Ubisoft Launches Anti-Piracy Countermeasures

[mindcycle]

Last year, Ubisoft head honcho Yves Guillemot mentioned that the company was "working on tools that will allow us to actually decrease tremendously the piracy on PC." Ubisoft is now launching this proprietary new system to manage its PC gaming community, starting with making its PC games accessible through Ubi.com accounts.

In the past Ubisoft has been derided for its use of the controversial StarForce digital rights management application. Ubisoft's new platform takes an approach that tackles many of the typical criticisms of DRM. You'll be able to run your games without a disc in the drive for authentication, and you can take advantage of unlimited installations.

One very interesting benefit of this new account management system is how it handles save games. Your saves will be stored remotely on Ubi servers, allowing access to your game saves on any machine. Steam offers a similar service for select games, but this will be available for the majority of Ubisoft's PC titles.

So what's the downside? Since authentication is now handled through your Ubi.com account, you'll always need to connect to your Ubi.com account to authenticate before playing. While it's hard to conceive of PC gamers being stranded without an Internet connection, those situations do come up, particularly when traveling.

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-settlers-7-paths-to-a-kingdom/1063391p1.html

 

[mindcycle]

Ubisoft Drops PC DRM, Takes Everything Online

Ubisoft is stripping Digital Rights Management software from its PC titles to instead push everything online. Want to access the main menu? Log in to Ubisoft's servers. Want to load up a saved game? Log in to Ubisoft's servers. Want to save a game? Log in to Ubisoft's servers and upload it:

The new scheme will roll out with Settlers 7: Paths To A Kingdom, having been successfully tested in last year's Anno 1404.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/52668/Ubisoft-Drops-PC-DRM-Takes-Everything-Online

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Sounds good to me. I used to fiercely oppose online activation/authentication, but internet connections now are ubiquitous and reliable enough that it's fine with me.

I'm slightly concerned with save games stored on the cloud - in principle I love the idea but who knows how reliable Ubi's servers will be. Hopefully saves will be stored locally and can be pushed to the cloud later if the server is down, but it sounds like this is part of the anti-piracy strategy which suggests they won't store locally at all.

You'll be able to run your games without a disc in the drive for authentication, and you can take advantage of unlimited installations.

Hallelujah.

 

[mindcycle]

I for one won't be buying a game that requires an internet connection to save. Especially for a single player game. Would any of you be willing to put up with this so Ubisoft can "fight" piracy?

 

[mindcycle]

Sounds good to me. I used to fiercely oppose online activation/authentication, but internet connections now are ubiquitous and reliable enough that it's fine with me.

What if your internet connection goes down or you are traveling and want to play the game you purchased without a internet connection?

I can understand using this type of DRM for multiplayer games, but for SP games it's simply not acceptable IMO.

 

[Gunbuster]

on the 2011 news: "Settlers 7 no longer profitable, online save/auth server shutdown, saves erased"

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Don't worry 2 or 3 weeks after it's out in the open they'll be cracked games that store it on your harddrive anyway. I won't be bothering with their games either way though.

 

[crownjules]

Steam uses the same system and I've never had a problem with it. Loss of internet connection is extremely rare and usually coincides with loss of power, so I can't game anyway. I don't travel much but the presence of wifi technology is quickly becoming ubiquitous. I can already access the internet via wifi on commuter trains and even some buses. Airplanes too, but that usually costs some money.

All in all, much ado about nothing to me and much more preferable to invasive software.

 

[mindcycle]

Steam uses the same system and I've never had a problem with it. Loss of internet connection is extremely rare and usually coincides with loss of power, so I can't game anyway. I don't travel much but the presence of wifi technology is quickly becoming ubiquitous. I can already access the internet via wifi on commuter trains and even some buses. Airplanes too, but that usually costs some money.

All in all, much ado about nothing to me and much more preferable to invasive software.

The difference is that Steam offers an offline mode so you can still play your games if you don't have an internet connection. This won't be the case with Ubisoft's DRM method.

 

[PUN]

If Bill Gates hasn't figured out how to fight piracy, what makes Ubisoft any different?
They should offer special items and such for pre-orders or online registration.

 

[gramboh]

I actually think this system is fair overall to consumers and Ubisoft. Look, PC piracy has gotten out of control since the advent of Bit Torrent/P2P. In the "good ole days" of BBSes and subsequently FTP/IRC bots, you had to have a clue to pirate PC games, it required some knowledge and was far too difficult for the average joe to figure out. Now with BT indexing sites it's a one click function. The reason this concerns me is that if PC piracy gets worse, studios will focus even less resources on PC development = less titles/less quality.

