Ubisoft's new DRM hates you.

[Ant10708]

I blame people like phoenix gamma

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/2010021...2BAlt%2BDel%29

Not all that funny really, I just thought it was a coincidence I read both that comic and this thread this morning.

Buckley comics. B^U

[Phoenix Gamma]

Originally Posted by Ant10708

I blame people like phoenix gamma

YEA WELL NO ONE ASKED YOU

I DON'T EVEN PIRATE A LOT OF PC GAMES CAUSE MOST OF THEM ARE POOP ANYWAYS EXCEPT FOR THE GOOD ONES SOMETIMES.

[Dr. Boogie]

So their new DRM has been out for one day, and it's already cracked:

http://www.infoaddict.com/ubisofts-n...under-25-hours


But Ubisoft says "nuh uh!"

http://www.vg247.com/2010/03/04/ubi-...rts-are-false/

[dextire]

Wow, that was fast.

[Dr. Boogie]

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/07/ub...ssins-creed-2/

And there it is. The worst case scenario that every game journalist and ordinary observer predicted has happened.

Want to play single player AC2 on your PC? Either wait for Ubisoft to diagnose and fix their authentification servers, or get crackin'.

[Fathom Zero]

It's nice to know every one of their PC games from this point on will have that.

[dextire]

Looks like it was an attack. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62683
Only 5% were supposed to have been affected by the outage, so everything is fine, right?

I'm kind of surprised they admitted to being successfully attacked.
Though I guess they had to choose between admitting to buggy software, or being susceptible to attacks.

If these kinds of problems continue to happen do you think Ubisoft will back down, or just keep sinking with the ship?

[Dr. Boogie]

I think "sinking". If they back off as a response to attacks like this, then it makes such actions seem not only credible, but effective. No, I think they'll just continue down this road, spending countless resources to combat pirates, only to fail and drive their customers further away. I suspect each new incarnation will be worse than the last, until they finally shut down their PC development outright.

I haven't bought a PC title of theirs since the heinously buggy Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Personally, I'd be willing to sacrifice their mediocre IPs if their failure would serve as a warning to other companies that draconian DRM measures are a bad idea.

[dextire]

Originally Posted by Dr. Boogie

If they back off as a response to attacks like this, then it makes such actions seem not only credible, but effective.

You mean that it might get so bad that Ubisoft would have to remove the DRM altogether?
But that would mean legitimate customers would no longer be kicked in the balls, and pirates would... well pirates wouldn't notice a thing, would they?

I'm sure you're right though. They will continue until the bitter end.
And I really hope you're right about the warning to other companies that better ways exist to combat piracy.

[Fathom Zero]

I think he means that Ubisoft would go out of business before removing it. And then their numbers would be down so much that Activision or whomever would buy them up and make changes. I forsee that.

[executioneer]

you know what their response to people constantly cracking their drm is gonna be? they're gonna stop releasing shit on PC and release only to consoles

[Fathom Zero]

The only console that's not getting a lot of pirating is the PS3, but that's gonna change soon. An exploit came out a couple months ago for people to build off of. And I suppose the sheer amount of data on a Bluray is a bit of a deterrent.

[Dr. Boogie]

Originally Posted by executioneer

you know what their response to people constantly cracking their drm is gonna be? they're gonna stop releasing shit on PC and release only to consoles

Absolutely. The people who launched the DoS attack that shut down their authentication servers, in all likelihood they've succeeded only in convincing Ubisoft to spend more on DoS attack prevention.

But frankly, I'm not worried about them dropping out of the PC market. Their PC ports have been lazy and bug ridden over the last few years. That, combined with the DRM shenanigans, is enough for me to believe that they're out already.


It's like a farmer threatening to remove his produce from Ralph's if the public doesn't start buying his bruised bananas.

[dextire]

Originally Posted by Dr. Boogie

It's like a farmer threatening to remove his produce from Ralph's if the public doesn't start buying his bruised bananas.

Words to live by.

[Zhukov]

Except the farmer has perfect yellow bananas until the multinational food corporation buys them off him and then bruises them to prevent people stealing them.

[dextire]

Right. And the people who steal them get the perfect bananas, and the people who bought them get the bruised ones.

[Fathom Zero]

But I don't like bananas, so I couldn't give a damn either way.

[Zhukov]

Soon they will be bruising the other fruit.

[Dr. Boogie]

The point is that we should be buying the bananas from international corporations that try to make better tasting bananas, and we should boycott the corporations that try to sell bananas that require a constant internet connection.

[dextire]

In all honesty, dragon-fruit is way better anyway.
Why would you want a bruised banana when you could have dragon-fruit?

Originally Posted by Dr. Boogie

bananas that require a constant internet connection.

[Zhukov]

They could engineer bananas to taste like dragon fruit.

[dextire]

Originally Posted by Zhukov

They could engineer bananas to taste like dragon fruit.

Why would they do that when people are buying bruised bananas that require a constant internet connection?

[Zhukov]

I'm saying they could. They have the dev kits to do it.

[dextire]

Well, I think they should do that because dragon fruit is very tasty stuff.
But I also think they should stop bruising the bloody fruit.