Ubi DRM: Their Side of the Story

[sinij]

And thus the day is marked when I will no longer buy any Ubi products for PC

Pretty much this.

[NiX]

Assassin's Creed 2 is also out on the interwebs already apparently.  Days before release.  (From the Russian release apparently)

Before you all get ahead of yourselves, it's broken. Whatever their new DRM is, all of the current cracked versions have issues. The biggest being that the animus trigger doesn't work, so you can't actually play the game.

Still time until the release date for this to change, but it looks like it wasn't THAT easy.

[Sheepherder]

I have enjoyed your adorable interpretation of how cracking works. 

You insert the bitstream into the softice to break the wrapper on the shell and decode the demuxer WHARGARBLE.

[tgr]

The internet warriors neckbeards have struck again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu-Vgi5H3FA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUgS24uSFSk

Das DRM.

[Azazel]

As long as you don't see copies of AC 2 on the used games bin the DRM is doing its job.

I don't think sales prevention was their goal

Second hand sales prevention was totally their goal. 

Second hand PC games? Really? I'd never touch a second hand PC game, since you don't want to find that the serial number is in use/has been banned when you go and play some MP. Does EB/Gamestop in the US even do used PC games? They don't here. It's all console.

[Rendakor]

No, Gamestop in the US does not sell used PC games.

[UnSub]

I walked into a Game (that's all it is called) today and the PC games sold there were 1) all originals and 2) all on one shelf behind the counter (and iirc consisted of WoW, STO and Dragon Age - that was your PC section right there). Console titles were everywhere else.

More and more, DRM strikes me as akin to gun control legislation; it rarely manages to affect anyone other than those who obey the law. While we wade through crap, criminals continue to get their guns games from a guy in a van down by the river.

This is true with many things though: obeying the law can be a slow, costly and problematic exercise. Plus it stops you doing lots of fun stuff too. Lots of options open up if you choose to ignore those laws.

[Azazel]

Tha various EBs around Melbourne seem to have a ton more than that, still, none are second hand. There's also one Gametraders in my area, which does have a shelf of secondhand PC games.

[Ratman_tf]

More and more, DRM strikes me as akin to gun control legislation; it rarely manages to affect anyone other than those who obey the law. While we wade through crap, criminals continue to get their guns games from a guy in a van down by the river.

This is true with many things though: obeying the law can be a slow, costly and problematic exercise. Plus it stops you doing lots of fun stuff too. Lots of options open up if you choose to ignore those laws.

But in this case, the difference is that gun control does involve laws, but not serious modifictions to the guns themselves. DRM involves no laws, but major modifications to the product that make it undesirable.

[Furiously]

It's harder to make infinite copies of a gun for free.

[Sheepherder]

The Soviet Union and China disagree with that statement.

[Azazel]

I was about to make a witty comment about China, but when I got out of the other thread, you'd beaten me to it...
 

[tgr]

I suppose copyright holders would've loved being able to use the line "but it's so easy to make copies" to make the exact same changes to the product, and restrict our consumer rights, every damn time they've bitched and whined about that exact "problem". cassettes, CDs, videos.

They have made that exact argument, they never got anywhere, until now. Now it's digital, so now it's suddenly okay to fuck your customers in the ass while saying "it's to protect you from yourself!". Bullshit. Moneygrab is what it is.

[lac]

The DRM authentication servers were down for more than 10 hours today. Nobody with a legit copy was able to play.
What a trainwreck.

[Paelos]

This is ridiculous. Ubisoft lost me as a customer if they insist on this shit. What happens when I want to reload a game in 4 years?

[HaemishM]

This is ridiculous. Ubisoft lost me as a customer if they insist on this shit. What happens when I want to reload a game in 4 years?

The pirates win? 

[tgr]

This is ridiculous. Ubisoft lost me as a customer if they insist on this shit. What happens when I want to reload a game in 4 years?

Don't worry, they'll have an up to date/new version for you to buy for when you do feel the need!

[Venkman]

I suppose copyright holders would've loved being able to use the line "but it's so easy to make copies" to make the exact same changes to the product, and restrict our consumer rights, every damn time they've bitched and whined about that exact "problem". cassettes, CDs, videos.

They have made that exact argument, they never got anywhere, until now.

They never needed to because their core supply chain/business was relatively untouched by the "downgraded" copies a cassette or VHS tape made of a CD or broadcast, respectively. It wasn't laws that changed. It is the decay of a business model and the needs of the old guard to fight while retreating.

[Ratman_tf]

The DRM authentication servers were down for more than 10 hours today. Nobody with a legit copy was able to play.
What a trainwreck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ

[Azazel]

Oh, the Comedy/Tragedy of it all.. 

I wonder what Ubi's next step will be?

