Ubisoft DRM confirmed to boot you from your singleplayer game when the net drops out

[RPGmasterBoo]

It'd be news if they hadn't cracked it yet.

 

Its been cracked

thatsthejoke.jpg

 

[Magister Lajciak]

Hmm, effects of Ubisoft DDRM on honest customers... server problems: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5...24/m/1601001838

 

So, while many customers cannot play the game because of this, pirates can play it without interruptions, as they have gotten rid of the DDRM through cracks.

[Purkake]

Hmm, effects of Ubisoft DDRM on honest customers... server problems: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5...24/m/1601001838

 

So, while many customers cannot play the game because of this, pirates can play it without interruptions, as they have gotten rid of the DDRM through cracks.

 

I'm pretty sure Ubisoft will do enough on its own to turn anyone off their new system.

I should really become a future psychic, my powers are beyond comprehension.

[Magister Lajciak]

Hmm, effects of Ubisoft DDRM on honest customers... server problems: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5...24/m/1601001838

 

So, while many customers cannot play the game because of this, pirates can play it without interruptions, as they have gotten rid of the DDRM through cracks.

 

I'm pretty sure Ubisoft will do enough on its own to turn anyone off their new system.

I should really become a future psychic, my powers are beyond comprehension.

 

You did call it! Given your powers of prediction, what do you think will happen next in the story Ubisoft's DDRM?

 

Meanwhile, the saga of Ubisoft DDRM continues and Ubisoft's servers are still strained: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5...66/m/7541043838 So much for Ubisoft being able to assign servers according to demand, as they promise in their FAQ... Pirates are merrily playing the game, while many honest customers cannot, due to the DDRM - isn't that great? I would sure be angry if I were their customer! Not to mention the fact that they don't mention the need for their servers to be up to play the game, they merely mention that you need an active internet connection, which, as we can see, is slightly deceptive.

 

Ubisoft says:

 

"Due to exceptional demand, we are currently experiencing difficulties with the Online Service Platform. This does not affect customers who are currently playing, but customers attempting to start a game may experience difficulty in accessing our servers. We are currently working to resolve this issue and apologize for any inconvenience."

 

Some customer responses:

 

"Wow, here we are going on 8 hours or more into this mess and it's STILL not fixed."

 

"This service has been down for like 10 hours, there is really no way to justify this."

 

"Soon you won't have to worry about "exceptional demand"."

 

"Got three words for you [Edit]:

Class. Action. Lawsuit." [Edited by moderators to remove swear words]

 

Oh, and here is a response by a non-customer to the travails of legitimate users:

 

"Not at all! My pirated version works perfectly!"

 

Given DDRM's general ineffectiveness against piracy, it is likely aimed at least as much against reselling games as it is against piracy. Against piracy it is about as effective as any other DRM, even customers friendly types - that is it might or might not stop pre-release and zero-day/first-day piracy, which helps if it does, but not longer-term piracy. For that, however, they could just have disk-checks and CD-keys without angering and hurting their customers. So it seems they want to attack the second-hand market. I don't buy or sell games second hand, so it wouldn't affect me, but the methods they are choosing (all the online rubbish) do affect me...

Edited March 7, 2010 by Magister Lajciak

[RPGmasterBoo]

Hilarious.

 

I suppose I wont be smiling when a game I actually care about is published with this DRM but what the heck, its lets savor it while it lasts.

[Purkake]

You did call it! Given your powers of prediction, what do you think will happen next in the story Ubisoft's DDRM?

They will eventually fix the servers, there will be other smaller issues, but after a week or so people will be able to play AC2 normally and everyone will forget about it. Until the next time it's used, at least.

 

As for the long-term future, I don't really know Ubisoft's goals for this, so it's hard to predict whether they will keep using it or not.

[Magister Lajciak]

You did call it! Given your powers of prediction, what do you think will happen next in the story Ubisoft's DDRM?

They will eventually fix the servers, there will be other smaller issues, but after a week or so people will be able to play AC2 normally and everyone will forget about it. Until the next time it's used, at least.

 

As for the long-term future, I don't really know Ubisoft's goals for this, so it's hard to predict whether they will keep using it or not.

 

Yeah, I agree that the short term server problem must be fixed soon. I did mean long term predictions as to how this will pan out, but I agree that is difficult to predict.

[Purkake]

Splinter Cell: Conviction is coming out pretty soon and some people might actually care about that.

 

AC2 was obviously the testbed for this, but I'm having a hard time understanding what their goal with this is. Most of the fallout from it is pretty predictable, I guess it could have been just to stress-test the servers and get some real data on how it affects sales...

 

This points to them having already accepted whatever consequences this brings and just pushing it through as a matter of course.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Purkake

[BicycleOfDeath]

Regardless, I refuse to purchase a game with any form of hardcore DRM. I'm hoping that it'll affect sales enough where they'll realize this weapon's (against piracy) friendly-fire is far too significant to ignore.

[Purkake]

It's almost like they made a friendly-fire only weapon.

 

 

It'd be a defense measure at best

 

[Tigranes]

Splinter Cell: Conviction is coming out pretty soon and some people might actually care about that.

