), as I’d be more than willing to pick up a PC version on day one brand new. That is, if they were decent ports and not the shoddy crap that 09 was.
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It’s all part of the shifting relationship between the customer and the software they purchase: from a model of ownership to something more akin to renting. The business advantages to publishers are abundantly clear: subscription fees and more control over distribution. It’s something EA have been trying for a long time now but as the market has evolved, products like MMOs have shifted expectations.
What we considered unthinkable ten years ago is now readily accepted. I would not be surprised if in a couple of console generations this behaviour becomes codified in EULAs or distribution models to make it explicit that the consumer is only renting the game.
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@FunkyBadger: You totally misread that.
In all actuality, I don’t mind EA’s copy protection/resale scheme. But then, that’s also because I rarely buy used console games. GameStop doesn’t discount them NEARLY enough to make it worth my while, dealing with Little Johnny’s grape jelly fingerprints all over the disc, and a manual that Fido chewed on BEFORE urinating on.
I also predominantly buy RPGs, so if it’s a game that I care enough to buy DLC for (and that’s typically what’s packaged in the “buy at launch” boxes), it’s a game that I will have purchased new. From my perspective, I’m just getting some free DLC, which rocks.
And that leads us to Ubisoft’s DRM scheme, which was designed and implemented by the High Commander of the Bastard Hordes of Bastardulon, a planet in the Andromeda galaxy know for its bastardry. I’m fortunate enough not to be tempted by any of their games that use this scheme, but that may change when/if a new HOMM game comes out.
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It’s a shame too, as before the slew of substandard and overpriced DLC for Mass Effect 2 pointed out the direction in which gaming is travelling these days, I had actually started to rethink my opinion on EA from back in the day when their logo superimposed over a Borg Cube was almost ubiquitous within every news story that mentioned them, and look upon them more favourably.
Now this “used game stealth tax” has set all that back to the point where I’m not thinking of them any more favourably than I do of Ubisoft.
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“Why the hell is this amount of antagonism towards used game sales by publishers even allowed to find expression? If a car company issued instructions that anyone wishing to buy a used car had to pay the original launch price of said car or else buy a brand new one at the same price, there’d be a furious fucking uproar, but if I want to go down to Gamestation to buy a hypothetical copy of NHL 2011 that’s got a couple of thousand miles on the clock and a little surface damage that could be buffed out, I get the men from EA shaking me down for more cash once I get home with it.”
Not quite. You can still play single player as much as you want, it’s just multiplayer that’s locked out. And they’re also allowing you to buy a multiplayer key alone for a discount price. So it’s more like buying a second hand car and then finding out you need to buy a replacement part from the manufacturer.
It’s a sensible solution to the retailer trick of selling a second hand game for two quid less than buying it brand new, with the benefit to EA that they’re going to get a cut from the second hand market unless the retailers persist with their stupidity.
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Glad to see you are covering this Phil, it does deserve attention. I already have second-hand anecdotal evidence to go on from friends, but it’s good that RPS are putting it out there too.
I think the thing is with this kind of DRM for me, personally, is not the principle or the usual outrage over it being draconian and unnecessary (which it is), it’s that it would simply be too distracting for me as a gamer.
I like to immerse myself in single player games, it’s a fantastic form of escapism after a long dull day at the office. It would simply be jarring and disconcerting for me to keep getting these freezes and messages just because my internet connection tends to drop out a bit. I’d react exactly the same with a buggy title that kept locking up and crashing; I’d just stop playing it if I couldn’t resolve the problem… there’s plenty of other games out there I enjoy that I can play just fine.
Frankly, I don’t care what Ubisoft do – I’m not a big fan of any of their “franchises”. But I suspect there are many gamers out there like me who are actively avoiding their products because of the impact on the gameplay, and many many others who will buy them anyway but get extremely frustrated after the fact.
I really don’t see this working out for them for very long, and ultimately I see no other recourse other than for them to (attempt to) quietly abandon it when they finally realise it’s affecting their bottom line.
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So far this lunacy has prevented me from getting Assassin’s Creed 2 (bad for me) and Silent Hunter 5 (good for me, from what I’ve subsequently read) so I figure I’ve pretty much broken even. Ubi on the other hand has lost two day-one sales, I wonder how that kind of thing is working out for them?
My biggest concern is that they won’t come to their senses before the next HOMM game, the next Anno game, or the release of another one of their other franchises I really care about.
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I’d be quite worried as well if they still had this system in place for a new ANNO (or Dawn of Discovery as it goes by in my country). I only bought the Venice expansion because it didn’t come with the DRM, and when I took part in an Ubi product poll about a possible sequel I made it very clear that while I very much enjoyed ANNO I wouldn’t buy any game with the Ubisoft DRM in it.
My internet does flake out from time to time, sometimes for hours at a time, and I couldn’t enjoy any game under those circumstances.
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I would probably have bought Settlers 7 by now if it weren’t for the offensive DRM. I doubt I am the only one.
(Being a software developer myself with a livelihood that depends on licence revenues to pay for my food/mortgage/array of shiny gadgets I don’t personally regard piracy as a viable alternative however much ubisoft as an evil corporate entity probably deserve it in this case)
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Phill, why don’t you crack the game? Do you have a reason for not doing so? Surely this would tackle the symptoms – if not the cause – of the issue.
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Because advocating cracks as a games journalist might be a bit too risky for him, he may have all ready done that, but even if he had he wouldn’t tell us for just that reason.
For those poor basts who’ve bought the game and are stuck with this nonsense though, I wholeheartedly advocate the cracks.
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Also, suggesting that people who purchase the game should crack the DRM muddies the issue of downloading and playing pirated software. I don’t think RPS is interested in advocating people using pirated software, I think they’d just like to play their games. An all-out boycott is a more principled position.
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I never said anything to the contrary, please don’t misunderstand me, here.
I haven’t bought any of the games myself, I’m a part of the boycott. The difference is, however, is that I feel sympathy for those who’ve bought these games unknowingly, and I advocate the use of cracks so that they can play their game without having to suffer Ubi’s nonsense.
There’s no reason why anyone should have to suffer, really, if something can be done about it.
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If more people crack it, Ubisoft will only see that more cracks are downloaded. After which they conclude that that’s one more lost sale, which they could’ve won back if only their DRM was better, harsher.
If we don’t get the game illegally, we’ll show them that piracy isn’t dependent on anything but morality; that not every potential customer is also a potential pirate.
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There’s no harm in cracking the game (or telling people to crack the game) if they’ve all ready bought it though and they’re suffering with the problems, I mean, it only shows us to be basts rather than Ubisoft if we just turn a blind eye. That’s why I say: If you know about the DRM, don’t buy it, if you bought it without knowing then use a crack.
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Hi Zwebbie, I’ve got to take issue on one of your points. Something often repeated in this discussion is that downloading the game adds to piracy figures which shows publishers that there is a need for DRM. However there’s no reliable way for them to collect figures on how many people are pirating their software or downloading cracks for it.
In the case of something like Bit Torrent, the sources are too diffuse to be easily trackable. You might be able to get a snapshot of downloading activity but there’s no easy way to track downloads for a single product over its lifetime. Doing the same with direct download things like cracks would be even more difficult – you would have to work with the crack provider to get any figures.
Getting actual figures on piracy is incredibly hard to do. The music industry have been trying it for a while now whereas with games no similar efforts have taken place. The truth is nobody really knows the extent of piracy – and certainly not the money lost to it – because nobody is studying it and providing any data.
So I disagree that downloading a crack encourages DRM. It is an invisible act. I’d also question any illegality involved but that is a huge can of worms which I am not equipped to properly debate. The tone of Phill’s article was much more from the point of view of the consumer rather than the journalist which made it odd that he had not considered the obvious solution of cracking the game. Whereas I don’t expect RPS to endorse such a potentially dubious act, I was genuinely interested to hear why a consumer might avoid doing so.
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Downloading a crack won’t register, more than likely. Buying the game in the first place, though, shows that you are prepared to put up with their DRM. Don’t do it.
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The problem with buying the game and the downloading a crack is that it send Ubi the message that you’re willing to put up with their awful DRM, so keep on truckin’. Lost sales are the only thing that will convince them what a terrible decision this was.
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We can’t just assume that working cracks are going to be available for all these games, either. Ubisoft fully intends to make an uncrackable game, and they’ll continue to take drastic options to work toward that goal.
Even if a crack works, it may cause instability, not to mention some sites could harbor viruses and the like.
Furthermore, any patches (and all these games WILL require patches) will break compatibility with cracks, requiring customers to wait for new cracks which, for less popular titles, may never come.
Altogether, the paying customer is paying for an inferior product, applying the crack only makes it as good as the free cracked version, not as good as a fully supported, non-DRM’d game that they paid for.
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I have to correct you on a couple of things, Stromko. I think there are things that you’re just not aware of.
“Even if a crack works, it may cause instability, not to mention some sites could harbor viruses and the like.”
That’s FUD, plain and simple. Usually, if there are issues with a crack then word gets around pretty fast. The biggest issue in recent memory was the Mass Effect starmap, which was known of on the day of release. Usually cracks are actually more stable than the original game. Anecdotal maybe, but I speak from experience. I’ve watched DRM crash and burn due to environmental elements it doesn’t know how to cope with (such as 64-bit or whatnot), and a crack always solves all my problems.
Currently there are no known issues with the SKiDROW crack that I’ve seen, everyone who’s tried it is perfectly happy with it. People in this very comments thread have attested as much, so there’s evidence to back up my claims. So a game that works flawlessly and smoothly versus that ridiculous DRM which does interrupt the game, a smart person opts for the crack. Understanding this, everyone should put this down to FUD, because there’s no basis for any claims in regards to crack instability.
“Furthermore, any patches (and all these games WILL require patches) will break compatibility with cracks, requiring customers to wait for new cracks which, for less popular titles, may never come.”
This, again, is yet more FUD, but I think you’re operating on FUD unwittingly, here. I don’t think you’re actually aware of things as they are now.
There are a number of sites out there which are reliable, I’d recommend GameCopyWorld. Also, the chance of a crack containing a bit of malware that even the most average virus scanner can’t catch is infinitesimal. Again, I’m speaking from years of experience with buying games in the past and cracking them, because the DRM invariably causes problems which the crack completely cures. When the Internet was young, your information would be correct, but these days you’re operating on outdated knowledge.
“Altogether, the paying customer is paying for an inferior product, [...]”
No arguments there, but you need to understand that if someone has all ready bought the game without knowing of the DRM then they could be helped. Spindoctoring and scaremongering isn’t going to help anyone, and why shouldn’t we help those who didn’t know any better? When did we suddenly become a society that punishes people for not knowing everything, all of the time?
“[...] applying the crack only makes it as good as the free cracked version, not as good as a fully supported, non-DRM’d game that they paid for.”
That’s utter nonsense for the reasons I’ve described above. And what I think is that you’re operating out of fear that people have put in your head, and that you’ve had no real world experience with cracks. Either that or you and I have had very different experiences. People can believe whomever they wish to believe. Personally, I don’t like FUD. FUD is used to terrify people so that they don’t realise the amount of choices they have. It’s a tactic used by Microsoft to stop people from realising they have more OS choice than just Windows.
I’m going to do my best to strike down FUD wherever I see it. And this post? Pure FUD. I don’t think you realise it, I’m not blaming you, I honestly do believe you’re just passing on what other people have told you. But unless you’ve got your own experiences to talk from, your information is incorrect and borne of ignorance.
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R.U.S.E was looking quite interesting until they announced the DRM, glad to see I was right to not pre-order the game anyway.
As for splinter cell, Alpha Protocol seems to have a similar premise, although with a bit more RPG than Action.
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The DRM Ruse was a… distaction
i HAVE the car
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I haven’t had any problems with this DRM but if the game is cracked already it’s stupid to maintain the status quo. Get rid of it and reap some extra sales.
But as I said Ubisoft should abandon PC market completely. If people are so stupid to kill their platform publishers shouldn’t bother with them. And I’m saying it as a PC-only gamer. Nobody from customer’s camp did anything to stop piracy – the main reason why customers themselves get sloppy and postponed ports (or get nothing at all). Customers can only whine that publishers are evil, copyrght laws are too restrictive and Geohot is a prophet because he’s trying to bring back Linux to your PS3 (which was taken out because of Geohot’s efforts to crack the system. Reap what you sow.
