Ubi DRM: Their side of the story

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Seriously though: how many gamers are actually going to be deeply affected by this?

I'd say, oh, a good 5 to 10%. You might live somewhere with awesome internet, much of the world still doesn't. My internet is quite unreliable, often half way through the month I get capped and the internet runs so slow that it wont even connect to steam. In times like those I just log in to steam once (which can often take a long time) and swap to offline mode and play my single player games. Some steam games dont even require you to have steam open.

Yes, to use things like emails and this forum I need internet, but when my internet goes to crap I still play single player games and just use the internet at work for emails and stuff.

So you add up the people like me, plus the people who play games on their laptops and wont be able to connect to the internet (of which I know several people who do to kill the time, I dont as my lappy isn't powerful enough for games). That'd be a good 5 to 10%. Out of [H] users, its probably more like 2-3%, but out of the general gaming community I think 5 to 10% is a good estimate.

Fucking over that large of a proportion of your consumers, and pissing off all the others who dont want to be tied down to online gaming even for single player games is a bad move by Ubisoft. I predict their games either get heavily pirated or not many people play them to begin with, either way they'll do badly.
 
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What if your internet craps out on you?

Well then, I guess you wouldn't be able to play Assassin's Creed 2 - nor would you be able to access Steam, or send e-mails, or download patches, or surf the net, or play online games such as WOW or COD, or access services such as Microsoft Live for the Xbox, or even come onto this forum and write posts about your internet crapping out on you.

Maybe what you ought to do is sign up for a better internet service then, because your present service sounds like crap to me. So really, instead of blaming Ubisoft for all your internet woes, maybe what you ought to do instead is phone up your local internet provider and find out why you can't access the internet?

If my internet craps out or I'm on the road with no access what do I do? Let's see.....I can grab my plethora of single player games and go to town that's what. Even the newly released DRM-filled Bioshock 2 is playable thru Steam and GFWL with the internet down. Do I care if I can't play a shitty game like AC2 made by a shitty company like Ubisoft? Obviously not.
 
I'd say, oh, a good 5 to 10%. You might live somewhere with awesome internet, much of the world still doesn't. My internet is quite unreliable, often half way through the month I get capped and the internet runs so slow that it wont even connect to steam. In times like those I just log in to steam once (which can often take a long time) and swap to offline mode and play my single player games. Some steam games dont even require you to have steam open.

Yes, to use things like emails and this forum I need internet, but when my internet goes to crap I still play single player games and just use the internet at work for emails and stuff.

So you add up the people like me, plus the people who play games on their laptops and wont be able to connect to the internet (of which I know several people who do to kill the time, I dont as my lappy isn't powerful enough for games). That'd be a good 5 to 10%. Out of [H] users, its probably more like 2-3%, but out of the general gaming community I think 5 to 10% is a good estimate.

Fucking over that large of a proportion of your consumers, and pissing off all the others who dont want to be tied down to online gaming even for single player games is a bad move by Ubisoft. I predict their games either get heavily pirated or not many people play them to begin with, either way they'll do badly.

I have reliable Internet but nothing is perfect.

Past that we're talking principle.

I don't want and shouldn't HAVE to be reliant on the Internet for everything and suck the Internet's tit for everything and I don't WANT to. And I'm hardly in a small minority.

A single player game being affected like this is nonsense.

For the few apologists I've seen arguing in favor of how awesome this DRM is or how it isn't any big deal...the core of their argument is that this kind of DRM is and will actually be successful.

Where's their proof? Where's the track record? I'm still waiting.


Obviously, that couldn't be further from the truth and there isn't ONE shred of factual, concrete evidence that says otherwise.

Someone...and he knows who he is ;) ... tried to suggest yesterday in one of their many factually errored examples in trying to argue in favor of this rubbish...that MMOs were somehow this perfect Shangri La of piracy free perfection thanks to their online setups. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes before I several MMO vets shoot that down with more concrete facts and the mention of hacked servers and all the rest of it.

I don't play MMOs and even I knew that dead wrong on the spot.

The facts are not on the side of apologists and people that favor this kind of DRM. It's that simple.

When you're making up things that aren't true to try and support your DOA argument it's just time to pick your ball up and take it home.
 
telling people to get more reliable internet is a very stupid comment, I only have a choice of 1 high speed provider thanks to where I live(outside of a small town in canada), and unfortunally because I live a bit out of town we only have 1 main line so if something happenes we all lose net in my community.

