Ubisoft Details New Anti-Piracy Plan

[Andy Chalk]

Ubisoft Details New Anti-Piracy Plan

Ubisoft [http://www.ubisoft.com] has unveiled its plan to put a major dent in PC game piracy: Product activations, online authentication and saved games that will be stored remotely on Ubi.com servers.

It's not exactly DRM, at least not in the way we've grown accustomed to in recent years. In fact, Ubisoft intends to eliminate some of the most teeth-clenching annoyances of most current DRM schemes: There will be no disc checks and you won't end up with any kind of funky Starforce or SecuROM software installed on your PC. What you'll have to do instead is connect to the internet and your Ubi.com account whenever you want to play a Ubisoft game.

The planned scheme won't limit the number of times a game can be installed, according to Brent Wilkinson, the director of customer service and production planning at Ubisoft. "If you own 100 PCs, you can install your games on 100 PCs," he said. And players will have full access to their games virtually anywhere because saved games will be stored on Ubisoft servers, rather than an individual PC.

Wilkinson didn't sound too concerned about the possibility that PC gamers might not be happy about having to be connected to the internet full-time in order to play their games. "We think most people are going to be fine with it," he said. "Most people are always connected to an Internet connection."

That's a valid point. Ubisoft's planned system also bears a striking resemblance to Valve [http://store.steampowered.com/]. But it doesn't sound likely that Ubisoft will allow an offline mode similar to that available with Steam and perhaps even more importantly, the remote save system could be a big sticking point for a lot of gamers. Save files can grow to be pretty beefy in some games, which could be a real problem for dialup users, and if the Ubi servers happen to be down for a few hours your game will be effectively unavailable even if you're allowed to play without authentication.

There's still a lot of ground to cover and, one would assume, bugs to work out before the new online setup sees widespread adoption across Ubi's catalog. An early look at it is available through the FilePlanet [http://www.amazon.com/Settlers-7-Paths-Kingdom-Pc/dp/B00347BRU8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1279054250&sr=1-1].

Source: GameSpy [http://au.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-settlers-7-paths-to-a-kingdom/1063391p1.html]


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[Jared]

Well, as mentioned does bare a great resemblence to Steam...we just need to see how exactly they are going to work this out so it dosnt screw every PC player out of stuff

 

[Premonition]

Fighting against pirates, fine. But storing saved data on a remote server? That's just stupid. Then there's also the fact that not all gaming rigs have an internet connection, as some people want to protect their computer that way from viruses, so authenticating a game online is, once again, a bad idea.

Nice try, fellas. Better luck next time?

 

[Lenny Magic]

I don't own any Ubi games, but I really would have no quarrel with this :/

 

[Calhoun347]

Savegames on remote servers is BULLSHIT. How am i to play offline?

Online Authentication is nothing new, and that's not going to help at all,
Product activation is the same way.

This isn't going to work, and It's gonna piss off a lot of people.

Edit: Ubisoft is going to have lost more money, implementing and creating and maintaining this system then they will from piracy.

 

[WrongSprite]

Saving on a server?

You can actually fuck off Ubisoft.
How do I play offline?
What if the server is down?
etc etc.

The internet really is interfering way too much with games.

 

[Woodsey]

Nope nope.

Saved games stored solely on a server? Did I read that correctly?

What if their servers go down?

Why don't they just do the decent version, and make sure the pirated copy is faulty in some way (or several ways preferably) like the did with Arkham Asylum.

Pirates get around this sort of thing in 5 seconds. It won't work.

Seriously, if my internet goes down for a month for whatever reason then I think "well I can still play games at least", I won't bloody be able to.

My game, I keep the files.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Ugh, it's like they're trying to make people pirate their games. Fact is, those very pirates they're trying to prevent from doing their thing, are going to have a workaround for this in a couple of days, weeks at the latest. Maybe even before the game is released! This doesn't stop piracy, it just pisses off everyone who actually BOUGHT the game. Ya know, the customer.