But I must say I’m happy that more and more PC gamers are aware that piracy can kill their hobby and start buying games. I hope may be some day piracy will be condemned as shoplifting. May be the industry should just wait out “hard times” for the market, heh.
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thats bullshit. piracy didnt kill pc games and it will not kill pc games. good studios can create good profit, even without intrusive DRM. look at stardock. they didnt have ANY DRM and they said they did good profit and they will not include any DRM in their games. same with blizzard games. they are heavily pirated, they also have their own (huge) pirate networks(like eurobattle or wow pirate free servers). and they can create gazillion $ profit each year. sims series are pirated and they sell millions copies. same with f3, cod, bf etc etc.
stupid DRM will not bump sales that much. i dont wanna know how much did ubisoft pay for Uplay DRM and how much do they pay for monthly server upkeep.
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The problem being that piracy rates have, arguably, spirraled considerably in recent years, as you’d expect. So, surely, if piracy was the media-industry-doomsday that it’s continually branded as, sales would’ve dropped dramatically in response? Except they’ve not. If anything, they’ve increased just as drastically. “Piracy is killing PC gaming!” is an argument that just doesn’t hold any water.
‘Sides, I don’t condone companies attempting to protect their products on any particular principle. I don’t download things myself. The problem comes when, in this case, they seem to follow a line of thinking that doing entirely the wrong thing is somehow better than doing nothing at all. Who’s suffering from all this DRM? Because it sure as hell isn’t the people it was supposedly designed to combat. The people doing the reaping aren’t the ones doing the sowing.
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An opinion: Piracy isn’t actually anywhere near as big of a problem or presence on the PC as you think it is.
An observation: Not that many people are interested in downloading games due to the belief that they’re riddled with malware and such, those that do decide to try it are rarely successful as they don’t have the competence to use ISOs, cracks, and whatnot. These people will get fed up and either buy or ignore the game. Very few people successfully play pirated games.
A conclusion based on the above: Game downloads don’t equal people playing pirated games, just imagine how much the numbers are fudged by people downloading games and not using them, and a small group of successful pirates downloading 20-30 games a week and only playing them for an hour or two before moving onto something else, compared to those who buy the game and will likely spend a week playing that game.
A theory: Shareholders are greedy, publishers are greedy too so they want to appease their shareholders, and publishers need to explain lost sales to their shareholders. If a game isn’t selling so well on a particular format, they’re not going to come out to the shareholders and say that it’s their fault for making shitty ports and not making games targeted at the demographic of that platform, instead they’re going to blame piracy, both publically and to the shareholders in order to have an excuse. Piracy is a bit of propaganda to cover up a real truth. That truth is that mainstream console games don’t sell as well on the PC as they do on consoles.
My understanding of things: If there was no DRM and the ports were redesigned to be more suitable to a PC audience (instead of just being generally grotty and poorly programmed) then games would be selling much, much better than they are now. If publishers were to back developers who wanted to make PC exclusives or developers who wanted to make games designed around the PC ethos, they’d see a further rise in sales. As it is, the games are selling a little bit less than on the consoles, I’d bet that the PC only sees about a 10-20% drop in sales, but for the greedy shareholders that’s too much. So… piracy. Piracy is the grand excuse that allows them the luxury of dealing with real problems.
Why haven’t Ubisoft dropped this DRM? It’d be pretty much admitting that all of the above is true, to varying degrees. They’re doing this to uphold the illusion of credibility in regards to that excuse.
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@ bleeters
“So, surely, if piracy was the media-industry-doomsday that it’s continually branded as, sales would’ve dropped dramatically in response? Except they’ve not. If anything, they’ve increased just as drastically.”
Actually, (boxed) PC game sales numbers have been in a death-spiral for years. I’m not convinced it’s piracy that’s doing it, as there are so many other factors in play, but the drop in PC sales does correspond with the adoption of broadband internet. (It also corresponds with rising revenue from phone and console games, subscriptions and online sales so the industry as a whole is seeing more money, but publishers will see what they want to see.)
Ironically, I think one reason people are moving to consoles is the broken experience they get on the PC thanks to DRM. That Ubisoft will *surely* see a drop in PC sales along with increased piracy and console sales will justify their viewpoint, unable to see the cause and effect.
@Wulf:
“I’d bet that the PC only sees about a 10-20% drop in sales, but for the greedy shareholders that’s too much.”
To be fair, profit margins for games are getting so thin, a lot of publishers would kill for an extra 10-20%, as that could be the difference between continued existence or closing down the studio.
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@bob_d
Indeed, but they bring it on themselves, really. Publishers are probably going to go the way of the dinosaur, eventually, in our ever evolving economy, and really, with every sort of publisher (see: the music industry) it usually can’t happen soon enough. There will be a rare few who’ll get smart before their end times arrive and change how their business works in order to survive in today’s world, but just will just disappear into the night.
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thanks RPS. more news servers need to bash this stupid DRM. i would never-ever buy game with such intrusive DRM. funny is that new games with Uplay DRM are cracked few days after release. totaly useless step ubi. shame that they wont admit defeat and drop this stupid DRM idea and patch their games with cracked exe/dll files. just like they did with R6 vegas2(or was it the first R6V?) and RELOADED crack.
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The pirated copy works great, so when will Ubisoft learn that they only people that get hurt by this bullshit DRM are the people who actually want to pay for the game. This doesn’t deter pirates, the crackers see it as a challenge, and then the pirates end up with a better experience than paying customers. Well played Ubisoft!
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I was going to buy this (Not older bro BS) but the DRM of course turned me off like a friggin light. Played it anyway, meh, glad it had the DRM since it wasn’t that great, more of a console thing.
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Ha ha ha ha, Ubisoft is going down. Right down.
*Remembers who is working on Beyond Good and Evil 2*
Great.
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If it arrives with this flavour of DRM baked into it I won’t be buying it anyway. AssCreed 2 didn’t interest me, I probably wouldn’t have bought Splinter Cell as I think the last game jumped the shark a bit but I might have been tempted by The Settlers. All are definite no-no’s now.
Plus there’s the fact there’s been no news about Jade’s return since the original announcement…no news is not always good news.
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This is a perfect example of the problem. You bought the game and found out you can’t stand it. Except… you bought the game. All chances you have of bringing the issue to a head just died as soon as you handed over the cash (signed the reciept, hit the submit button, whatever).
Why? Because Ubisoft doesn’t see anything but your internet tears. They have your money, they have the sale, and they made a profit. Fact is that a LOT of people have bought (or are buying) their current round of games. Maybe they find out they can’t play them all that well, and that they hate the DRM, but chances are they can’t return them. Which means the sales numbers are high and they’ll continue to implement the DRM system. Maybe, eventually, the impact of having this DRM will be felt, but it sure as hell doesn’t seem like its going to be now. Its going to be 6-12 months down the road when Ubisoft releases another couple big hits and find out no one is buying them.
So, at the end of the day, let me thank you (and everyone like you) who decided they’d be able to handle the game and bought it only to find out that common sense would have prevailed in the end. Not only have you cost me the chance to play what could be a couple decent games (Silent Hunter and Settlers), but you’ve cost me the chance to play some future good hits from Ubisoft that are likely to have this DRM scheme because Ubisoft won’t see an immediate sales hit from it.
I’m sure many people will say I’m placing the blame in the wrong spot, but it is the CONSUMER which dictates the market. A company will not continue to support a product/practice if no one buys into it. Unfortunately it seems far too many people have bought into this DRM scheme, regardless of what they’re feelings are about it AFTER the fact.
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Nice ideal, but very naive. As consumers, our ability to influence the market is pretty much minimal.
Let’s say everyone refused to buy the game. What makes you think that would make Ubisoft come to their senses?
When was the last time you saw any of the big publishers behave as if they were actually sane, understood the business they’re running, or just acted in their own best interests?
If we all just refused to buy their games, who’s to say that Ubisoft wouldn’t just go bust, taking the games we want to play with it in the grave. We’d be putting them in a situation where they have to demonstrate good business sense to survive. That could wipe them out.
Of course, this isn’t an argument for buying their DRM-infested crap. I’m staying away from it, and I hope everyone else does too. I just don’t think it’s a given that Ubisoft will realize how much the DRM is hurting their business. But we can hope. And if they dont, it’s ultimately their problem. As consumers we don’t have the power to influence what direction individual publishers go in, but we do have the power to decide which of them get to survive.
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Strangely enough I still do buy STEAM games though, but you can go off-line for that, though I still like GamersGate more.
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Yeah but the offline mode in Steam works flawlessly, I’ve spent weeks in that mode and then just reconnected when it was convenient.
I don’t think anyone would really care if Ubisoft had exactly the same sort of offline mode implemented, people would just click the offline mode button and think no more of it.
Steam’s offline mode is far nicer than almost any other DRM you could imagine, because it doesn’t phone home on every launch, unlike SecuROM, Tages, and whatever else you could name. A lot of games on Gamer’s Gate feature SecuROM.
‘Nuff said, really.
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@Wulf
A lot of games on Gamer’s Gate feature SecuROM.
A lot of games on Steam feature SecuROM too. In both cases it’s the publisher pushing for SecuROM, not the distributor. Most games on Gamersgate require an online check to install and then never need to deal with Gamersgate ever again, they’re simply yours. Short of being DRM-free, it’s about as light as distributor-attached DRM gets.
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Yeah I love GamersGate, when the second STALKER game wouldn’t work for me they gave me a full refund, no problems. (Still no idea why that damn game wouldnt work…)
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@Vinraith
I know, but my point is is that there are games which rely only on the Steam DRM. For example: The Whispered World. The Whispered World uses Steam DRM on Steam, whereas it uses SecuROM on Gamer’s Gate. And it’s now publically known (even to Gamer’s Gate, who are looking into it) that SecuROM totally butchers the game.
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@Wulf
Yes, in the case of the Whispered World, the Gamersgate version doesn’t work as a result of the publisher being massively incompetent. I can think of a few games on Steam that were borked on release, too (Silent Hunter 4 Gold for one, which wouldn’t install properly for months.) It’s a reality of digital distribution that sometimes between developers, publishers, and distributors someone screws up.
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You’re not following my argument, Vin, you keep sidestepping it…
I’m not sure whether that’s intentional or not, but allow me to restate it one more time: If a game has Steam DRM vs SecuROM DRM then the Steam DRM version is the desirable one. If both games have SecuROM or some other form of DRM then it doesn’t matter where you buy it from. Games which have only Steam DRM have been Universally functional and without problems from my experience, and games that have only Steam DRM can be set to offline mode, which doesn’t dial home every time you start the game.
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@Wulf
I get it, I just disagree. SecuROM alone vs. SecuROM + Steam, SecuROM alone wins. SecuROM alone vs. Steam alone is pretty much “flip a coin” to me, they’re both invasive in different ways. If the SecuROM in question involves limited installs I’ll usually go with Steam, if not I’ll usually go with the SecuROM alone option, in either case I’m not going to pay much for the game. It’s also worth nothing that SecuROM’s a lot easier to crack than Steam.
Most games I buy, though, don’t have SecuROM, so it’s between Steam and no DRM of any note. That one’s a no-brainer. You’ve had generally better experience with Steam than I have, and have a lot more faith in the people that run it, so your priorities are different.
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I’ll break it down a little more, then…
SecuROM requires a phone home every time the game is started, to my knowledge all installations of SecuROM are like this and my firewall has always told me the same, if you want to convince me that anything other than that is true, I’d like for you to show me, that’s all I ask. But my stance is that SecuROM is invasive because it has a phone home every single time the game starts.
Steam DRM in offline mode allows one to play a game without requiring a player to login for weeks at a time, I’ve never personally encountered an upper-limit where Steam has said to me that I can’t play in offline mode any more. I usually go online on Steam to poke a group on Steam or such. So let’s say that it’s two weeks (it’s probably longer, but I’m being generous).
How can you say that it’s a flip of a coin and make out that Steam DRM and SecuROM are equally as invasive when their actual behaviour paints a picture quite to the contrary? Steam DRM in offline mode is far, far less invasive. And that’s why–as I’ve said and I’ll continue to say–I’ll sooner buy a game off Steam if it has only Steam DRM than a version that has SecuROM, Tages, or any other form of DRM (since they all dial home every startup, Steam is the only one that doesn’t).
