Ubisoft removes always-on DRM from Single Player games

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Derangel

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Link: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/05/u...assassins-creed-3-confirmed-playable-offline/

The Article said:
In interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Stephanie Perotti, Ubisoft’s worldwide director for online games, has said that the company has decided to remove the need for a permanent connection to play its PC titles.

In fact, she claims the decision was made way back in June, after which point Ubi’s singleplayer games have only required a one-time activation upon install.

Ubisoft’s approach to DRM has been widely lambasted by gamers, partly because of the inconvenience for the consumer, but mostly because it often didn’t seem to work, dropping connection to the server mid-game, booting you out and erasing progress. And now, finally, it seems Ubisoft have heeded this wail of despair, with Perotti explicitly confirming that the singleplayer component of Assassin’s Creed 3 will not require any online connection.

She also suggests Ubisoft will be doing more to get their games onto PC quicker – so good news all round. We’ve got a man in the field, chinwagging with Ubi bigwigs as we speak, so we’ll be bringing you more news on Ubisoft’s plans for PC, and specifically their intentions with uPlay, very soon.
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Not much to add here really, other than if Ubi is serious their next step needs to be to drop Digital River ASAP and either create it's own content delivery system or just ditch UPlay entirely and use Steamworks (since there is no chance in hell they'll go DRM free).
 
The thing is, how dense is Ubi? All those issues anyone could see coming from a mile away.
 
Ubi says they have removed the constant online requirement back in June last year but I could swear I have seen people bitching online recently about not being able to play their games (like Anno, Driver and SC Conviction) due to issues with Ubi's servers?
 
How do we tell if the drm been removed; I've been interested in heroes 6 but held back due to drm complaints.
 
That's a good step in the right direction. Assuming they would really remove them.
 
KickAssCop said:
Next step: Blizzard does it.
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Good luck with that. Blizzard would have to spend months recoding the game since loot and other game mechanics are server side. DRM is just baked into the cake with this implementation so don't hold your breath.
 
Honestly it's good they've done this, but it's also diabolical that they did it for so long.

Reputation wise Ubi have done so much damage I'm not sure this will matter much in the long run.
 
Huh? I thought the "always online" aspect had been sixed a while back.


Derangel said:
Not much to add here really, other than if Ubi is serious their next step needs to be to drop Digital River ASAP and either create it's own content delivery system or just ditch UPlay entirely and use Steamworks (since there is no chance in hell they'll go DRM free).
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I'd much prefer the latter. It's the most palatable DRM and yes Steam fanboys, it's DRM.
 
John Vuong said:
Thats nice, guess I'll buy Far Cry 3 since it has gained my interest.
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Despite myself and the epic disappointment FC2 was to me...I have to admit I'm a little intrigued by what I've seen there as well.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Haven't they said this before, then just add it again in the next game? :p
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Seriously. They've cried wolf enough... they won't stick with this new-found insight. DRM is their crack and sooner than later they are gonna need another fix.
 
drako said:
Seriously. They've cried wolf enough... they won't stick with this new-found insight. DRM is their crack and sooner than later they are gonna need another fix.
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I've never seen such mixed messages from one company depending on who says what to the press.
 
[Burk got back to us soon after the interview to say that in the last full fiscal year PCs made up 7% of revenue, and in the last quarter it's been 12%.]
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Wow. Makes you wonder why they even bother.
 
But it didn't help that most of their PC releases are 2 weeks, sometimes months after the consoles release and used to be plagued by that DRM.

I'm sure that figure would be higher if you removed both of these factors.
 
_PixelNinja said:
Because 12% or even 7% still equates to a substantial income for Ubisoft. They would not commit to the PC market if it was not viable for them.
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Exactly.

And again: This forum is a very small sampling of all the gamers out there. Plenty of PC gamers buy and like Ubisoft games. I like some of their games. Ac3 this year and Watch Dogs next year are going to be big for me. I just haven't cared for some of the tactics and blithering idiocy of some of their people when they speak in the press.
 
since loot and other game mechanics are server side.

