Joystiq

Driver: San Francisco studio head defends Ubisoft DRM system

Ben Gilbert — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:00:00 EST

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.

Driver: San Francisco studio head defends Ubisoft DRM system originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Alpha Protocol PC to use Uniloc DRM

Griffin McElroy — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:04:00 EST

Is the personal computer your platform of choice when it comes to living out your spy game fantasies? Be forewarned: Sega recently informed Eurogamer that the PC version of its upcoming cloak-and-dagger RPG, Alpha Protocol, would use the Uniloc DRM system. Though not as troublesome as other digital rights management protocols, Uniloc did hinder some players' enjoyment of Football Manager 2009 due to a registration code printing error and a supposed DDoS attack on the authentication servers.

Uniloc's corporate site promises their DRM solution is "polite" and "unobtrusive," thwarting would-be pirates "without compromising [your] experience." Unfortunately, we've begun to equate a company's promises about the painlessness of their DRM technologies to proctologists' promises about the painlessness of their procedures. In fact, that might be the most literal analogy we've ever conjured.

Alpha Protocol PC to use Uniloc DRM originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Ben Gilbert — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST

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.

Ubisoft's PC DRM verification was out because 'servers were attacked' originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Splinter Cell: Conviction, future Ubisoft PC games to use internet-based DRM

Ben Gilbert — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST

Assassin's Creed 2 has yet to even arrive on PC, but ever since PC Gamer got an early hands-on with the final retail version, Ubisoft's ... somewhat cumbersome (to be very polite) internet-based DRM has caused a bit of a worry for some gamers. As it would seem, regardless of consumer complaint, the publisher is allegedly moving ahead with plans to implement the anti-piracy software in many of its upcoming titles.

Softpedia reports that an Ubi rep (speaking with PC Gamer) has confirmed Splinter Cell: Conviction, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic, and the recently announced Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to employ the DRM tools. The publisher also specifically pointed out that different titles handle the loss of data differently -- for instance, AC2 depends on checkpoints and The Settlers 7 saves wherever you last were -- though PC Gamer supposedly pressed for an answer to the question on all our minds: Will every PC game from Ubisoft in the future have this DRM?

Cryptically, the publisher replied, "It's hard for us to say, yes, from now until the day that we all die all of our games are going to include this but most will." While we can appreciate the efforts of publishers to diminish piracy of their games, we can't help but wonder what the logic is in seemingly frustrating your already dwindling legitimate consumer base with measures targeting the folks who probably wouldn't purchase games anyway.

[Via Shacknews]

Splinter Cell: Conviction, future Ubisoft PC games to use internet-based DRM originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ubisoft PC DRM doesn't sound like such a good idea anymore

Xav de Matos — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:45:00 EST

In January, Ubisoft revealed plans to streamline its DRM policy across all PC titles, making players log in to Ubisoft servers to authenticate before playing. Although it sounded dubious at first, Ubisoft's Brent Wilkinson assuaged our fears, explaining the new process would allow gamers to play on any computer and continue a game's progress through a cloud-based save system.

According to PC Gamer, tests of upcoming Ubisoft PC titles Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII proved how flawed the system actually is. If, for whatever reason, your connection experiences an issue (be it router reboot or a momentary pause in connectivity) the software will immediately boot you to the main menu of the game. Oh, and all that progress you made after a previous save or checkpoint? That's gone.

But that isn't the worst part. If Ubisoft's "Master Servers" encounter any errors, then all players with working connections logged in to the servers will not be able to play their games until the servers are back online, and lose all unsaved progress if this scenario occurs during gameplay.

There is something to be said about protecting your property from rampant PC piracy, but when draconian concepts such as Ubisoft's new DRM policy are in place, the publisher seemingly punishes the players who do support its wares. The cloud concept is great, but not at the expense of saving every thirty seconds out of fear that a server on the other side of the world might decide to act up.

[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Ubisoft PC DRM doesn't sound like such a good idea anymore originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

PSA: Think twice before deleting PSN video downloads

Randy Nelson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:40:00 EST

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Business

The ability to download movies and TV shows via your game console definitely has its advantages. Like, for instance, never having to leave your couch. Of course, as so many modern conveniences are apt to, it's not without disadvantages. In the case of PS3's video store, one of them is the fact that, should you want to free up HDD space by deleting a video and then attempt to download it again later, you'll quickly find yourself on the phone with a Sony customer service representative. (Plus, you might actually have to get up to call them - ouch!)

Oh, the rep will happily flip a switch somewhere enabling you to re-download the video in question ... but only once. Make the same mistake twice and you're stuck. In this case, whether you actually "own" what you've paid for is more than a little fuzzy.

Of course, you could take advantage of one of the PS3's nicer features and simply install a larger off-the-shelf hard disk by yourself. And, since Sony's been so kind as to provide a PS3 Backup Utility for migrating your data, those videos will transfer right over ... right? Not so fast. According to the utility's documentation, purchased and rented PSN video store content may not play following the transfer process. In this case, you'd better hope you haven't used that one-off "lifeline" call to customer service yet.

[Via Engadget]

Source - PS3 re-download limits
Source - Sony PS3 Backup Utility

PSA: Think twice before deleting PSN video downloads originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Despite manual's claim, Spore only allows one account per copy

Alexander Sliwinski — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: Mac, PC

The latest Spore controversy comes courtesy of some false information printed in the game's manual. The Consumerist reports that despite the game's manual stating purchasers "may have multiple Spore accounts for each installation of the game," they only have one. An EA forum rep stated that the information was a "misprint and will be corrected in future printings of the manual."

Spore has been lambasted in Amazon.com's user review section for its "draconian DRM" measures. There's no clear indication whether Spore was originally meant to allow for more than one account -- did DRM measures put the kibosh on that plan?

[Via GamePolitics]

Despite manual's claim, Spore only allows one account per copy originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments