

Ubisoft’s newfangled DRM scheme requires you to be online to play - psawaya
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/17/assassins-creed-ii-drm-proves-that-ubisoft-hates-your-guts-and-wants-to-beat-you-up-after-school/

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teamonkey
The advertised benefits to this method over other methods of game DRM are that
you can install on an unlimited number of machines (but only play on one at a
time); you don't require the game disk in the drive after installation; and
save games are stored online (so you don't need to copy them to a flash drive
between, say, home and work).

From what I can tell, it doesn't install any device drivers and it doesn't
require that any special ports be opened.

(Disclaimer: I work for them but I'm not involved with the development of this
system. I'm just adding a bit more information about it.)

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ericd
Those advantages you mention are pretty handily outweighed by the additional
inconvenience of this.

Does DRM actually make a dent in piracy? My feeling is no since pirated disk
images come with cracks for the DRM scheme du jour, and that that is why
they're going to this crazy scheme. What makes them think that pirates aren't
just going to bundle something that intercepts all the traffic that this thing
sends out, and then reply with the appropriate response?

Why not accept that a certain percentage of users are never going to pay for
software, and that they aren't potentially paying customers anyway? It would
make life easier for your actual paying customers, and you should be trying to
make them feel like kings. (I know you're not in charge of this/responsible
for this, I'm just curious as to whether you have insight into why this is
happening)

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teamonkey
The only conclusion I can come to is that DRM _does_ work (for some definition
of "work").

This isn't a poorly-studied field. Piracy rates have been carefully tracked by
every major publisher for years but the information is rarely made public.
Ubisoft has experimented with several DRM methods in the past, including
having no DRM at all on 2008's Prince of Persia.

I figure that someone's come to the conclusion that using DRM makes more
profit than not using it. And also those at every other major publishing house
after studying their own figures.

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anupj
No, it doesn't. What if I buy this game to play on my laptop. And then I am
out of the country in a place where there is no internet connection. Will I be
able to play this game? The fact is that I paid my hard earned money on this
game, and I _own_ the game. I don't want to jump through hoops to actually
play the game. I agree that it prevents piracy to some extent, but are they
(Ubisoft) so naive to believe that this additional layer of security is hard
to crack. Seriously, Ubisoft needs to rethink it's strategy before it
alienates its customers.

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teamonkey
I'm just saying that the publishers balance potential lost sales due to DRM
against potential gained sales because of DRM and see a net sales gain. It's a
publicly traded company - they have an obligation to shareholders to address
this.

Say that 5m copies have been downloaded illegally (I think that's pretty
conservative in the case of AC2). Assume that a small percentage, maybe as low
as 1%, of those that pirate it would actually buy it if they couldn't pirate
it. That's 50000 copies. Realistically, how many people are put off from
buying by this DRM. If that figure is less than 50000 and covers the
development cost of the DRM then you have your net profit and DRM "works".

Adjust the figures to whatever you think is realistic, but publishers have a
lot of research data that they don't make public so they're probably in a good
position to make predictions.

It doesn't mean that their numbers are correct though.

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philk
To be honest it's like game manufacturers (Ubisoft in particular) are trying
to make piracy the better option.

Look guys. I have decent money, want to support creators and don't feel like
fucking around trying to pirate a $50 game and making sure that it doesn't
have viruses or anything along with it. Stop making me feel like a moron for
actually giving you my money.

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samdk
The important bit:

 _"Every time you lose your Internet connection the game boots you to the main
menu, and all progress made from the last save point is thrown out the window.
This isn’t an MMO, mind you, but a plain ol’ single player game."_

It's like big-budget PC publishers are begging me to _not_ buy their games.

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anupj
I agree. And I don't believe that this whole be online to play tactic is hard
to hack. It will only add another obstacle for the crackers to overcome, but
cause real pain to customers who actually _buy_ their game.

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gprisament
I hate it when I spend money on software just to be treated like a villain.

What happens when the license server gets taken down? I still play 27-year-old
NES games on occasion. Will Ubisoft even be around in 27 years?

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RS14
I just recently declined to buy (or pirate) an otherwise great game for this
reason. I sent a polite email to the developers explaining this. It's really
quite disappointing.

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ahi
What happens when the servers get hit with a DDoS attack the first week of
release?