By this measure, Steam is far, far more pleasant to deal with, and it’s not right to lump it in with SecuROM or to say that it’s equally as invasive when that’s obviously as untruthful (and possibly intellectually dishonest if you realise that) as any statement could be.
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I will add that I too prefer no DRM. If I see a game on Gamer’s Gate or anywhere that honestly, genuinely has no DRM in any way, shape, or form, then I’ll opt for the version sans DRM over the Steam version. But in today’s climate where one in three releases is riddled with something nasty like SecuROM, I want another option. If I have the option of Steam DRM (which allows me to play for weeks on end with no phoning home) or SecuROM DRM (which butchers the performance of games and phones home on every startup), then I’ll opt for Steam DRM.
Steam DRM vs no DRM, I go for no DRM, only a fool wouldn’t, really. But my argument is that if we’re comparing Steam against any other form of DRM, Steam is far, far, FAR more benign, and to lump in Steam with other forms of DRM shows that you’re being illogical (or unreasonable, at least) about DRM and thus companies won’t pay as much attention to us if we’re going to fuss any which way.
If I can play for weeks at a time in an offline mode, I don’t have a problem.
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@Wulf
SecuROM requires a phone home every time the game is started
No, it doesn’t, I have a stack of games with SecuROM that do not require online checks for installation OR on game start. I have some that require online activation to install, and I’m aware of none that require on online phone-in to play each time. I would agree that SecuROM that DOES require a phone home on every game start would in fact be far more invasive than Steam, but I’ve yet to encounter that.
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to lump in Steam with other forms of DRM shows that you’re being illogical (or unreasonable, at least)
You’re misinformed about most of these DRM implementations, Wulf. For what it’s worth, if you were right and every SecuROM game and Tages game required phone-home-to-play I’d completely agree with you that Steam (with a functional offline mode) was better. I have quite a lot of SecuROM games, though, and a handful of Tages ones and none of them phone home on game start. Not. One. A few of them have a phone-home-on-install function, which I would consider to be very much equivalent to Steam (if not slightly better, since they don’t ever require me to check back in). A couple of them have install limits (that I wasn’t aware of at time of purchase) and I would consider Steam better than that in principle, though usually it’s easier to crack the SecuROM.
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One other little note, Gamersgate is the only digital distriibutor that I have ever seen guarantee their users that, in the case of third-party limited install DRM, they will never run out of installs. If the publisher cuts you off, GG says (right in their FAQ) that they will supply a new code as needed. When you buy from them, as far as they’re concerned the game is yours, which is a pretty remarkable stance if you ask me.
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SecuROM can be implemented in a lot of different ways, it’s up to the studio/coders/publishers how to drastically to implement it.
Would also add that SecuROM adds zero functionality where as Steam is actually useful.
Also I think we can all agree that either method is preferable to Ubisoft’s DRM.
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I would also add a belated tuppence to this by saying that while Tages/Securom is between me and my machine, I still find Steam’s hand-holding more objectionable than disc-based copy protection (particularly as that can be bypassed fairly easily). Case in point: I installed Aliens vs Predator (the new one) the other day and straight away encountered Steam asking for activation: fine, this was stated on the box and I accepted it before purchase. But where Steam annoyed me is in the install process, which it wanted to do from an online download when I had the DVD right there in the drive – a minor irritation but one I would not have encountered without it – and then, once installed, the update it wanted to apply. “I’ll let you play your game in a few minutes, when it’s done” it said (paraphrased, obv). As ‘helpful’ as this to many I still resent it, and actively avoid it where I can.
Further, to play the game without being saddled to any of the dubious community and acheivement ‘benefits’ I now have to go and tell Steam I want to play the game offline – like asking for permission from your parents. This also doesn’t remove Steam’s participation, either, as it’s still the middle-piggy through which the game is launched.
In terms of visbility to the end-user Steam is far more of a nuisance.
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Fight the power!
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The shareholders insist on this scheme, and they’re not about games – they’re they money men, not the developers or designers. And they don’t care about the quality of game bought by paying customers because…
They already have your money.
An unhappy buyer and a happy buyer have both paid the same price for the game. So where’s the profit in making buyers happy if the money hose sprays the same torrent of cash regardless?
They’ll sink their long term prospects for a quick buck. They’re running Ubisoft into the ground snatching every penny along the way and when the company crashes the shareholders will lay back on their draconian piles of gold and gems and nod sagely to each other over a glass of port.
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Why aren’t these objectively broken products getting damning reviews?
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/tomclancyssplintercellconviction
I see PC Gamer UK is in there. 87%. Very, very poor. A caveat in a review isn’t going to change Ubisoft’s treatment of their customers.
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I think this is the most galling thing about the entire issue. A lot of people will feel cheated by the disparity between publications railing against the DRM and the scores they award the games or their failure to address the issue altogether. Whether or not it is desirable, the Metascore is the bottom line for a lot of games and unless publications have the balls to score them down based on the DRM, publishers aren’t going to change their policies. It would be nice if the magazines had stood up for their readers on this one but their reaction has left me and presumably many others feeling let down.
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If anything, it might have taught people that magazines probably aren’t worth it any more, especially when you can read sites like this one.
Choices:
Magazines – reveal either a partial truth or nothing at all.
Websites – tend to give you the whole story, and the comments fill in the blanks.
That’s why I don’t buy dead tree gaming rags any more.
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The actual content of the magazines are not important – as Robin says, it is the numbers they assign to games which have an impact. Tacking on a sentence saying the DRM is bad and awarding it a high mark does not impact the publisher, they still get a high number out of it. That high number increases the number on Metacritic and more people buy the game.
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In my eyes, a sentence in the paragraph that talks about the DRM, or even in the summary, simply saying something like “Because of the DRM, we’re docking the game 20-30%” would allow people who don’t care about the DRM to figure out what the score would be in an ideal world (or if they don’t care about the DRM), and send a message to the metascore-loving publishers.
Which would be nice.
*Oh, and then actually docking the score.
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Great article. Just:
1) Download the crack
2) Play the game
3) Don’t buy anything from Ubi Soft until they remove their POS DRM from all their games and apologize to PC gamers
Yeah, probably that last one is the same as “Don’t ever buy from Ubi Soft again”. The way things are, I’m fine with that.
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Just make sure you’re not pirating the game to apply that crack.
When you pirate, you add to the number of people seeding/leeching/having downloaded the game via torrent. This number is then taken completely out of context by people within the games industry’s financial sector to claim that they’re losing billions to pirates, and then we get things like the DEB.
Even if you think you’re being rebellious and sticking it up to the man by pirating, you’re not. You’re merely making everyone’s immediate future a little bit more shit by giving more power to those who abuse policy makers’ complete lack of tech-savviness.
So yes, buy and crack, or even better: just ignore the game altogether instead.
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Boycott does not mean steal.
It means do not use.
Don’t break down for a bad game. Ignore this game, let the silence be your voice. If you talk about it, mention how you didn’t want a Desktop Gremlin cutting your game play off every time your internet had a hiccup.
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I don’t think anyone makes real Bank on a game company DMJ, except huge MMOs of course..
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@Snall: All the more reason for shareholders to slash and burn Ubisoft and save up to buy Activision-Blizzard shares with the proceeds.
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I’d really love to pick up the upcoming Prince of Persia title on Steam, but even that version is bogged down with the DRM crap. Even with my pretty solid internet, that means I will not be buying it.
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And yet it costs 60 bucks.
And yet people buy it.
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And some people are smart and wait until the DRM has been removed, then they pick it up in a Steam sale for £2-4.
>.>
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Problem is as i see it summed in opening of this article :
“Ubisoft decided that, in an effort to combat piracy, they’d implement a DRM system so draconian it’d make us pine for the days of SecuROM.”
Did you see the film “wag the dog”. So called “Wag the dog” is politic term describing old diplomatic tactics. When one scandal is made , another much bigger one must be created elsewhere. And the public completely forgets about first one (or even considers it benign)
Ubisoft DRM is game industry “wag the dog”
They will probably not continue using it. But from now on things like Securom will be considered “gamer friendly”
And than in future something even more horrible will come, and than Ubisoft DRM will be considered benign….and so on , and so on.
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Bastardry creep at work.
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Wag the dog is a bit different from that, it’s more like when they use pirate numbers to do fake math.
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“To ‘wag the dog’ means to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance. By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.”
But yea. I think the term can be used for all kind of attention diverting tricks.
In any case.
We will not longer stress about securom, or internet activation. It will now be considered the “Gamer friendly method”
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Oi!
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Just throwing my hat in as one of the people who would have bought Splinter Cell: Conviction on the PC, but have not done so specifically because of this DRM. (No, I didn’t pirate it either.)
I also would have bought Assassin’s Creed II on the PC, and did not do so for the same reason. I did buy it on the 360 before this DRM scheme was ever announced, and was STILL going to buy it – again – on the PC, because I liked it that much. Oh well.
I represent but one lost $100 opportunity, but there are many more like me. I will continue to represent an increasing amount of lost money until this situation changes.
However large or small a loss it is, I seriously doubt it’s a loss made up by the number of pirates you’re deterring, Ubisoft (in the short term, a few, in the long term, none).
I feel terrible for the developers. They’re making highly polished, well-reviewed games I want to purchase and play, and now I won’t. You’re actively driving me away as a customer, and I’m pulling as many people with me as will listen.
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The developers are a casualty in this, no doubt, as much as the punter who bought anything wot Ubisoft published.
The upside is that some (most?) of these developers might leave to form an indie development company, and then we’d see something high quality from them released on the PC without any of this nonsense.
What? I can dream, can’t I?
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Woa, you have only been able to play 3 hours!?
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I could have continued, I suppose, but it was damn near unplayable, so I just gave up.
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So far UBI has saved me almost $150.00
Sure I would have liked playing Settlers, Silent Hunter, and Splinter cell, but now I’ve almost got enough for a Kindle.
And no I haven’t pirated any of them and don’t intend to.
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A word from the pirates please? Have they managed to get lan coop working? I’d be tempted to buy 1 copy, crack it and play 2 player coop. A compromise to the 2 copies i would buy without the drm to play coop and the nothing i would otherwise buy.
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Apparently the SKiDROW crack works just fine. I’m… hesitant to link my evidence here, because I feel that RPS would tell me off, but after looking over a number of threads people have been able to play even online versions, just create a Ubisoft account and you’re good to go. Just remove the lines from HOSTS if you’ve used the previous server emulator.
So yes, you can buy the game, crack the game, and play online with your legally bought and cracked game.
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IMO, any solution that involves “buy the game” is doing more harm than good.
People keep saying that if you pirate the game, you’re adding to the number of pirates and telling Ubisoft that there’s demand for their games — a demand that they could presumably convert to sales if they could just make DRM that actually works. And that’s true enough.
But buying the game is even worse. It tells Ubisoft that there’s demand for their game, and that people are actually willing to put up with their crap DRM. It doesn’t matter if you then go and crack it — they still see the sale and the money from it.
I’m not advocating pirating the game. I’m advocating boycotting it altogether. And I suppose anyone who has already bought it ought to use the crack and actually enjoy their unfortunate purchase — you’ve already done the damage, may as well live with it.
But frankly, if someone can’t be convinced to just boycott the game altogether (sigh), I’d rather see them pirating it than buying it.
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I personally wouldn’t have touched Conviction with a barge pole anyway (I can’t stand the Splinter Cell series) but Assassins’ Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 would both have been games I’d have previously bought without question, even if they were on the old satanic SecuROM system.
As a direct result of this DRM I ignored them, waited for a crack, and pirated them. Resultingly I can now enjoy both (well, not Silent Hunter 5, the only suitable place for that was the recycle bin) free of any interruptions caused by my less than reliable internet.
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Well I’m not going to buy it until it’s less than 20 bucks or so. I heard that the game’s been cracked too and you can play online with legit players with this crack (because there’s no cd-key?).
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You heard right! Your information is completely correct, there’s absolutely nothing blocking online play at all, they thought their DRM would be the only line of defence they’d need, so they didn’t bother with anything else. With that DRM gone you can pretty much do whatever you like.
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Conviction would have been a day one purchase for me, given that I like the series a lot. Chaos Theory is still one of my favourite stealth games ever.
As it is, I’m waiting til it hits bargain bin price, then I’ll crack out the DRM if Ubisoft haven’t done it themselves.
