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Ubisoft DRM yet to be fully cracked...

Tristicus

Tristicus

Diamond Member
So, Assassin's Creed 2 isn't cracked yet, and Silent Hunter hasn't either AFAIK (there is a crack but only allows limited play as I understand?). The only time people got to play (pirates) was when Russians DDoS'd Ubisoft's servers.

Do you think the DRM will end up cracked, or could this be an answer (for the moment) to piracy?
 
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I hope it never gets cracked. I then hope that other game devs start to use the same type of drm only to realize that it was a terrible mistake when sales suddenly became worse than with easy pirating because free word of mouth and other indirect advertising came to a halt.
 
It will eventually be cracked, they always are. However, I hope that it affects sales to the point that they realize they are idiots and pull the DRM. I will not buy any Ubisoft game for PC until they rid themselves of this DRM stupidity.
 
Lotheron said:
It will eventually be cracked, they always are. However, I hope that it affects sales to the point that they realize they are idiots and pull the DRM. I will not buy any Ubisoft game for PC until they rid themselves of this DRM stupidity.
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The only DRM (which is more of a hardware, I suppose) that has yet to be really cracked is the PS3. There's been advancements with the guy who hacked the iPhone, but from what I understand, he hasn't been able to run pirated games and such with it (I think).
 
just a matter of time.........

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1595262/ubisoft-drm-cracked

GAMES PUBLISHER Ubisoft was left with egg on its face after its pitiful attempt at digital rights management was cracked within 24 hours.

Ubisoft managed to generate a storm when it announced its latest DRM policy last week. With previous attempts to protect against so-called 'piracy' failing miserably, Ubisoft thought that by disallowing offline play it could persuade gamers to toe the line.

The whole system revolved around a set of servers, run by Ubisoft, to authenticate gamers through their Ubi.com accounts. When asked by Gamespy how gamers would react to its latest scheme, the French publisher replied, "we think most people are going to be fine with it." Lets hope it put more careful thought into its game titles.

Ubisoft's myopic view was highlighted when PC Gamer asked what would happen if Ubisoft shut down its servers years from now. The Ubisoft spokesperson fell hook, line and sinker for the loaded question, admitting that at such a time the publisher would release a patch enabling offline play. For crackers that must have sounded like an open invitation to break out the hex editor.

Gaming scene group The Skid Rowdies managed to release a crack for the DRM present in Silent Hunter 5 and proudly posted a NFO file with the release outlining the ease with which downloaders can circumvent Ubisoft's latest attempt to stop 'piracy'.

What is laughable is how publishers such as Ubisoft do such a good job of making themselves targets for undoubtedly talented coders who love nothing more than spending their spare time embarrassing big corporations.
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Everything and anything can be cracked. Theoretically. But it's also theoretically possible to create such DRM which would take too much time and effort to crack, which essentially is the same as uncrackable.

In the end it's all about the actual games, how good they are, and if people are willing to put up with DRM for those games. Personally lost interest in most games to the point where DRM is tipping the scales for me to the point where I won't buy/install a game if it has DRM. I'd like to play FEAR, but I do not want securom garbage on my PC, and pirating it seems like too much effort. Maybe one day when I'm really really bored... The only exception is Valve games. I put up with Steam DRM because I like Valve games so much.

By the way, did anybody ever crack Steam? I've read that HL2 was cracked, but was that a fully functioning crack?
 
Tristicus said:
There's cracked versions of Steam, and there are cracked Steam games, from Half Life to Left 4 Dead 2.
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I haven't researched it enough, but from what I remember reading HL2 crack was half working or you had to do some ridiculously silly stuff to get it working or it stopped working after a while. Which is why I asked if Steam was ever really hacked as in just install game from scene release and just play it no hassle no nothing.
 
Wheezer said:
just a matter of time.........

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1595262/ubisoft-drm-cracked
Ubisoft's myopic view was highlighted when PC Gamer asked what would happen if Ubisoft shut down its servers years from now. The Ubisoft spokesperson fell hook, line and sinker for the loaded question, admitting that at such a time the publisher would release a patch enabling offline play. For crackers that must have sounded like an open invitation to break out the hex editor.
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Ubisoft was smart here in how they released the protection into the market. They knew that announcing a new protection scheme would bring out the reverse engineering crowd and it did. Many of us wanted to reverse engineer it , it was a new challenge. So what they did is to release it in varying stages. They started with a very easy implementation of it and with each release increased the difficulty. I think they were trying to use as little protection as possible and if it failed they increased the implementation.

A hex editor will not work with the protection set at its full level. The reason is that the full game exe is not really complete on the pc. They are patching in random parts of the code when the game connects to the server. Today when you play the game it might insert 20 bytes at the end of the exe. Next time it might be 10 bytes at the middle. You need to get enough samples of the entire thing to be able to re-assemble a clean exe. So far nobody has done that. I got tired of trying and have better things to do. Others will keep trying though.

