Driver: San Francisco studio head defends Ubisoft DRM system

by Ben Gilbert on Sep 2nd 2011 9:00PM

Martin Edmonson, head of Driver studio Ubisoft Reflections, really doesn't get down with piracy. "You have to do something," he told Eurogamer in a recent interview, when asked about Ubi's PC digital rights management strategy -- which requires an internet verification of some sort for many games to be accessed, including Driver: San Francisco. "PC piracy is at the most incredible rates," he argued. "The game cost a huge amount of money to develop, and it has to be, quite rightly -- quite morally correctly -- protected."

That said, the final decision on which Ubi titles get the infamous DRM goes to the publisher, not the studio. "DRM is not a decision taken by us as a developer at all. It's a purely a publisher decision. The publisher has every right to protect their investment," Edmonson explained. And while we see his point, we can't help but continue to wonder why paying customers are being punished with restrictive DRM after paying for their games.

Source: Eurogamer

Tags: digital-rights-management, driver-san-francisco, drm, martin-edmonson, pc, ubisoft, ubisoft-reflections

Reader Comments (65)

Well, SOMEONE has to defend it...

@Gibbeynator

A huge amount of money to create a game that is already bashed by many just for what we have seen so far???..... i wonder where they used that money??? oh yeah!!! on the DRM....and piracy at the highest right... martin needs to talk with the guys of the witcher just to see that the only thing that really affects the sales is quality. And after seeing all the other driver games that were pretty much garbage and that´s why reflections was bought by UBI because they couldn´t create another driver game that was good, I´d be more worried about creating FINALLY a good driver game than supporting stupid protections that are going to get cracked in 3 days.

@Hunter141072

Quality?

That has no bearing on how a game sells, just slather some more DRM on it and any turd sandvich will sell like hotcakes!*

*warring if any turd sandvich fails to sell like hotcakes after sufficient DRM has been applied, blame pirates!

@Hunter141072

And then, regardless of DRM or not, when the game doesn't sell well, it's all piracy's fault! It couldn't be the fault of the people who published/dev'd the game!

Funny how that works out.

@Hunter141072 "the only thing that really affects the sales is quality"

People will buy anything thats marketed enough regardless of quality (or drm). Throw enough money at advertising and the product will sell.

Yup makes sense.

Lets reward our loyal fans who buy the game, by making them bend down and allows to poke them with a huge HASSLE DRM stick.

In the meantime, lets screw those fitly freeloading pirates with a perfect playable copy of the game.

@xiLeShadow

allow us*

opps

@xiLeShadow The game industry now is like a great big movie theater. DRM is like an army of ushers patrolling up and down the aisles, flashing lights in everyone's faces, and pulling people out mid-movie into the lobby if they misplaced their ticket stubs until they're able to produce it. All in an effort to prevent that one or two idiots from sneaking in the back way.

This is so frustrating that many former moviegoers just go to the unmarked shady-looking movie theater next door where the guy in the projector booth sneaks copies of the movies over. There's no admission, the popcorn is free, the theater seats give great massages, they serve free beer. You secretly wonder why anyone would go out of their way to make these things freely available to you. The only price you pay is the guilt that you're taking revenue away from the management in the legitimate theater who ordered all those ushers to shine flashlights in your face to begin with. Not a huge deterrent.

Customers hate being treated like potential criminals. The more you do it, the easier it is to make that moral leap to piracy for people who can easily afford your products. Everyone knows how to get them for free, after all, so whose benefit are you doing all of this for? Most of your customers pay in spite of your restrictive DRM efforts, not because of them.

And what did he respond when he was told that ubisoft's DRM encourages piracy rather than stifling it?

-_- < Still not convinced )

Please try again

This statement will make less sense when Driver San Francisco is found on torrent sites with DRM removed. If your protection only protects for 5 minutes longer its more like an extra hindrance.

@Lerkero

"You have to do something"

Unfortunately for his publishers and PC gamers, you can't do anything that works.

What an idiot. I'm surprised he could spit that out with Ubi's balls in his mouth.

I'd like to see FACTS that PC gets pirated more. Trackers (not the final say, of course) consistently show that most titles get about equally pirated across platforms with PS3 generally being at the bottom.

