Ubisoft - The next step?

I agree. It's too much of a hassle to be online 100% of the time when I want to play a game. Ubisoft is committing suicide in my opinion. I'm not sure how paying customers would put up with that. Ubisoft must have some really killer games coming out for all of that hassle.

This is probably a natural development. The problem is that they are several years too early. The computers, internet connections, the software and the users arent ready for it yet. In 10 years dropping out of internet may be a thing of the past, now it is just plain common.

Thing of the past...

 

Shit happens.  A system that is continually increasing in complexity will only continue gaining new ways to fuck up.

Get ready for the MMSO games. Just like your WoW, Lineage or any other MMO, but only single player. Monthly fee included because they need funding to keep your data stored.

The next step:

Buy our game and come into approved UbiCenters®, where you can play your games under the supervision of UbiTechs®. Official photo ID such as passport or state issued driver's licenses required for entry.

I lol'ed. Good one.

..on topic -quote from the forum post-:  For the record I think Ubisoft are being asshat idiots in continuing to ramp up this obscenity of a slap in the face to paying consumers.

Yes, this is the problem. It's understandable that they try to do something. Piracy is bad...but this method is just like...I don't know, but I don't like it. However, I don't know that what else could they do in order to fight against pirated games.

It would be easy if they didn't release such good games...

Lame I just got my Account Suspended from Ubisoft because of a forum Post, This is the e-mail i got

 

However when i try and log int the Site it tells me because of duplicate account use, what kinda crap is that. I'm making reasonable compliants about the new DRM in Settlers and other games yet i get banned after 2 post, Not to mention the other post I have replied to have Also dissapered in regards to the same issue.

 

I receive dno warning and was banned what crap.

 

Here is the link maybe read while you can until they delet it aswell.

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6061083365/m/9231088458

 

They really don't wnat me to buy any of their games.

 

 

E-mail, As far as i know i only have 1 account, and i never mention for people to advocate piracy

"

Well said, quote of the day. 

I wondered what the industry would do with Cloud Computing.  Looks like they're simply using it as DRM and a method of control.


Yeah, Steam said the same thing about it's Steamworks DRM.  Took the pirates a week to break Half-Life 2.  Anyone taking bets on how long before the Pirates break Ubisoft's latest attempt to drive themselves out of the PC market?

I just want to say I don't like getting slapped in the face so I won't be buying any titles from "the greedy douchebags".

 

Point 2: The games I have bought this year have been off of Impulse.  More companies need to see the light.   

1 week

Steam has more practice than Ubisoft

Ubisoft is already on my won't buy from list. I am taking a step further than some though, I won't buy it for my console either which doesn' thave the DRM issue. Ubisoft as a company, as a whole, is not returning to my house until they either straighten up or just never.

You expected them to do otherwise? ....come on now, Don, I know you're smarter then that.

They like to say they'll be able to add all kinds of "New Features" to lure people in. Live Video Chat, savegames anywhere you play from etc etc, but the first idea they had was "MWhahaha Now I Own YOU, if you want to keep playing you'll PAY FOREVER!!! MWHAHAH"

Well, maybe they weren't quite that dramatic about it..lol.

 

waaaaaaa

 

how many of those people bitching also have xfire, facebook, msn, irc or something else going on while gaming.  So what's the problem with having one more thing using your connection?  Seriously......

I'm so sick of all of the anti-always-on-DRM bullshit. 

You lock your car, house etc. don't you?  Why?  Because apparently it is human nature to THIEVE what one can.  So a smart person/entity does what it can to protect their shit.  Is your alarm monitored 24/7?  OMG bad thing.....better cancel my alarm monitoring......and my anti-theft GPS tracker in my car.  Sigh......sometimes I think the idiots are inheriting the earth.

If you're so opposed to always on DRM put your money where your mouth is and unlock your house, cancel your alarm subscription and leave that bike unlocked the next place you ride it.

I didn't even realise CNC4 had always-on DRM.  That's how unobtrusive it actually was.  The game has worked flawlessy for me......and as a matter of fact so has the new Splinter Cell (also with always-on DRM).  

As I always do........I have to wonder how many of the "legit paying customers who claim problems with always-on DRM" are running these games on stolen ripped-to-shit OS'es that don't even resemble the retail LEGIT version anymore and therefore cause any number of issues for these "legit paying game-software customers".  

 

Congrats, the_Monk. You gained 5 levels in being an asshole.

 

I spend just as much laughing at the security company advertisements as I do people with your mindset.  Especially those idiotic commercials for Brinks or whatever they're called now, where someone breaks into a home knowing someone is there and then runs away instead of murdering them first just because an alarm went off and the police will be there in 15 minutes.

 

This isn't locking your door, it's welding the lock together once it's installed on the door so the owner can't take it apart and copy it.

@Wintersong,

Really for what?  For suggesting the oposition to always-on DRM is vapid?  For suggesting that gamers need buy their OS'es before I want to hear their bitching?  Buying a game but stealing an OS doesn't make anyone a "legitimate" customer in my eyes.  They're still a thief. 

I have helped countless people (over the many years I've been active in gaming communities) with various issues relating to getting "the software they paid for" running.  You know what?  More often than not I encountered people having problems with their "legit" game on pirated/stolen OS'es.  Stolen/pirated OS'es often have things disabled (or even completely removed) which can then cause the "legit" game to malfunction.  So excuse me if I'm not pulling any punches here.

