Ubisoft's New PC DRM Really Requires Net Access, Ends Game If Disconnected

[KMFJD]

There's no problem with my analogy. My point was, that people who play wow are required to have constant internet connections at all times while they play the game, the same as this, and yet, WoW has the largest following of any computer game ever. To say that requiring a constant internet connection will be the downfall of this game probably isn't true once you see the success of wow requiring a constant internet connection.

Grabs popcorn

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yes, because DRM prevents piracy..

What DRM apologists don't seem to not understand is that even if you did prevent a game from being pirated that doesn't mean you'd gain any extra sales. A large percentage of pirates download games because they can, not because they actually have any interest in the game. So IMO, you have to really look at things from that perspective. "Are we doing our customers a disservice by imposing extra roadblocks in order to gain an unknown number of sales?" Maybe instead of attempting to prevent "non-customers" from pirating your game, you should instead provide greater incentives to your actual customers.. you know.. the ones who are willing to buy your product.

I'd like to see Ubisoft succeed with this DRM, and then once it backfires on them and sales are poor along with massive amounts of complaints, they won't have anyone to blame but themselves.

Anybody who is rational will conclude it won't. Imagine Vista but without Microsoft force-feeding OEMs into it. Something like that.

 

[smackababy]

There's no problem with my analogy. My point was, that people who play wow are required to have constant internet connections at all times while they play the game, the same as this, and yet, WoW has the largest following of any computer game ever. To say that requiring a constant internet connection will be the downfall of this game probably isn't true once you see the success of wow requiring a constant internet connection.

There is a huge problem with your analogy: in WoW you're paying to use the servers to play the game one; in AC2 you've already bought the game and are now simply paying to prove you purchased it. The requirement of an internet connections is integral to the game itself in WoW. You can't play an online (the O in MMORPG) without being online. AC2 is a SINGLE player game where you have to be online simply because the company says you're a most likely a thief.

This "DRM" will turn into subscription soon enough, just watch it.

I would think if companies stuck to simple disk checks rather than obstructive DRM they would gain more money through sales than they spend on DRM in the first place. But then again they would "lose sales" due to piracy.

 

[Modular]

In many previous threads of this nature I have been for the DRM. This level of DRM is far too restrictive though and I cannot say that it is beneficial to anyone. This hurts people who buy the game in a tangible way.

I guess I'll be boycotting their games in the hopes that they do away with this crap.

 

[mindcycle]

Anybody who is rational will conclude it won't. Imagine Vista but without Microsoft force-feeding OEMs into it. Something like that.

Of course I know it won't succeed, at least not in the long run. The reason I said what I did was because i'd like Ubisoft to realize on their own that restrictive/draconian DRM doesn't help anything. This will only happen if the DRM succeeds for a period of time but they have less than stellar sales.

Because with a great game, which Assassins Creed really is (no sarcasm there), you'd think that without the ability to pirate the game, those 600,000 pirated copies would turn into 600,000 sales right? .. at least that's what Ubisoft execs must be thinking to implement something as retarded as this..

 

[Slick5150]

The biggest reason AC2's sales will suck is that the game already came out on consoles months ago. I would have bought the PC version had it come out at the same time, but since I've already played it on Xbox360, why would I?

But of course, they'll blame poor PC sales on piracy.

 

[Elixer]

Dear user, it seems that your internet connection has been dropped.
The only possible reason for this is, you must be stealing your neighbors bandwidth, and most likely stealing our game as well our past games.

One moment while we diagnose your system...
We have determined that you don't need anything more than 20 GB of hard drive space, and we will now reallocate the remaining 600 GB of space to the Ubisoft scratch drive.
...working...
Process has completed, your PC is now console certifed by the Ubisoft DRM-FU advanced copy protection system.

Have a great day!

D:

 

[Liet]

Love it, Elixer... I could almost see it happening! They would if they thought they could...

I love Silent Hunter 3 and was excited about SH5, but there's no way in hell I'll purchase ANY product from Ubi if this DRM is implemented. Screw them.

 

[Lotheron]

I will not even consider any of the above games. Thank you for helping to kill what's left of PC gaming Ubi.

 

[wanderer27]

I'd like to see Ubisoft succeed with this DRM, and then once it backfires on them and sales are poor along with massive amounts of complaints, they won't have anyone to blame but themselves.

You've got to be kidding - a Company taking personal responsibility for their own failure

 

[mindcycle]

You've got to be kidding - a Company taking personal responsibility for their own failure

lol, yes it's kind of far fetched, I know. At least we'll know right?

 

[slag]

There is a huge problem with your analogy: in WoW you're paying to use the servers to play the game one; in AC2 you've already bought the game and are now simply paying to prove you purchased it. The requirement of an internet connections is integral to the game itself in WoW. You can't play an online (the O in MMORPG) without being online. AC2 is a SINGLE player game where you have to be online simply because the company says you're a most likely a thief.

This "DRM" will turn into subscription soon enough, just watch it.

I would think if companies stuck to simple disk checks rather than obstructive DRM they would gain more money through sales than they spend on DRM in the first place. But then again they would "lose sales" due to piracy.

You aren't understanding. I'm not comparing the gameplay values or why you need to be online to play it because that doesn't matter. Each of the two games REQUIRES you to be online and since the majority of people with broadband stay logged in and online, its not going to be an issue to those people. Its a single player game, so what. It requires you to be online, like WoW requires you to be online, albeit for different reasons. I don't agree with their decision to make you stay online for a single player game, but thats neither here nor there. Knowing I need to be online and knowing my pc is connected to the net 24x7, i know this would not be an issue for me.

Drm wont turn to subscription unless they can deliver more content in a constantly changing online world, otherwise, there would be nothing to pay for.