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I think the question is why people bought these games knowing they had a fickle internet connection. I have to ask, Phil:
Aren’t there any other games out there that you could buy? Did you have to experience the black screen of death to actually understand the unfairness of this DRM? Do you feel your desire to play a game can’t be controlled, at least to the level where you make buying decisions based on corporate policies and respect for their customers?
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Really? You’re saying that I should be dictating my purchases based on my internet connection, or reliability whereof?
Supposedly, according to Virgin, I have a 20mb connection. That’s easily fast enough to deal with this DRM, but to focus on that would be to entirely miss the point. This is a single-player game. That means I don’t use my internet connection to play it. The fact that they’re arbitrarily saying that I do is the issue here.
If there was some benefit, any benefit at all from being connected to the internet while playing Splinter Cell, I’d be a hell of a lot more accepting of the restrictions. But, because there isn’t, it’s just interfering with an activity that has always been solitary, and entirely about losing myself in a game world for a few hours at a time.
So no, I don’t think I should not buy a game like this because of my internet connection.
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No. I didn’t say anything of that. You misread entirely. I suggest you read again.
Curiously enough your answer seems to indicate however, you still decide to buy the game even knowing full well before you put your money in, that this was an unfair and rotten deal.
With all respect you deserve (and you do):
What are you complaining about? It was your choice to buy the game. It’s not that you haven’t heard from comments on this blog and elsewhere on the internet what was the general opinion on this DRM and the risks you would be taking. It’s only bad now once you experienced it first-hand?
This may look like the bit where I’m happily taking advantage of you and showing no commiseration. But it’s not that, really. It’s just that what drives UbiSoft to these policies is the fact people buy their games. And they do because often they put their desire to play a game ahead of everything else, including a immensely unfair DRM policy.
So, this is in fact me doing a direct criticism at those who buy and then complain. It’s a more elegant and respectful way of saying “Deal with it!”
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Ok fair enough, I did somewhat mis read.
I’m not sure if this actually helps my argument in your eyes, but I didn’t pay for it. I obtained a copy of it through journalistic credentials, so, really, the entire article is supposed to inform rather than complain. I’m attempting to raise awareness of just why this is a bad piece of technology, which I don’t think I could without actually playing it.
And, without having played, and become angry, through playing, I personally don’t think that I could attempt to convey just how frustrating it is to be constantly interrupted while playing the game. That’s my primary intention.
So yeah, it is only really bad now that I’ve got first hand experience.
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“So no, I don’t think I should not buy a game like this because of my internet connection”
I guest you are not saying what you are saying, but saying something else, and I don’t get it.
If you don’t have internet, or your internet have frequent conexion problems you sould NOT buy this game or all others with this DRM. Hell.. I bet somewhere in the Ubisoft website this recomendation is made. Is just make sense.
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You’re on the wrong side of this, Tei.
The thing is, if a game has problems running on certain platforms then either the publishers or the community will patch it, it’ll work and everyone’s happy. You’re essentially arguing against this happening. I mean, it’s like saying that if you don’t want to play games you can’t complete due to show-stopping bugs, you shouldn’t ever play even slightly ambitious games. The problem isn’t Phil’s, it’s Ubisoft for not patching a problem that they could solve easily, and it’s the fault of anyone who doesn’t think that this is a problem.
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@Phil,
Oh! That changes everything indeed. Forget I said anything.
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No, Wulf.
Ubisoft should not get a free pass. I’m against them fixing it too. Why? Because I want them to go down in flames so the other companies finally get the message that you cannot treat your paying customers like thieves.
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@DJ
I think you just hugely misunderstood me, because I don’t agree with any of that.
I’ll sum up what I was saying: Ubisoft is a problem that needs fixing, people who think that Ubisoft is okay as it currently is are also a problem that needs fixing.
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Er, don’t disagree, sorry. I don’t disagree with any of that.
I would’ve done a speedy edit, but the post’s not showing up in the forums, so this will have to do.
To stress, I agree completely, I was just misunderstood.
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The real funny thing is that Splinter Cell MULTIPLAYER is cracked as well and even works with the new patches released by Ubi to improve it.
So the pirates play on their servers costing them even more money hosting etc.
Ubi failed on so many levels.
They won’t admit defeat because they are stubborn French.
And yes I can’t wait until they will crawl back to us and beg us to buy their shit again.
I hope Yves knows how to bend over…
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“They won’t admit defeat because they are stubborn French”
..heh…heh. Reminds me of a VERY funny TUF..
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I have been a huge fan of Ubisoft games in the past, but since the creation of their latest DRM I have declared indefinite moratorium. The world is full of games, there is absolutely no need to subject yourself to something like this. It’s the equivalent of going to a movie and being obliged to eat popcorn during the whole of it, otherwise you are kicked from the cinema.
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More akin to being forced to eat shit the entire time. Popcorn is at least tasty and delicious.
Mmm, popcorn.
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Seriously, when will you all commit to a review boycott of games with obnoxious DRM? A large number of people make their purchasing decisions based on professional or blogger reviews. If every time Ubi came out with a game with this shit in it, and it was never mentioned in the magazines or promptly given a 0%, it would start changing minds pretty quickly.
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RPS has comitted to a boycott. You won’t find a review or any other coverage of Ass Creed 2 on this site other than discussion of the DRM problems.
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The 486 PC that host the Ubisoft auth server is not happy either.
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Cheap bastards went for an SX.
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I remember when we upgraded our computer to DX. I was so excited! A math-coprocessor!
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Thought it was running on a Texas Instruments TI-34 calculator…
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No, it’s running on an quad-core abacus actually.
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I haven’t bought any Ubisoft games since they started with this crap and I don’t plan to, until they quit. I don’t pirate or crack the games, either. I just don’t care about them anymore. I have a ton of games sitting in Steam that I haven’t had time to play yet, so I really don’t need them.
Can I have a “lol ubisoft”?
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Giving good ideas to ubisoft:
Maybe Ubisoft can implement a “gaming cap”, so the auth servers are not overloaded. Something like 2 hours of play a day. Like some ISP that have setup a cap to bandwith.
Only really greedy players are playing 3 or 4 hours long the game. And are these gamers that are stealing the bandwith to all other players.
Maybe can monoteize the outtages!, like… the cap can be reduced to 1 hour, and If you want the cap raised to 2 hours, you have to pay a extra!
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PARIS, France. In a shock move today, French-based game subscription provider Ubisoft announced their new Strategic Head of Strategy and Making Decisions And That would be relatively unknown industry commentator Tei “Tei” Tei. In a press release this afternoon the company stated Tei “had the vision, drive and moral bankruptcy” that Ubisoft needed “to completely fuck over everyone, ever.”
Tei was unavailable for comment but sources close to him have expressed bewilderment and despair. “I thought he was joking!” said one fellow commentator. “Christ” he added.
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Tei, you have fallen to the Dark Side. Unless you mend your ways gamers from the future will build a time machine and come back in time to kill you before you made these suggestions.
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More ideas: a result of this DRM is that game saves are stored in the cloud. Ubisoft could monetize that as well. $0.25 for quicksaves, $1 per checkpoint save.
I feel dirty now.
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Thank goodness Ubisoft doesn’t read what anyone says about them.
Otherwise we’d see this enacted.
Also, good job, Rob. Funny.
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very funny robrob :D
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@Tei
Get China on the phone, they’d love this.
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They’re getting fuck all out of me until they drop this pos.
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No biggie, UbiSoft gave up on making games donkey’s years ago. You’re not missing out on anything.
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It won’t make any difference yelling at Ubisoft, or pointing out that they’re losing PC sales. In their eyes (and they do have a point here), there’s a risk of piracy with PC gamers, whereas there’s little/no risk with consoles. So the more us PC users get pissed off with DRM like this, the more of us will buy consoles because the DRM doesn’t actually impact your gaming experience.
At some point, they can then make the decision to no longer support PCs since sales have dwindled and the market just doesn’t justify the development expense to test on all the various hardware for PCs.
No more piracy. Happy days.
As a PC gamer, you’ll just have to sit back and wait for the inevitable demise of the PC game.
Or, you could kill this DRM and ensure that the PC survives as a platform by boycotting this game on all platforms. Don’t buy it on Xbox because the PC suffers from DRM, boycott it altogether and send a strong message. Anything else will just prove Ubisoft right, that PCs aren’t worth investing in and consoles are.
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I’m becoming convinced this is correct. It suddenly struck me when I realised the only one of these games I really wanted was AC2 and I got it on PS3.
Although now I’m thinking SH5 is PC only isn’t it..? Um…
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Err, really? In my country, the average PC gamers are far less than 360 gamers. The number of pirated copies of 360 games are fourishing like a weed. ~_~ You could buy a 360 console and a pirated copies in the same goddamn store. And yes, they already hack the console so it can play those pirated copies.
Those stupid publishers don’t realize that the infamous no-region crack for console game is killing ‘em. So tell me that the piracy on console is not as high as the piracy on PC. *sigh*
Thank God I’m still walking in the path of light by always buying the legal copies.
Hot news? Naaah.
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The flaw in this logic is that no one, not Ubisoft, not EA, not Activision, can kill PC gaming.
PC gaming exists because:
1: people own PC’s (that’s not likely to change
2: people want to play games (that’s not likely to change)
3: people like to make games wherever they can (that’s not likely to change)
Really, remember the childhood of PC gaming? There were no big publishers backing it. The hardware sucked. And yet people sat down and wrote PC games. And people *played* these PC games.
Even if every publisher abandons the PC, that won’t kill the PC games market. It’ll just remove the big AAA games from the platform. And that just leaves room for new developers who aren’t tied up in the big publishers’ strategies. Then they’ll become big, make piles of money, lose sight of what they’re doing, and the cycle starts anew. ;)
No one can kill PC gaming. The worst that can happen is that a batch of AAA games won’t come out on the platform. But games as a whole will always exist on, will always be developed for, the PC.
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I’m sure someone has said this, but it probably bears repeating – the only way they’ll stop doing this is if it affects their bottom line. So…stop buying Ubisoft games.
And then fire whoever came up with this idea.
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You should stop buying them because they’re exercices in cynical marketing and insultingly bad “ease of access” design, anyway.
Guys, play Chaos Theory.
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Hi My name is pinkbeard, I’m a pirate. I have completed Assassin’s Creed 2 (Good story, can’t wait for the next one) and am now working my way through Conviction. I have not exdperienced any issues with Ubisoft’s DRM technology, no interruptions to my game play, and a nigh on perfect gaming experience.
Do you know why? Did you read then first sentence? Yes that’s right, I haven’t paid for those games, because paying for them sends ubisoft a message. It says to Ubisoft; “Oh yes please I’d like you to provide me with a substandard gaming experience for my hard earned money, I’d also like you to punish me and everyone else who pays for your games for having the temerity to pay your wages.”
When you pay for something, you tell the person that you’re paying that you want what they’re offerring in the condition it is in and with all the conditions they attach to it intact. If it weren’t for the DRM I would have bought these games, they’re actually pretty good. But because ubisoft thinks it can get us to pay for its games when doing so renders them unplayable, unenjoyable and a painful experience for so many people when we can play exactly the same game without that pain and in a much more enjoyable form for free. Well, I think you know which option I took.
Screw you, Ubisoft. I’m playing your games for free and without so much as a glitch. and I wil do so with every one of your releases that takes my fancy until you stop punishing your paying customers.
Regards
Pinkbeard the Pirate
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And pirating those games sends Ubisoft the message that they were right to put draconian DRM on their titles because the PC is full of horrible pirates!
Congratulations on sending Ubisoft that message!
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Actually Ubisoft probably don’t believe the bullshit they come up with so it would actually just come as a surprise to them that any pirates of the nature they insist exists, actually does exist.
Piracy is simply their excuse to shareholders for why people are responding rationally to a market saturation of rubbish games.
For the benefit of some other posters here: piracy IS rampant on consoles. It’s just that consoles don’t provide any clear convenient figures for them to distort.
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@pinkbeard:
“But because ubisoft thinks it can get us to pay for its games when doing so renders them unplayable, unenjoyable and a painful experience for so many people when we can play exactly the same game without that pain and in a much more enjoyable form for free.”
Notwithstanding the fact that paying for the game results in a poorer experience, do you ever wonder if it is justified to take something that is the result of years of the hard work of hundreds of people- for free? I’m just curious.
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Alex, what you say makes no sense.
“Thieves broke in and stole our stuff! So we were right to spend all that money on the fancy alarm system!”