And it happens, last time a construction company dug to far when expanding a road and cut our line, took our isp 3 days to get us patched with a crappy copper line that cut our speeds down to 1/10 of normal. And another week to fix the real line.

But unless we want to use dial up, or use satalite internet which costs $60 a month for a 1.5mb down line and a 5gb cap then were stuck with what we got
 
Ya, seems some people haven't read the article about %40 of the US doesnt have high speed internet yet...
 
Sounds like a lite version of ONLIVE service. Instead of streaming everything just level checks.

I too think the piracy call is Bullshit, the gaming industry is starting to sound like the music industry(same media companies probably). How many years has it taken the music industries to get online distro to work... never. It took a third party like Itunes to get it to work. I only hope that the gaming industry is more creative and faster at coming up with a acceptable solution.
 
Ya, seems some people haven't read the article about %40 of the US doesnt have high speed internet yet...

and

Ragenrok said:
telling people to get more reliable internet is a very stupid comment,


I only have a choice of 1 high speed provider thanks to where I live(outside of a small town in canada), and unfortunally because I live a bit out of town we only have 1 main line so if something happens we all lose net in my community.

And it happens, last time a construction company dug to far when expanding a road and cut our line, took our isp 3 days to get us patched with a crappy copper line that cut our speeds down to 1/10 of normal. And another week to fix the real line.

But unless we want to use dial up, or use satalite internet which costs $60 a month for a 1.5mb down line and a 5gb cap then were stuck with what we got

"Let them eat cake."

Dime a dozen. Easy to spot, especially these days. That's basically the so called thrust behind any so called argument that's been in favor of this sort of DRM when you get down to it.




Sounds like a lite version of ONLIVE service. Instead of streaming everything just level checks.

It really does feel like we're being shoehorned in that kind of direction whether we wan it or not, doesn't it? Heh, just like some other games. Hardly a coincidence I'm sure.

My days as a gamer will be numbered if I'm ever left with only that sort of thing as a choice.


I too think the piracy call is Bullshit, the gaming industry is starting to sound like the music industry(same media companies probably). How many years has it taken the music industries to get online distro to work... never. It took a third party like Itunes to get it to work. I only hope that the gaming industry is more creative and faster at coming up with a acceptable solution.

And look at the condition the music industry is in today and has been for several years at least as consequence. More obvious facts that speak for themselves.
 
I would never buy a game with this sort of protection. Luckly for me, I don't enjoy Ubisoft games beyond Splinter Cell... No big loss there.

This is a horribly dangerous path they're going down for PC gaming rights. A few points beyond the typical you can't play if you disconnect.

1. They wouldn't commit to patching the games.

2. What if you get "banned" for whatever reason. If you misbehave in multiplayer, does that mean they can shut down your single player game too if they wish?

3. No resale. Games like Splinter Cell/Assasins Creed which are mainly singleplayer and have horrid MP or no MP where easier to stomach knowing you could play them, and then sell them. That is gone now.

4. Big Brother is watching. Personally, I don't want someone constantly sending information to their servers. Also, will they just collect in game info, or more? I don't trust Ubisoft

I am interested to see how quickly this protection is cracked. If it takes a couple months then Ubisoft may be able to justify it's position, at least to shareholders, to keep this in place. If its cracked within a week or less, then this could spell the end for them in PC gaming.
 
Um, yeah. It looks like I won't be buying any Ubisoft games from now on until they drop this stupid bullshit.
 
I would never buy a game with this sort of protection. Luckly for me, I don't enjoy Ubisoft games beyond Splinter Cell... No big loss there.

This is a horribly dangerous path they're going down for PC gaming rights. A few points beyond the typical you can't play if you disconnect.

1. They wouldn't commit to patching the games.

2. What if you get "banned" for whatever reason. If you misbehave in multiplayer, does that mean they can shut down your single player game too if they wish?

3. No resale. Games like Splinter Cell/Assasins Creed which are mainly singleplayer and have horrid MP or no MP where easier to stomach knowing you could play them, and then sell them. That is gone now.