I use Steam and have never had an issue. Personally, games are disposable entertainment to me. If in 10 years something happens and I can't access these old titles anymore I really don't care, this is not vital critical property to me. I prefer this method to annoying Starforce crap that is cracked instantly anyway and provides no value to the studio/publisher. I only game on my home PC and my internet connection is very rarely down, I feel for people with poor connections though.

I actually felt bad for Bioware when I saw ME2 warez version come out more than a week in advance.

 

[crownjules]

If Bill Gates hasn't figured out how to fight piracy, what makes Ubisoft any different?
They should offer special items and such for pre-orders or online registration.

So because one person/group has tried and failed, they should all just give up? I don't begrudge these companies for trying to protect their work because I wouldn't want it happening to me either. Ubisoft is finally listening to all the complaints against SecuROM and Stardock and trying something less invasive and works more like Steam, which is by and large accepted by gamers.

 

[PUN]

So because one person/group has tried and failed, they should all just give up? I don't begrudge these companies for trying to protect their work because I wouldn't want it happening to me either. Ubisoft is finally listening to all the complaints against SecuROM and Stardock and trying something less invasive and works more like Steam, which is by and large accepted by gamers.

What I am saying is they should stop wasting resources on something that can be cracked in less than a day. Like some poster had mentioned above, this tactic makes absolutely no sense for single player, and causes nothing but headaches for consumers wanting to play without the broadband.

Securom, online auth, etc simply does not work other than multi games.

They should be offering bonus ingame items like bioware ME2 and DA:O

 

[mindcycle]

So because one person/group has tried and failed, they should all just give up? I don't begrudge these companies for trying to protect their work because I wouldn't want it happening to me either. Ubisoft is finally listening to all the complaints against SecuROM and Stardock and trying something less invasive and works more like Steam, which is by and large accepted by gamers.

If protecting their work means inconveniencing their actual paying customer base then it's a bad business decision IMO. It can only equate to lost sales.

I was going to pickup Assassin's Creed 2 in March, but if it contains this BS i'm passing on it.

 

[KaOTiK]

wow this with the privilege of paying $60 for a 4-5 month old console port? Thanks Ubisoft!

 

[Anubis]

I for one won't be buying a game that requires an internet connection to save. Especially for a single player game. Would any of you be willing to put up this so Ubisoft can "fight" piracy?

nope, i actually cant recall the last ubisoft game i played owned but i can guarantee you i wont be playing one going forward.

I refuse to buy games that require an Internet connection for anything besides updates and multyplayer

 

[crownjules]

I'm not inconvenienced, nor are the 94.5% of American households who have broadband access as of 2009. And we're the 15th ranked nation in terms of broadband penetration. Requiring an internet connection is hardly an inconvenience in 2010.

 

[zerogear]

Fine by me, just means from here on out, no Ubisoft games for me any longer = more money in my pockets.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Man I'm really disappointed with where pc gaming is going. I have a laptop I like to bring with me to work so I can play pc games. I have no access to Internet at work. Looks like I won't be buying any ubisoft titles. I'll buy the new crysis to check it out but I think I'm out fellas. I'll find something else to do. I have no problem paying for the games but you add all this extra bullshit for something I paid for and I'm done.

 

[Tremulant]

I would hope that saves are stored both locally and online.

I also don't have a problem with needing a connection to play, but there should be an offline mode.

 

[PUN]

nope, i actually cant recall the last ubisoft game i played owned but i can guarantee you i wont be playing one going forward.

I refuse to buy games that require an Internet connection for anything besides updates and multyplayer

Exactly.

Few weeks ago, I had an internet outage for 4 days. I ended up playing some single player games to kill some time. If it had required an internet connection, I would've been staring at my doc folders.

 

[lupi]

Soundß like we'll be seeing a press announcement in a couple months that ubi won't be selling pc games anymore cause I see no way this system won't tank.

 

[Northern Lawn]

What happens when steam and ubisoft go out of business? We're SOL.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Exactly.

Few weeks ago, I had an internet outage for 4 days. I ended up playing some single player games to kill some time. If it had required an internet connection, I would've been staring at my doc folders.

Yea, My internet at home has been down since sunday and should be getting fixed today. I'd be pretty pissed right now if all my games required a connection.

 

[AlgaeEater]

I say this sucks, but it's a less form of suck compared to the god awful activation limit scheme in this DRM circus age we live in.

My real beef with this is the effect on save games. Basically if Ubisoft releases a game which constantly auto-saves, you'll be sending save games pretty often. Now imagine if the game had bloated 8-15 meg save files. You get my drift; it can get out of hand pretty quickly; especially if every time you needed to load you had to re-download that save file! At least it's a better excuse not to suck at playing?

I don't like this crap either, but it's leaps and bounds better than activation limits. At least I can somewhat feel like I own my game again, and not renting it.