The good side of this is that if they do decide to completely remove the protection, they can just release a clean exe and the protection is gone.
 
fleshconsumed said:
I haven't researched it enough, but from what I remember reading HL2 crack was half working or you had to do some ridiculously silly stuff to get it working or it stopped working after a while. Which is why I asked if Steam was ever really hacked as in just install game from scene release and just play it no hassle no nothing.
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Yes steam is fully cracked. Don't compare it with ubisoft DRM though , they are totally different. Steam is just a simple auth check, they put multiple checks in place so it is harder to beat but it can be done with time. Ubisoft is using a system where you need the parts of the file that are online to play + the authentication. It is sort of like having part of the game code only on the servers and the game patching it in when you go to play. Never requesting the same information but doing it randomly.
 
Tristicus said:
The only DRM (which is more of a hardware, I suppose) that has yet to be really cracked is the PS3. There's been advancements with the guy who hacked the iPhone, but from what I understand, he hasn't been able to run pirated games and such with it (I think).
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DRM can be almost impossible to crack if it is done right. The hardest DRM to crack is when the people who implement the protection have control of the hardware and software like in the PS3. There is DRM in the satellite tv market that is going on 4 years without anyone breaking it despite those trying spending over $200,000.00 for lab time in things like electron microscopes.
 
God Mode said:
I hope it never gets cracked. I then hope that other game devs start to use the same type of drm only to realize that it was a terrible mistake when sales suddenly became worse than with easy pirating because free word of mouth and other indirect advertising came to a halt.
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You're kidding right? If this DRM becomes standard, and sales tank, then it means that there will most like be very few big-budget titles released on PC anymore. Publishers and devs aren't going to say "Whoops, we messed up! Here's our next half-billion-dollar-budget game with no DRM!" They're going to say "Well, sales are shit, so obviously nobody's going to buy our product on PC, stop coding for it".
 
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fleshconsumed said:
I haven't researched it enough, but from what I remember reading HL2 crack was half working or you had to do some ridiculously silly stuff to get it working or it stopped working after a while. Which is why I asked if Steam was ever really hacked as in just install game from scene release and just play it no hassle no nothing.
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I had a cracked HL2...it was dumb easy to install, just unzip then play...nothing to it really, this of course was before I got the Orange Box...however, with cracked steam games, you run into the issue of not having any updates, and on top of it all the cracked HL2 was kinda bunk...some missing textures/audio, etc...
 
Raduque said:
You're kidding right? If this DRM becomes standard, and sales tank, then it means that there will most like be very few big-budget titles released on PC anymore. Publishers and devs aren't going to say "Whoops, we messed up! Here's our next half-billion-dollar-budget game with no DRM!" They're going to say "Well, sales are shit, so obviously nobody's going to buy our product on PC, stop coding for it".
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Arguably, that's already happened. Maybe it's just me but there seems to be fewer and fewer PC exclusives coming out in recent years. All 360 ports that usually get released months after they appear on the console.

I was sceptical of OnLive at first but I can easily see it (or rather its concept) becoming the dominant gaming medium in the next decade. It removes the gamer's system from the game itself, therefore making it impossible to crack. After all, you can't hack what you don't have. If you want to hack the game, you have to break into secure remote servers. More difficult and you have a limited amount of time before they catch you.

Publishers are already moving in the direction of cloud based gaming. Ubi's new DRM scheme is a sign of that. It's only a matter of time.

I'm still undecided as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for gamers. On the plus side, there's no more need to buy expensive hardware and everything is available on demand. On the negative, publishers have total control over who, what, where, and how games are played. It also eliminates competition by monopolizing the hardware side, creating less incentive to innovate.
 
Raduque said:
You're kidding right? If this DRM becomes standard, and sales tank, then it means that there will most like be very few big-budget titles released on PC anymore. Publishers and devs aren't going to say "Whoops, we messed up! Here's our next half-billion-dollar-budget game with no DRM!" They're going to say "Well, sales are shit, so obviously nobody's going to buy our product on PC, stop coding for it".
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if you're not willing to install games with DRM on it (like me) then there are no games at the moment (at least that i'm aware of) that i can get. in that situation, what difference does it make if they stop making games for the PC? either way, i'm not going to play them

steam isn't an option. tried it, they screwed me over and i sold my account on. xbox only at this point 🙁

if something like onlive is the future (which i don't see), then it's time to give up gaming for me
 
Originally Posted by Raduque View Post
You're kidding right? If this DRM becomes standard, and sales tank, then it means that there will most like be very few big-budget titles released on PC anymore. Publishers and devs aren't going to say "Whoops, we messed up! Here's our next half-billion-dollar-budget game with no DRM!" They're going to say "Well, sales are shit, so obviously nobody's going to buy our product on PC, stop coding for it".


tommo123 said:
if you're not willing to install games with DRM on it (like me) then there are no games at the moment (at least that i'm aware of) that i can get. in that situation, what difference does it make if they stop making games for the PC? either way, i'm not going to play them

steam isn't an option. tried it, they screwed me over and i sold my account on. xbox only at this point 🙁

if something like onlive is the future (which i don't see), then it's time to give up gaming for me
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I've found myself picking up more Indie games these days than anything from the big publishers.
Graphics are nice but gameplay and story are just as important, even more so.