4. Big Brother is watching. Personally, I don't want someone constantly sending information to their servers. Also, will they just collect in game info, or more? I don't trust Ubisoft

I am interested to see how quickly this protection is cracked. If it takes a couple months then Ubisoft may be able to justify it's position, at least to shareholders, to keep this in place. If its cracked within a week or less, then this could spell the end for them in PC gaming.

I just bolded a couple of very key words that are at the core of this thing out of your excellent post. :)

Obviously a "let them eat cake" person will not agree with you and not see the problem.

If anything they'll be in favor of exactly everything you and I and others are objecting to, but that's to be expected.


I don't know if ALL of PC gaming's fate is hinged on this but I can assure you: This DRM will be easily defeated in short order. Bank on it.
 
The thing that people need to know about this DRM is that it's clean, and that it's much more effective than the ridiculous Securom.

Oh wow, I wasn't aware you actually worked on this whole thing closely with Ubisoft Wabe. Sorry about that. Obviously if you've designed and tested this form of DRM, you know lots more about how effective it is than any of us do.
 
I don't know if ALL of PC gaming's fate is hinged on this but I can assure you: This DRM will be easily defeated in short order. Bank on it.

While this is no doubt true no pirate will defeat not having the game to steal in the first place.

They'll just stop making games for the PC and NO ONE will defeat that.

Fuck pirates.
 
if they don't make games on PC, they'll just be saving us a lot of money

it makes no difference really
 
I'll just pretty much co-sign with everything Oldie posted. He nailed it. :)

Yep. I personally won't be touching an Ubisoft product ever again as long as this is in place. Online saves are nice, but everything else they are adding should have always been a standard in pc gaming.
 
While this is no doubt true no pirate will defeat not having the game to steal in the first place.

They'll just stop making games for the PC and NO ONE will defeat that.

Fuck pirates.

No, fuck bullshit copout excuses made to quell second hand gaming. It has nothing to do with pirates. It has a lot to do with ubisoft not wanting us actually owning the games ubisoft sells or using them without thier perpetual say-so.

Don't believe it, take a rational (I KNOW ITS HARD) look at all the first owner only DLC crap going on, mass effect 2 is a good example.

It's all about control, them controlling our continued use of what they believe is eternally thier property, and it's going to backfire. This didn't happen because of pirates, it happened because the huge conglomerate game companies want more money, piracy is just an easy scapegoat. Try to remember all the nice independant studios we loved and ubisoft bought, closed down, and otherwise ruined.
 
People making a big deal about this, I plan on buying AC2 but I know moments after the release (or even before) someone will release something that does the impossible, Makes all the DRM in AC2 useless and me free to play my legit copy when my internet dies or whatever happens to happen
 
While this is no doubt true no pirate will defeat not having the game to steal in the first place.

They'll just stop making games for the PC and NO ONE will defeat that.

Except for all the pirates who figure it's time to go buy a 360 Elite and a stack of DVD-R's? Or does anyone really think that wouldn't happen if enough mainstream developers actually stopped producing PC games?
 
While this is no doubt true no pirate will defeat not having the game to steal in the first place.

They'll just stop making games for the PC and NO ONE will defeat that.

Right.

I think we're right back to the point I made way back when this news first came out. I think this type of DRM is so obviously stupid, self defeating and lacking in common sense that I think it has to be deliberate.

There's no track record of success anywhere for any kind of DRM that's like this. Any kind of invasive and intrusive DRM is a failure and the track records speak for themselves. The facts are not the side of people that want to argue in favor of this sort of DRM. So they're making stuff up to support their arguments and getting called out.


I think Ubisoft wants to get out of PC gaming. I think they've been wanting to get out and now they've simply given themselves the device they need where they can turn around x number of months from now and simply state "piracy and lack of sales" and drop out.

I'm not anti copy protection. I'm all in favor of taking steps to protect intellectual property or property of any kind as long as it doesn't punish the legitimate end user. All sorts of things we can start listing that fall under that "punish" concept and this setup is one of them.

Something is way off when pirates with illegitimate setups get along better than the legitimate folks. We see and hear about examples of that all the time. It's almost too common these days and I think something's way off there.

There's no getting around that fact although I've seen that point ignored several times by some of the people trying to argue in favor of this nonsense but that's what peopledo when you're on the losing end of an argument: Ignore facts that aren't to your liking or advantage and/or make up your own.



