Ubisoft beefs up copyprotection, and it sucks

[RBC]

I don't know how much of this is entirely true but here is goes... I was going to buy Chessmaster X for my kids, so I started reading up on it on the boards and in user reviews like at Amazon. A lot of comments showed up about the game not working if your system had a CDR or DVD writer as opposed to just a reader.

I couldn't believe this so I called Ubisoft's tech support and the tech confirmed that starting with this program, they were going to put this type of protection in all of their products from here on out. If their program detects hardware with burning capablility then it won't run on the installed machine. I told them that this didn't make sense since almost all new computers were equipped with, at least, a cd writer. His response was "well, it's too bad that a few bad guys had to ruin it for the rest but this in the only way that we can protect our products".

Has anyone else heard about this or do you think this guy is just yanking my chain?

 

[ksheets]

Sounds like a good plan
They should have warehouses full of leftover games to "protect"

 

[screw3d]

Give it a few days and someone will crack it again. It's the legit users that will get frustrated

 

[kamper]

I think it's time to find a new vendor! Make sure you let them know about it too.

What a stupid idea anyways. A burner is not what you need to rip the game. You could easily grab it using a cdrom and then burn it elsewhere. I hope they go out of business; if they do, I think they would qualify for a Darwin award in the enterprise category.

Edit: a google on "ubisoft piracy protection" pops up a huge list of stories about this. I don't think most of them view it in a positive light.
Edit: apparently it's not only hardware:

checks PCs for ANY clone or virtual drive programs... programs like Daemon Tools, CloneCD...

Reaching that far without asking for permission qualifies their software as spyware in my opinion.

 

[Nothinman]

If that's a real anti-theft plan it's an extremely poor one and I doubt anyone will follow suit, there are much better ways to deter piracy.

 

[iamtrout]

Someone is probably going to come out with something that masks the CD burning capabilities of your drives, making burning and playing possible. Sadly enough, Ubisoft's sales might actually benefit from this.

So does this mean Splinter Cell 3 will have this?

 

[maddmax]

Electronic Arts has done the same with Need for Speed Underground 2.

 

[Bateluer]

Yeesh. I wonder if they realize how many systems Dell and HP ship with CDRs? If I'm not mistaken, even the lowest end models ship with CDRW drives standard. They are going to piss of a LARGE amount of users.

 

[BigToque]

This won't really affect me because I rarely buy games, but I think this is just silly. Any new PC in the last 4 years has most likely got a CD burner or DVD Burner.

Does the package say "This game WILL NOT PLAY in any computer that has a CD/DVD burner or CD/DVD-ROM emulation software."?

The point of copy protection software is to deter the average gamer from making copies for all his friends. All this does is prevent the average user from even being able to use the software. The people who really want to copy the game will still be able to do so.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to be beneficial to the company.

 

[Sunner]

That's got to be the single stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
With CD burners being just about as cheap as CD readers, and DVD RW's being just a little bit more expensive, who the he** gets a home/gaming computer without an RW drive of some sort these days?

Way to shut out a majority of the market, smart move. No really!
:roll:

 

[BFG10K]

If this is true then Ubisoft are basically going to go out of business.

 

[drag]

It's been years since I last seen a new computer that DOESN'T have the ability to burn cdroms.

A few months ago I would of never beleived that somebody would be this dumb to do something like this. But now that I seen Steam, I am inclined to give it soem credibility.

I still can't bring myself to beleive that somebody would be this stupid.

*news flash to game makers* Pirates steal software becuase they don't want to pay for it. Making it impossible to steal (which is a practical impossiblity) is only going to piss legitiment users off. The pirates simply will do something else... They aren't going to reward you by buying the game.

If this is true, then they are simply trying to get people used to putting up with this bull**** until Trusted Computing gets established in all new computers. Then people will see T.C. as a RELIEF from draconian and excessive copyright protections instead of the horrid surrender of personal property rights and the invasion of privacy that it realy is.

Now T.C. isn't 100% bad. It has some benifits, but getting people used to being b***hes to the companies that they buy thir software from is the only thing that I can imagine that stuff like this would do.