[tgr]

Oh, the Comedy/Tragedy of it all.. 

I wonder what Ubi's next step will be?

Blame the downtime on pirates?
Require blood and urine samples for each game you buy?
Have some guy tail you and make sure you don't make illegal copies?

I honestly have no idea what the next step will be, mainly because I find the whole debacle ludicrous. Everyone knows that any copy protection system will be cracked at some point, so I honestly do not see the reason to go beyond the disc-based copy protection (or even really bother with any protection at all).

And everyone who does anything online knows that if you piss people off sufficiently, chances are someone'll DDoS your shit, even if just to piss off everyone that is depending on your server being online. And if it isn't DDoS, then it's someone fucking up and taking the server down. Or the internet provider goes down. I'm flabbergasted at how they apparently haven't thought of that distinct possibility, or if they have, how they could've thought that would actually fly well with their public line of "adding value to the games for our valued customers".

If I were to guess, then they're either going to keep on suiciding in slow motion like they're doing now, or they pull out of the PC market alltogether. I do not see them ever stepping down a notch in this "war", not with their history of being (among the) first with the most controversial copy protection/DRM systems.

[UnSub]

I suppose copyright holders would've loved being able to use the line "but it's so easy to make copies" to make the exact same changes to the product, and restrict our consumer rights, every damn time they've bitched and whined about that exact "problem". cassettes, CDs, videos.

They did. Off the top of my head, Sony had to defend a charge that the recording function on VHS' would have huge impacts on TV shows since people could just tape things off it. Sony won when the judge decided that being able to record had material other benefits that outweighed that potentially negative impact.

However, again the issue with that comparison is personal use and limited distribution (it's a physical copy that requires other physical copies to be made of it for distribution) versus online where one single unprotected version can spawn an unlimited number of copies. The scale and impact is potentially very different.

Also, it might be a money grab, but developing games isn't free. Especially the AAA titles the market chews up very quickly (even if they are considered "high quality, high value" titles).

[Sheepherder]

Well, yeah, these things costs money.  You know what saves money?  Optional digital distribution through Steam.

[Xuri]

The DRM authentication servers were down for more than 10 hours today. Nobody with a legit copy was able to play.
What a trainwreck.

Arrrr...... page 10 of that thread is definitely not work-safe. Or safe at any other time or place, for that matter. *tries to clean his eyes with a cheese grater*

[tgr]

They did. Off the top of my head, Sony had to defend a charge that the recording function on VHS' would have huge impacts on TV shows since people could just tape things off it. Sony won when the judge decided that being able to record had material other benefits that outweighed that potentially negative impact.

Actually, I'd completely forgotten about this. I did some research a while back, and I then found reports that there were quarrels between musicians and manufacturers of "playback devices" as far back as in the 1500s or 1600s I believe. The crux was that musicians of the time were complaining about how playback devices would kill off their livelihood, since they were no longer required to travel around and play for people, people could just buy a playback device and the appropriate drumroll or similar, and play it whenever they wanted. The major change that actually happened was that music became more common/prevalent, the musicians were just as much in demand as before.

I must note, however, the irony of the Sony case. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Also, if you were to take today's laws regarding "software disassembly" etc, back to the 1980s etc, taping over the hole on a cassette to allow you to record stuff on it would make you liable for jailtime. There's logic for you.

However, again the issue with that comparison is personal use and limited distribution (it's a physical copy that requires other physical copies to be made of it for distribution) versus online where one single unprotected version can spawn an unlimited number of copies. The scale and impact is potentially very different.

I've no quarrel with that problem being the case. What I (unsuccessfully) tried to get across was, this problem with new technology coming along and making the old ways "quaint" has been the case time and time again. Certainly when you had the playback devices which could play the piano automatically, and I believe also when you could print books instead of having to manually copy them letter for letter. They bitched for a while, then they changed their business model, and they made more money as a result, while letting more people consume what was being produced. Everybody won.

Also, it might be a money grab, but developing games isn't free. Especially the AAA titles the market chews up very quickly (even if they are considered "high quality, high value" titles).

What the publishers are doing right now is just restricting, I'm not seeing any value added anywhere for the customer. Basically the only right he has is the right to pay money for something, and possibly play the game (as long as it isn't too old or there are other technical issues the customer can't fix). If the publisher goes bust, removes the auth server or just gets DDoSed to death, the user is without any rights to return the product as defective, nor can he fix the problem (i.e. remove the DRM) without breaking the law.

Games being expensive should not give publishers carte blanche to do what the hell ever they want to do, and say it's "to fight piracy". I'll allow for "reasonable measures to curb piracy", but why I call it a money grab these days is, they're well beyond reasonable measures. To me, they went too far when they required that what is essentially single-player games be online at any point during its install or execution, let alone ubisoft's current solution.