But above all else, it doesn't matter how many copies get pirated because DERP! THEY'RE STILL GETTING PIRATED!

Don't feed me that bullshit that it helps slow it down or any other crap. It also slows down sales. Boom. Another go figure, right?

If DRM were seamless, didn't bog down systems at times, didn't require internet connections or one time activations. Basically, if you didn't know that it was there, there would be fewer complaints.

All it does is screw the people that helped pay your salary and THAT'S the true injustice.

Shit has been stolen ever since man developed his second thought after sex. There's no point in punishing the fools that buy it while the thieves laugh their asses off

@Mmmmz

Considering its easier to pirate on PC, its proof enough PC gets pirated the most.

@Faenix
Another idiotic statement. Bravo.

The DS is the easiest system to pirate on. Buy a flashcart ($10-$20) load games onto a SD card and pop it in the cart. Instant pirating. No fuss at all. (You're still spending money on PC to pirate eventually, be it for DVDs to burn your misgotten gains or a hard drive to store them)

Yet, hmm... sales were terrible on that system, wasn't it?

Oh, no, what makes it hard to pirate a DS game must be all the websites that have hotlinks that don't require to learn what a torrent is and what not.

Yeah, that's it.

@Faenix
As Mmmmmmz pointed out, you are seriously misinformed. Handhelds are by and far the easiest for pirates. DS and PSP piracy, along with ease of jailbreaking the systems, are evidence in themselves. And while Sony will claim piracy was the downfall of the PSP, it's a load of crap. A lack of any good software was the downfall, look at the DS. The single most piracy-ridden device in history, and it still is leaps and bounds on sales records over just about every console ever made.

PC piracy is no harder than 360 piracy, which only takes a modchip. Both require a vague knowledge of torrents, but the latter doesn't have any system requirements other than the system, nor any need to use a keygen or installer. Which is harder then? PC.

@Mmmmz

1000% Agree with you man.

I´m tired of hearing that stupid " it´s easier to pirate on the p.c." argument, that is crap!!! as you said, the NDS is the easier one, and guess what?? IT PRINTS MONEY!!!!!!!!! many talk about the xbox, there are hundreds of ways to mod the xbox "oh! but you are going to get banned!!! " well, i know many guys who have 2 Xboxes, one for the pirate copies, the other for the games that they actually buy and play online, the Wii well, it has the famous homebrew channel, the PS3 is completely cracked right now, so where is the "pirate free platform" that the legends talk about????

@Hunter141072

Its ok most console exclusive gamers have blinders on when it comes to actual figures on piracy. If they don't see it it doesn't happen and the Industry is always hammering away that the PC is the home of the piracy boogeyman.

Not to say that the PC doesn't have its fair share of pirates but then all the systems do. Regardless of ones willingness to acknowledge them or not.

@Scuffles
Yeah their crap talk just enrages me (relative to the internet, I'm not huffing and puffing turning red from choking on my rage)

Console piracy is at an all time high. Pure and simple FACT. The 360 is pirated the more than the PS3 and yet software sells better on it GENERALLY speaking.

Yet, it's always the PC gamers that are under attack and vilified. When a console publisher has the bright idea to include always on DRM or activations, console gamers are rightfully outraged. No one comes out of the woodwork to say that they deserved it. That it helps them. That they should praise the gaming gods for such deliverance. We join arms and fight the bullshit. We don't always win and that's because console gamers think PC gamers are against them somehow. Despite many of us owning consoles and buying games on them...

If you don't want DRM on your console (And if you do, what glorious luck you have for never being wronged by DRM and how shortsighted your are to think it never will) why would you think it's ok to have on PC?

@Jennacide

on the 360 you don't need a modchip
all you have to do is hook up your 360 disc drive to the pc, start some idiot proof software and done. burning a dvd isn't that hard either.
oh, and a 360 copy of driver is already available since 31.8

@Scuffles

Many people complains about piracy and how fast those games are spread, funny NOBODY said anything about super street fighter IV for the XBox and the PS3 which were available for the piracy audience TWO WEEKS before the official release..... but WE are the pirate-storm platform.......