“You mean the one that didn’t prevent the thieves from stealing your stuff?”
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Wrong analogy, Urthman. Sure, the pirates showed Ubisoft they can’t be stopped. But they also showed Ubisoft that Ubisoft was justified in this ridiculous DRM because the pirates aren’t exactly hiding how they won. It probably takes them next to no effort to find a post that supports their point on piracy. Y’know, like the one Pinkbeard made.
As long as they can keep convincing themselves and their shareholders, they will not change.
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Exactly DJ. The answer is not buying the game, not pirating, not playing it, not even talking about the damn thing unless if to give bad publicity. Pirating the game will only justify Ubisoft measures.
For those here giving the example of the Humble Bundle as to how things that don’t have a DRM are more successful, think again. The Humble Bundle has been pirated already. And the current rate is estimated at 25%. Not only that but t5he current 84,000 contributors are an incredibly small number compared to what are expected and desirable sales for a typical high profile AAA title. If a game like AC2 would only sell 84,000 copies it would be a fatal blow to any AAA company.
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“But [the pirates] also showed Ubisoft that Ubisoft was justified in this ridiculous DRM because…”
…because it didn’t stop the piracy and only served to annoy their paying customers?
I mean, it just makes no sense at all. “I’m going to board up my front door to keep people from stealing my stuff!”
“It didn’t work. Your stuff got stolen anyway.”
“See! I told you boarding up my front door was a good idea! Now I’ll just board up my back door too!”
“But…they didn’t come in the back door…”
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Yes, Urthman, but Ubisoft obviously uses Moon logic. This of course means that they cannot be reasoned with. Kind of like any religious or political extremist!
So while it makes no sense at all, it’s exactly how they think. Do not fight on their terms. NEVER argue on your opponent’s terms. Only explain information on their level. This is how to win debates. (Note: Having been in Debate club and won all the time will not help you, kids! People in the real world get to walk away, or just say no over and over again until you give up! This is because people are stupid. The More You Know!)
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In the case of game piracy, I think it works like this:
“Thieves broke in and stole our stuff! So we were right to spend all that money on the fancy alarm system!”
“You mean the one that didn’t prevent the thieves from stealing your stuff?”
“THEY STOLE THE ALARM AS WELL! This is why we’re going to need more money to get a bigger alarm.”
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I downloaded it, bought a cd key for £15, and used the crack, I can even play online.
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OH BABY! a DRM discussion again!
*grabs popcorn*
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No, I shat in your popcorn. It tastes like poo now.
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All of this DRM also breaks the second hand value of the product, and actually devalues the initial purchase, as it has less residual value once I have finished playing it.
Infact, what we saw was that prices increased from £18 to £25-£30 for new releases around the same time as they started using limited activations, etc. Which is completely counterintuitive – devalue a product, yet increase the purchase price???
I guess that this is why we see prices crashing within the opening month of release, often below the £18 mark.
I used to pre-order 2-3 games a month (often these were duds, but at this price I didn’t mind), yet now I buy around 6 or 7 games a year (only after reading reviews and playing demos), and only 2 of those were at £25 last year – if a number of people are now doing the same, then this is potentially a lot of cash out of the games industry. Knowing the twisted logic of the publishers, they are probably blaiming increased piracy for reducing sales, rather than their price point.
So for me personally, it is good that I am spending less on games, and only picking the quality products – but for the games industry as a whole, I do worry as my cash is going to a smaller number of developers and if a lot of people are doing the same this will encourage developers to focus on sure fire hits, and not push the boundaries incase it is a flop. The net result is that we have a lot of studios going out of business and a market model where each successful IP is milked to death (read Ubisoft model).
Publishers and Developers need to look at how they can increase turnover and reduce overheads (as any other business continually strives to do), and with the advent of digital downloads it is possible to alter the business model.
They have altered their business model in the likes of China and Russia reducing prices to discourage people from pirating games – therefore they are aware that there is a clear link between price and piracy.
If all games were released digitally for ~£10 would you even consider piracy or would you be more inclined to buy a few games a month – therefore this could potentially increase turnover, reduce piracy, and put more money back into the industry. I’ve said it before, but Valve demonstrated with the UT3 sale on Steam, that lowering the price for the sale actually produced more turnover than the initial launch at full price.
Back on subject – if they were to decrease prices and increase sales, thereby reducing piracy, they could stop wasting cash on DRM and give the paying customer a better experience.
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I find it strange that the games industry doesn’t just try to get paid for all second hand sales of their games.
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This is exactly what EA’s ‘Project Ten Dollar’ is trying to do.
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You know you can download the crack AND buy the game, right?
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Which would be equivalent to tacit approval of Ubi’s practices. Which I dare say is the last thing most of us want to do.
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I’ve just finished my first and last playthrough of Assassin’s Creed 2. It was long, drawn out and pretty dull. Such self important garbage. The DRM only stopped me playing twice and whilst this wasn’t exactly rageworthy It was annoying at the time. I’m glad I got it cheap. There is no excuse for this DRM.
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I have a steady net connection. Area upgrades and maintenence notwithstanding, it never fails. I still wont touch one of these games. Partly out of principle, partly out of concern over my ISP’s traffic management policy, (approx 1GB limit daytimes & 2.7GB evenings before 9pm). Mostly out of principle. Like the author of this piece, I’m fucking angry too. and I havn’t even tried to play. Ubisoft to Ubershite. (Gonna write that one down).
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I wish this didn’t have such awful DRM, it looks really fun. Same goes for AC2.
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The DRM will be gone eventually, just wait it out. Wait a little longer and you’ll pick it up on Steam in the sub-£10 range. Then you’ll have a good laugh about it, since you didn’t have to live through the DRM or pay a ludicrous amount of money for the experience.
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@Wulf
I like your optimism, I wish I was as confident as you. I have visions of the “next step” being Ubi running their SP-only games entirely server-side, with the player logging in to play ala an MMO.
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I’m more inclined to back Vinraith than Wulf on this one.
They’re not going to patch out server-side requirements. They’ll just turn off the servers when the sequel is released and we’ll* all migrate like the idiotic consumer drones they all wish we were.
* not actually us, of course – people who did buy a copy.
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This is always weird for me. I tend to think of myself as fairly bitter and anti-human in a lot of ways, and then at times like this I realise that I probably have more faith in humanity than the entire RPS reader-base.
Well, I’m hoping that we’ll back away from this nonsense. It is optimism, but I’d rather be optimistic than anything else. And hey, if they don’t back down, then I’ll just continue to ignore them and buy great indie games instead. Whomever loses, I win.
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@Wulf
If you’re bitter, I shudder to think what that makes me. Honestly, more often than not you are the hopeful one around here, it seems, and I’m not kidding or being snide when I say I admire and appreciate that. I very much hope you’re right about this one.
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The part of the Optimist in tonight’s show will be played by DJ Phantoon.
I think Ubisoft doing this is great news! What with how it will kill them and teach the other companies not to do it. And maybe more companies will focus on using engines from id and what not, meaning they can downsize and not be so dependant on making a billion dollars. Yep, the future is just one big ice cream sundae!
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@Wulf
“I tend to think of myself as fairly bitter and anti-human in a lot of ways, and then at times like this I realise that I probably have more faith in humanity than the entire RPS reader-base.”
And I’d say I’m rather more optimistic and positive than most of my acquaintences – dear lord, what does that make them? Thing is, while I truly and sincerely believe that individual people are nice and friendly and well-intentioned and what have you, I have no faith whatsoever in semi-anonymous barely accountable groups of people who’ve landed in positions of power.
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Ridiculously restrictive DRM are almost worth the trouble when they give positive verification of the existence of clueless pointy-haired bosses at Ubisoft. Corporate life is a Dilbert cartoon!
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No Ubisoft, you are the templars.
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Ow. That gave me a headache.
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Until UbiSoft removes this DRM I refuse to buy any new games with it. My 30+ Lan party friends are in the same boat. Way too many great games out there to waste my time with DRM.
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Make that #1.
Just checked.
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I was surprised as well by PCG giving it a (high) score. I thought it was a definate opportunity to make a proper statement. I appreciate that it was heavily mentioned in all the Ubisoft reviews but obviously meetings were had and the staff of PCG decided not to let the score be affected by the DRM.
This is dissappointing. By all means give it a fair review and praise it where praise is due but then slap a big fat zero on at the end. You would then have been fair to the game but properly warned people. I can’t help but feel that Ubisoft have been let off the hook.
At the end of the day we have no way of knowing just how many people had their experience ruined by their internet dropping out. I have no way of knowing if my connection is ‘always on’. Is there really any way of anyone knowing this?
It’s kind of like being in the pub and getting a punch in the face and then just getting up and saying, ‘hmm, that punch hurt but it was a good punch, i’ll give it 89%’.
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Well, let’s be honest here. Most magazine reviews are bought and paid for, one way or another. It doesn’t have to be cash, either. Just a subtle hint that if you don’t give this game a decent score, you’ll get fuck all from us in the future. No interviews, no previews, no review copies, etc. Every other magazine would then be a couple of steps ahead of them and they can’t afford that.
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If that were true no big games would get bad reviews and they do. Kane & Lynch… *cough* *cough*
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Zogtee: Utter bollocks nonsense. I know a lot of journalists, and we tend to be pretty open with each other about this sort of stuff. Not a single person I know has ducked to this sort of deal. I know of pressure being placed on publications for this sort of stuff, but literally none that have gone for it.
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Lewis, it’s more prevalent in the case of console gaming magazines. Especially ones handed money by the console maker itself to fund the magazine.
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The one thing that this UbiDRM thing has taught me is, that I don’t have to play all games. I had been really looking forward to Assassin’s Creed 2. But now, not having played it, I don’t have the feeling that I missed anything.
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It’s true. In much the same way that over-priced, under-content DLC has taught me that I won’t suffer for not playing every speck of content released for games I like, UbiDRM and the like is teaching me I won’t miss out for not playing every game that looks interesting. It’s as though the big publishers are trying to teach me I can do without them.
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@Vinraith
Over-priced and under-content DLC?
You mean $10-$15 for about half an hour of reused assets and a new hat isn’t money well spent? Why, it’s only half the price of an entire new game – surely that’s reasonable…
Yeah, it’s horseshit all right. God help the people who do spring for it compulsively, and also have mercy on the souls of those foist it on us… I hear wads of cash are great for wiping away those guilty tears.
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I am loving the pirated version of Assasin’s Creed II I’m playing at the time, haven’t had a single issue with it.
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I’m currently playing AC2 without an internet connection. Jeeze, what a great game. I certainly hope no one got suckered into actually using this shit DRM scheme. Alternate means are so much more appealing now.
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It’s pathetic how complicit in this the gaming press is (RPS and a few others excepted, of course). If every major PC gaming mag gave a game with this ridiculous DRM a 1.0 out of 10.0, it would stop. Immediately.
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1000% correct, this needs to be shouted from the roof tops.
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I love this fucking site and the DRMa. Keep it up =)
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As a gamer that is about to pirate his first game since I copied my friends Death Knights of Krynn floppy disks I am about to do it again for the first time in 20 years (settlers 7). Normally its not even a consideration for me, I am honestly just pirating it out of spite! I do a good chunk of my gaming while traveling and dealing with wonky/slow/proxied airport etc internet. I strongly believe in paying for anything I have as a matter of personal honor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour) but in this particular case I really really hope these games fail due to the drm so this does NOT become an industry standard!
Reminds me of the time I set up my linux server to download metallica torrents for 3 days straight after they went crying to congress. Ya im petty but damnit it makes me feel better!
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Nice writing, PC (Phill Cameron). I hope you come to RPS more often.
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And because all PC gamers are horrible pirates making these kind of draconian restrictions neccessary the “The Humble Indie Bundle” where people got to pay what ever they wanted for games without any DRM whatsoever utterly failed.
It failed so much that it has by now made over one million dollars.
Food for thought.
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Hell this DRM scheme probably cost 1 million dollars. You just don’t get business.
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The funny thing is that the harder you try with DRM, the more effort will go into cracking it. The crackers will just see it as challenge.
There is only one solution to piracy . encourage people to buy it. Build a better product, price it reasonably, make the purchases easy and accessible, and keep updating it.
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Btw, has Ubisoft made any calculations regarding these factor:
+ Money gained by DRM measures.
- Money spent at developing and supporting the DRM measures.
- Money lost through badwill amongst possible customers.