It's all about control, them controlling our continued use of what they believe is eternally thier property, and it's going to backfire.

That's the magic word. That's the core of all of it, folks. It's not confined to gaming, either, but I digress.

All we can do is hope and pray there is a backlash.



People making a big deal about this, I plan on buying AC2 but I know moments after the release (or even before) someone will release something that does the impossible, Makes all the DRM in AC2 useless and me free to play my legit copy when my internet dies or whatever happens to happen

I hope you're right.

And if they do...I'll be there and take steps with my perfectly legitimately bought copy and not feel bad about it for a second.




Except for all the pirates who figure it's time to go buy a 360 Elite and a stack of DVD-R's? Or does anyone really think that wouldn't happen if enough mainstream developers actually stopped producing PC games?

There's plenty of piracy that happens on the consoles as well. It's amazing how often this gets minimized in these discussions and by developers themselves.
 
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If it's really as bad as everyone thinks, there's nothing stopping you from buying a copy of whatever game you want to play, tossing box and disc aside, and downloading the illegal copy. That way you don't have to feel morally compromised and you get to play the game you payed for as it should have shipped.

And before anyone has a chance to spew garbage about my suggestion inflating piracy numbers and justifying their DRM, I'd like to point out that it's getting worse regardless of legitimate sales numbers. I've got no sympathy for a company that would this blatantly hurt customers in order to preserve their bottom line.
 
If it's really as bad as everyone thinks, there's nothing stopping you from buying a copy of whatever game you want to play, tossing box and disc aside, and downloading the illegal copy. That way you don't have to feel morally compromised and you get to play the game you payed for as it should have shipped.

That's a gray, slippery slope of moral relativism at best.

And before anyone has a chance to spew garbage about my suggestion inflating piracy numbers and justifying their DRM,

Which is exactly what would happen.

I'd like to point out that it's getting worse regardless of legitimate sales numbers.

I've got no sympathy for a company that would this blatantly hurt customers in order to preserve their bottom line.

So we should be part of the problem anyways, make it that much worse, and you are basically endorsing piracy.

Got it.
 
Ya, seems some people haven't read the article about %40 of the US doesnt have high speed internet yet...

A statistician would now point out that the vast majority of 'gamers', as opposed to regular folks, actually do have high speed - the principle here is a simple one: gamers are far more concerned with having fast-hardware than regular people.

Jeff Green, the former editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World/GFW, said that he had participated in a focus group with four of his readers, and was informed before the meeting that for his demographic - i.e. gamers - 96% of them were connected to the internet on high speed.
 
I don't game much, but you'd never know it since my Steam account alone has over 300 games tied to it...

But 18 months ago I got my first taste of this experience. I had finally gotten around to trying out TDU, and was playing a single-player mission during the single-player campaign, was doing a hitchhiker mission, and the mission abruptly ended with "connection to server lost - mission ending."

I didn't even understand why it needed to be in constant contact with the server for a single-player mission, but AFAIK this wasn't even intended as any kind of DRM, just apparently an oversight in the coding of the game...

My point is: I've experienced games abruptly halting, and I hardly game, and the halt wasn't even caused by any draconian DRM. When it's DRM handling it, I would anticipate it happening even more often...

I do know my experience with this certainly upset me and my ability to play TDU in single-player...
 
A statistician would now point out that the vast majority of 'gamers', as opposed to regular folks, actually do have high speed - the principle here is a simple one: gamers are far more concerned with having fast-hardware than regular people.

Jeff Green, the former editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World/GFW, said that he had participated in a focus group with four of his readers, and was informed before the meeting that for his demographic - i.e. gamers - 96% of them were connected to the internet on high speed.

You're way off on a side tangent somewhere.
 
Trying to think what games ubi publishes that I care about, which studios do they own now?
 
While this is no doubt true no pirate will defeat not having the game to steal in the first place.

They'll just stop making games for the PC and NO ONE will defeat that.

Fuck pirates.


I for one would LOVE to see all the major publishers get the fuck out of PC gaming. If they aren't smart enough to make it viable, good riddance. No matter what PR bullshit you hear, there is money to be made on the PC. Look at CD-Projekt in Poland. Those guys use almost no DRM and are completely successful. Maybe if Ubisoft/Activision/EA looked at themselves, their rediculous spending habits, and cut from within the profit would flow. Small developers are making money on the PC, and if we lose the big guys, that only means more room for people who actually understand the market.

