Ubisoft beefs up copyprotection, and it sucks

[ttown]

If I have to use a cracked version to use with d-tools, why would I buy the game? /sarcasm

Now before buying games, people will have to research if it will work... and during that research, they'll find the warez version... and then just download that instead.

Seems to me that simple registration keys are good enough. It keeps the casual copying down. The pirates will find a way to pirate, no matter how much money is spent to protect something. Heck, the more effort involved to protect something, the more it will be cracked -- just for the fun of it, and bragging rights in the warez world.

 

[BooGiMaN]

if you buy it and it wont work because it conflicts with your burner..do they refund your money?


what the heck crack are they smoking

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: 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.

Yep, there it is at the bottom of the game "Alexander" Link

Almost all my PC's have a burner of some sort...Uh Oh.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: maddmax
Electronic Arts has done the same with Need for Speed Underground 2.

No they ddint...
I bought it and run on a 12X DVD-R burner
with Alchohol 120% running..
boots like a champ...

 

[SonicIce]

No wonder my legit Farcry doesn't run with my new cdrw drive. This was an endless headache. Ubi can kiss my a$$.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
No wonder my legit Farcry doesn't run with my new cdrw drive. This was an endless headache. Ubi can kiss my a$$.

I guess its going to be hit or miss then. Far Cry runs fine on all my rigs including the ones with CDRW and DVDRW.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: SonicIce
No wonder my legit Farcry doesn't run with my new cdrw drive. This was an endless headache. Ubi can kiss my a$$.

I guess its going to be hit or miss then. Far Cry runs fine on all my rigs including the ones with CDRW and DVDRW.

This is the dumbest thing ever. It's a Rosewill C523216, btw. Maybe it's my motherboard or my Windows installation?

 

[BW86]

What idiot came up with this idea?

 

[Zero Plasma]

Can you ever really stop some one from copying software when thousands of people are sometimes involved in cracking it in one way or another?

 

[RBC]

I spoke to their tech support again and she said that their protection works best on lite-on drives.

 

[MustISO]

This may be the shortest lived pretection scheme ever. It's amazing how out of touch these companies are.

I bet the record companies are looking at this going "Why didn't we think of this first!?"

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: RBC
I spoke to their tech support again and she said that their protection works best on lite-on drives.

Oh, I'm screwed then....

Actually, no, since I wouldn't buy one of their games after they pull this crap.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of.

- M4H

 

[dighn]

wait... this doesn't even make sense. you don't need to run the game to copy it. what the hell is this supposed to do? i call shens.

 

[DannyLove]

Their sales will suck if this is done. Idiots. BTW, there will always be a way to crack this anyway, so who cares.

 

[DefRef]

If it impacts most on Lite-On drives, how are they going to support people with rebadged drives? My first Lite-On was a drive was a TDK. Imagine John Q picking up the latest R6 or SC title and getting stopped cold because their Dell won't run it or they've got CloneCD installed. What if you have a laptop and use virtual drives to reduce the need for lugging original CDs around.

The biggest expense in tech is SUPPORT and all those calls they're getting are gonna have to balanced against the amount of money they think they're saving from piracy. Hmmm...

 

[Jim Bancroft]

Originally posted by: ming2020
I call BS on this one.

I find it impossible to believe too. Ubi's support lines would overload & melt from the volume of calls and their return depot would need to lease a FedEx hangar to deal with the returns.

 

[RBC]

Well if anyone does this this is BS, could they please call Ubisoft themselves and try and get a straight story out of them. My experience is as I related it. I never tried to install Chessmaster X after I got this info because I got caught in a catch 22. Circuit City said they wouldn't take it back if it didn't work and Ubisoft said it wasn't their responsibilty (said that they even put a clause in their manual that the retailer is responsible for all exchanges, returns and replacements). They said that CC had to take it back and if they didn't that I should take it up with their management. Honest, this is how the conversation went. The tech even went to confirm (said she did) with her supervisor when I challenged her on CDR thing being legit. After all this I returned the software, unopened to CC and bought the kids Fritz 8 Dlx instead.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Too bad it's a Friday, but I guess I can call the Montreal Ubisoft on Monday and get to the bottom of this.

 

[mysticfm]

Unless Ubisoft reverses itself on this, I guess I'll be saving the $40+ I was planning to spend on Silent Hunter III, because I'm not about to dump my primary system backup capability (my DVD burner) just to play a silly game, no matter how much I had been looking forward to plunking down my cash for said game. There will always be other games, and from smarter companies.

 

[SagaLore]

Someone should email this thread to the CEO.

The sad thing is, if they decided to reverse it, they would either have to recall all of their software or make available a downloadable patch - either way, the damage is already done.

 

[PsharkJF]

Insane. I wonder if the people who make these copy protections actually try and crack their own protections themselves.

 

[Jeff7181]

Well when the warez dudes crack it, you can use the crack on your legal version to avoid the hassles. I use a lot of no CD cracks because for one, it's annoying having to keep putting a disc in to run a program or play a game... and two, discs take more damage that way from accidental drops or careless people handling the disc with their dirty greasy fingers.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Well when the warez dudes crack it, you can use the crack on your legal version to avoid the hassles. I use a lot of no CD cracks because for one, it's annoying having to keep putting a disc in to run a program or play a game... and two, discs take more damage that way from accidental drops or careless people handling the disc with their dirty greasy fingers.

Wait until trusted computing comes out and there will be no crack, becuase your computer actively goes online to get anti-spy-virus-worm-warez servers, gets updated then find and deletes them for you.

Then reports you for owning illegal software.

 

[yukichigai]

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.

I believe the proper term is Policeware.

I find this idiotic beyond all measure. This in no way prevents people from copying the game, it just prevents legitimate users from running it. Okay, and maybe adds a little more coding time on the no-CD cracks made for the game.