 

[Scorp123]

no internet=no game=bullshit

 

[Byers]

No.

Back to your room, Ubisoft.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

I always had this problem with Steam that completely makes me hate this plan.

It was quite annoying that almost the entire time I had Steam I lost my connection to the Internet. Nowadays I only buy old games for the PC, because they're the only ones that work on my shite rig.

 

[Gunner_Guardian]

I dislike the idea of not being able to play offline.

Even steam has an "offline mode" option so you can play your games.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So what they're saying is: They're developing a new massively expensive activation system that works just like Steam, when they already sell on steam, that at most is going to up the time it take for a crack to come out from ten days to three weeks whislt at the same time denying everyone the chance to save and making them reliant on Ubisoft for their progress.
Begs the question what the fuck do you do when Ubisoft invariably pulls the plug on this service after two years.

As much as gamers like me insist PC gaming isn't dieing, the industry seems to be doing it's damndest to try and kill it. This is almost as pro piracy as an announcement can get without realising it.

If they aren't going to let me keep my own save, or play the game offline, I guess I have no choice but so source versions that do.


Edit: So that's Irrational and Ubisoft and EA off my buying list. At this rate I'll have buy a sodding 360.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

no internet=no game=bullshit

This.

And what if Anonymous or some other pretentious Internet hacker group decides to hijack the servers and delete everything?

Fuck you, Ubisoft.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Depends on the price for me, as well as the quality of the games. If the price is low enough then it will compensate for the fact that I have less control and access to the games. I'm normally connected to the internet through cable, a connection that is better than many have access to, and sometimes it is slow and occasionally it goes down. This could be really inconvenient even before I start thinking about things like the game not working any more when support dissipates. (I spell checked disappears, got dissipates and thought it was cooler even if it doesn't work properly. I'm tired and unhappy, leave me alone.)

 

[MurderousToaster]

These responses are AGNRY FAIC bordering on RAEG.

I do agree, however. The remote server save-system does have its ups and downs, the up being that you can load your progress on any PC with the game installed, the down being that if you're not connected to the 'net you're not able to do anything, and if your net is slow or Ubi's been DDoS'd or something it will take a long time to do anything.

Sounds like a pretty stupid idea to me, but hey, if Ubisoft want to commit corporate suicide, that's up to them.

 

[obisean]

It's a good move, but once again won't stop piracy. They will find the part of the game that says to save it on the FTP or whatever, and just change it to a location on your computer.

Steam is successful because you are able to play your games offline if you choose. Sure you have to be online to get it working, but you also have to be online to buy/download so the problem solves itself for the most part. This however, will be used for a box copy of a game.

What about people in the military, namely the ones on ships with gaming laptops? When my ship was underway the only games I could play were offline, is Ubisoft saying they hate the military? UBISOFT HATES THE MILITARY. /sarcasm. But really, it just screws people over to REQUIRE online authentication to play a game.

This is once again a service that will only aggravate legit buyers and will once again leave pirates in full control and happier. Sigh, game companies will never learn.

 

[Vaer]

Ahahahahha major dent in PC piracy, these people have a really great sense of humor, the only dent they will put is in their sales since this system will only actually affect the people that buy the game and not the pirates .. since they will play their cracked version without the need of an internet connection, pirates will still pirate no matter what protection they use, just take an example from EA and stop wasting money on protection.. this way you will actually have a bigger profit since 1. more people will buy because they won't worry about a crappy DRM and 2. you won't spend a huge amount of money on copy protection software.

Is it really that hard to grasp that no amount of protection will ever actually help ?

 

[uppitycracker]

I like this and hate it at the same time. One thing that drives me crazy about Steam is when I'm without internet for any period of time, I'm completely screwed on playing my single player games. Of course, this kinda DRM is way better than any of the other crap they're shoveling out... ugh, so conflicted. For the most part though, this is good.