Ubisoft titles you shouldn't buy (new DRM included)

[roman2838]

Splinter Cell: Conviction
Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic Assassin's Creed II (PC)
The Settlers 7
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

All these are protected by the new, customerunfriendly DRM system.

Probably RUSE, but it's not yet confirmed.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Splinter-Cell-Conviction-Confirmed-to-Have-New-Ubisoft-DRM-135814.shtml

[CaffeineRage]

According to the store page, R.U.S.E. has it as well. I was kind of looking forward to the new Settlers, ah well.

[SynOne]

EA has joined the bandwagon as well. I was looking forward to C&C4 and Settlers 7 but i guess that for this year its going to have to be DoWII and Civ5.

Hey Ubisoft can you see my hand! Thats right you get no money from me only a finger and a jar of Jarate.

[TigerXtrm]

Have fun not buying it, why should we care? DRM is here to stay, just get used to it. If the game requires you to log in there is no way around it, period. This is all a huge amount of whining over nothing, it's pathetic. How many of you are actually on a computer without internet longer than two minutes? And even if you are at a computer without internet you're likely to be at work or at school where you're not supposed to play games anyway so what's the problem? And if you don't have 24/7 internet yet then that's your own fault. Join the 21st century already.

[Rumtruffle]

cant blame ubisoft for this new copy protection. pirates said they would buy games without any drm.... ubi released prince of persia without any drm at all... it was pirated left and right.

im certainly not cutting off my nose to spite my face over silly copy protection.

definitely buying it, infact ill buy anything i want that looks interesting to me personally. i dont care what the underlying code is or how it works.

[Alith]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/

No cracks = No pirates = No DRM.

Blame the pirates, or the crackers for making piracy possible, not Ubisoft.

Blame the bomb makers or the people carrying bombs onto planes. Don't blame the airport security for making you queue up, take off your shoes and put your bag through a machine. :p

[Azure_One]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/

No cracks = No pirates = No DRM.

Blame the pirates, or the crackers for making piracy possible, not Ubisoft.

Blame the bomb makers or the people carrying bombs onto planes. Don't blame the airport security for making you queue up, take off your shoes and put your bag through a machine. :p

That's fine, but I am going to blame the airline if, after I get on the plane, they make me present my ID every five minutes and if they'll throw me off the plane mid-flight if I fall asleep and miss an ID check. I'd certainly avoid flying with a company that did that.

[Alith]

That's fine, but I am going to blame the airline if, after I get on the plane, they make me present my ID every five minutes and if they'll throw me off the plane mid-flight if I fall asleep and miss an ID check. I'd certainly avoid flying with a company that did that.

You don't even have to get your ID out of your pocket. It's all fully automatic and transparent to the end user. At least that's my experience so far of the Ubisoft DRM.

This form of DRM, to me personally, is less restrictive than CD checks, or crib sheets of codes. I don't have to do anything and as a side product I get online saved game and profile storage. Something that even Steam doesn't offer yet. They haven't started doing their 10MB per game, per user Steam Cloud service.

I'm sure there are some people in 2010 who still don't have permanent internet connections but then I'm sure there are some people that don't have reliable power to their house either. It's not unreasonable to require a permanent internet connection in 2010.

This DRM seems to be working so far. I'm quite happy to put up with the restrictions if it means a reduction of piracy and a potential boost to the PC gaming industry. If for some reason in the future this DRM stops working then they should abandon it and I will happily agree that it harms the consumer for no real gain to us.

[Royas]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/

No cracks = No pirates = No DRM.

Blame the pirates, or the crackers for making piracy possible, not Ubisoft.

Blame the bomb makers or the people carrying bombs onto planes. Don't blame the airport security for making you queue up, take off your shoes and put your bag through a machine. :p

Nope, gonna put the blame solidly on Ubisoft. It's their system, their choice. And it's people like me who are punished for the actions of the pirates, not the pirates themselves, so don't expect me to be understanding. I don't do anything wrong, yet I'm the one who catches the flak? Screw that noise. They chose to make things irritating for me, an innocent, so they get to receive my ire.

[Rumtruffle]

not the pirates themselves

actually yes they are because they cant play the game at all! ;)

[Royas]

actually yes they are because they cant play the game at all! ;)

Well, that's what Ubisoft claims. I've heard different from a couple of "connected" sources. As I understand it, the crackers are just doing a better job than usual of keeping the cracks exclusive to the scene. Obviously, there's no proof either way, Ubisoft can't prove a negative, and crackers are an elusive bunch. However, I trust the accuracy of the information I get from some fringe sources, and those sources say "cracked on day 1".