Companies like Ubisoft are completely unrealistic with this crap. They seem to forget that what they make is a want and not a need. Ubisoft doesn't sell clothing, food, or anything else which is a vital need. They sell entertainment. They sell it in a middle of a recession and amoungst massive competition. There are more games coming out yearly than the average person has time to play. If they wish to piss off their customer base, they will simply suffer for it. There are more than enough games for me to purchase without supporting their titles.

Goodbye Ubisoft, leave PC gaming to the people how understand the market.
 
Then what's left if that happens?

The small guys.

CD-Projekt
Stardock
Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Remember, once upon a time, iD. Blizzard, and Valve were tiny companies working out of a garage. There would be innovation once again as the small devs would be able to get into the market without being drown out by the huge guys. Small devs are the ones who make the best games. It would actually be refreshing to get some new people in here, and games which don't need to be approved by focus groups.
 
The small guys.

CD-Projekt
Stardock
Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Remember, once upon a time, iD. Blizzard, and Valve were tiny companies working out of a garage. There would be innovation once again as the small devs would be able to get into the market without being drown out by the huge guys. Small devs are the ones who make the best games. It would actually be refreshing to get some new people in here, and games which don't need to be approved by focus groups.

I hear ya. :)
 
These companies, I think, are only using this DRM to protect games the first few months on the shelf , when the majority of the sales are made. After that, within a month or two it's cracked, but the majority of copies are already sold anyways. They just want to nab people who are too impatient to wait for a cracked version.
 
This thread is interesting because if you look at the piracy numbers for the original game (for the PC) then you'll see that with Assassin's Creed Ubisoft got taken to the cleaners.

To say that Ubisoft was heavily pirated isn't even strong enough language. They were raped. We know that during the first month of its release, Assassin's Creed sold 40,000 copies, and was pirated by 700,000 people. Those numbers are obscene.

After this fiasco Ubisoft was naturally going to be pretty fed up - as any company would have been if this had happened to them.

In consequence they decide to implement an aggressive scheme in which an authentication check will occur online at the end of every level completed by the player. The Ubisoft programmers have acknowledged that no system is hack proof (every programmer will tell you this), but they've also said that they're confident this is going to severely hinder the pirates from simply cracking into the game.

And, yeah, this looks like a pretty decent scheme they've come up with. I would bet money that next month, when this game releases to market, for the first time in a long time I'm going to be playing a new game before the pirates do, which wasn't the case for Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, or Bioshock 2, etc. etc.

We know from doing the math that if 40,000 people bought the original game during the first month, and 700,000 pirated it, then for every one person who bought a legitimate copy of the game 17 people didn't.

So who's going to be the most upset about this scheme - a person with an internet connection who was planning on buying the game, or a pirate, who is now going to be denied access to AC 2?

If we're to go by the numbers, then the vast majority of people posting in this very thread fall into the class of being a software pirate - sorry, but that's what the numbers tell me. And quite frankly, based on a purely subjective experience from having visited this forum, and from reading a ridiculous number of posts from people writing about a game that hadn't even been released yet (Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, etc. etc.), I'd have to say that the numbers here are correct.

17 to 1.

That's the ratio.

And you're telling me that I'm supposed to sit here and believe that the vast majority of people posting in this thread - the ones who are shouting and screaming that they're no longer going to... ahem... 'support' Ubisoft - aren't pirates? I don't believe that for one second. Based purely on the numbers, the vast majority of you weren't going to 'support' Ubisoft to begin with!

My guess is that Ubisoft is going to win this one. All they have to do, for this thing to work, is sell more than 40,000 copies of AC 2 during the first month. That's it. They do that and the results will be better than the first game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Do you honestly think that Ubisoft actually cares about some pirate coming in here and saying that he's not going to 'support' them? If your idea of 'support' means downloading a copy from some torrent site then obviously you're sorely, sorely mistaken about that.

Any reasonable person with an internet connection, who understands what Ubisoft has been through, is going to understand why they've chosen to fight back. And those who don't - sorry, but Ubisoft has no reason to care.
 