The last "Blockbuster" type of game I picked up was Oblivion.
The last big publisher game I bought was Settlers 6 - an Ubi game (after the DRM was patched out).

Sure, there have been quite a few other titles that I'd like to pick up, but I'm not willing to accept their DRM terms so I've taken my business elsewhere.

I'm at the point where I don't care if these idiots put themselves out of business with their DRM decisions - someone else will fill the void, and hopefully they'll do a better job and be more consumer oriented.

Take a look at some of the Indie developer games, there are some real gems out there.
 
I patiently waited 4-5 months for Assassins Creed 2 to be released for PC, I even tried to avoid looking at any sort of gameplay or review scores because I knew it was going to be superb - and I wanted to experience it for what it was. But once I found out about this online DRM crap I'm not even going to bother.
 
I'm sure a few of you remember [url='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starforce"]StarForce[/url], right? Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (published by Ubisoft back in '05) contained a version of StarForce that remained uncracked for around a year. However, due to public opinion of StarForce and dismal sales of titles containing it, Ubisoft eventually stopped using that particular protection on their games.

Vote with your wallet.
 
Modelworks said:
Ubisoft was smart here in how they released the protection into the market. They knew that announcing a new protection scheme would bring out the reverse engineering crowd and it did. Many of us wanted to reverse engineer it , it was a new challenge. So what they did is to release it in varying stages. They started with a very easy implementation of it and with each release increased the difficulty. I think they were trying to use as little protection as possible and if it failed they increased the implementation.

A hex editor will not work with the protection set at its full level. The reason is that the full game exe is not really complete on the pc. They are patching in random parts of the code when the game connects to the server. Today when you play the game it might insert 20 bytes at the end of the exe. Next time it might be 10 bytes at the middle. You need to get enough samples of the entire thing to be able to re-assemble a clean exe. So far nobody has done that. I got tired of trying and have better things to do. Others will keep trying though.

The good side of this is that if they do decide to completely remove the protection, they can just release a clean exe and the protection is gone.
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Interesting - sounds like they are using something similar to RSA encryption key - every 30 seconds a new key is generated - a practically uncrackable system. Kudos to them for doing this - however, they are using brute force techniques requiring a constant internet connection for a single player game - that's just idiotic - especially when they have server issues either caused by internal or external reasons. Why not just perform the check when you start the game and perhaps at random or every auto save point?

I'd like to buy/play this game - but quite honestly - I really don't want to pay for something I can't play due to internal server issues or external attacks. I want to be able to play the game at anytime during the day or night without having to ask "mom" [server] for permission...
 
Modelworks said:
DRM can be almost impossible to crack if it is done right. The hardest DRM to crack is when the people who implement the protection have control of the hardware and software like in the PS3. There is DRM in the satellite tv market that is going on 4 years without anyone breaking it despite those trying spending over $200,000.00 for lab time in things like electron microscopes.
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ah yes, Nagra3, i'm suprised that Dishnetwork didn't jump on that bandwagon sooner and turn people's FTA receivers to paper weight.
 
I think it's always justified for any devs to want or need DRM for their games, obviously, but in this case it's extreme, at least if I launch Steam while my modem is turned off it will start in off-line mode and I'll be able to play my games. It's really the only thing that I am "against" when it comes to DRM, if I buy my games either retail or digitally I should always have the right to play them off-line, I never considered the Internet or the fact of "being on-line" a pre-requisite for entertainment, if I am being obliged to remain on-line to have the right to play a game then I think we've just hit a wall of desperate nonsense, and to be honest I never thought that Ubisoft would have been able to do that.

But fortunately enough for me I don't like most of their games, and that's no exaggeration, the only game that they have developed which I honestly enjoyed and still own to this day is Beyond Good & Evil, and we're going back about seven years ago.
 
tommo123 said:
if you're not willing to install games with DRM on it (like me) then there are no games at the moment (at least that i'm aware of) that i can get. in that situation, what difference does it make if they stop making games for the PC? either way, i'm not going to play them

steam isn't an option. tried it, they screwed me over and i sold my account on. xbox only at this point 🙁

if something like onlive is the future (which i don't see), then it's time to give up gaming for me
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I'm willing to install and put up with some DRM schemes. Disc checks, activations (as long as it's not limited to some ridiculously low number like 3 or 5) and such, even logging into accounts is fine as long as there's an offline mode.

Ubisoft's DRM is unacceptable because it lacks the offline mode. I refuse to support them because of it. Any other company who adopts this form of DRM goes on the list too.


mmntech said:
I was sceptical of OnLive at first but I can easily see it (or rather its concept) becoming the dominant gaming medium in the next decade.

Publishers are already moving in the direction of cloud based gaming. Ubi's new DRM scheme is a sign of that. It's only a matter of time.

I'm still undecided as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for gamers.
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OnLive and it's concepts are completely, 110% unacceptable for me, full stop. If the majority of PC gaming goes OnLive (or whatever comes after it) then I'll quit PC gaming. This "Cloud Computing" bullshit is a complete non-starter for me, and I want nothing to do with it.
 
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