You're on a roll, I think I will call you butter

Dear Mr Edmonson,

Are you really this naive and ignorant? I really hope this isn't how you actually feel, but what Ubisoft told you to say to try and justify their bullshit. DRM equates to more lost sales than piracy does. You wanna know how? Stupid DRM drives consumers away. I have refused to buy the past 3 games from Ubisoft that I wanted to play because of their super draconian DRM. AC2, Splinter Cell, and more recently From Dust. I refuse to buy any of them because of Ubisoft's DRM practices. Those are lost sales.

A pirate, doing what they always do, is not a lost sale, because it was never a sale to begin with. They will try your game out of convience, or interest, but never intended to purchase it. You have to knowingly want to pirate something, as it's not like you can just straight up download it from millions of websites. You need to crawl the seedy underbelly of torrents, and hope that not only it works, but isn't packing a trojan. You need to have a vague idea how to run your torrent client to get a remotely reasonable speed, and that your ISP doesn't track p2p connections.

This isn't the old days of PC games, where people would just share a disk and the manual for it's then crappy DRM of reading pages in the booklet. Where it was a crime of opportunity to share with friends. Piracy is a problem, but one DRM will never, ever fix. Look at AC2, the stupidest most draconian DRM in history, took pirates a week to break it.

Won't. change. shit.

I was cool with Ubisoft DRM at first until I couldn't play Assassins Creed 2....two nights ago...for a game I OWN on steam...

If you can't keep the DRM server up and running 24/7...then this DRM is completely unusable....

I'm still heated about this...

No more Ubi DRM

My situation is not new...after doing a quick google... this has happened before...

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/07/ubisoft-drm-authentification-server-is-down-assassins-creed-2/

here is some info from the recent crash

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110831152443AAHCbCU

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2361024388/m/7511059449

If you can't keep the server up...what's the point?

@Timjoy
Yeah, this kind of policy really starts to suck further down the line when those games for which I grudgingly accepted the DRM are no longer supported. What will I do then? ..probably pirate it to replace my non-functioning legit copy.

@Haggard

Sometimes I am forced to wonder if DRM is little more than planned obsolescence so they have an excuse to sell me the same games 5 years down the line in Anniversary form or the likes.

Put out games people want to play. People will buy them. It's really not a difficult sentiment to grasp. When a game like Call of Duty comes out that everyone loves (talking massive critical praise and fans drooling all over it) and then doesn't sell well, I will listen to arguments about how much piracy hurts sales.

That said, if you like a game, pay for it. If the DRM pisses you off, crack it to get rid of it, but pirating games as some kind of idiotic "protest" against DRM only proves their point. In the case of Driver, Ill just get it on 360. I figure it was built for consoles and ported to PC, which usually does not end well.

@Equal Opportunity Dork

See the problem with buying the game and cracking the DRM is that they look at the bottom line and say "DRM IS A HUGE SUCCESS!" and that the next version will be three times as invasive because the customers love it!

What people need to do if they want to make a point is not to play the game at all.

Of course then they will just see their sales fell short say "ZOMG PIRACY!" and proclaim that their new DRM will be three times as invasive .... because obviously if people aren't buying their game they must be stealing ..... and their customers love DRM!

@Scuffles Or you could not buy the PC version, altogether, which is really the smartest move for most of the titles Ubisoft publishes. Their PC ports tend to be plagued with issues, from what I remember.

Yeah and then a day or 2 after release all the pirates will be playing it no problem. DRM is such a waste of money.

@bitcrusherrr

nah not a day or two, actually took the pirates a few days to crack deus ex.. really hated waiting lol

let the downvoting commence.

@FippyX

As someone who buys their PC games legally and puts up with all of this bullshit with restrictive DRMs...

I hate you, and I hope you get arrested.

@bitcrusherrr

pirates already play it on their 360s since 31.8 :)

@Heffer Wolfe

Cool story brah

This just in. Corporate Tool and Mouthpiece, as well as head of a Ubisoft Studio, tells us that his studio's DRM is the best way to go! Joining him under the desk currently is Diablo 3 courtesy of Activision-Blizzard, who we can thank for the leather straps and riding crop.