BULL@##$%^

you sound like a fan boy.
ps they said at first there would be NO need for this other than they could.
prevents piracy.
What does loot have to do with single player game ??
full game is on players computer its all about control and if you look at the entire game its about Fing with the player base.
 
AceCR42 said:
But it didn't help that most of their PC releases are 2 weeks, sometimes months after the consoles release and used to be plagued by that DRM.

I'm sure that figure would be higher if you removed both of these factors.
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I think so too. Provide PC gamers with decent games in a respectful manner (for a lack of a better term) and they will be more than willing to pay for your product. I think that seeing the PC share grow in addition to the dawn of this console cycle, Ubisoft see here a business opportunity that will only open to them if they cut the crap with the bad PR and commando anti-piracy methods.

As for me, there are quite some Ubisoft games I would have bought if it wasn't for UPlay and their over the top anti-piracy schemes. The only game I would be willing to purchase at this current time is Rayman Origins because they approached this title in a sane manner in regards to DRM.
 
NKDietrich said:
Wow. Makes you wonder why they even bother.
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I'm not sure why this mindset keeps coming back up. Tell your shareholders you are dropping 7-12% of your income because "why bother?" and you'll be living on the streets stabbing other bums for scraps of partially digested KFC by years end.
 
KFC.... there's plenty of preservatives right? Partially digested isn't that bad then. :D

defiant007 said:
Ubi says they have removed the constant online requirement back in June last year but I could swear I have seen people bitching online recently about not being able to play their games (like Anno, Driver and SC Conviction) due to issues with Ubi's servers?
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The decision was made in June apparently, not the implementation and announcement.

Q-BZ said:
Huh? I thought the "always online" aspect had been sixed a while back.

I'd much prefer the latter. It's the most palatable DRM and yes Steam fanboys, it's DRM.
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They've been churning out the DRM. It's just that they stripped out "always on" from AC2 (an older game) a while ago.
 
well mainly becuase their always on drm didnt prevent their games from getting cracked and pirated. so it caused more annoyance to legit buyers
 
I appreciate RPS for asking the questions etc, but honestly, I don't give a crap about what ANY PR representative says. Show me a game that now reflects your new policy instead of trying to garner publicity and do damage control for your shitty mistakes.

Ubisoft has been playing an extended bait and switch game with their releases, always promising better DRM, no DRM, or some other DRM option but so far we haven't gotten it, and they therefore have not gotten it. The PR people DO NOT control this. Their job is simply to disseminate information. So unless the people calling the shots actually do something instead of just playing damage control then I expect no difference in Ubisofts actual DRM policies.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I appreciate RPS for asking the questions etc, but honestly, I don't give a crap about what ANY PR representative says. Show me a game that now reflects your new policy instead of trying to garner publicity and do damage control for your shitty mistakes.

Ubisoft has been playing an extended bait and switch game with their releases, always promising better DRM, no DRM, or some other DRM option but so far we haven't gotten it, and they therefore have not gotten it. The PR people DO NOT control this. Their job is simply to disseminate information. So unless the people calling the shots actually do something instead of just playing damage control then I expect no difference in Ubisofts actual DRM policies.
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Not to defend Ubisoft but Stephanie Perotti —interviewed in the article— is one of the people calling the shots in regards to the discussed matter. As to a game reflecting what has been announced, or at least being a step in the right direction, Rayman Origins is one of them.

However, I agree that actions speak more than words; that we should remain cautious and wait for the new policy to be shown to be in effect in future releases.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I'm not sure why this mindset keeps coming back up. Tell your shareholders you are dropping 7-12% of your income because "why bother?" and you'll be living on the streets stabbing other bums for scraps of partially digested KFC by years end.
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It's kind of a meaningless number, revenue just means that's what money they pull in from it, no measure of how much they spend on it though. If 7-12% of your revenue is from X, but X costs you 10-15% of your total expenditure, then yeah, dropping it and focusing on something else may be a good thing. If 7-12% of your revenue is from X and only 5-10% of your costs are going toward it, sweet, shareholders won't want to see you dropping it. If 7-12% is revenue and it costs 7-12% of your total expenses to maintain, you reach the point where you may or may not drop it for other reasons.
 