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i love how delusional these companies are with piracy on the pc. they don't admit it happens on consoles. i laughed when i saw modern warfail 2 pirated for the 360 days before it was actually released.
 
After this fiasco Ubisoft was naturally going to be pretty fed up - as any company would have been if this had happened to them.

Of course. All of this is perfectly understandable.


In consequence they decide to implement an aggressive scheme in which an authentication check will occur online at the end of every level completed by the player. The Ubisoft programmers have acknowledged that no system is hack proof (every programmer will tell you this), but they've also said that they're confident this is going to severely hinder the pirates from simply cracking into the game.

Maybe, maybe not. I somehow doubt it.

But Wabe...God help me I don't know how many times people have to repeat this because you keep ignoring this over and over and over again while you fillibuster and demagogue the thread repeating the same stuff over and over again like an amatuer propogandist:


It's also going to severely hinder legit end users.


Get it?


And, yeah, this looks like a pretty decent scheme they've come up with.

See? Here we go again.


I would bet money that next month, when this game releases to market, for the first time in a long time I'm going to be playing a new game before the pirates do, which wasn't the case for Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, or Bioshock 2, etc. etc.

I bet you'll be wrong.

Anyone want to take that wager? I'm game.


We know from doing the math that if 40,000 people bought the original game during the first month, and 700,000 pirated it, then for every one person who bought a legitimate copy of the game 17 people didn't.

Here's your math again. Where are you getting your figures from?



So who's going to be the most upset about this scheme - a person with an internet connection who was planning on buying the game, or a pirate, who is now going to be denied access to AC 2?

Someone like me who pays money and gets a bunch of crap for their troubles , Wabe.


Don't you get it? There's no way you're this dull. I think you're ignoring the points.



If we're to go by the numbers, then the vast majority of people posting in this very thread fall into the class of being a software pirate - sorry, but that's what the numbers tell me.


What numbers? What math? Where are your sources?


And quite frankly, based on a purely subjective experience from having visited this forum, and from reading a ridiculous number of posts from people writing about a game that hadn't even been released yet (Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, etc. etc.), I'd have to say that the numbers here are correct.

17 to 1.

That's the ratio.

Ratio off of what? Again, cite sources Mr. Copy Editor Journalist!


And you're telling me that I'm supposed to sit here and believe that the vast majority of people posting in this thread - the ones who are shouting and screaming that they're no longer going to... ahem... 'support' Ubisoft - aren't pirates? I don't believe that for one second. Based purely on the numbers, the vast majority of you weren't going to 'support' Ubisoft to begin with!

I can't argue against that in some instances. We've all seen pretty blatant instances around here. I'm sure this applies to some.


My guess is that Ubisoft is going to win this one. All they have to do, for this thing to work, is sell more than 40,000 copies of AC 2 during the first month. That's it. They do that and the results will be better than the first game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Now this I can agree with.


Do you honestly think that Ubisoft actually cares about some pirate coming in here and saying that he's not going to 'support' them? If your idea of 'support' means downloading a copy from some torrent site then obviously you're sorely, sorely mistaken about that.

Agreed.


Any reasonable person with an internet connection, who understands what Ubisoft has been through, is going to understand why they've chosen to fight back. And those who don't - sorry, but Ubisoft has no reason to care.

I'm not a pirate. One time I tried it about 4 years ago, had something kind of semi scary happen and never tried it again.


And I continue to say that you're wrong no matter how many fuzzy math numbers you're going to bring up and try and fillibuster and demagogue this thread with to try and tell us what a great DRM scheme this is.



Not if legit end users get a bunch of crap for their troubles. You just can't get around this point.


Wabe, I'm sorry, but you've had a bad turn in these threads.

You've been caught more than once being just outright wrong in your facts.

The best one I saw out of you was yesterday when you tried to tell us that MMO's were somehow this pirate free Shangri La and you got shot down in about 5 minutes after posting that from several MMO vets.

Now c'mon buddy.



I don't care if a 100 percent of all gamers in the world have FIOS. Any kind of DRM that screws with the legit end user sucks. Period. Post mark. End of story.

Get it?
 
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What if your internet craps out on you?