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I was really looking forward to AC2, but decided not to buy it (or pirate it) when I learned of the DRM.
It’s interesting to see that AC2 drastically dropped in price very quickly after release – I imagine the retailers had overstocked, anticipating a demand that wasn’t there.
It doesn’t seem that popular on Steam either – today a maximum of 245 people were playing it simultaneously. More people played FEAR 2 today, than played Assassin’s Creed 2. Even the mediocre AVP 2 had 831 people playing it today. Splinter cell conviction had a peak of 509, pretty poor for a recently released game.
Let’s hope that the sales figures for their DRM’d games are so disappointing that Ubisoft decide to drop the DRM. I doubt that’ll happen however. Ubisoft have invested too much time and money to drop it, and will probably try to improve it. From what I’ve read the newer Ubisoft titles will have an enhanced version that performs server-side calculations, and not just challenge-response data pairs, whcih would make it very hard to crack.
Oh well, my boycott will continue then. I’ve got plenty of other games to finish.
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I don’t see the issue with using a cracked copy if you’ve got a purchased copy/license for the game. You’ve got the rights to it, use it.
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It’s actually a breach of teh EULA that comes with the game – tho shall not alter or use any altered files.
In addition, it sort of defeats the object of the whole issue – why put money into Ubi’s corporate hands to encourage them to continue to use this system if you are going to crack the game and breach teh EULA in any case?
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You’ve got the right to play the game *with the DRM, on Ubisoft’s terms*.
And yes, I believe a few countries also allow you to bypass copy protection mechanisms as long as you’ve bought the product. But in most countries, it’s a no-go
You end up giving Ubisoft your money, while also breaking the law and providing more ammunition for their “Piracy is killing us, just look how popular these cracks are” arguments.
Worst of both worlds?
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I’d love to see this carried through in a UK court, since we’re a country known for protecting the consumer with laws, a lot of protective laws that other countries don’t have, even, and many that even the average British punter isn’t aware of (I’ve put them to good use a few times).
In my opinion, something enabling someone to use something that they’d bought would probably be fine, I suspect it would be laughed out of the courts in lieu of more serious cases if Ubisoft did try something. Again, the UK has a long history of protecting consumer rights, there are many groups who’d be able to help out with this. This isn’t certain other countries, where on the basis of a EULA alone the company could see you slapped with a massive fine.
I bet the EFF would love to help out with this one, too, if contacted, so one might even be able to swing proper legal representation.
I’m sorry, I’d just find it really interesting if this was taken to court here, in the UK. With all the laws that exist to protect the consumer, I don’t think it’d be as cut and dry of a case as some think.
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Also, there’s this defence: “Ubisoft used a crack to fix the DRM of a previous game, this crack was supplied directly by Ubisoft to solve problems in another game I bought, so I thought it would be okay to use a crack to fix the problems in this game going by Ubisoft’s prior example.”
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Did anyone mention that with Assassins Creed 2, for some random reasons your savegames will disappear, eaten by the hungry DRM? Customer service couldn’t help (or reply) so far. Now that’s what I call an awesome playing experience. I regret having bought it.
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You could crack the thing and just enjoy the game as it was intended. Just avoid torrent sites, since it’s much easier to track those than anything else.
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Oh come on, don’t be such a DRMa Queen!
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I’ve scanned for this point, but so far no one’s mentioned it:
[ignorance]
Ubisoft are pulling out of PC gaming. Plain and simple. They aren’t idiots and they can see how fucked up their actions are. There’s literally no logical recourse for them. It seems much easier to leave the PC gaming market with disenfranchised ex-consumers that want them to go, than with people pissed off that they’ll have to buy a console to keep playing new ubisoft releases. Or begging for expensive and complex conversions six months down the line from console release (which won’t sell remotely as well due to lack of marketing hype).
What with the more demanding compatability issues and the vulnerability to hacks/cracks and tweaks, it’s just not attractive to sell games on PC any more. Plus there are pirates everywhere, thinking they are somehow deserving of something they haven’t paid a penny for (honestly, wtf?).
Someone tell me what kind of % share of a games profits come from PC, xbox and ps3 compared.
Also worth adding I would rather this wasn’t the case. But I’m being starkly realistic about it. And there are of course sucess stories. The community valve founded from the half life one mod scene couldn’t have happened on a console. Counter Strike couldn’t have happened on a console. Infact there are almost as many pros to PC gaming as there are cons. But corporations look at the bottom line. Which means they are yanking the cord.
[/ignorance]
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I pirated Assassin’s Creed 2. I don’t usually resort to piracy. I’d like to be ashamed of what I did, but somehow I still feel morally in the right, if not legally. When they remove the DRM, I will happily pay for it. What angers me the most is that AC2 is a fucking brilliant game, but the DRM has scared off thousands of potential customers that might have had the opportunity to play it. Not wanting to pirate it is of course perfectly reasonable, but the fact that the people who spent fifty bucks/twenty-odd pounds on the game are the ones having the least fun playing it is completely nonsensical. Call me a fool, a thief, a misguided bastard, I stand by my decision until Ubisoft gets its shit together.
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That blurb on Metacritic from PC Gamer UK is utterly shameful:
“Excellent espionage, with superb cooperative play. But we can’t recommend you buy this game with the current DRM. 87%”
87% for a game that they “can’t recommend.” I guess in the PCGUK system, if a game gets a 78% that must translate into “Do not buy this game ever.” and 66% means “Hunt down and kill the development team.”
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My guess? They’re subtly suggesting you crack it.
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I believe Tim Edwards wrote somewhere that scores would be awarded for the game and not the context, but that the mag’s official stance was still anti-DRM, and so it would always be mentioned in the text.
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You can’t take DRM into account when rating a game because it’s technically not part of the game. It is, at least theoretically, possible for people with stable Internet connections not to notice a thing. Marking it down would be like giving Crysis a 1/10 because your computer doesn’t play it.
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“I believe Tim Edwards wrote somewhere that scores would be awarded for the game and not the context…”
However, the context here is “DRM is keeping people from playing a single-player game.”
If there was some huge game-stopping bug that would make your game unusable, it would get dinged for it. what’s the difference?
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@Zwebbie: Didn’t Demigod get marked down for multiplayer connectivity issues? Same sort of deal here.
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pkt-zer0: If I remember correctly, Demigod’s issues were from the server side. There wasn’t anything you could do about it. Here, Phill mentions that it’s his unstable Internet connection that is causing the problems, so it’s his own dumb fault.
Now if I were a game reviewer, I’d refuse to review such a game at all and apathy Ubisoft to death, rather than leave such a remark in the description, but that’s another matter entirely.
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Zwebbie you don’t KNOW that it’s Phill’s connection. In fact I know it isn’t, because there were plenty of reports of people being unable to play the first few days due to the Ubisoft servers being down.
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You can’t take DRM into account when rating a game because it’s technically not part of the game.
False, unless you use an illegal crack to remove the DRM. Out of the box, the DRM is as much a part of the game as the interface or the graphics engine.
But I don’t care how you try to excuse it. For a reviewer to say “87% – Don’t buy it.” is ridiculous.
It is, at least theoretically, possible for people with stable Internet connections not to notice a thing. Marking it down would be like giving Crysis a 1/10 because your computer doesn’t play it.
If my computer meets the requirements for Crysis, it will for sure play it. But there’s no hardware configuration you can buy that will guarantee your computer can always talk to Ubisoft’s servers and play Splinter Cell Conviction.
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Gotta agree with that. If the reviewer has to deal with the DRM, mark it down. It’s a nuisance so rate it as such!
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Showstopping bugs usually result in markdowns. A broken game is supposed to get a bad score, right? So this, which is unplayable for many people, got… nothing taken off? Really?
The 87 is pretty specious, sure, but it ain’t exactly an outlier. 9 is the new 7, and 7 was the new 5. Review “scores” are meaningless. Any respectable reviewers I know of either throw in a number as a sop to morons, use a small enough scale to be somewhat defensible (four point or five point), or just don’t bother.
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I think there might be another solution that need not impact the overall score. I’m not really invested in this since I don’t buy PC games magazines, but I’ll share it anyway.
Have a stamp, make it big, obvious, and red, and put it next to the score. Have a page explaining the stamp, and reciting a story like Phil’s there, tell people that there are reports of people barely able to play the game due to cut-offs, that there are reports of saves being eaten by the DRM, and that there’s a chance that if you have a crappy Internet connection you may not be able to play this game at all, due to it locking up whenever it notices you’ve lost your connection, and therefore losing you progress. Tell people to understand that such a form of DRM is on this game, and they buy it at their own risk.
Further inform them that the score is just for the game alone, sans DRM, and they should modify the score to whatever they think is fitting based upon the nature of the DRM. They could also say if they liked that they don’t actually recommend buying the game right away, as that might help to convince Ubisoft to remove the DRM.
Though I don’t think any magazine would really be that brave…
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You know what’s really puzzling? How a game with insta-death stealth sections and fiddly controls can get such high scores.
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They will spin the number, invent a number, inflate the number and sexually abuse it in any number of ways either way. Not pirating accomplishes nothing. If some kind of protest is what you’re looking for. Not giving money is enough, the rest is semantics in which no one is interested.
In other news, a bunch of developers just got an incredible bunch of money by offering games that you could literally download by copy/pasting the link from their servers. I guess people sympathize when they are treated with respect.
Remember, purchasing a non-scarce item (such as a computer game) is a gift. It can be nothing but a gift. If someone buys your non-scarce product, he’s being kind to you. Be kind to him in return and we will create a better world together.
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Damn the comments system, this was a reply to Alexander’s comment.
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I want to sit Ubisoft down and say, with sadness rather than anger: “You do not get money from stopping piracy. You get money from people giving it to you”.
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Yeah, except it’s nothing like the previous Splinter Cell games, so that’s no real reason.
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On a related note, EA’s new “pay for new DRM” online DRM system lets you buy into online content for used games. Which means if you own a game, register it and ALSO register it for online service, for whatever reason need to re-register it, they will treat you as a second hand customer and demand 10 more bucks.
I kinda like and dislike it. It allows buyers to to breath new life into second hand games legitimately (yay!), but adds a another big hurdle for paying customers if the hardware/software circumstances align for them to need to re-register (BOO!).
Time will tell how this works, and if it will become a policy for all their titles, not just the sports titles.
“It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.”
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“An observation: Not that many people are interested in downloading games due to the belief that they’re riddled with malware and such, those that do decide to try it are rarely successful as they don’t have the competence to use ISOs, cracks, and whatnot. These people will get fed up and either buy or ignore the game. Very few people successfully play pirated games.”
In my country everybody play pirated games but nobody would buy originals anyway because they are too expensive (average salary 300 eur – new game around 50 eur, sometimes i wonder how we even buy food). Only exception WOW ,Warcraft, HL … for people interested in MP.
I would like to support SOME developers and buy original but simply can’t afford it. So if there is no piracy they still wouldn’t get my money because I simply wouldn’t be playing games, only my life would be more miserable.
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I’m not trying to be offensive here, but I’m aware of this. The fact is: if one thing rings true, your country doesn’t count. Even publishers are beginning to understand this. Now, is your country poor by its very nature, and one that sees people pirating all sorts of luxury materials anyway? If so, then you don’t really count because the publisher couldn’t make a profit there regardless.
Capcom refused to sell a couple of games in a few European countries recently (Ace Attorney Investigations was one of them) due to the belief that he countries in question were too poor and the games would just get pirated anyway, so publishing to those regions would just see them cut a loss, there’d be no benefit in it because the countries in question couldn’t easily afford luxury items.
So it doesn’t matter if people pirate them there because of the unreachable price, because the publisher should all ready be aware that they won’t make much of a profit in those regions any way. What I’m getting at is this: If people can’t afford to buy your stuff either way, if they don’t have the money to do so, then whether they pirate or not is irrelevant, because even if they didn’t pirate it still would be a lost sale.
The best thing you could do is buy games via sales, but if your country is unable to afford new games on general, as you say, then the likelihood is that it’s all ready been written off as a region of profit, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Usually, when they’re trying to combat piracy it isn’t you or your country that they’re thinking of, but countries which are too rich for their own good, which they could wring endless reservoirs of money from for their greedy shareholders.
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And I got such a strange mental image when I wrote about wringing money out of countries to gain vast reservoirs of cash. Two giant hands with a rolled up map of America, twisting it and squeezing it, from which endless amounts of cash poured into a giant concrete pool below, a pool surrounded by faceless people in suits who were clapping to show their appreciation.