Again, no way to know for sure, but I'm at a point where I trust Ubisoft very little.

[djuara]

All Ubisoft's games after Silent Hunter V will have the DRM. So just boycott all their games until they stop using the stupid DRM.

[MasterOfTheTide]

actually yes they are because they cant play the game at all! ;)

AC2 has been cracked for a while. I don't know why people are saying it is not cracked. Go check out the scene it is all peachy.

I am not saying go pirate it. I am just saying that the whole it is not cracked argument is moot and has been for a while.

[StreetGamer]

You don´t need to tell us, i will never buy a ubisoft game again, EVER, only if they remove the sh*tty "be online all day" stuff...
I mean how stupid is this, being online while playing a offline game.
There are a lot of hackers outside, who love to crack/hack/insert trojans in your pc...no way man, ubisoft fail big with this sh*t.
I like steam very much, you can be online and offline if you want, thats a good choice, but not like ubisoft.
To bad we can´t sue them.
But we can harm them, just don´t buy their sh*tty games!!!!!


@MasterOfTheTide
they say it because they don´t find a cr*ck...i don´t know if the new copyprotection can be copied but i hear the same, it can´t.
I don´t wanna know, i just don´t buy their sh*t games and thats all, there A LOT of other good games like from Valve, bethesda, rockstars and stuff.

[shanghaiedlv]

I don´t wanna know, i just don´t buy their sh*t games and thats all, there A LOT of other good games like from Valve, bethesda, rockstars and stuff.

Gotta agree with this. In my opinion Ubisoft has comparatively poor IP's compared to the rest of the market and they don't post the sales other big wig publishers like EA and Blizz/Activision do.

Makes it easier to pass them up when they resort to desperation tactics I guess. But if they need to revisit their wounds from the whole Starforce cluster, I'll step out of the way with my closed wallet in my back pocket and let them jump off that bridge.

[Royas]

All Ubisoft's games after Silent Hunter V will have the DRM. So just boycott all their games until they stop using the stupid DRM.

That's my current plan. It's how I dealt with EA when they had limited activations, that's how I'm going to deal with Ubisoft's ridiculously draconian DRM. I won't even buy their console games until they back off.

[Sunner]

That's my current plan. It's how I dealt with EA when they had limited activations, that's how I'm going to deal with Ubisoft's ridiculously draconian DRM. I won't even buy their console games until they back off.

Same here. Been boycotting EA for a long time though, and that's not because of DRM but rather because of the utterly abysmal quality of their products as well as their support.
Ubisoft I used to like, but they're on the ♥♥♥♥list for now.

As for people who claim that the PC gaming business will go under because of piracy, if this is what it's going to turn into, I couldn't possibly care less if it died, if anything it'll save me some money that I would otherwise spend on games that turn out to be ♥♥♥♥ once I actually start them up. It's been downhill for the last 15 years anyway, with a select few companies making quality titles these days.

Ah well, here's to hoping Civilization V, StarCraft II, and Diablo III don't have these pathetic kinds of DRM.

Oh and as for who to blame, I blame the publisher, that's how it generally works in the world of business, your customers blame you, you figure out someone you can blame, and so forth, but the customer will(and should) blame you and you alone.
At an old job I worked in the ITO department of a payment company, if we had an outage our customers would bite our heads off. Even if the problem was with a third party we never tried to pass the buck on to them because in the end we were the ones delivering a service, figuring out how to do so was solely our responsibility.

[mindcrash]

Ah well, here's to hoping Civilization V, StarCraft II, and Diablo III don't have these pathetic kinds of DRM.

Diablo 3 AND StarCraft 2 will probably have a system similar to what Ubi uses (Blizzard will require you to log in/activate through Battle.net to start the game, I'm not sure if they'll provide a offline scenario but since such scenario can be easily abused by a reverse engineer probably not).

Since Take 2 is on the SecuROM/Games for Windows train they'll probably release Civ 5 as a GfW title with the same restrictions as Bioshock 2 (SecuROM with unlimited activations, 5 activations for online play through GfW Live).

Oh and FYI: I heard that all games by Ubi which were 'cracked' were barely playable, due to the fact that some stuff is loaded in on demand by their online DRM system and is missing in the cracked versions.