Well then, I guess you wouldn't be able to play Assassin's Creed 2 - nor would you be able to access Steam, or send e-mails, or download patches, or surf the net, or play online games such as WOW or COD?

games such as WoW are understood to be internet only. Assassins Creed 2 is a single player game that doesn't need internet access, same with steam you don't need to be online to play steam, CoD doesn't require you to be online as well. All your other examples are red herrings that have zilch to do with the conversation at hand.

My internet hasn't gone down more than twice in 3 years. I'm not worried about my connection at all. But I can tell you with 100% certainty I will not support this nor should anyone else as Ubisoft has stated that you can not play your single-player game without an internet connection, this is 100% inexcusable.

Has piracy got out of hand? I think so. Do companies have a right to protect their IP's? Sure do. But anything that punishes me to protect someone else doesn't deserve my support. This has a whole plethora of other ramifications outside the game world.
 
i love how delusional these companies are with piracy on the pc. they don't admit it happens on consoles. i laughed when i saw modern warfail 2 pirated for the 360 days before it was actually released.

You laughed because a game was heavily pirated? - how incredibly ignorant you are.

When are you people going to learn that the ones doing the most damage to our hobby aren't the gaming companies.

Folks, it's the pirates.

We wouldn't have to put up with any DRM at all if people simply paid for their games. It's the pirates, the pirates, the pirates.

It's the people like this guy, above, who do the most damage to our hobby. Yeah, that's incredibly funny, isn't it - a game being pirated. Your attitude completely sucks. I hope that somebody shows up at your workplace and steals from you - then maybe you'll get it.
 
This thread is interesting because if you look at the piracy numbers for the original game (for the PC) then you'll see that with Assassin's Creed Ubisoft got taken to the cleaners.

To say that Ubisoft was heavily pirated isn't even strong enough language. They were raped. We know that during the first month of its release, Assassin's Creed sold 40,000 copies, and was pirated by 700,000 people. Those numbers are obscene.

After this fiasco Ubisoft was naturally going to be pretty fed up - as any company would have been if this had happened to them.

In consequence they decide to implement an aggressive scheme in which an authentication check will occur online at the end of every level completed by the player. The Ubisoft programmers have acknowledged that no system is hack proof (every programmer will tell you this), but they've also said that they're confident this is going to severely hinder the pirates from simply cracking into the game.

And, yeah, this looks like a pretty decent scheme they've come up with. I would bet money that next month, when this game releases to market, for the first time in a long time I'm going to be playing a new game before the pirates do, which wasn't the case for Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, or Bioshock 2, etc. etc.

We know from doing the math that if 40,000 people bought the original game during the first month, and 700,000 pirated it, then for every one person who bought a legitimate copy of the game 17 people didn't.

So who's going to be the most upset about this scheme - a person with an internet connection who was planning on buying the game, or a pirate, who is now going to be denied access to AC 2?

If we're to go by the numbers, then the vast majority of people posting in this very thread fall into the class of being a software pirate - sorry, but that's what the numbers tell me. And quite frankly, based on a purely subjective experience from having visited this forum, and from reading a ridiculous number of posts from people writing about a game that hadn't even been released yet (Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, etc. etc.), I'd have to say that the numbers here are correct.

17 to 1.

That's the ratio.

And you're telling me that I'm supposed to sit here and believe that the vast majority of people posting in this thread - the ones who are shouting and screaming that they're no longer going to... ahem... 'support' Ubisoft - aren't pirates? I don't believe that for one second. Based purely on the numbers, the vast majority of you weren't going to 'support' Ubisoft to begin with!

My guess is that Ubisoft is going to win this one. All they have to do, for this thing to work, is sell more than 40,000 copies of AC 2 during the first month. That's it. They do that and the results will be better than the first game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Do you honestly think that Ubisoft actually cares about some pirate coming in here and saying that he's not going to 'support' them? If your idea of 'support' means downloading a copy from some torrent site then obviously you're sorely, sorely mistaken about that.

Any reasonable person with an internet connection, who understands what Ubisoft has been through, is going to understand why they've chosen to fight back. And those who don't - sorry, but Ubisoft has no reason to care.


You really shouldn't make blanket accusations like calling everyone who doesn't enjoy intrusive drm a pirate. I reformat my computer roughly once every three months due to hardware changes.

