
Ubisoft’s Uber DRM Cracked Within a Day - jeff18
http://torrentfreak.com/ubisofts-uber-drm-cracked-within-a-day-100304/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29
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lmkg
I still think that the Steam platform is the golden standard for DRM. The
Assassin's Creed 2 DRM still comes from the old-school plan of restricting the
legitimate needs of cash-paying customers, which makes the cracked version
superior to the original. Steam, on the other hand, gives me _more_ features
rather than _less_ : I can install the game on multiple machines, or the same
machine multiple times, even if I lose the hard copy. It saves me a trip to
the store, which was half the reason I pirated games back in college. I can
pre-load the game and play it literally the second it comes out without having
to camp outside a Fry's two hours away. They're by no means essential features
and I rarely use any of them, but that whole thing about making sure your copy
is legitimate is a hell of a lot easier to swallow when it's sold as the price
of a new feature.

(obligatory: <http://xkcd.com/488/> )

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pquerna
strangely, I agree, I love using steam, even though its completely DRMed and I
don't get any control over the game -- but at the same time I can download
games on new computers, pre-load games before release day, and do it all
painlessly.

Yes, the first versions of steam were pretty terrible, but they have turned it
into my preferred way of buying PC games over the years -- it really is a
great platform now days.

They don't do stupid shit with DRM affecting the rest of your comptuer, or
hacks on the DVDs, etc. They keep it clean and simple for the user.

~~~
barrkel
Apart from the fact that Steam versions are typically 80-100% markup in price
over shrinkwrap versions.

For example, Bioshock 2:

30GBP, "down" from 40GBP <http://store.steampowered.com/app/8850/>

16.74GBP [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-2-Bioshock-PC-
DVD/dp/B00175SOS2...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-2-Bioshock-PC-
DVD/dp/B00175SOS2/)

~~~
potatolicious
This may be true in the UK, but in the US Steam games are price-competitive
with shrinkwrap versions.

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bartl
Competitive feels like not low enough, to me.

After all, you don't get any physical copies, which is something a collector
may like.

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matasar
I vastly prefer being able to redownload software that I've paid for, but some
people may prefer physical copies.

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teamonkey
No it wasn't.

<http://twitter.com/Ubisoft/status/9968383494>

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CWuestefeld
The OP addresses this. The pirates claim that there's nothing missing besides
the DRM; this makes it incomplete in Ubisoft's estimation. And Ubisoft isn't
citing any particular things that it might lack.

~~~
NateLawson
No, Ubisoft may still be right. It's quite common to spread your checks
throughout gameplay. For example, there were actually several copy protection
checks in the old Karateka game. One triggered later in the level and made the
eagle unbeatable. This caused the cracker group to have to re-release it.

This kind of in-game check led to the practice of cracking "100%". This means
the cracker played the entire game through and verified everything worked
properly. They'd often add "trainers" (eternal life patches) to make this
process go quicker.

With a fully online system as Ubisoft claimed to have, you can just store the
level code/data on the server. In this case, EVERY crack will be limited as
you can always download new protection code with level N+1. It remains to be
seen how well they adopted this approach to updating their protection, but you
can see it work in fully online games like WoW.

We designed the Blu-ray protection scheme to have the same renewable property,
it's just that the disc itself is the transport channel since your player is
not guaranteed to be online. A PC-only environment can make that kind of
requirement, and an online-only system is easier to protect.

~~~
migpwr
Similar protection schemes existed with old dongle protected programs as well.
Some were made nearly uncrackable because of how many checks were littered
throughout the app. Most crackers wouldn't bother with patching every single
location within the application and gave up on it.

~~~
eneveu
Yes. A few days ago, an interesting article on this very subject was
(re-)posted on HN (written in 2001!):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156481>
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3030/keeping_the_pirat...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3030/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php?print=1)

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GrandMasterBirt
I thought that the big drm issue was that the game saves on ubisoft's servers
vs your harddrive.

To me that in itself is very unappealing, but that is what is "missing" from
the game. If that has been cracked already then that just goes to show that
good DRM can at best delay cracking the game, meanwhile there is a saying
"Whenever DRM prevents a customer willing to buy the game form buying it, a
pirate gets his wings"

~~~
bbatsell
I don't own (the PC version of) the game, but I've read in multiple places
that storing saves in the cloud was optional; you could go into settings and
store them on your HD if you didn't want to play your saves elsewhere. No
personal confirmation of whether that's true or not.

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Freaky
I saw a screenshot showing exactly that option, so it appears to be true.

