Ubisoft's New DRM & the Death of PC Gaming...

[dinosaurJR]

Hey all,

Just thought I would make y'all aware of this;

Ubisoft will (from Assassins Creed 2 onward) include DRM with all games, which requires all users to be on line EVERY TIME they want to play their game...

This = no internet connection, no gaming...

Read here for more info;

Reclaim your Game

YOU MANIACS! | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is not cool - Steam lets you play offline, as Does Impulse/Stardock

Imagine - you have two computers at home, one "family" PC, with internet connection, one "gaming PC, with no connection... You spend 50$ on AC2... you rush home, filled with excitement (its been a hyped game, no doubt) fire up you gaming/modding rig and BOOM! you cannot play... you need a connection at all times...

Boycott Ubisoft... BOYCOTT, I say!

 

[Majestic]

Well that's a load of stupidity wrapped up in paranoia.

I mean really, piracy is a fact of life. Each time they come up with something new, the hackers find a way around it. But this is just going to alienate true customers and even push them towards piracy. I mean a hacker will come up with an offline patch/hack plus all wrapped up in a downloadable game.

The only way to stop piracy in my view to to drastically bring down the price of games and movies etc. It will then be more worthwhile to buy the game than spends the hours and gigabytes of download bandwidth to get it.

This is really a stupid move and if anything they are going to loose the majority of their gamers and customers.

I say good luck to them, they are certainly going to need it.

 

[Ryderstorm]

I have known about this for months as I read a press release by dumbsoft awhile back stateing they were considering doing this.

Well I can understand the need to combat piracy as these companies are losing sales towards file shareing....But they just alienated about 20% of gamers right off from the get go that do not even have access to internet conections in where they live....I get that 20% from a study that ubisoft themselves had done when they were still contemplateing this choice. I wish I still had the link to the article but I dont...

But as said before...the hackers and crackers are gonna fix this so quick and now ubisoft is gonna lose even more...People that dont want the hassle or do not have persistent internet conections are not gonna buy the product now...

So in my mind ubisoft just kissed away more sales without making a dent in piracy....

I hope that they put the warning on the OUTSIDE of the box in plain site so that people wont be tricked or fooled....they also had better put this warning for the people who buy the online download version.

 

[Muad'Dib]

I already cancelled my order of AC2 because of this and will do the same with any future game that stores similar draconian viralware (That's what it is in my eyes).


I just got a PS3 so maybe I'll get it there eventually, might not get it at all in principle alone. Sad how these morons want to put the final nail in the coffin of PC gaming with nonsense like this.

 

[Huet]

Anyone seen Ubisoft's sales/profits recently?
Let's just say their business has taken an even steeper nosedive than it did before they introduced their new DRM. They're still going of course, but I wonder for how long?
Funny that they're still determined to use this new type of DRM, unfortunately for the people that buy their games, what they don't realise is that when Ubisoft decide they no longer want to support those games, blam you can't play them anymore unless Ubisoft out of the kindness (ha!) of their hearts release a patch to remove the DRM.

 

[dinosaurJR]

This was also a big part of the argument a while back - and exactly what n00bi$oft plan to do - they release the game with the DRM, leave it that way for the first 1-2 years (or how ever long the retail sales of the game are going strong) then once sales take a dive (either the market gets saturated as all the people who want the game have purchased it, or the sequel comes out, or a better competitor is released...) either way, once sales drop below a critical level, it is no longer financially viable for n00bi$oft to support the game, and so the release the patch removing the DRM.

I seem to remember reading that somewhere here... or on a link from here... I forget (I am getting old...)

It is just a stupid, stupid idea. DRM will always struggle to contain piracy - it is a sad fact of life. Don't get me wrong, I believe that the developers deserve to get paid for the work they do, no doubt, but draconian DRM like this is just placing me squarely on the side of the software pirates. Seriously, sign me up for a funny hat, parrot and peg leg, yo ho ho and a module of RAM..

 

[Huet]

I believe absolutely in supporting developers, unfortunately I'm also against DRM methods such as this, that's why I don't own any Ubisoft games post introduction of this "protective measure", and won't own any until they remove it. It's their developers that suffer, not me, there's still plenty of other choice in the market than Ubisoft

 

[dinosaurJR]

Right on - this is a point that n00bi$oft has failed to take into account. We (the game buying public) have a choice. We can choose between games, genres of games, but we also have the most powerful choice, the one the game publishers fear... the choice NOT to buy - or even worse, the choice to download a hacked version from the net...

This is whats happening to Ubisoft (yeah, I got tired of the other name) and it will keep denting their sales until they see sense and remove the DRM.