MMOs are a different matter, since they actually provide "added value" when you can actually interact with other people and it actually expands the experience, and it's actually something you expect when you enter into the agreement. It's implied. Singleplayer games, however, imply by definition that you're playing it alone. That means I expect to be dependent on nothing outside of my apartment working when I fire it up. I should be able to sit at a hut in the mountains with a diesel generator and play it if I so choose.

And no, being able to "save your savegames online" is far from sufficient added value to even begin to justify requiring you be online at all times (or even just during the first-time activation), let alone disallowing you from installing it on more than x PCs you might have/want to play it on, or even stop working if you upgrade your existing PC. There's no way anyone can spin that, which will make me agree that it's right or a good idea, or even that it should be an allowed limitation. None.

And that is what pisses me off and makes me call the whole deal a money grab. I'm all for them getting return on their investment, as long as they aren't being so blatantly consumer-hostile about it. Cut that shit out or get the fuck out.

PS: It's just unfathomable to me how they could've gotten the biggest bout of bad press over DRM with Spore in 2008, and continue to go even further in 2009/2010. It's gone from something fanatics froth at the mouth over (while everyone else just shrug and play the game), to something which almost everybody is going to be frothing at the mouth over, and how they can seriously consider that a great idea is beyond me.

[apocrypha]

PS: It's just unfathomable to me how they could've gotten the biggest bout of bad press over DRM with Spore in 2008, and continue to go even further in 2009/2010.

Because Spore made them lots of money. The only thing that has a chance of Ubi "seeing the light" regarding their DRM is if their games just stop selling because of it.

[AutomaticZen]

The DRM authentication servers were down for more than 10 hours today. Nobody with a legit copy was able to play.
What a trainwreck.

This one was tasty:

I have the same problem AND when I did briefly get back in to the game my save game was gone.
That is several hours of playing just gone !

Your online saves can go away due to errors?  Fabulous. At least they patched in the offline save.

EDIT:  Did their forums just go down?  EDIT2: And they're back.

[tgr]

EDIT:  Did their forums just go down?  EDIT2: And they're back.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/08/ubisoft-says-server-downtime-due-to-attacks/

I tried to quickly look for when I said I expected ubisoft's drm servers to be attacked to hell and back, but I couldn't find it off-hand, but I'm *not* surprised that they are attacked. They're a high-profile target with a high level of possible grief. Ubisoft has to have known this would happen.

Edit:

Ubisoft have told Eurogamer that yesterday’s DRM server outages were caused by external attacks, and that they did not affect 95% of players. “Servers were attacked and while the servers did not go down, service was limited from 2.30pm to 9pm Paris time,” they explained to the big EG. They also apologise to those who were affected by this, explaining that they represented only 5% of players. This adds a sense of scale to the statements made by the Ubisoft community manager yesterday. It also acts as a confirmation from Ubisoft that their new DRM system is vulnerable to DOS attacks, meaning they are unable to ensure customers can play their single-player games.

So the server didn't "go down", and they were only "unavailable to 5% of their customers"? So how to interpret this number? 95% of their games are sold on the console? They have multiple servers spread around the world, so only certain locations lose the ability to play games?

[HaemishM]

Frankly, I'd be surprised if there was a moment in the next month that the Ubisoft servers AREN'T under attack. A month should be sufficient time for the nerdrage to die down and something shiny and new to distract them.

But really, in this case, Ubi is getting what they deserve.

[Xuri]

To me their "did not affect 95% of players" statement seems to have a suspicious stench of bullshit surrounding it.

[kildorn]

To me their "did not affect 95% of players" statement seems to have a suspicious stench of bullshit surrounding it.

If you assume only 5% of the people in the world with computers bought their games, then 95% of (potential) players were not impacted!

[Hutch]

To me their "did not affect 95% of players" statement seems to have a suspicious stench of bullshit surrounding it.

If you assume only 5% of the people in the world with computers bought their games, then 95% of (potential) players were not impacted!

Those 95% aren't "potential" players, they're lost sales. The pirates stole those sales from Ubi.

[NiX]

Those 95% aren't "potential" players, they're lost sales. The pirates stole those sales from Ubi.

 

I'm sure I'm rehashing something you all have argued about before, but what's the difference between pirating the game and me borrowing my brothers copy of AC2 for PS3?

[KallDrexx]

Stolen from quarter to three forums

[tgr]

I'm sure I'm rehashing something you all have argued about before, but what's the difference between pirating the game and me borrowing my brothers copy of AC2 for PS3?

Your brother bought that copy, he's lending it to you. He's not able to play the game while you're playing it, thus there's no illegal copying going on, and no copyright infringement.