I can't even count the number of times I've had to write a bullshit email to EA, that goes something like this

"HI I'D LIKE TO UNLOCK THIS GAME I BOUGHT ON STEAM THAT YOU'VE ARBITRARILY DECIDED TO BLOCK ME FROM ACCESSING HERE IS MY KEY XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. I REINSTALL MY OS FREQUENTLY BECAUSE I STAY ON THE BLEEDING EDGE OF GAMING HARDWARE"

Then wait 3 days so I can play the game again. Know how many bullshit emails people who pirate the games have to send to EA? .... .... .... none?

I get the distinct feeling you are a corporate shill.
 
I for one would LOVE to see all the major publishers get the fuck out of PC gaming. If they aren't smart enough to make it viable, good riddance. No matter what PR bullshit you hear, there is money to be made on the PC. Look at CD-Projekt in Poland. Those guys use almost no DRM and are completely successful. Maybe if Ubisoft/Activision/EA looked at themselves, their rediculous spending habits, and cut from within the profit would flow. Small developers are making money on the PC, and if we lose the big guys, that only means more room for people who actually understand the market.

Companies like Ubisoft are completely unrealistic with this crap. They seem to forget that what they make is a want and not a need. Ubisoft doesn't sell clothing, food, or anything else which is a vital need. They sell entertainment. They sell it in a middle of a recession and amoungst massive competition. There are more games coming out yearly than the average person has time to play. If they wish to piss off their customer base, they will simply suffer for it. There are more than enough games for me to purchase without supporting their titles.

Goodbye Ubisoft, leave PC gaming to the people how understand the market.

Even as much as devs bitch LEGITIMATELY about PC piracy since the XBox code is so similar PC versions are just gravy. I doubt it makes financial sense for a most devs leave PC gaming totally at this point. As long as there something like an XBox PC gaming can still make money for companies.

That said I think most companies are just tired of piracy and just want some way to stem the tide. But this is MORE the fault of the thieves than it is publishers and developers and I too tire of all of the rationalizations of what is essentially morally bankrupt behavior. If people didn't pirate we wouldn't be having this debate and that's just a fact.
 
You laughed because a game was heavily pirated? - how incredibly ignorant you are.

When are you people going to learn that the ones doing the most damage to our hobby aren't the gaming companies.

Folks, it's the pirates.

We wouldn't have to put up with any DRM at all if people simply paid for their games. It's the pirates, the pirates, the pirates.

It's the people like this guy, above, who do the most damage to our hobby. Yeah, that's incredibly funny, isn't it - a game being pirated. Your attitude completely sucks. I hope that somebody shows up at your workplace and steals from you - then maybe you'll get it.

Wabe, I'm all for shutting down pirates but not harming and punishing the legit end user. I agree that pirates are the beginning, middle, and end of the entire problem.

I KNOW there are ways that this could be accomplished. This kind of DRM is lazy garbage. It's taking a shotgun out when a little 9mm with some accuracy and finesse would be the better tool to get the job done.

I can't believe you can't grasp this simple concept.
 
games such as WoW are understood to be internet only. Assassins Creed 2 is a single player game that doesn't need internet access, same with steam you don't need to be online to play steam, CoD doesn't require you to be online as well. All your other examples are red herrings that have zilch to do with the conversation at hand.

My internet hasn't gone down more than twice in 3 years. I'm not worried about my connection at all. But I can tell you with 100% certainty I will not support this nor should anyone else as Ubisoft has stated that you can not play your single-player game without an internet connection, this is 100% inexcusable.

Has piracy got out of hand? I think so. Do companies have a right to protect their IP's? Sure do. But anything that punishes me to protect someone else doesn't deserve my support. This has a whole plethora of other ramifications outside the game world.

But exactly 'how' are you being 'punished'?

I haven't once been kicked out of Rise Of Flight. It's a total non-issue. You have an internet connection. You log in. You play your game. That's it.

I would bet money that next month I'll be playing AC2 on day one before the pirates do, that for the month it will take me to complete AC 2 I won't ever have a problem connecting to Ubisoft's website, and that, in the end, Ubisoft will sell more than 40,000 copies of AC 2, meaning their scheme will have worked out for them.

I just don't see how I'm being 'punished' here?

What I'm far more worried about is Ubisoft getting screwed again, and saying, that's it, we're not going to support the PC anymore. Why can't people understand this? Ah, I see why - because as I argued above, the vast majority of these people are pirates themselves.
 
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