Really, all this sort of DRM ultimately ends up being paid advertising for pirating. "Hey guys, let's spend money to make more people want to pirate the game than before!"

@ironneko I remember Spore being the most Pirated game of 2008 because of the backlash against the 3 licenses PER copy.

@Aguiluz

they don´t because they KNOW that there is money in the p.c. market, those old " we are dying of piracy" "we can´t support a pirate-storm platform" arguments worked back in the good old Amiga days, and that was because there were very few Amigas compared to the p.c´s I still remember back in those days every single company always said "piracy in the pc. is big too, but as there are millions of p.c´s around the world the damage is affordable" funny now they say the opposite, but they don´t leave, because they know the amount of money that is available from the p.c. market.

@Aguiluz

As a Console and PC gamer I can say I would welcome Ubisoft dropping the PC*.

I mean after all they have proven themselves hugely inept when it comes to coding for the PC. Their DRM is a blight upon the whole of creation and something about locusts.

Begone Ubisoft the power of AMD compels you, the power of AMD compels you! THE POWER OF AMD COMPELS YOU!!!1!!1!one!1!oneone!!1

*by no means does that mean I have any interest in their games on consoles ^^

I don't see what the fuss is about here. They removed the always-online requirement, and authentication when launching the game is no more than what Steam does, and we all happily use Steam.

It doesn't really matter because Driver looks shit anyway, but seriously people; pick your fights. This is really only of concern to people on desert islands with no internet, and they probably aren't posting here.

@Excessive
Look above you to find a fellow with a very blue comment explaining how his indifference finally backfired on him. Now he sees the light.

Almost all the steam games I have (I have well over 300 now) require only one authentication if any. And that happens after the install and during the first launch in which it also installs any directx stuff, punkbuster (which you can decline), microsoft visual, etc. etc. Considering you have to download your games from Steam, requiring that one, unlimited, authentication during your first launch hardly seems like a problem. After all, you had to be online to download the game.

But when you buy that game on Disc, hmm...

I'll also inform the misinformed once again that you don't even need Steam open to launch most of the games. You just go to the install folder and open the exe. Done. Don't need to be online, unless it's that rare game that requires it, usually because they have their own crap DRM, or it actually needed a driver that the one time authentication launch would have installed. You can also mod most games from Steam to your hearts content with no ill-effects unless you modded to cheat online.

Also, again as that blue fellow testified, it's not always about YOU being online, but the idiot publisher that is paying the lowest bidder to keep up non-essential servers. They fail frequently and consistently and one day they will be turned off with no guarantee of the publisher issuing an update. It's only worth spending money making the DRM, not fixing it for your customers, after all.

@Excessive

This is a common misbelief.

"They removed the always-online requirement."

The announcement they made was they removed the constant connection requirement on SOME games. And then it was only the constant connection, the game still pings the servers.

So instead of needing to constantly verify that you are connected, it pings it at startup. It can still randomly ping the server, and if you aren't connected, it stops you.

People misread that article, and started saying their DRM was removed from "all' games.

Ridiculous. DRM doesn't work at all. Every game worth playing is cracked within days of release, if not the day of release or even before the official release date. I don't play a lot of PC games, but when I do, I buy the game and then pirate it, because the pirated version is always better/less annoying than the legit version thanks to DRM. What a joke. Plenty of people out there are less honest than me and would rather just not pay for a game at all if they're going to end up pirating it either way.

I don't mind DRM, as long as isn't hindering my ability to play the game I paid for.

Steam is DRM, but people love it. Why? Because Valve's method doesn't hinder its players!

Hell, Valve isn't even afraid of piracy. If you present a product that is worth it's pricetag, people will buy it. Not every game is worth $50-60, so they shouldn't all be priced as such.

"Being punished" is a bit loaded. If you purchase the game *knowing* these DRM schemes exist and feel screwed, it's your fault. The problems are 1) when someone doesn't know (buyer beware) or more importantly, 2) when the company gives mixed signals/false information as to the particular use of DRM, especially when pre-orders are involved.

@Lone Starr

Not everyone purchased these games knowing there was this DRM in it. Luckily, I knew it was coming and refused to buy.