 

@ psychoak,

Thanks.  Thanks for totally missing every point I made and for replying with some bullshit about a TV commercial?  No this is not about making a copy.....all of these anti-DRM threads are nothing more than the vapid whining of people who (for some reason) have a problem with companies protecting what is theirs.  Hence my point that unless a person wants to stop protecting what is their own, they have no right demanding any company do exactly that for them.

 

I'll bite.  I have a legit version of Windows Vista installed.  I live in a small town in the South West of the state of Victoria in Australia.  Due to the lack of quality infrastructure, my internet pauses for a few seconds before resuming traffic flow infrequently.  Some very twitchy games drop me because my connection appears dead.  This is a very common occurance in any country where internet infrastructure isn't cutting edge.  Assassin's Creed II disconnected my friend and he lost quite a bit of progress because of this.  His computer is literally state of the art, he can run more than one high-end game at once - why is he punished for not living in North America or England, where the internet infrastructure is significantly better?  Why is he punished for not living in a major metropolitan area and paying outside of his means for the best internet connections available to us in the hopes of being able to play a game that he more than exceeds the system requirements for?

A one-time online activation is entirely acceptable to us.  Take a look at Sega's new DRM method.  They even have plans to post a patch removing DRM from the title two years after the initial release.  Why is always-on a significantly better alternative when my friend had to crack his game - which now works perfectly - that he paid his hard earnt money for due to that exact DRM method making his game unplayable?  Do you honestly believe its ok to pay for a game that doesn't work and having to resolve to illegal methods to get that same product working in the manner for which you paid?  Companies like Ubisoft are well aware that all of their games with DRM are easily pirated, and if pirates don't pay and get a working game, what kind of message are they sending?  It's better to steal our games because they work than it is to pay for them?  What happens, as did happen with Assassin's Creed II, when the servers go down?  My offline only game becomes unplayable.  Is this acceptable?

Keep in mind that DRM often ties the game to an Account - such as with Steam, or with EA Games - and such reselling the game becomes almost impossible.  This is the intended purpose of DRM; the end of the second hand games market.  If I buy a game, play it and sell it to you, and then you play it and sell it again, three people have played the game.  Only one paid for it.

the_monk

So you're ok with Ubisoft telling you when you can/can't play your game? That's basically what they're doing because if they have server downtime, you can't play. You lose your internet connection for whatever reason, you cant play.

I don't mind companies protecting their hard work, but all new DRM schemes are doing is inconveniencing paying customers while stopping pirates for a week, if that.

@ ZehDon,

I'm not arguing that current always-on DRM shouldn't be tweaked (ie. timeout made longer/more forgiving etc.) to be better, but rather arguing against those who would have that type of DRM removed completely.  It wouldn't be a hardship for companies to have a game run a quick/dirty "pingtest" to establish your connection stability-level and then set the DRM timeout accordingly.  That is the onus I'm willing to levy against the companies selling me license to use their software with said DRM being used to protect it.  If that's not enough for some people they can of course opt to go without.  No one is being forced into buying anyone's software.  I just find that those who cry "boycott" often have torrents of the same software on their systems which in my books belies the "boycott" for all intents and purposes.  The act of "not buying" is not the boycott.....the act of "not possessing" however would achieve that.

 

@ Myles,

Things happen, servers go down from time to time.  When that happens I go outside, walk my dog......smell the roses.  I mean what happens when the power goes out in the middle of a research paper you were working on or while you were watching america's next top model?  It's like that with anything.  The only things guaranteed in life are death and taxes.

Yes the pirates don't seem to be bothered much (and in fact spurred-on by any new DRM) which means it'll have to get much worse yet before it has any hope of getting better.  Maybe cloud-gaming will be the silver-bullet.  Who knows, all I know is I'll endure anything that even attempts to prevent the thieving bastards (who seem to be multiplying exponentially) from enjoying what I've paid for.

 

sigh.......cloud-gaming here we come!  

 

the_Monk. I am going to let you in on a little secret. Pirates don't care about DRM. They don't care, because they bypass it. They don't have to worry about it. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if the people making the cracks dont' even care about the game. They probably just get a thrill out of breaking the "unbreakable". I agree with Wintersong, you're full of it.

The major difference between those inconveniences and those from DRM is that weather/ect are uncontrollable. There is a very direct way to stop DRM inconvenience, but companies would rather shove it down our throat while doing nothing to stop pirates. To me, that is bad business.

I happen to know all of that, and yet knowing that hasn't stopped piracy?  Why?  Because nothing short of accountability makes people (at least pretend to be) honest.  Do you beg people to be accountable?  Do you you force them to be accountable?  Obviously this is the crux of the problem.  How to protect something when the masses refuse to see the need for said protection.  That's why I asked the anti-DRM mouthpieces to put their money where their mouth is and stop actively protecting their own stuff and see how long it would be before they would see the need to FORCE accountablitiy by locking-up/lowjacking their stuff again!

By the way, wintersong didn't say anything about me being "full of it".   He called me an asshole, so is that your position as well?  You have no counter argument........just call me an asshole.  That really states your case....wow.

Oops, dbl post.

Indeed...let me quote the Ubisoft programmer once again. -> "For the record I think Ubisoft are being asshat idiots in continuing to ramp up this obscenity of a slap in the face to paying consumers."

The pirates don't give a cr*p about DRM. These DRM schemes are only problematic for us, and actually we spend our money on buying these games.

Absolutely agreed. This is the problem with these new/upcoming DRM schemes.