Ubisoft: Our Always-Online DRM is a Success
DRM is the cost of PC gaming.
Legit PC gamers sometimes have it pretty rough when games publishers decide to lace their products with DRM schemes that are quite strict.
Gamers who have purchased Ubisoft games Settlers 7, Silent Hunter V, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood know that a constant and reliable internet connection is required in order to play.
While this does make things harder for pirates, legit gamers who have a flakey internet connection or wish to play their games on a gaming laptop when away from a Wi-Fi hotspot are totally out of luck. Conversely, if Ubisoft's servers go down, that's also game over for players.
Despite all that, Ubisoft still sees its DRM scheme a success, and will be implementing it in its Driver: San Francisco that releases on August 30 in the US, and September 2 in Europe.
An Ubisoft representative told PC Gamer that the DRM scheme head led to “a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success.”
Have you been affected in a negative way as a result of Ubisoft DRM?
No it doesn't....
What, Ubisoft, that DDos attack last time didn't teach you? Looks like you need some more schooling!
Nah, I don't play their games... and if I would, I'd crack them...
No REALLY? It's about time someone actually posts these very valid reasons to bypass that DRM in an article!
Up yours, Ubisoft... DRM is the cost of PC gaming? Not if the warez groups can help it.
A person has to be pretty inept to think the online only drm, is hurting the pirates more than their legit customers. Silly ubisoft
No it doesn't....
What, Ubisoft, that DDos attack last time didn't teach you? Looks like you need some more schooling!
Nah, I don't play their games... and if I would, I'd crack them...
No REALLY? It's about time someone actually posts these very valid reasons to bypass that DRM in an article!
Up yours, Ubisoft... DRM is the cost of PC gaming? Not if the warez groups can help it.
A person has to be pretty inept to think the online only drm, is hurting the pirates more than their legit customers. Silly ubisoft
A drop in piracy is irrelevant if it doesn't translate into sales. An increase in sales is also pointless if it doesn't more than cover the costs. For instance if DRM development, licensing, server costs, increased support, etc. adds 3% to the cost of a title and sales are only up 2%, then they are losing money.
Even if sales have increased, you can't necessarily draw the conclusion that it is due to DRM. Also need to look at the drop in piracy vs. the increase in sales or any increase in sales of comparable non-DRM'ed titles.
it takes about 5 seconds to remove the DRM. And a pre cracked copy takes 0 seconds to remove the DRM.
With DRM all it takes is 1 person to do the work of removing it and then they can release a DRM free copy meaning it is no additional work on a pirate as with all DRM, only a few need to do the work of cracking it.
after which, the pirated and cracked copies will be of a higher quality as compared to the legit copy.
PS No DRM has been able to stop a game from being pirated. which is why the best DRM is just one thats enough to prevent inadvertent piracy, eg just a simple cd check
Do you guys remember HAWX 2?
Till now, it hasn't been cracked.
Till now, it hasn't been cracked.
Remember what?
Never heard of this game.
Maybe no one cares about it, so no one bothered to crack it...
hawx 2 (for me, if someone were to give me a free copy, It wouldn't even be worth my time installing it. I tried it on the xbox 360 and it sucked)
the DRM used on hawx 2 has been used on many other games (many of which were cracked within 24 hours of their release)
they consider low piracy rates to mean the DRM was successful, but they failed to think about maybe the game was so bad that many people didn't feel it was even worth their time to download. (if you want to see effective DRM, look for some of the lowest rated PC games, (many of which have little to no DRM, you wont even find them on sites like the pirate bay (does that mean their drm was successful)?
To Ubisoft, believe it or not but sometimes even free is too expensive for a bad game, low piracy rates does not mean successful DRM