For me what it really boils down to is:

Include DRM if you want. Just promise me that as soon as it's cracked (which WILL happen), you will let me download a patch that will remove it from our paid copies of the game so we can play them like nature intended.

I mean, if companies could effectively guarantee that PIRATES aren't playing the game and, to make it worse, having less trouble doing so than I am, then I wouldn't mind it so much. The problem is they can't, and after the product's pirated, it's those who paid for it that are worse off...

Am I really being THAT illogical?

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the cost of implementing DRM eventually drives up the cost of the games, too...

"PC piracy is at the most incredible rates," he argued. "The game cost a huge amount of money to develop, and it has to be, quite rightly -- quite morally correctly -- protected."

I love how he brings cost into the equation but he fails to mention that the vast majority of the game's budget has been spent on developing the console builds (hardware licensing costs, royalties, dev kits, etc.). The PC version's budget is miniscule in comparison, partly because it isn't the lead platform (it uses the same core assets as the console ports) but mostly because creating an Xbox 360 port *almost* gets you a semi-functional PC version at almost no additional cost. This isn't a hotly anticipated PC exclusive MMO or FPS that's been in development for over 5 years where the first month's sales could make or break a developer. It isn't a hotly anticipated multi-platform release where the developer spent a considerable amount of money investing in the development of the PC port ala Deus EX: HR. It's a multi-platform release built specifically for the consoles with the PC version being a sloppy thrown together afterthought to make a wee bit more money. That's all it is and all it'll ever be.

There are numerous ways of protecting your content but online-only DRM for a single player game isn't one of them (at least for now). It provides little deterrent to the people intent on stealing it and it delivers a grossly inferior product to paying customers. Why should I spend $60 on a game that's essentially rentware? Why should I spend my hard earned money on a product that is completely useless outside of being a coaster and taking up precious HDD real estate if I'm unable to connect to the internet or if the publisher's servers have gone offline?

This asshat's complete acceptance and outright love for how his game's "protected" while ignoring the reality of how it effects his customers is the reason why I haven't bought an Ubisoft game in years.

Oh yeah, you have to do SOMETHING about piracy.

Like QUITE MORALLY CORRECTLY treat legitimate buyers of your game like criminals, so that they're actually ENCOURAGED to pirate in order to avoid it.

It's amazing how apparently not only publishers, but some developers, have forgotten what makes a game worth buying. Quality, and respect for the buyer. DRM kills the latter; it's up to the studio what to do with the former.

DRM does not help sell games; in fact, I'd dare say that explicit lack of DRM is a solid selling point, now that DRM is a "thing" to begin with. This should be obvious. Marketing people need to get their heads out of the sand, and start thinking about what customers really want.

Make games, not Catch-22's.

Well it could be worse, they could require you to have a webcam and microphone that the DRM will use to verify you by face and voice.
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Now that I think about it I shouldn't have posted that, they may like the idea. Doh.

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Driver: San Francisco

Driver: San Francisco studio head defends Ubisoft DRM system

Reader Comments (65)

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:01PM Gibbeynator said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:55PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:24PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 2:04AM Draugdraugr said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 12:23PM clapperdude said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:04PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:05PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 10:11PM onan said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:04PM FuzzyPierce said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:07PM Giovanni117 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:18PM Lerkero said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:49PM Haggard said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:26PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:31PM Faenix said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:36PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:42PM Jennacide said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:05PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:13PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:36PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 1:59AM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 12:21AM Ainwaith said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:37PM Jennacide said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:42PM Timjoy said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:53PM Haggard said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:38PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:42PM Equal Opportunity Dork said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:57PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 11:43PM Equal Opportunity Dork said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:49PM bitcrusherrr said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:06PM FippyX said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:44PM Heffer Wolfe said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:05PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 5th 2011 3:08AM FippyX said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:49PM DevilSei said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:57PM ironneko said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:58PM LOMDR said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 9:59PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:03PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:18PM Excessive said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:30PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 12:09PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:29PM Roto13 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:41PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:48PM Lone Starr said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2011 1:53AM DannibusX said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 10:59PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:02PM jackal said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:13PM CnEY said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2011 11:40PM (Unverified) said

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