 

[lupi]

mighty impressive cause of grasping for straws with that one. by the same approximate logic, cash if worth much and green so grass must be worth a lot too.

 

[pmv]

There's no problem with my analogy. My point was, that people who play wow are required to have constant internet connections at all times while they play the game, the same as this, and yet, WoW has the largest following of any computer game ever. To say that requiring a constant internet connection will be the downfall of this game probably isn't true once you see the success of wow requiring a constant internet connection.

Well, come on, clearly there is a major problem with your analogy. Wow is a massively multiplayer game that has regularly updated content. It attracts a diffferent audience from single player games who are attracted to it for different reasons. I have no interest in MMORPGs and the like, never play them. I won't be buying any UBIsoft product either.

You are, without any justification, assuming players of single player games will behave exactly like players of multiplayer games. Its like saying 'people travel up to town to watch music gigs, therefore they'll travel miles to play a video game'. The two are different things.

 

[DarkForceRising]

You aren't understanding. I'm not comparing the gameplay values or why you need to be online to play it because that doesn't matter. Each of the two games REQUIRES you to be online and since the majority of people with broadband stay logged in and online, its not going to be an issue to those people.

The problem being that the people who purchase WoW aren't going to be the ones with shoddy internet. It's pointless to do so, as the whole reason to play WoW is to go online. It's easily possible that someone who doesn't have internet good enough to play WoW would buy this game. I mean, why not? It's singleplayer, and has no possible decent justification for requiring a connection like it does. The most the box will have on it is what, "Internet connection required." or somesuch just like they have now, which usually means that it needs to authenticate once on install. You buy WoW, you know you need an internet connection the entire time. AC2? Not so much.

Point being, I have internet that's good enough to play games online. I could play WoW. I don't. But when my internet has a weird outage, which does happen, do you know what I do? I install/play a singleplayer game. Somewhere down the line, I would probably have considered AC2 for playing, but I won't anymore.

 

[coloumb]

I don't really see this as a showstopper. Millions of people play world of warcraft every single day and that requires a constant internet connection and somehow they manage to do it. There really isn't any difference here. You lose your connection, you start over where you last saved. At least in this game you won't have 19 other people pissed off at you because their tank/healer/dps disconnected in the middle of a boss fight.

Eh - there IS a difference.

MMO - you pay a monthly fee with the expectation that the server will be up and running. MMO companies understand this because the game is a multi-player game which REQUIRES a remote server in order for you to play the game.

In this case - it's a single player game and thus doesn't require any connection to a remote server - the world isn't dynamic and there won't be other players in the game. It just doesn't make any sense at all other than an idiotic way to enforce DRM upon the consumer.

I really do think companies should take note of what BioWare does - simple cd check and your done. Hell - Bioshock 2 was pretty good too - install the game, it verifies the install date/integrity via remote server, downloads the files in order to play the game - and you're frikken done [well.. except for the pain in the ass GFWL client - but at least you can create an off-line account]. I'd say whoever handles the DRM in these cases knows what the hell is going on.

Folks over at Ubisoft apparently have no clue as to what's going on... and are listening to the wrong people tell them how to implement DRM.

 

[jonks]

There's no reason to even get annoyed with DRM schemes since anyone who wants a way around it can find one. Some companies have figured out this very simple truth and don't bother with pissing off their customers, and others choose to live in fantasyland.

 

[shortylickens]

There's no reason to even get annoyed with DRM schemes since anyone who wants a way around it can find one. Some companies have figured out this very simple truth and don't bother with pissing off their customers, and others choose to live in fantasyland.

As has already been pointed out: We shouldnt HAVE to use hacks just to get a legit game working properly. Thats just bad programming and bad business. Not to mention annoying. And when you do wanna play online you'll probably have to revert back to the proper executable.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Just imagine if Windows did this... D:

 

[JujuFish]

Ubisoft will become less and less ubiquitous as time goes on if they keep this crap up. Time for a name change.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Eh - there IS a difference.

There are a million differences between AC2 and WoW, but arguing that they are exactly the same was not his point. Consider that WoW is an example that a game that requires constant internet connectivity can succeed very well if it is a game that people want to play at a "price" they will accept. The price includes the non-dollar costs such as the effort required to acquire/install it, the DRM implementation, and hardware requirements, and then in this case the requirement of internet connectivity.

Universal statements that posters will not pay a given price regardless of any other factor such as quality or monetary costs are worth absolutely nothing because they are usually strategic answers rather than real answers. Anybody reading this statement would pay $5 for a excellent sequel to their favorite game regardless of whether it required them to be connected to the internet or not. Similarly, should AC2 go on a really great steam sale plenty of posters in this very thread will change their minds about their "boycott" of Ubisoft.

 

[Raduque]

Similarly, should AC2 go on a really great steam sale plenty of posters in this very thread will change their minds about their "boycott" of Ubisoft.

This is a real answer for me: I would not even pay $1 for a copy of Assassins Creed 2 on a Steam sale. In fact, even if I got it free with a video card or somesuch deal, I wouldn't install it. Ubisoft put themselves permanently on my "Never Buy/Play" list with this latest bit of DRM hijinks.

Even if I did not have a neighbor with a dog that likes to eat cable lines, I would NOT purchase or play a single-player game that required me to be connected to a server for the duration of my session.

 

[Nebor]

If you require a constant connection to their server so that your one Serial Key can only be used by one person at one time... doesn't that stymie pirates?

 

[JRich]

If you require a constant connection to their server so that your one Serial Key can only be used by one person at one time... doesn't that stymie pirates?

 

[CountZero]

If you require a constant connection to their server so that your one Serial Key can only be used by one person at one time... doesn't that stymie pirates?

I can't really imagine it stopping pirates any more than connecting once per session would, and they have easily cracked once per session.