Ubisoft Launches Anti-Piracy Countermeasures

[WaitingForNehalem]

I support EA for releasing their games with no DRM.

 

[jlee]

My little brother doesn't have internet at home...this will make it even tougher for him to play stuff...oh well.

 

[BladeVenom]

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

Exactly.

EA has already started shutting down servers for their sports games, even some 2009 games.

MS has lost Sidekick data, shutdown MS Gaming Zone, and shutdown music DRM servers.

Why would Ubisoft be any more reliable and trustworthy than EA or MS?

What happens when they go out of business, or get bought out?

 

[Rifter]

This is the stupidest thing i have ever herd, i play about half my games at work with no internet connection on my laptop, guess this means im never buying another ubisoft game. At least with steam you can still play in offline mode fine. Unless there is a way around this for offline mode its the dumbest move they could make.

 

[pontifex]

I wave my magic wand and make all game of 2010 and thereafter use this DRM. I also wave my wand and bring down a ice storm/flood/hurricane/lightning storm/tornado (whatever works for you) and knock out your internet (but not power) over a long weekend with crappy weather so you are really bored and had just bought the game you've been craving for 3 years.

To support this now is to tell other other game makers to use this DRM, and your very reliable internet is subject to change.

I'll watch a movie or read a book.

 

[pontifex]

This is the stupidest thing i have ever herd, i play about half my games at work with no internet connection on my laptop, guess this means im never buying another ubisoft game. At least with steam you can still play in offline mode fine. Unless there is a way around this for offline mode its the dumbest move they could make.

wait, shouldn't you be WORKING at WORK?

 

[Rifter]

wait, shouldn't you be WORKING at WORK?

I do, but there is alot of downtime. I work 12 hour shifts 7pm to 7am, dispatching tow trucks, as you can imagine between midnight and 5am there is very little demand for tow trucks and im lucky to get one phone call in that time per night. But i still need to be here as we have the city police contract, my boss doesnt care what i do to pass the time as long as im awake and not asleep.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I never have had any problems with DRM, but this sounds like a pain, especially since I'm one of those OCD quick-save-every-twenty-seconds gamers. They'd probably ban me for overloading their servers. :awe:

 

[Canai]

yeahhhh fuck that. saves stored on pubesoft's severs? fuck that. ubisoft fucking fails.

 

[Rifter]

yeahhhh fuck that. saves stored on pubesoft's severs? fuck that. ubisoft fucking fails.

Thats my viewpoint too, i just said it a little nicer LMAO.

 

[Clinkster]

Yay, more backwards engineered ways of countering piracy.

Except, yet again, this won't curtail piracy at all....only punish those who do end up buying the game legitimately.

Oh well, PC gaming is nothing but a slippery slope anyway...

 

[Bateluer]

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

Which is why I won't touch a system like this with a 100ft pole.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I can't remember an Ubisoft-developed PC game worth playing since Chaos Theory.

 

[Craig234]

# of people who have a better solution to piracy: zero

 

[lupi]

# of people who have a better solution to piracy: zero

Shoplifting has been occuring for ages, yet somehow they haven't made people put on legirons when walking into a store.

 

[Vonkhan]

Occasionally:
I game while I travel
I game while at work
I game in remote places where there's no cell phone signal, let alone a broadband connection

No thanks

 

[zerogear]

yeahhhh fuck that. saves stored on pubesoft's severs? fuck that. ubisoft fucking fails.

Saving on their server is worse than GFWL saving encrypted saved games that locks to a single profile, but not by much.

 

[Raduque]

Well, guess I won't be buying or playing Ubisoft games in the future.