I swear Grant Morrison somehow found a way to infect me with his strangeness.
But that’s a great metaphor for how it really is. If a country doesn’t have that much money to be wrung out in the first place, you’re probably below the notice of greedy people.
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What is up with the major publishers acting like evil cartoon supervillains at the moment? You got Ubisoft with their DRM, EA trying to kill the second hand market with that 10 quid fee for multiplayer, and Activision being Activision.
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Activision: The equivalent of a Snidely Whiplash mustache on your best friend’s creepy grandpa.
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You’ve also got the issue that with things like ACTA now taking place, bypassing DRM is in itself considered illegal, regardless of your having paid for the product.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/acta-is-here.ars
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I bypassed the DRM. So kill me now UBI, kill me. :’(
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This is why we need an electronic rights group, especially here in America. The Civil Rights movement of the 70s wasn’t spontaneous. They already had lawyers and groups ready to go, because they knew those laws were wrong and that with enough pressure they would win.
If there aren’t people prepared to challenge these laws in the courts, then we’re just going to see more infringements of rights.
I’m not exactly sure on the British situation, especially since none of your parties have a ruling majority last I checked.
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Since DMCA is (sort of) a part of that, I’ll leave this opinion piece here:
http://blog.lawdeveloper.com/2010/05/11/no-dmca-protection-for-you/
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It’s terrifying, really, since most of ACTA happened in total secrecy, determining things in private which the vast majority of the world had no say in. There were no votes, no referendums, it was decided by suit-encrusted people in secret little rooms. Only after it was leaked was it really lessened at all, and that amounted to not much at all, really.
If this is the way of the world today, where our fate is decided behind closed doors by people that consider themselves in charge of our lives, are you afraid? I’m bloody terrified. What’s it going to take before this all goes tits up and most countries start rioting over their lost rights?
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’ll not buy their product until they fix that.
I’m not boycotting them or anything protesty like that, I’m just simply not going to pay good money for a product with that particular ‘feature’.
I hope they patch it to remove the stupid thing. I’ve got my money right here to give to them.
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First of all, I bought the game. I live in the South East Asian country that cost me almost 65 USD for the game (it includes a shipping fee).
At first, I feel confident about my internet connection. Well, I can play Runes of Magic on American server (and Allods Online on European server) without problems. BUT, when I’m playing Conviction, the game is almost unplayable. It disconnect every 10 minutes or so. Yeah, I heard about the DRM, but if my PC can connect to the furthest continent, why couldn’t it connect to Ubi server? As far as I know, most MMO need more constant internet connection, I doubt a singleplayer game need the same ‘fixed’ connection.
I don’t know if this sounds illegal or something. But I’m completely disappointed. Splinter Cell is one of the game of my life. It defines me, Sam Fisher defines me. Because of that problem, I hadn’t try it again for more than a week. When I checked my email, there was this, err, enlightment from my friend: A group called themself SKIDROW has CRACKED the Ubi DRM. It doesn’t need an internet connection. At first, I doubt it. Then I dig some news about it. After half an hour I found it. As easy as it sounds, I patch my installed Conviction. And for the love of God, I unplugged my internet cable but not hoping too much… *double-click*
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, it works without internet connection and it works FLAWLESSLY. God loved me (and my 65 bucks).
Have I gone too far? Have I done something illegal? Well, I don’t know. No, not yet. Not until this news I’m going to shout: For those of you legit buyers who found Ubi DRM offending (that maybe includes you mister Phill Cameron, maybe), just find this SKIDROW’s patch. Use Google, keyword ‘gamefix’. Look at the first line, and go help yourself!
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How DARE you cheat those hard working publishers out of your tears? Did you ever stop to think that they need those tears in order to survive?
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It’s illegal… in America. No idea how that affects you.
And damnit, subedii. You are not helping my hiccups.
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Yeah, these are my last words of concession. Maybe, right now, UBI’s bounty hunters are going to kill me. I don’t care, as long as I spread the words. That 65 bucks was my hardearned money, I bought their game, not their DRM. I don’t feel ashamed for helping my self.
Well, if you find something illegal, just don’t tell anyone. Shhhhh.
At least I just gave yo–
*Hi. My codename is Archer, one of the UBI’s elite hitsquad. This guy has been eliminated for illegal posting. Please remove his post before you share the same fate. Thanks.*
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I’m on wireless so there is no way I can keep a constant high speed connection going.
I haven’t bought DLC for Bioware games because of the DLC authorisation issues people have.
Now apparently Final Fight on the PS3 requires a constant internet connection as well. DRM on the consoles is a bad move. Not long until I have to read reviews just to find out if they are playable on my 360.
Great work publishers. You’ve made my purchasing decisions easier, buy a game with DRM which I can’t guarantee will work on my console when I want to play it or another publisher’s game which will or if the practice becomes common buy second hand games I didn’t get the first time or spend the money on something non-gaming.
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A few years back I worked in a cornershop. One day I spotted a shoplifter and accused him of theft. He hadn’t been stealing anything and he was outraged. I felt terrible.
A day or two later I noticed another shifty-looking character and hesitated, what should I do? I didn’t want to wrongly accuse another potential customer of theft, but at the same time I didn’t want to let a shoplifter get away with it and steal stock right in front of me.
Tricky situation.
Required careful diplomacy.
Tact.
Insight.
If I was Ubisoft, my course of action would’ve been pretty straightforward:
Accuse him, and every single other future customer, of being a shoplifter, and even if they put up with such an insult and buy something, continually grab it out of their hand and demand to see the receipt before handing it back.
Business would’ve boomed.
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Funny thing is that that metaphor works.
I had a great sense of ethics even as a kid, and I’d never stolen from a shop in my life. There was this little corner shop though, staffed by an old couple, where everyone was a thief. The grumpy guy there would accuse everyone of looking shifty, planning on stealing something, or trying to con him. For a while, I put up with this and shopped there. I tried to show him that not all kids are criminals, and that if he treated people better he’d have more business.
Eventually I just couldn’t stand it any more, so I started looking for somewhere else to spend what little coin I had. After a little shopping around I found another corner shop run by an elderly lady who was almost made out of sugar in how pleasant and nice she was, to the point where I slipped her a few coins more than wot stuff was werth back then. I spent a good deal of my childhood buying things from that shop, since even as a kid I could tell the difference between fair and unfair treatment.
What can I tell you? I was a pretty smart kid, I paid the price for that in social circles, but I could read things that other kids would just glaze over and drool at, so it balanced out.
Eventually Mr. Grumpy’s shop went out of business due to a lack of customers (I wonder why?). They didn’t really have any issues with thieves, and their store was lined from shelf to shelf with goods, goods that weren’t stolen or bought. I’ve walked past that spot a few times later in life and just shook my head sadly, because you try to teach people but some can’t learn, there are those who’ll see everyone as an enemy and out to get them. If you’re running a business that attitude will hurt your profit-margin more than anything else ever could (even more than high prices).
It’s fascinating that I’m watching this being played out with Ubisoft now. They have the same attitude, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they go the way of the dodo, unable to hold their business together they’ll just disperse into the winds because they couldn’t adapt to the times, they couldn’t understand why they’d need to treat their customers with respect. And when that happens then their precious games will just be abandonware anyway, they’ll just be given away.
Will Ubisoft understand this before their personal gehinnom rolls around? Who knows.
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I’m curious: as an America I’ve had basically no trouble with the DRM, both in 25+ hours of Assassins Creed and now 15+ hours of Splinter Cell. No dropped connections (except once with Creed on the first day of release), and no stalls.
I’ve also never had trouble with Games For Windows Live–it’s not the best service, but not because of connection issues.
But it seems as if you guys across the pond have had a hella-va-time so far. And so I ask: could this be a UK thing? How many Americans here have had the same amount of problems?
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Forcing an internet connection to be a requirement for any single player game is bad enough, but a constant one is even worse. I refuse to buy Ubisoft games on any platform now until this hideous system is banished.
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I told people:
“Buy SecuROM games. Support it. Publisher executives are businessmen, and this means they are ignorant in many areas. SecuROM is the friendliest DRM we’re likely to ever see, and we need to make sure they see that we’ll meet them halfway if they keep relaxed DRM like it.”
Of course, I knew pirates were incomprehensible mutants and the words were in vain.
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Good! When a company decides to treat their paying customers like criminals, paying them more to treat you a less badly is just asking to be screwed over. The most positive thing that pirates could do would be to find a company that doesn’t use DRM and values its customers and give THEM money.
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You want to know what’s ironic? Pirates or people ripping the game off torrent have finished playing it with no internet-connection issue to stop them, because the pirated version is DRM-free. Ubisoft FTW.
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I was thinking about starting to play the SC games by pick up some of the budget re-releases to see what the fuss is about. Now that I see that I won’t be able to follow the series to completion, I’m not going to bother.
Thanks Ubisoft, now I’m not even going to get the games that don’t have this DRM.
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One thing that I learned from Ubisoft was that pirating isn’t pirating, it’s called “researching”… as long as you work for them. I still remember that pc in the corner on the second floor of the building, showing the utorrent client st(r)eaming with a kilometric list. Oh, shocker.
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I find this literary piece deeply ironic, as he still bought the game, which is like a man standing over the dead body of his wife with knife in hand preaching about domestic abuse.
I can also bet ten bucks that when he gets remarried he will do same thing again.
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He didn’t buy the game.
You name calling idiot.
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Games journalists sometimes get games for free you know.
The hope is that if a journalist is given goodies, they’ll throw out their moral compass and give the game a huge score, despite game-breaking DRM.
Thankfully our own Phill is not such a corporate shill. He’s unlikely to be seen advertising Doritos on TV for instance.
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my game never got this problem, guess why ;)
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Come on. Do you guys living in the stone age? LAN Party without Internet on this days? No go .. You got no Internet @ Home? No go. So.. What is the whole point about the drama around Steam (off-line support, ok) / GfW / Uplay / BlizzActivision (They got NO LAN support in SC II and YOU know it .. !).
You can´t drive a car without a key .. this is fact. Buy the car or don´t .. but stealing the car is it worth. Nice point.. *nuff said*
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and .. btw.: modern cars got a unique key to verify the car holder with hin the car electronic. think about it .. ;)
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Thanks for using a straw man argument, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
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Sir, your argument is as flawed as your grasp of the English language.
If you’re having a LAN party, why the hell should you have to access the outside world?
Your own network is typically faster that your internet connection; ~100Mbps vs. ~2-10Mbps*, plus it’s bandwidth is going to be much greater. Plus, if I want to play a LAN game or a single-player game, where a connection to the internet is not actually necessary for core functionality, but has been imposed, I don’t want to have my plans ruined by some idiot digging up Virgin Media fiber-cables (mistaking them for valuable copper) and cutting off internet to my entire city!
*Lets not forget the caveat of doom; “up to”.
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Von mir aus, können wir das gerne in Deutsch ausdiskutieren. Kein Problem. ;)
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I’m not surprised you don’t have a problem with it. I believe you’re from the country that birthed StarForce, from that this is probably a step back and a lot more tolerable. Everything exists in contexts, I suppose. Myself, I don’t think any draconian form of DRM is tolerable.
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At the recent german developer’s conference Quo Vadis a senior Bluebyte/Ubisoft designer told told a friend of mine in private, that Settlers 7 was the least pirated Settlers game ever and also sold by far the most copies of all the games in the series. And that in spite of having a 1 star rating at the german Amazon.
So, yea, the DRM seems to be working out fine for Ubisoft.
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With respect, Correlation =/= Causation.
The last new setters game was three years ago, series growth is just as much a possible explanation, or better marketing. I mean, did you ask him whether Settlers 6 outsold Settlers 5? Or 5 outsold 4?
I mean I could just as much equate Modern Warfare 2 outselling Modern Warfare 1 by a huge degree by the fact that they removed the PC server system and thus simplified the multiplayer with matchmaking. But in real terms the success of MW2 was because of how popular MW1 was combined with a ridiculously huge marketing build up.
Still, it’s not something I’d be willing to dismiss outright either. Did he give any numbers for that and previous games in the series? I’m interested in the numbers for AC2, but a smaller niche title with a different type of market like Settlers ought to be interesting to look at as well here. I wish we knew what numbers Silent Hunter 3, 4 and 5 sold.
