Ubisoft's PC DRM verification was out because 'servers were attacked'

by Ben Gilbert on Mar 8th 2010 1:40PM

Ubisoft today offered up a bit of an explanation to those of you on PCs yesterday who were desperately trying to play the publisher's games with the cumbersome new DRM (Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5), only to find yourselves unable to authenticate said DRM because of the outage. Apparently it was (gasp!) ... hackers! "Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30PM to 9:00PM Paris time [8:30AM to 3:00PM ET]," the company announced via Twitter.

It also noted that most folks were unaffected by the outage, saying "95% of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors." Needless to say, the company of course apologized to anyone who wasn't able to play its games yesterday. We would once again like to point out that this situation would never have occurred if such a poor DRM system weren't in place to begin with.

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Tags: assassins-creed-2, digital-rights-management, drm, hackers, silent-hunter-5, twitter, ubisoft

Reader Comments (76)

HACK THE PLANET!!!

What could be so important to protect that someone would create such a nasty, anti-social, uncool virus program?

wasnt me >____________>

Hackers unite! we need to teach Ubisoft and any subsequent publisher from even thinking about putting a drm like this one i place.

Sorry, that was a serious game of Uplink I was playing.

Thank GOD! I was hoping the DRM programming wasn't the issue.

The servers that house the DRM authentication are just sh!t. Dodged a bullet there.

classic

Did they really think people wouldn't try this to make a point?

It's a really effing good point, and I'm glad it was made sooner than later. Had it been left up to Ubisoft going down on its own, it might have been months until exactly what every outlet has been saying about this DRM to come to fruition.

I hope so. I don't know HOW the hell they decided to make Assassin's Creed 2 for 60 dollars WITH DRM restrictions and functionality and still justify that price hike. Seriously, where is that extra 10 dollars going because it is not supporting the game. If people would rather steal a copy so they can at least know it is THEIRS, I can completely understand. I know i'm considering a console copy... and that is pretty bad for someone like me. Both options are better than buying this version.

The extra $10 is probably ironically for the addition of DRM lol. Some one needs to pay for the servers...

So, every time there is a 'hack attack', we can expect the DRM verification system to crash?

Well, that sounds like fun.

And by 'we', I mean others.

I wasn't dumb enough to buy a game labeled 'DRM Disaster' to begin with...

Right? I count myself among the 5% unaffected.

Because I didn't buy it.

I think it would be more accurate to assume that everytime Ubisoft's servers go down, they'll shift the blame to hackers.

I don't want to beat a dead horse or anything here but having this type of online authentication on a single player game is a terrible decision. What if I want to play it in the car on a road trip? There has to be some kind of a better way to insure the integrity of the product, at this point they are discouraging people from even buying the game which in turn will probably make the decision to not port the next iteration apparent. What a double edged sword for PC gamers and Ubisoft. Even if you are a PC gamer and you wanted to play it it would be hard to justify buying it with this type of security authentication. Lame.

Sorry for repeating what everyone else has probably already said on the matter.

Yea, I made this argument the last time it popped up. I'm going to be flying to Hawaii in a few weeks, and there's no way (hypothetically, had I bought it) I can play AC2 on the plane cause I won't have wifi. That is patently unfair.

Cause the douche who pirated it can.

Then again, I CAN play Plants vs. Zombies.

If I really couldn't live without this game, I'd just do the following:

1) Buy it with the DRM.

2) Download a cracked version.

Job done. It's a single player game, so there is no reason to ever go online with it ever again and any DLC/ expansion will be cracked too, sooner or later.

Just because you download a pirated version doesn't mean you can't be honest about it and pay for it too.

Personally though, I simply wouldn't buy this to make a statement about the DRM. This is a chance for consumers to exercise the whole 'vote with your wallet' ideal that capitalism is supposedly based on. Sadly I don't see that ever being effective because too many idiots simply can't resist the next big shiny.

