Ubisoft updates PC DRM, denies rumored cracks

They create their own pirates. DRM gives people a reason to type "play game X without CD" into google out of frustration and get introduced into the world of cracks and isos. The more inconvenient you make it, the more new people will find it.

Well thats a bunch of bs pc games sell, these companies just see numbers on torrent sites and immediately claim "look at all the sales were losing!" when that is not the case.

Why don't you go tell steam your little idea...oh wait they might be too busy out front raking in the benjamins.

It's easy to side against them because they have adopt a DRM that harms legitimate customers and don't work towards a real solution. However, the new business models that will take hold require innovation. Not something the industry is always excited about instead clinging to the idea that once they achieve success that they should be 'guaranteed' future success.

Onlive is the only answer

Valve would never revoke your license for their games unless you broke the rules. They have said if they ever took the Steam service down, they would release a patch freeing every one of their games from the Steam authentication.

This reasoning boggles me. Why would you make it harder for your loyal customers when a pirated version will be released, there's no fighting it. Personally I bought AC2 on sale for $35 on the PS3. Just sad the PC version has to be treated so badly.

It's cracked, it was cracked 2 days ago last I looked. Ubisofts system once again fails. Why they make it so much more difficult for the consumer is beyond me. I dealt with the crap EA pulled with spore, but i've finally had enough of it.

Right Sonos. I'm here at in the office agreeing with you on my work 360, and I'll check for updates on my work-issued DS on my trainride home.

( Sarcasm translation: 90% of computers out there are either not capable of playing modern games, or used by businesses. )

I expected them to make concessions at some point, but not already. This is a good sign however - aggressive DRM like this is a hassle for customers and doesn't prevent piracy with any measureable efficiency.

I don't usually mind DRM that much, CD checks are annoying, but I use Steam for almost all my games at this point. Tages, Securom and the like can on occasion lead to technical issues, but it's rare. I've only experienced it once myself. Activations are OK with me too. That doesn't change the fact that they are largely useless, however, and I find it hard to understand how developers and publishers see financial reason in spending money on protection when it rarely results in higher sales. I think there are two approaches to software distribution:

1: A defensive stance, where you attempt to artificially limit the communitys ability to copy and distribute your product illegally. You gain a small increase in sales from the most casual of pirates (and here I'm talking about the complete internet illiterate), but that money is wasted again due to the cost of the protection itself and the associated, additional customer support. In general, the communitys opinion of you is lessened, and you risk losing part of your honest, paying customer base.

2: An embracing stance, where you accept that the software market has its risks (as does any type of business), one of which is piracy. You accept that whatever you do, the collective mass of pirates and hackers will find a way to defeat your protection system, so you cut it from the product all together, and thereby avoid an unnecessary cost in your distribution scheme. This may allow you to drop the price of your product or add interesting items to your retail version, such as posters, figurines, etc, adding further incentive to buy instead of steal. You also realize that digital distribution is the future, because it is cheap for you, and convenient for your customers, so you make sure to have a version of your product on Steam at launch day.

Of these two, which is the smartest? My money is on number 2 - unfortunately only about 10% of devs and publishers seem to agree with me. But who knows - times may be changing soon.

Sonos: Do you know of a home without a gaming PC? Because I do - my home and everyone's home I know, with the exception of just a couple people at work who are gamers.

PC games dug themselves into their own ghetto by requiring the latest and greatest video cards and whatever else. Of course that's not entirely the publishers' fault - it is a fractured platform and would always be difficult to handle - but unless we get to the point where all games run fine on all PCs purchased within the past three years or so (that includes netbooks/nettops and whatever the hell else, with whatever the favourite integrated on-chip graphics is at that point) - with worse graphics than you could get with a nice graphics card but OK-looking and still acceptable framerates, and importantly without the need to manually adjust any settings whatsoever, and certainly without the need to kowtow to any crappy DRM - you can't consider the total global PC count as a gaming market.

Of course if we're talking casual games (Flash games, PopCap etc) then pretty much every PC can play them. What kind of games are a huge success due to the very large PC userbase? Right - casual games.

tl;dr version: the potential user base for 'hardcore' PC games is not the same as the user base of PCs; it is the user base of PCs that are in homes rather than workplaces and that have been specifically set up for gaming, which is absolutely miniscule compared to the total number of PCs in use.

I have never understood the rational behind DRM in the first place. Obviously it doesn't stop crackers, and pirates never see it. The only thing is diminishes is sales and framerate.

The only real way to deny pirates access to a game is to make it online only, or at least have a major online component. This is NOT what Ubisoft is doing. Online is not an intrinsic property of this game, it's just a wall. Again, pirates will never see this wall, only legitimate customers.

People ask the question why would UBI make it harder for Legit PC game buyers to buy their products, well the answer is very simple, there are more Pirates than Legit buyers.

A lot of you are really missing the point. This is the first salvo but it will get even nastier on the PC. Just because there is a cracked version of the game does not mean that the game is complete if there is missing code that can only be updated by UBI servers.

I am sure you will start to see people complaining that they get to a certain point in the game and it either stops, crash or pop up a message to purchase the game. With today's technology, its pretty easy to have points in the game where code to run the game is missing. This essentially kills cracking the game. It's a system I have seen coming for years and you can believe it will not only be Ubi goes this route. I also expect games on consoles and other publishers to go this route as well. It only a matter of time.

One key concept I recommend is to write old-fashioned paper letters: one to the publisher, one to your favorite retailer, and one to the press. Tell them why you're not buying and why you will not put up with Ubisoft's ridiculous idea. Then when Ubisoft blames piracy anyway, you can call them out publicly and shame them.

If you pirate the game, you prove that piracy is a problem.

If you buy the game, you are rewarding the publisher for their DRM.

If you buy the game and crack it, you effectively do BOTH of the above. That's an extra crack download, after all, and that means another pirate.

If you just don't buy the game or download it, you prove that the PC market isn't worth the effort.

To sum up, no matter what you do, it either leads towards more DRM or no game at all.

I think the best option is no not purchase OR pirate, and write a letter to the publisher for each game that you choose to pass by because of the DRM. They might ignore you, but it can't hurt.