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It probably helps that settlers 7 is ace when settlers 1, 6 were merely “quite good”. Of course settlers 3, 4 and 5 were active awful.
Settlers 2 still wins for me, its an rts you can pop off to have a wee and not have lost, its a game where staying hand can help maintain your economic stability as much as hurrying can be great in managing an end game empire you can avoid that by patently managing your roads.
A game in now way won by a million clicks a second.
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Never played a Settlers game (well, maybe a bit of 3, years ago), so I couldn’t attest to quality.
But yes, if there’s a marked improvement between parts 6 and 7, then honestly, how is that NOT a factor in increased sales here?
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It might also be worth taking into account the sales for settlers 8.
I have bought every settlers game bar the first one.
However, after installing the seventh I couldn’t connect to the server. If fact I couldn’t for the next two weeks, along with a fair chunk of Australian players. The tech support team was nice enough to ignore my ticket for a week and then blame my firewall. Even after it started to work (I didn’t change my firewall settings BTW) it randomly losses the connection to the server without the internet having to go down.
In short, they may have got my sale for seven but they will not get mine for eight.
Good short term figures after a change don’t always indicate a success.
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But isn’t Settlers 7 cracked and as available to pirates as the previous ones were?
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IIRC, Settlers 7 was one of the first games to come out with this DRM, so whilst it’s been cracked now, it went for probably about a month or so before that happened.
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He didn’t buy the game, yet he must deal with the DRM? Either warez groups really declined in recent years or I entered Twilight Zone.
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Free demo copy from the publisher.
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*review code. It is for demonstration, but I wouldn’t call it a /demo/
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I wouldn’t call the game turning off every 15 minutes a full title either. How about we call this a travesty?
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Seems like Mr. H8 might not have realised that those who pen the articles for this site are proper games journalist types, like. Well, now he knows. And perhaps he’s feeling really silly for accompanying jumping to conclusions with name-calling, and having a little cry in the corner. I think he’s learned his lesson.
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It’s not an issue of bandwidth on your side really. The game doesn’t really use much data – it amounted to about 1 Mb after half an hours play (all I can play in a stretch before the stupid message boxes kept cropping up). But at the same time I had Steam going at 40-80kb a second (not much, I’m in a slow internet country, but a sure sign my internet was running decently). Shutting off Steam had no effect on Splinter Cell. I think their servers just can’t handle it properly.
I also have never been able access the extras as it requires the server (which is inaccessible even when I can play the game. Must be another server).
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I stopped playing Splinter Cell because the game was shit, not because of the DRM, never had any problems with it.
Nothing from the old games remains, its just another shooter now with infinite ammo and stealth kills.
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Agree. The infinite ammo is a blasphemy.
No map!? And those HUGE WRITINGS ON THE WALL are stupid, stupid, and stupid. I miss the old Pandora Tomorrow ~_~
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Gears of War with a silenced pistol
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I would list the games. I’m not buying because of this drm, but really i’ve easily replaced them by dipping into steam and direct 2 drive’s sales, i’ve probably saved money and just as much fun. Thank you ubi, for giving other developers a chance with your iron fist.
Genuinely, this drm has improved the face of pc gaming if only by contrast.
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Conviction != Splinter Cell.
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I purchased it. and AC2. I’m a bad person, I know.
Haven’t had a single issue with connection interruptions whatsoever (apart from when the net went down across the whole CBD of town)
Like Stringycustard, though, I haven’t been able to access the server for extra features, or the stupid uplay from inside Conviction, even though the same things work fine for AC2.
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There are some messages that games use to tell “I HATE YOU”:
Old 1984 games:
– “You have 3 lives”
- “Insert coin”
Old 1994 games:
– “Please don’t power off your Windows PC computer while this game saves a 2KB file on your 20MB/s hard disk”
- “Please press [enter] to [enter]”
Modern 2010 games:
– “Internet conection lost. Please wait while your singleplayer game reconnect to the server. You can realistically continue, we can make this check only wen the game start, but we choose to fuck you every second of your gametime”.
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Future:
- “Owner recognition fail. Please slice your finger on the supplied razor and place a few drops into the USB receptacle provided. Swabbing is recommended to minimise sample contamination. Gameplay will resume when genetic analysis is complete.
Time remaining 2:17
(two hours later)
“Sample contaminated, please provide a fresh sample.”
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Recently Microsoft shut down the X-box live servers for the original Xbox. This is a salutary reminder that gamer servers do eventually get shut down.
For Xbox owners the loss of servers means the end of multiplayer games but this new trend in always online drm for PC gaming means that when servers get shut down the entire game dies. Not just just multiplayer but single player too.
As a gamer who regularly plays and enjoys older games I am staggered at the concept that in future any game that is more than abut five years old could be unplayable. Obviously this is a loss for us gamers but surely it is a loss for the game developers too. Do they not see any value in their back catalogue?
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At least the xbox has lan support. I mean… We don’t even have that.
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No, they want you playing their new games. There’s no profit in you playing the older ones, those are a hindrance to profit.
Slightly less cynically, this isn’t usually a developer choice, it’s typically more of a publisher decision (as would appear to be the case here). Most game developers wouldn’t want you cut off from the games they took the time to make. But then I doubt most even think about it in those terms, hence the problem. Apart from maybe indie developers, I’d guess that most devs don’t genuinely seem to care if you get cut off from your game a few years down the line. It’s not that they WANT it to happen, it’s just that it’s not a priority for them considering everything else they have to deal with.
From a publisher perspective, Ubisoft’s statement that they’ll maintain these servers is an utter joke. There’s no legal requirement for them to do so, and in a few years time very few people will be playing these games. At which point maintaining them is easily viewed as an unnecessary financial cost. What legitimate financial reason is there for them to maintain these servers for years on end? Because I can see none. And if there’s no financial reason to, and they’re an active drain to maintain, then yank goes the plug. Too bad, so sad, hope you understand.
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Hopefully they will implement all this stuff for console games too. Would like to see the reaction then, when a server goes down.
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Hopefully Ubisoft release other titles withouth this thing, that will do well… decent enough, so Ubisoft itself will learn this is unnecesary.
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You know, I used to like those plucky french and french-canadian guys, I really fell in love with FarCry2 and Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good and Evil was my favorite alt-tend game of the last generation. I wasn’t a fanboy, but I found what they produced to be more interesting than most other Triple-A publishers/developers.
Then they really cold-cocked me with the DRM system. As much as I would LOVE to get SH5, AC2, and SC:C, I simply cannot see myself tolerating this inconvenient and inconsistent system that will yank me from the game I’m playing by myself that I honestly paid for. I can abide by Steam because it has a large library, it’s consistent and convenient, and I’ve seriously had zero issues with it since installing. Call me a sucker for Valve’s woo-ing charms, but I can trust them.
It’s like you meet a girl, she’s funny, pretty, flexible, and knows a good portion of your geeky world. Then suddenly over dinner it’s revealed (after ordering a nice steak for yourself) she’s a raging vegan and will not stop hounding you for being a cold, heartless, puppy-eating bastard until you make amends to Mother Earth. It’s a case of “Sorry babe, you’re cute an all, but I don’t have to take this shit”.
I can’t even be bothered to think about pirating the recent releases. Beyond watching playthroughs on YouTube (which satisfy most of my “What’s the plot” curiosity), I just don’t care about playing games with this quality of DRM.
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Poontang or steak?
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Aren’t publishers realize that console games like Wii and 360 got pirated too? Geez, even PS3 got its pirated copies too. I don’t know how they do it, but they selling pirated PS3 game for 10 to 12 bucks a copy in my country. Yes, in the blue ray format.
Why the publisher only tormenting PC gamers?
Okay, someday in the near future, I will take photos of hundred of pirated copies of Final Fantasy XIII, Halo: Reach, Dante’s Inferno, Alan Wake, ect, then post it on their official forum. Let’s see what will the publishers say.
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I have 60 fine English pounds that I am happy to pay to Ubisoft.
These fine English pounds will be to get me a copy of Assassins Creed 2, and a copy of Splinter Cell Conviction. Acquiring the latter will provide a further 30 fine English pounds from my good friend Peaver, who will also buy the game in order to sample it’s co-op goodness.
The aforementioned fine English pounds shall not, however, be spent. Not until such time as I, a long standing customer who has paid many pounds for previous titles, tolerating such filth as SecuRom despite the pirates having it neatly snipped from their free versions of the game, feel that enough is enough.
I shall not tolerate this infuriating intrusion into my ability to enjoy a game that I have paid for, and hence shall withold my wealth.
I notice that the pirates had SC:C cracked and available on their grubby sites within ONE DAY of release. I wonder how many people who have bought legitimate copies of the game have hunted down cracks to disable the protection system, and if any of them have spotted the copies of the game and thought “I say, this handing of lucre to Ubisoft is a rum old deal, in future I will come here and steal the game instead”?
So. I and many others are choosing not to buy the latest in a series of games that we have supported since their inception.
I would like to take this opportunity, in front of my peers, to make a one-time offer to Ubisoft. To whit, cease and desist with this unpleasantness, lest the only thing we, the customers, offer you is the opportunity to lick the sweat from our collective barse. You cunts.
And with that, dear friends, adieu.
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Don’t forget:
This is no copy protection but second hand sale protection (and in technical terms execution protection).
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You forgot ‘People who do not buy always-on-DRM games on principle – although they would like the game’
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@Phill:
I hope you returned the game to the store. (if it wasn’t a digital download).
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Has anyone seen any sales figures that include these games? NPD or whatever we have in the UK?
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Just clocked this on Giantbomb. It’s interesting because its an Xbox game with the same system as Uplay – you still need the net to play the singleplayer campaign, and its ridiculously restrictive about continuing. Lo and behold, they don’t seem to think much of it.
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Forgot to close a tag. Apologies, HTML purists :(
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I’ve downloaded a lot of games, usually ones that I didn’t t think I’d enjoy enough to finish or play again, and fairly often end up buying them. Off the top of my head, I’ve purchased Mirror’s Edge, Defcon, Bioshock, Call of Duty 2, Race Driver: GRID, Peggle and a whole bunch of others that I downloaded first. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve been disappointed too many times when paying £40 for an over hyped game that never got played for more than a couple of hours.
I still but quite a lot of games, especially when steam has a sale :)
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I most likely would have bought SCC if it weren’t for the drm, instead I’ve used magical genie magic to play the game uninterrupted. It is a good game, probably one of the best action oriented stories I’ve found in a game in quite some time. The gameplay is starkly different in comparison to the old games, but that isn’t all bad. I like the option of just going in and killing some fuckers. Though more stealth missions that didn’t devolve into firefights would have been a welcome as well. I wonder what the MP is like but, I’m not going to buy it thanks to the drm, and I’m not going to be a huger thief and play online pirated.
I think this Ubi-DRM debacle is proof positive that developers need to worry less about piracy and more about the quality that goes to the paying customer. That or just make everything an MMO…oh wait, that’s slowly happening anyway.
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See, the fun part here is that if you had instead pirated the game, the version which now even has the update out cracked and ready to play offline, you would not be facing anger management plans.
UBIFAIL has successfully converted Buyers into Suckers.
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I agree with the writer.
Ubisoft’s DRM solution is a pain in the @ss.
The best solution I can think of is to legally buy the game, and then download a pirated version of it.
This way you have paid for you game and are able to play in a decent manner.
Yeah, I know, it shouldn’t be like that, but sometimes you are not given any choice.
And if I remember correctly, you may use a crack if you own the genuine version of the game.
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So you are breaking the law by bypassing the protection and telling ubisoft that you find this treatment acceptable.
Perfect.
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People buy UBISOFT games. The “vocal” Internet minority (us) counts for nothing. We know what’s what and that matters not. I’ll bet my balls this DRM is here to stay. UBISOFT knows it will go through a rough time for a while (6-12 months) and they have prepared for it. This is the final battle – the war of independence. It’s not just about the DRM, but about having their own platform a la Steam. This is how they will want to sell their own DLC in the future, among other micro transactions. It’s more then DRM.
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I linked to this from my new blog post reviewing game download services with regards to DRM and customer services (link in Kefren). The frustration piled on gamers is just ridiculous.
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Pirates win. Ubisoft loses. I can confirm that a crack for the game has been released and you can play the campaign and coop offline without Ubisoft’s horrible DRM. So the legal buyers get the bad end.
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