And it sucks. It realy does. I love games, but if this is the price that you have to pay to play them, then it's WAY to steep.


I still mostly don't beleive that Ubisoft would be this stupid though. Won't install on computers with a DVD burner or whatnot.... that's just crazy.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

I call BS on this one.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: kamper
Edit: apparently it's not only hardware:

checks PCs for ANY clone or virtual drive programs... programs like Daemon Tools, CloneCD...

Reaching that far without asking for permission qualifies their software as spyware in my opinion.

Eh... I wouldn't call it spyware, it doesn't sound like it reports any information back to Ubisoft. Perhaps I just think spyware is an overused buzzword. Stupidityware is more like it. I can't imagine how they believe this will do anything but ENCOURAGE piracy. How much piracy really occurs through burning the CD and passing it on? Just the neighbor to neighbor and friend to friend piracy where the person may not even know it's illegal. That can be stopped by using product activation or bad sectors on the disc or whatever other companies do to prevent you from copying the disc. I think most piracy occurs over the Internet. If you're savvy enough to find a no-CD patch or no-activation patch to get around the protection schemes I just mentioned, then you're savvy enough to find the game itself. Because the game won't run on nearly any computer sold in the last 5 years, people will be forced to either crack it, or just download the game itself.

Way to go Ubisoft.

 

[Lonyo]

Choice: Buy game and have it not run due to CD-RW etc
Or:
Download game and have it cracked so it will run.

Not a hard decision.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: ksheets
Sounds like a good plan
They should have warehouses full of leftover games to "protect"

 

[Feneant2]

Meh, people who plan on pirating the game will download it with the crack, they don't go buy the game at the store.

Personnally, if I see a game has this before I would buy it, I'd put the box on the shelf and go download it- I detest these stupid draconian tactics to try and curve piracy when the only ones who suffer are the people who would buy it in the first place and not know how to go around it.

 

[StrangerGuy]

How much longer do software/music companies realise that they can never beat piracy?

 

[FrustratedUser]

Dumbest idea I've heard in a long time.

 

[SagaLore]

I wonder who was the person in charge of this brilliant idea.

EVERY SINGLE desktop and laptop you buy from Dell, HP, IBM, etc. comes standard with a CDWriter. It's going to cost them more trying to restrict the product than just letting those "bad eggs" copy it.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Originally posted by: RBC
I don't know how much of this is entirely true but here is goes... I was going to buy Chessmaster X for my kids, so I started reading up on it on the boards and in user reviews like at Amazon. A lot of comments showed up about the game not working if your system had a CDR or DVD writer as opposed to just a reader.

I couldn't believe this so I called Ubisoft's tech support and the tech confirmed that starting with this program, they were going to put this type of protection in all of their products from here on out. If their program detects hardware with burning capablility then it won't run on the installed machine. I told them that this didn't make sense since almost all new computers were equipped with, at least, a cd writer. His response was "well, it's too bad that a few bad guys had to ruin it for the rest but this in the only way that we can protect our products".

Has anyone else heard about this or do you think this guy is just yanking my chain?

So you're pretty much forced to go get the cracked version? lol.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
If this is true then Ubisoft are basically going to go out of business.

That's what I was thinking too. They are already in dire straights with EA breathing down their necks and France not supporting them.

So long Ubisoft, it was nice while you lasted.

 

[rbV5]

Link? shens?

 

[Slick5150]

Yeah, I have a hard time believing this is true. Sounds like a story that started off with "the game won't work if you have CD/DVD emulators running (daemon tools or whatever)" and got misinterpreted into "this game won't work if you have a cd-rw or dvd-rw drive".

That being said, if it is true, it's quite ridiculous.

 

[Creig]

I had my doubts at first until I started looking at some of Ubisoft's latest games and saw this at the bottom of the page:

NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some CD-RW, DVD-RW, and virtual drives.

How many is *some* drives? One or two, fifteen, most of them, all of them? Which specific ones are affected? Unless they post a list of specific drives I won't take a chance finding out as you can't return a game to the store for a refund if it has been opened.

Ubisoft seems determined to go out of business in order to protect their business.