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

of course!!! it wasn´t the crappy drm servers it was pirates!!!! the explanation for everything... the fifth element, piracy...... i think this explains everything better

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If anyone watched the Oscars last night, the bad guy hacker from Hackers accepted the award for best documentary film The Cove...

Lets examine this...
Company fails, awfully following a launch of a controversial DRM, provoking an outraged response from gamers all over the world.
In an attempt not to lose face (which is already smeared in canine faeces from the point of view of PC gamers), they blame the probably non-existent "hackers".
....Or is it just me?

1. Come up with crappy DRM.
2. On launch date, create artificial outage.
3. Blame outage on hac- *cough*pirates*cough*
4. Expect public sympathy.
5. ???
6. Profit...?

Shouldn't Ubisoft run secure servers? Steam works fine.

"95% of players were not affected"

Just because they didn't complain through official channels, or that your servers were down and couldn't read their connection attempts, doesn't mean that many players weren't affected! Companies always use such "statistics" to misrepresent their technical issues.

Questions:

What are the piracy numbers say between consoles and PCs and their games? I know they're there, and PC is probably higher then console (namely the 360 and the Wii). But they exist and they're there. What are they? Even ratios would be nice.

Now I know you can play any game on a 360 and even the Wii with internet connectivity present. Even LAN multiplayer is available and none of the single player games require an online check.

What is the value added proposition with this DRM? The game is ten dollars more to boot even. If my PC meets the system and online requirements and Ubisoft to meet their end of the bargain? What are my options? Do I get credits or money reimbursed? If I can't play the game I paid $60 for because bi's servers went down (for whatever reason), what can I do? File a complaint with the FTC and the state BBB?

If Live goes down, 360 owners who are paying for the service or the game being played get reimbursed in some way. If WoW has problems, Blizzard reimburses its players and subscribers. Heck, even Guild Wars players get free and extra loot and apologies when something goes wrong or acts up.

What do I get in added value Ubi for $60 and the requirement to use a portion of my $80 dollar a month internet bandwidth? What do I get when your end goes down Ubi and I can't play my game? Or worse, loose the progress I've made?

The reason I'm asking these questions and wrote something about this earlier is I did have a conversation with our company's lawyer (who's working on a dispute concerning marketing materials and advertising). He's also a PC gamer. He did state to me that problems of any kind with the game, especially this type of DRM that is requiring to use your resources, should be and can be the basis of a strong FTC and state BBB complaint.

As long as you are the lawful owner of the purchased game and can prove it, the company actually has no right to this type of DRM check. He said that to me twice.

I had planned (before all this) to buy the game on Steam; as I've bought quite a few games over the past 3 years on Steam. Buying the game on Steam should be proof enough, especially with a credit card used or a linked verified Paypal account. I am who
say I am on the service and have verified my purchase with Steam and Paypal. I am the rightful owner and Ubi does not have a right to require a constant check on that.

Steam has an offline mode for when my ISP is down or there's Steam server problems. But I can still play all the single player games in my library with no problems. I've played the games I've bought off of Direct2Drive when my ISP goes down as well. No problems at all.

So to summarize, there is no value added proposition to the increased price and the required constant online DRM check. None. And Ubi has no accountability if their end goes down and I can't play the game I lawfully purchased and can legally prove that I purchased. I have an online Steam receipt, a Paypal purchase record and my credit card statement as proof.

They may find themselves in trouble next time things go belly up with an FTC inquiry. By law, a receipt and a credit card statement are both legal binding documents that establish the purchase and legal ownership to the product purchase. The company cannot legally require a 'are you still the rightful owner' check once that purchase has been established.

It was hackers this time, but next time it could be anything - a power failure at a data center, excessive network congestion due to a large event (Michael Jackson dying killed the Internet), or any one of a number of things.

I don't necessarily agree with this whole Robin Hood approach of robbing the rich to feed the poor, but online authentication is a flawed concept.

I was amoung those uneffected. I was playing the pirated version. (I kid)

The receipt acts as the title to the property obtained in the exchange.

What's interesting is what happened at a local Sam's Club a few years ago. You know how you have the little old lady or old guy checking your reciept, ur shopping, and sometimes even a quick purse check after you purchased you items.

Turns out doing that is illegal. A reciept is just that, a legal document, a title to the things that you just purchased. Sam's Club checking ur reciept and stuff is against the law because the purchase was already made.

A lawyer was leaving my local Sam's Club and absolutely refused to hand over the receipt or her stuff for a 'check'. She said they did not have the right to do so. Cops were called and another lawyer showed up. The cops in question were also ones who also escorted armored trucks in the area when tax revenue was collected.

(In case you're wondering, it called gradualization. Even though everyone's doing it and participating in it, they have no idea what the store is doing is illegal.)

A county judge was even in the store and joined in the fun. The 2 lawyers, 2 cops, and the judge conferred with store management. Even though its store policy to check everything and the receipt after purchase, turns out the policy is illegal. The store has no right to check anything after purchase is made of the product and a receipt is present (unless there is suspicion of shoplifting which there was none).

The store couldn't press charges because no law was broken. In fact, the lawyer who was tying to leave could actually press charges against the store and even start a class action suit against the store for illegally checking people's purchased goods.

The lawyer left and the Sam's Club had no choice but to change its policy. Cashiers and checkout line people just pay close attention to what's bought and paid for and people leave without being checked.

And the lawyer who started it all? Turns out it was a class project and she got an A+.

Fun fact: Oscar Winner Fisher Stevens was in Hackers.

They're acting all dignified like it's not their fault they got hacked, because if they didn't get hacked, the servers wouldn't have gone down!

Nice rationalizing, Ubisoft.

yo man this is zero cool...waa..i thought you were black man

ah so only 5 pervent were affected! I thought it was like you know.. everyone.
but then again that is higher than the 3% xbox360 failure rate

destroy the Gibson!

And this is why I refuse to buy games with the draconian DRM schemes. For one thing the pirates will figure out a way in no matter what they try and for another it only hurts the guys buying the game. I wanted to play AC2 pretty bad but will not fork over my cash for it. Maybe when they have a steam sale and I can grab it for $5 but not until then

I think they initially admitted that their servers couldn't handle the load and crashed before the current excuse, which implies that the ''hacker'' thing was a convenient PR situation if more legitimate customers bought the game than anticipated.
Not only that but the game was already available with working cracks for like 2 weeks on torrent sites. It's brilliant that they'd rather inconvenience and F over ALL the legit customers to try and Fail miserably at stumping a few pirates and still have the gall to hike the price on a months old game to justify shitty DRM

So this last week we had Sony taking credit for 'fixing' something that fixed itself, and now when Ubisoft's DRM backfires it *isn't* their fault?

Modesty? never heard of it.

Where can I send my contribution and support?

To the hackers I mean.

They'd be millionaires if they could somehow securely let the world know, because everybody would send in donations just to have them servers hacked.

It's crap like this that makes me avoid Ubisoft games like the plague.

If someone is trying to do us all a favor, I'd say there are better ways to do it than penalize us all. And if someone is just trying to be a dick, they have risen above and beyond the call of duty.

The PC gaming community only has itself to blame for this entire situation. If piracy wasn't so rampant then these kind of measures wouldn't be necessary. The outage stunk of direct action, not a mistake on Ubisoft's part.
I say, bravo Ubi for taking a stand against the villanous hive that is the majority of PC gamers, but at the same time a hearty boo for wasting money on a useless venture. The only way to truly monetize a PC game at this point is to have a subscription.
The publishers should save themselves the trouble and remove one major piracy vector.

On what planet is the 360 failure rate not in the double digits? Certainly not this one. If that was true then why did you buy a second one after you had your original box replaced? Of course, that was a stab in the dark on your personal situation but I bet more than 3% of the posters on this thread have played out a similar situation.

Ubisoft is a victim?! We should all rally around them now. People don't have enough empathy for massive corporations too incompetent to deliver the product they sold people.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a condolence letter to write to the bank from whom my life savings was stolen. Poor sods, life was so rough, their banker's blanket bond insurance lapsed too.