[Royas]

Diablo 3 AND StarCraft 2 will probably have a system similar to what Ubi uses (Blizzard will require you to log in/activate through Battle.net to start the game, I'm not sure if they'll provide a offline scenario but since such scenario can be easily abused by a reverse engineer probably not).

Since Take 2 is on the SecuROM/Games for Windows train they'll probably release Civ 5 as a GfW title with the same restrictions as Bioshock 2 (SecuROM with unlimited activations, 5 activations for online play through GfW Live).

Oh and FYI: I heard that all games by Ubi which were 'cracked' were barely playable, due to the fact that some stuff is loaded in on demand by their online DRM system and is missing in the cracked versions.

Then I would sadly have to forgo the pleasure of Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, which will break my heart. But the principle is much more important than playing a particular game. But a point of correction, Bioshock 2 actually has 15 activations through GfWL. Still not enough, but there you have it.

And I've heard different about some of the cracked versions, at least for the ones that are circulating among members of the "scene". Ubisoft is claiming differently. I'll leave it to the viewer to decide who to trust, but from my point of view the answer is easy. Ubisoft isn't in a position to tell me that water is wet without my going to the sink to check. In other words, I trust them less than I do some of my pirate acquaintances.

[Exanamis]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this type of DRM is slowly going to become a standard in the PC gaming industry. Having a constant connection to a server somewhere that enables you to run your games. It has been more successful than some other methods. Its not by any means the best solution for the consumer but unfortunately until pirating stops being a big problem for these companies they have to do something. There is no way in hell I am going to make the mistake of passing up Diablo 3 and I already purchased Settlers 7. A great game more than makes up for being kicked off a few times here and there. (I play games mainly at home with a constant connection.)

[bunnyhop]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/

No cracks = No pirates = No DRM.

Blame the pirates, or the crackers for making piracy possible, not Ubisoft.


That's a load of BS...that might be their superficial excuse but they're trying to follow EA with building more of a PC based DLC system. "Forcing the logins" allows them to track users, advertise to them, sell crap to them and ultimately keep throwing things in their face.

Factor in all the Uplay components they're trying to add and I would bet money I'm more right than you are.

A one time machine ID activation (like the crap Spore had) is an anti-pirate mechanism. This DRM is nothing but a way to maintain a market audience.

Don't get me wrong...I accept it. Being in a similar business I understand the desire to want to maintain a captive market but let's call a spade a spade here.

This isn't any more an anti-pirate move as EA adding DLC to their games to help recover profits lost solely due to piracy.

It's just easier to blame the black market than to admit you're trying to milk more money out of your customer base.

[giskarduk]

I think online systems like that have potential but that particular one is likely to cause my games to shut down several times a day because my ISP cannot maintain a reliable connection it seems. They are up and down like a yoyo.

So any game using that system is going to be up and down like a yoyo too.

And take a guess who I will be complaining too when that happens, take a guess whos forums are going to fill up with "this game keeps closing during play" comments. And take a guess where future customers go for information about the game.

I see this becoming a reason to buy a different game, not because of the copy protection it self, but because of its effect at this end when internet connection is lost.

[Saolite]

I know a few people who pirate, practically religiously, and who have AC2 -- and it plays better than my brothers copy of it, through Steam, because it doesn't matter if the internet flickers, for even a second -- they can keep playing, where as my brother gets kicked off and starts yelling about DRM's.

Yes, it is 2010. We live in a world where internet connectivity is reliable -- but that's just it. It's reliable. It's not 100% stable. I've got a 10 Mbps Download, 2Mbps Upload, and have the option to get Fiber Optic cabling right to my house with our own, private line -- but the fact is, it'll never be 100%. Just a flicker is all it takes, and Ubisoft's DRM will kick you out of the game.

Besides that huge fact, lets also take into consideration that, a year from now, or two or three, a person decides to replay through the Assassins Creed series. They start up AC1, play it, awesome. Finish it. AC2 -- ...oh wait...Ubisoft shut down their server for AC2 because AC3 came out, and they wanted their CONSUMERS to buy the new AC3 for $60, or $50, and wanted to save money and shut down older servers that were no longer so widely used.

Which means you will attempt to play AC2, but you might have internet connection, but guess what? Can't connect to that specific server, which means the DRM will not allow you to play the game. A game that you own, that you PAID for to be able to play when YOU want -- you cannot play it now, due to that fact.