Going on the road for a trip is one thing, but how about this:

You know how EA controls servers for the x360 for their own games and that once they shut them down, you can no longer play those games online?

Now, how nice is it going to be when Ubisoft decides to shut down their authentication server support for the SINGLEPLAYER games! No more being able to play Assassin's Creed 2, Prince of Persia, or SplinterCell Conviction. Though, odds of that happening are years down the road, but there are games that I own that are well over 10 years old that I like to go back and play. Imagine trying to go back and play through Doom, Mega Man 2, or even Rainbow Six (since we are talking about Ubisoft) for nostalgia but can't because the DRM won't allow. Brilliant work Ubi!

This is the worst DRM ever, and I refuse to purchase an Ubisoft game until it is changed.

I DEMAND THAT SOMEONE CONTINUES TO HACK THEIR SERVERS UNTILL THEY SEE THAT PAYING CUSTOMERS SHOULDN'T BE TREATED LIKE CRIMINALS. OK YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR GAME BUT THIS IS PATHETIC

I get the feeling you are dissatisfied with the new DRM service. Maybe someone at Ubisoft Customer Support can assist?

wow CaptainProtonX... milk almost came out of my nose.

Uh, in this case the paying customers are getting what they paid for.
If this DRM was added later, you'd have a case. But as it is, it's like saying "How come this doody-powered car I have only runs on doody?!" Pro-tip: Don't buy a car that runs on doody.

Doody power is myth, but would be AWESOME.

Give me a few tacos and we can be in Vegas from the East Coast in about 5 hours.

True story.

@Erluti - sure if those customers read game sites, but do you think the box has a big splash text across the front 'WARNING! This game runs on doody!' It doesn't - maybe there's some small-print on the back but who reads that?

It also wouldn't have happened if people used constructive methods to convince publishers the DRM isn't helping...

Here's hoping the responsible parties get to rot in jail for a bit.

I hope they keep doing it.

Well, I hope they enjoy porting games to PC themselves, then... If I were the publisher I wouldn't even bother anymore. When a market is constantly attacking you no matter what you do, it's time to move on.

Again, EA uses a standard disc check. Do you hear them screaming about piracy, or low sales, or anything like that? No.

@ Dr. Blight: Well some of their games still have a limited amount of installs, but they learned that the minimum of 3 sucked and was a pain to deal with. EA did the correct thing in my opinion. They tried something to see if it helped piracy. "It didn't? Okay, let's try something else."

I hope Ubi learns from it because i'm not going to be buying Splinter Cell on the PC if they still have this in place when it comes out. I'll just get the 360 version. They still get my money I know, but it's more the principal for me.

@AsherR

I won't buy it on 360 on principal. Boosting console sales hurts the PC more than just not buying it at all. I really want to play Conviction, so I'll probably just bum it off a friend once it releases.

@Naoto: Yeah I agree with that actually. I was intending on buying that one on 360, but I may just gamefly it. It seems as though it'll be worth the money, but I don't know if I can condone what they're doing on PC. :(

EA is the best big publisher towards PC games right now. Thus, I bit the bullet and bought BFBC2. :D

So Dr. could you list some of these supposed 'constructive' methods of convincing publishers that DRM isn't working? Because as far as I've seen there aren't really any.

Or should I say 'constructive' AND 'effective' methods. So, got any?

I don't really know the details of how many online games work, but they all essentially make you auth with their master server now, right? Bad Company 2, MW2...all the games where you get a server list from somewhere?

I kinda miss the days where you'd look up servers on the internet and manually type in the IP addresses :(

"[Ubisoft] noted that most folks were unaffected by the outage, saying '95% of players were not affected...'"

You'd think by the level of 'outrage' in the comments on gaming blogs the inverse had occurred.

They're seriously taking us for complete idiots.

95% my ass! How many people tried to log on? 5 Billion?

Really... How would they know the percentage if their servers were down?

Don't really care why the servers were our if it was an attack (actually entertained that possibility the day the story broke) or the company just decided arbitrarily one day to shut them down ..... fail DRM is fail.

As a lighter note it would still have been unacceptable had the server farm been burned to the ground by a horde of hypercaffeinated outbreak monkeys. The point being that the very fact something like this could happen regardless of if or how it did happen is something paying customers should never have to put up with.

Sucks for the players, but this instance of DRM is stupid and I hope Ubisoft take a valuable lesson from it... and that the lesson they take isn't "we need to make this DRM even tougher"

What's funny about all this is that people *STILL* pirate these games. I don't know if AC2 has been cracked yet to work without authentication, but other DRM games have been. DRM is nothing new of course, but these new things just seem to get the crackers to develop another way to get the game illegally.

Yeah, if piracy didn't exist at all, this wouldn't be an issue. Still, nothing is helping.

And at this rate, people are turning piracy into a "moral prerogative." That's only going to compound the problem further.

If this continues the way it is, PC gaming will not flourish outside of Steam or related services. That's not necessarily bad, but I like playing games WITHOUT Steam running. Honestly, I want as little overhead as possible, and I don't find Steam any more convenient beyond saving a trip to the store.

No, pirates won't change it. Not buying the games won't change it. Either companies move to a more successful platform of distribution (Steam) on PC, or they will leave PC gaming as it used to be behind.

The only way to keep the old ways is to support them. So few seem to be anymore. And that's the problem.

You don't punish your paying customers by putting in ridiculous DRM like this at the cost of piracy.

People aren't going to pay 60 dollars (which is ludicrous for a PC game) with asinine anti-piracy measures and when this happens just go "oh thats okay that I paid 60 dollars for a single player game and can't play it because the server can't prove I paid for it"

95% users not affected? I'm guessing that's a misquote for AC2 owners when they really meant total PC users because most people wouldn't support a company with this sort of garbage.

I knew this would be the official reason (true or not) as soon as I heard the DRM server was down.

Even if Ubi thinks this might make things look better for them, since it was someone else who is at fault and the same pure evil which cracks and pirates their games. In reality it is probably the worst and most ironic thing to happen in this case.

A fire claiming the server along with thousands of people would be something out of control and unpredictable at least. Hackers attacking a server running a much criticized new form of DRM? Unbelievable! Who could've seen that coming at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft was lying, doesn't really matter though. There is no excuse for not being able to play a copy of a single player game that you purchased. That's why no one should purchase it, even if you are against piracy, pirate this game just to send them a message. Don't buy DRM period especially not such an outrageous DRM as this.

It doesn't matter what the reason is - the fact that it can happen in the first place is reason enough to NOT buy any game that includes this asinine "protection."

They want to protect you from wasting your time playing games while the internet is out. As the video game player of the household, you are obviously the go-to tech guy and your other family members/housemates need you to be on the ball about restoring online functionality!

It's still an illegal act to hack servers - with the possibility of a custodial sentence if successfully prosecuted. If this is in protest to DRM being used and 'treating customers like criminals' then performing criminal acts is probably not a good way to get the point across.
I'd be tempted to say that almost everyone with the product has an internet connection so this isn't hugely intrusive. If the issue is that there is the threat the servers could be down and the only demonstrable evidence of the servers ever being down is due to malicious intent then...

Since it is indeed an illegal act, I wonder if they reported it to the police.

No, seriously, 'cause if they don't, they're probably lying. Not that it matters to the customers right now, but at the very least every time they make a statement gamers can go, yeah, but you lied last time, why should we believe you now?

On a related note, so they spent a lot of money on making a new drm, but then stored everything in easily hacked servers? That's just... what their budget ran out or something?

Funny how no other video game's servers ever get attacked by hackers. NEVER have I heard of server attacks on other games. I'm not buying the excuse Ubisoft is trying to sell us here...

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Ubisoft's PC DRM verification was out because 'servers were attacked'

Reader Comments (76)

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