Ubisoft's new DRM worse than Starforce and SecuROM combined

Erm, having more than one virus scanner or software firewall is a really, really bad idea, because they cause major conflicts with one another. They trip over each other. Just use one virus scanner, and one software firewall.
 
PrinceScamp said:
You still come across as overly paranoid. Yes those can happen, but the vast majority are from people downloading spyware, viruses, not using proper security, using internet explorer, not keeping programs updated etc.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but I'm an engineer by trade, and from the late-Victorian school at that (i.e. my structural test for any device I build is "If I run over it with an M1A1 Main Battle Tank, will it still work?"), so I tend to prefer overkill, or as I like to say, "Better safe than sorry!"

@Mise: I do only have 1 each AV & Firewall.... Still, they take up a fair chunk of memory.... (especially GhostSurf)

EDIT: I also grew up during the tail-end of the Cold War (when 1984 was practically required reading for school), and the mere thought of some game company being able to spy on me constantly like a mini-version of Big Brother just rubs me wrong 9 ways to Sunday!
 
Hikaro Takayama said:
If someone could get in using WINDOWS UPDATE, then something like one of these game-company DRMs would be a piece of cake to your average no-life hacker!
Click to expand...

...and aliens landed at Roswell and Josef Stalin fought Martians.

(Just ribbing you mate, although you are being a faint bit paranoid).

PrinceScamp said:
And yes I do agree that the permanent connection Ubisoft wants is very big-brotherish.
Click to expand...

It's almost perverted...
 
Yeah you do sound a bit paranoid mate. :) It's not a bad thing, it's just that, in my opinion, software firewalls do more harm than good, since they block more legitimate traffic than genuine attacks. Hell, I've never been attacked, at all. The number of false alarms they give about things that are completely innocuous basically constitute a Denial of Service attack...
 
If you have your computer properly configured, or are behind a router, software firewalls are pretty pointless and add another possible security weakness to your system (firewalls can have bugs, too).

The main security thread for home users comes from dodgy downloads and websites, and the best protection against it (aside from not being a fool) is to either run the browser in a VM, or under an extremely limited user account.

On topic:

Ubisoft already crossed the line, when they came up with an activation limit DRM for Anno 1404. I guess not enough people voted with their wallet yet. A shame, but it's not like there is a shortage of good games without obnoxious DRM.
 
Just yesterday, there was a huge wind storm around here and somehow the internet died, in Montreal. Not for long but still... I was browsing the internet checking videos on YouTube and then it stopped working. I'm like "dang, dang dang... Well I guess I'll play a game while it comes back so I can answer my e-mails later" OH NO WAIT I CAN'T. Well I could because it was Europa Universalis III, a game not made by DRM retards.

Assassin's Creed II is made by Ubisoft Montreal, I should go knock on their door next week and kick them in the balls. Hopefully the DRM will be removed by the time I want to buy it (reduced price... The first game was not worth full price). It seems many companies put DRM in only for the first months and then remove in a hilariously vain attempt to curb piracy and boost initial sales. Quail-fail.
 
A comment on another article on a different site, that I agree with:

Why are companies so stupid? I honestly just don't get it. Why would you want to make your game more difficult to play ONLY for paying customers?

Pirates will strip out this DRM and have a better experience than paying customers. Oh, and they also get the game for free. If Ubisoft is making piracy the better option then they have no right to complain about piracy.

They need to wake up and realize that rewarding paying customers is what they should be doing, not screwing them over.
Click to expand...


especially the bold.

I do not mind DRM if it is necessary for companies to avoid first-day/week piracy or whatever, so they can make money off people buying the game. But I definitely mind DRM that would permamently make the game less enjoyable for the paying customer. In such a case I'd rather wait for a crack.
 
Zelig said:
Honestly, I like this DRM. I wasn't planning on buying the game anyway, and anything that annoys pirates amuses me.
Click to expand...

:lol: you do realize pirates are unaffected by this?
 
Obviously pirates are scum, but DRM is a horrible way to fight them.
 
Is it just me, or does the internet seem to be the area where I disagree with unregulated capitalism the most?

But yeah... rather pathetic stuff. I get the feeling this'll end up screwing them over.
 
Malloc said:
AN OPEN LETTER TO UBISOFT:

While I'm not naive enough to think this will actually get seen by anyone in a position to take it to heart, I'm sure at least someone from the company is aware of this Kotaku post and may at least skim this, so here goes.

Whenever an issue like this rears its head -- particularly among anonymous gamers on the internet, who are a fairly vocal bunch -- it becomes very easy to more or less ignore the internet tantrum throwing that inevitably results. Gamers are loud and quick to judge a perceived slight, but they're also generally extremely fickle when in large groups, and today's big outrage is tomorrow's relative non-issue.