So yes, people can put up with this DRM. That is their choice. But they are deluded if they believe it actually HELPS anything at all or prevents piracy or whatever else Ubisoft claims this DRM does.

PS : In no way do I condone or support piracy. It doesn't support the companies who actually make good games, like Bethesda and Rockstar and Valve.

[Exanamis]

I think it would be much easier to swallow if they did a check every 5 minutes or so. That way you don't need a constant connection. That way pirating would still be greatly discouraged and the people with limited or spotty connections couldn't complain anymore. Lets be honest. How many of us play online mp games that expect a constant flow of packets. This game is essentially doing the same thing without being online. It would be better if they decreased the constant connection to once every few minutes.

[giskarduk]

These online systems have a potential to benefit us players too, even for single player. Some games dynamically update their content according to the time of year. For example Cities XL decorated the streets with christmas stuff during December.

Spores system which will not even let me update my game and I paid for my game, is also a good idea. Shame it treats paying customers like pirates. Thats why I have not purchased the last expansion for it. Why should I, I cannot even update the original game anymore so I am spending my money on other things.

Call of Priyat had so many copy protection issues I had to take the game back to the shop because it simply would not load on any of my DVD drives. And the list of software that conflicts with it includes Xfire, a common gamers tool for chat and screenshots.

Copy protection is not meant to be a punishment for customers, but that is what some copy protection systems have turned in too.

But when they work in the background and benefits to actual customers are thrown in too as part of the package, I personally would support it.

[Warfox]

People seem to be missing something here. Ubisoft isn't trying to combat pirates by utilizing DRM. It's my theory that they're trying to get out of the PC gaming business altogether. If they can display a lack of sales and blame it on pirates, they can put all their resources into the consoles with a clean reputation.

Sure, it's a long shot, I admit that, but there really seems to be an undercurrent of some companies trying to bail out on PC gaming. Microsoft is of occasional note as well, with Games for Windows having so little to offer. As far as Ubisoft, they wouldn't have to deal with driver conflicts, different types of video cards, less router problems, etc, etc. Making PC games means making games for a non-standard system, and having to deal with all the headaches that entails. With the added problems of piracy, account security, and keeping authentication servers active, it's all a headache.

If their new DRM results in abysmal sales, and they blame it on the pirates, and then suddenly announce an all-console plan, don't be too surprised.

[Exanamis]

People seem to be missing something here. Ubisoft isn't trying to combat pirates by utilizing DRM. It's my theory that they're trying to get out of the PC gaming business altogether. If they can display a lack of sales and blame it on pirates, they can put all their resources into the consoles with a clean reputation.

Sure, it's a long shot, I admit that, but there really seems to be an undercurrent of some companies trying to bail out on PC gaming. Microsoft is of occasional note as well, with Games for Windows having so little to offer. As far as Ubisoft, they wouldn't have to deal with driver conflicts, different types of video cards, less router problems, etc, etc. Making PC games means making games for a non-standard system, and having to deal with all the headaches that entails. With the added problems of piracy, account security, and keeping authentication servers active, it's all a headache.

If their new DRM results in abysmal sales, and they blame it on the pirates, and then suddenly announce an all-console plan, don't be too surprised.

Haha really? Long shot for sure! Check out some of the info steam and d2d are putting out and then tell me pc gaming isn't profitable or worth the effort.

[giskarduk]

Well it did not take long for the copy protection to start causing me problems... Me being a paying customer.

This is what happens when your ISP decides to reset your connection.

http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/temp/settlers7ubisoft01.jpg

And this is what I got to look at for 2 or 3 minutes whilst it decided if it would let me play again or not. I wish somebody at Ubi would explain why it even needs to syncronise saves.

http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/temp/settlers7ubisoft02.jpg

Edit:

And a few minutes later it happens again.

http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/temp/settlers7ubisoft01a.jpg

Btw, I opened this steam forum window before closing the Ubi window saying the server connection was lost. So my internet connect was actually working it that time it seems. So it looks like I have to contend with my own ISP and Ubi problems just to play this game. Its already starting to really annoy me. This is like having a game that constant crashes to the desktop, only this is not a crash, this is a design feature.
This game took me an hour to install, the accounts that needed creating, auto updates, various methods of protection that seem to slow down the install process, as well as the CD key..... Theres a lot of reasons for giving up and taking it back to the shops before the game even loads for the first time.

[giskarduk]

Quick note: The official forums has 115 pages worth of posts about the DRM. Which makes DRM chat more popular than the game it self over there.