 

Oh snap! They did have a game I was interested in... oh well.

 

This points to them having already accepted whatever consequences this brings and just pushing it through as a matter of course.

 

Probably, but not for certain. If Ubisoft does repeal it it would be a nice example.

 

edit: just to confirm, encouraging, admitting or providing information about DRM removal/bypass and/or piracy will be treated with prejudice to err on side of caution.

[Niten_Ryu]

Yup, I've bought every Splinter Cell PC game soon after release but I'll skip this one untill DRM is dropped.

[Humodour]

Besides the Ubisoft DRM already having been cracked, leaving legit consumers in the unfortunate position of having a worse copy of their game than illegal downloaders, the Ubisoft servers are currently down. This means nobody can play any Ubisoft DRM games, such as Assassin's Creed 2.

 

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/03/08/0...Servers-Go-Down

 

And this looks like just a normal outage. Lovely. I wonder what happens when a pissed off individual (or group of individuals) decides to DDoS the servers for an extended period of time.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Krezack

[Magister Lajciak]

Seems pretty accurate: http://i46.tinypic.com/2py18bo.jpg

[Mamoulian War]

I wonder what happens when a pissed off individual (or group of individuals) decides to DDoS the servers for an extended period of time.

 

That would be an awesome bussiness model..

 

Is your competition releasing a new best selling game?

 

Want the customers to rather buy your product?

 

Just call us 1-800-PROCHINAHACKERZ.

 

We will DDoS them for you!!!

 

Now offering special discounts on long time subscriptions...

[Humodour]

Seems pretty accurate: http://i46.tinypic.com/2py18bo.jpg

 

Sums the situation up pretty succinctly.

[neckthrough]

Oh well. The suckers that put up with this sort of DRM are finally paying for it. Hard to feel sorry for them. For the rest of us that simply avoided all this crapware, life goes on. Move along folks, nothing more to see here.

[Killian Kalthorne]

http://kotaku.com/5487918/ubisofts-new-drm...aying-customers

 

BWAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAA

[MacMichael]

Newer article: http://kotaku.com/5488372/denial-of-servic...eed-ii-playtime

 

Seems the downtime was an attack, according to Ubi.

[Humodour]

Seems the downtime was an attack, according to Ubi.

 

Yeah, they would say that, because imagine if it wasn't?

 

Still, it's immaterial - their servers should be distributed and hardened against this sort of thing. You don't think sites like Google, Microsoft aren't also the target of this stuff? When was the last time you saw them go down to a DDoS? Indeed, the fact things like these happen should have been one of the top 3 reasons not to go ahead with their blindingly stupid DRM scheme in the first place.

 

Fact of the matter is, Ubisoft can't provide the quality level customers expect, so they should never have deployed their scheme in the first place.

[MacMichael]

Seems the downtime was an attack, according to Ubi.

 

Yeah, they would say that, because imagine if it wasn't?

 

What they say can say a lot. Admitting it's an attack, suggests things would been working fine for the load they expected. They sold what they expected or less. The reason things aren't working is due to outside interference. But it's also admitting a serious weakness that they didn't plan for or didn't find a solution for. It's a partial failure for Ubisoft. The story the other day, that it's simply greater than expected load, could be better than expected sales, meaning one or more of DRM didn't have a significant effect of sales, piracy was defeated so they purchased instead, whatever else you feel like coming up with. Which sounds better? Of course, there's always the possibility that the system was designed so poorly that a gentle breeze could knock it down, in which case, why not stick with the story that lets you say things are going better than expected, instead of the story where they admit they didn't expect what they got?

 

Still, it's immaterial - their servers should be distributed and hardened against this sort of thing. You don't think sites like Google, Microsoft aren't also the target of this stuff? When was the last time you saw them go down to a DDoS? Indeed, the fact things like these happen should have been one of the top 3 reasons not to go ahead with their blindingly stupid DRM scheme in the first place.

 

I would suspect that Google and Microsoft, having been targets for far longer, have had time to get their technology and people to a point they don't have this sort of issue. Ubi just hung a giant bulls eye around their neck and said, "Here we are!" Which suggests to me that they probably should have put more time, money and thought into their system.

 

Fact of the matter is, Ubisoft can't provide the quality level customers expect, so they should never have deployed their scheme in the first place.

 

While I don't disagree with you, for arguments sake, applying that logic, a great number of games, and many other things for that matter, should have never been released, some of which actually turned out rather well after some post-release work.

[Mamoulian War]

Newer article: http://kotaku.com/5488372/denial-of-servic...eed-ii-playtime

 

Seems the downtime was an attack, according to Ubi.

 

Even if it is true, which i highly doubt, that's one of the reasons, why such DRMs should be avoided like a plague

[Gorgon]

According to that article the game was not cracked.

[kirottu]

According to that article the game was not cracked.

 

As far as I understand there has been cracked version of the game since day one, but ubi claims is not "legit" cracked version since it lacks some extra download content.

[Tigranes]

I think most people would prefer a game that works properly over a broken one with DLC, though.