I personally like disc checks. What's so bad about them?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Can we officially say that PC gaming is dead outside of MMOs? Seriously, this is just another form of DRM, just like SecuROM, just rebranded. Console gaming got it right...give customers a REWARD for buying a legitimate version of the game (exclusive in-game items) instead of placing hoops they have to jump through in order to just play the game. Regardless of whether or not 94.5% or whatever made-up-out-of-thin-air number of people have Internet access, checking in with Big Brother Ubisoft for permission to play your game and access your saves should not be required except for updates and multiplayer gaming. Period, end of story. You aren't required to be on XBOX Live to play 360 games, and you can still access your saves, play single player, get achievements, etc. if XBOX Live is down, your Internet is down, etc.

Dragon Age: Origins will probably be the last PC game I buy (other than Blizzard titles) because they got it right: give customers incentives to buy, not place annoying obstacles in their way. Sad, but oh well...I'm not missing much since the console versions are superior 99.9% of the time anyway, and the only worthwhile PC-exclusive games any more are MMOs, and even that is limited to WOW right now.

The glory days of Baldur's Gate 2, etc. are ancient history...

 

[mmntech]

Can we officially say that PC gaming is dead outside of MMOs?

PC Gaming is certainly passed it's golden age of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I wouldn't say it's dead but it's definitely in a deep slump. Piracy is certainly part of the problem but much of it has been caused by numerous poor management decisions. Namely excessive buyouts (large publishers have become bureaucratic), poor marketing, lack of quality controls, lack of innovative and exclusive titles, and increasingly draconian DRM schemes that scare people off.

There is a better solution that already exists and that's Steam. It allows publishers to control content distribution without shoving DRM down legitimate gamers' throats. It's interesting to note that games without DRM sell just as well if not better than the ones that do. Stardock was laughed at when they released Sins without DRM and it's gone on to sell quite well. Fallout 3 only requires a disc check and key and it sold like hot cakes on all platforms.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

There is a better solution that already exists and that's Steam.

I'm no fan of Steam, but with Steam, GFWL Marketplace, Direct2Drive, etc. all diluting the marketplace, it really is a mess. There really needs to be just one, but nobody wants to give up their "exclusive" control and profits.

The problem I have with Steam is that they often sell the digital version of games (with no physical goods, such as cases or manuals) at full retail price. Digital distribution has to be saving them quite a bit without the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, retailer shelf costs, etc. Steam games should be $10 cheaper than the full retail version, but instead, they are MSRP. That just ain't right.

I also don't like the idea that if Steam ever shuts down or Valve hits hard times and goes out of business, POOF, there go all of your Steam games. Sorry, too bad, so sad!

 

[mindcycle]

# of people who have a better solution to piracy: zero

Solutions:
#1 - Cater your product offering towards gaining the maximum amount of new sales, not towards fighting a group of people who won't be buying you game anyway.
#2 - Offer greater incentives to purchase your game. Special in game content (DLC) available with your CD key, multiplayer components, community message boards, modding tools, collector's edition content with the regular version, etc..
#3 - Whatever you do don't make the retail version of your product inferior to a pirated copy by adding restrictions that only affect the people actually purchasing your game.

 

[Zargon]

# of people who have a better solution to piracy: zero

Stardock

ZERO DRM on Sins of a Solar Empire

sold a ton

GOTY

still selling DLC

 

[Pepsei]

# of people who have a better solution to piracy: zero

Ps3 games.

 

[pontifex]

I'm no fan of Steam, but with Steam, GFWL Marketplace, Direct2Drive, etc. all diluting the marketplace, it really is a mess. There really needs to be just one, but nobody wants to give up their "exclusive" control and profits.

The problem I have with Steam is that they often sell the digital version of games (with no physical goods, such as cases or manuals) at full retail price. Digital distribution has to be saving them quite a bit without the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, retailer shelf costs, etc. Steam games should be $10 cheaper than the full retail version, but instead, they are MSRP. That just ain't right.

I also don't like the idea that if Steam ever shuts down or Valve hits hard times and goes out of business, POOF, there go all of your Steam games. Sorry, too bad, so sad!

Haven't they said they would make it so that if they go under or whatever, they would make sure the games still work?

besides, you can use steam in offline mode and still play them. you can even back up your games to cd/dvd as well