What's more, there isn't a whole lot of evidence floating around to back anything up. For all the people complaining that they will now refuse to purchase a company's games in protest, how many of those were actually potential customers, and how many are just piling on the bandwagon to sling mud at a product they hadn't intended to pay for anyway? There's not an easy way to make that correlation, and if companies were jumping at the beck and call of any given internet mob, nothing would ever get done.

So I understand that. I also understand the rationale behind installing this DRM in the first place. A company does, of course, have a right to protect their invested time and money in crafting a game. Given how expensive Triple-A titles are to develop and market, it's unrealistic to expect a company to then sit back and allow their game to easily be pirated by anybody who's figured out how to work a BitTorrent client, something that's really only present in PC gaming. The openness of the platform, while a boon to many smaller companies, leaves it far and away the easiest to pirate a product for. On paper, a scheme that works to all but eliminate that kind of revenue hemorrhaging makes perfect sense.

So that's that. I'm understanding of -- and even somewhat supportive of -- a company's right to protect their product. By all accounts, Assassin's Creed II is a superb game, and it's worth buying.

It's a game I'd had every intention of buying. But, I won't be purchasing it. Like many potential customers, I'm giving this game a pass and the sole reason I'm doing so is because the DRM for this game has gone far beyond what I consider a reasonable measure taken to deter pirates. It genuinely degrades the quality of the overall product and reduces its appeal to the point where I no longer feel it is worth my money.

I'm not going to pirate it; I'm simply going to skip it.

I'm voting with my wallet. It's not anywhere near as loud as the howling underbelly of forum posts this DRM has generated in protest, but ultimately it's something that myself and quite a number of other people are doing. One game may not amount to much, just a drop in the sea, but this is what it's come to and I'd wager that I'm not alone in having reached this decision.

So can I prove this? Well, I can try:

Here's a link to my personal Steam account: [steamcommunity.com]

A quick glance at that will tell you a few things.

For starters, I'm clearly not opposed to paying for games. There's a large amount of games on my account, and every single one of them was paid for with money. There's even a handful of Ubisoft games in there, which I am perfectly happy to have spent money on. It tells you I'm a fairly dedicated PC gamer, and given the choice, will generally opt to purchase a game on PC over a console if given the choice. It tells you that I'm willing to make purchases of recent Triple-A title games over a Digital Download service.

I paid for these games because I felt they were worth the investment, and I wanted to play them knowing that my money had gone towards the development and and profit of games I find enjoyable.

It tells you that I am not a pirate.

In short, I am your direct target audience with the PC release of Assassin's Creed 2, and I am a customer that you have lost, perhaps permanently, because of the dramatically unnecessary DRM shipped with your product.

I'm saying this without malice, and honestly without any anger whatsoever. I'm not mad, but I am disappointed. It was a game I was looking forward to owning, but I'm simply unwilling to spend money on it with these measures in place.

I strongly encourage Ubisoft to rethink its strategy regarding Digital Rights Management, as a fan of your games and now as someone who has found himself moving away from them because of these policies.

I hope this will be taken into consideration. I like Ubisoft's games, I always have, and it saddens me to see something like this occur when, by all accounts, it could be handled with significantly better grace and work in harmony with the PC Gaming community rather than at odds with it.

In closing, I've attach a video of an interview with Gabe Newell from Valve (at the top, cut to 3:30); this is an older interview but the points makes express exactly why a policy such as the one Ubisoft have adopted are, in the long run, incredibly detrimental both to a company's image with the community and ultimately to its financial bottom line.

Respectfully but Regretfully,

A Former Potential Customer
Click to expand...

:king:
 
Good letter, will help somewhat if it gets printed in mainstream publications, but at the end of the day, senior directors don't respond to customers, they respond to their underlings, who respond to their customer service staff. If the customer service staff are having to respond to very loud, very angry customers all day, they'll tell their managers. And their managers will shout at their managers, and so on, until, very quickly, senior directors are getting an earful.

If you want a company to do things differently, you need to get on the blower and shout at some call centre staff. Give them an earful, tell them it's completely unacceptable, and keep asking them how they have the nerve to make us pay for a "cannot connect" screen. Then tell them, "look, I know you're not personally responsible, I know you're just doing your job, just like the rest of us. So let me speak to your manager, and we can sort this out." Then give his manager an earful. It won't change things immediately but it'll stop it happening in the future if they realise their own staff are getting just as pissed off as the customers.
 
Yeah, it's a good letter and the reasons he outlines there for skipping Assassin's Creed 2 are pretty much the reasons that I'm skipping Silent Hunter V and perhaps Far Cry 3, if this system is still being used when it is released - two games I was looking forward to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

tom2050
  • Locked
Valve/Steam on Data-Mining, DRM, and Non-Ownership
2
Replies
28
Views
6K
bite
bite
Back
Top Bottom