Tudz said:
It's kind of a meaningless number, revenue just means that's what money they pull in from it, no measure of how much they spend on it though. If 7-12% of your revenue is from X, but X costs you 10-15% of your total expenditure, then yeah, dropping it and focusing on something else may be a good thing. If 7-12% of your revenue is from X and only 5-10% of your costs are going toward it, sweet, shareholders won't want to see you dropping it. If 7-12% is revenue and it costs 7-12% of your total expenses to maintain, you reach the point where you may or may not drop it for other reasons.
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No way!
 
DeathPrincess said:
Haven't they said this before, then just add it again in the next game? :p
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Yes. Ubisoft removed all always-on DRM just to add it all back in again. Now it is taking it out again.

It is a continuation of the rather schizophrenic approach Ubi is taking towards the PC platform overall.


defiant007 said:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-drm-piracy-interview/

Here is the actual interview, was entertaining to read RPS giving Ubi a hard time over their PR speak.
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About time one of these "gaming news" sites performed some actual journalism instead of asking questions that will allow the maximum amount of PR and marketing BS.

And yes, great to see RPS rip Ubisoft to shreds with some fairly brutal but perfectly professional questions. "That was an unfortunate comment" could be quite meme-worthy.
 
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Plague_Injected said:
About time one of these "gaming news" sites performed some actual journalism instead of asking questions that will allow the maximum amount of PR and marketing BS.

And yes, great to see RPS rip Ubisoft to shreds with some fairly brutal but perfectly professional questions. "That was an unfortunate comment" could be quite meme-worthy.
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I've actually been noticing a bit of a shift towards being more harsh and honest from the good gaming sites these days. Gamespot is doing some big changes on the editorial side and GameSpy has done some huge changes, even Kotaku looks like they're changing a bit under their current management. It's nice to see that happening, sadly crap sites like IGN still remain popular.
 
Derangel said:
I've actually been noticing a bit of a shift towards being more harsh and honest from the good gaming sites these days. Gamespot is doing some big changes on the editorial side and GameSpy has done some huge changes, even Kotaku looks like they're changing a bit under their current management. It's nice to see that happening, sadly crap sites like IGN still remain popular.
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Which is an interesting occurence considering GameSpy is a subsidiary of IGN.
 
Hats off to RPS for that interview. Those two Ubisoft people I can take seriously unlike Yves. Every time he comes out it's a disaster.
 
Dion said:
You're in a small pool :p

Online DRM is the future and is already accepted in PC gaming world.
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Yes and no. Services like Steam are the future. The problem with every single other implementation of online DRM that has failed is because the companies in charge have no god damn clue how to implement it in a way that it makes customers feel comfortable with it.
 
Derangel said:
Yes and no. Services like Steam are the future. The problem with every single other implementation of online DRM that has failed is because the companies in charge have no god damn clue how to implement it in a way that it makes customers feel comfortable with it.
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I tend to be of the opinion that, for the most part at least, the reason people are happy with Steam is because they're used to it and because Valve pushed it all those many years ago, most people already have a library on it. Not saying other services are as good as Steam, but certainly even if they were as good or better I doubt people would be happy with them.
 
Derangel said:
I've actually been noticing a bit of a shift towards being more harsh and honest from the good gaming sites these days. Gamespot is doing some big changes on the editorial side and GameSpy has done some huge changes, even Kotaku looks like they're changing a bit under their current management. It's nice to see that happening, sadly crap sites like IGN still remain popular.
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Yes I've noticed a shift too, and it's great.
 
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