Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down

[RicoADF]

I wonder if anyone will turn around and sue Ubisoft (probably someone in America) for failing to provide the service they have paid for. A game that you cant play after all, is a faulty product.

I doubt this will happen. Nobody sued Blizzard back in 2005 when the WoW servers went AWOL on launch day (and subsequent days, as a matter of fact).

True, but AC2 is a SP game which you wouldnt expect that to happen to, not to mention it only takes one person to try.

 

[Dublin Solo]

I wonder if anyone will turn around and sue Ubisoft (probably someone in America) for failing to provide the service they have paid for. A game that you cant play after all, is a faulty product.

I doubt this will happen. Nobody sued Blizzard back in 2005 when the WoW servers went AWOL on launch day (and subsequent days, as a matter of fact).

True, but AC2 is a SP game which you wouldnt expect that to happen to, not to mention it only takes one person to try.

Indeed. Then again, I'm pretty sure there's something in the Terms of Use somewhere about not being responsible for server failures. Knowing big corporations, I bet they have checked all the possible back doors!

 

[commasplice]

I wonder if anyone will turn around and sue Ubisoft (probably someone in America) for failing to provide the service they have paid for. A game that you cant play after all, is a faulty product.

I doubt this will happen. Nobody sued Blizzard back in 2005 when the WoW servers went AWOL on launch day (and subsequent days, as a matter of fact).

See

Well, this is interesting.

When three Texas gamers couldn't get online to play "Call of Duty 4" or "Halo 3" on their Xbox 360s last December, they decided to sue.

In a class-action lawsuit filed January 4, gamers Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith claim that they and millions of other Xbox Live users suffered damages in excess of $5 million.

Props to Farinhir over on the Ubisoft forums for providing the link.

 

[DeathQuaker]

Thats why I simply do not consider any Ubisoft published title to be a PC title, I have jumped through enough hoops regarding DRM, and will just simply allow my wallet to speak on my behalf.

Wont do much good though as the majority of PC gamers will roll over and play dead on command for thier publishing masters.

Have hope.

Enough people boycotted Spore, the PC version of Mass Effect, and the Sims 2 EPs with SecuROM that EA stopped using traditional SecuROM and activation limits. Note that the disc versions of Mass Effect 2 and The Sims 3 don't have activation limits and only have disc checks for their copy protection. (I think the download-only versions do have more than that, but I'm not sure as I never download games I can get on a disc.)

And Ubisoft should have looked at what EA went through before they tried to pull not only the same BS, but worse. The fact that they're simply so head-up-rear-end about this whole thing simply astonishes me.

Yes, there will always be suckers and apologists who will provide a base profit for certain games, especially big name ones, but protest with your wallet (and reasoned opinions, but those work less than money) and the corporate moneygrubbers will notice.

 

[Dublin Solo]

See

Well, this is interesting.

When three Texas gamers couldn't get online to play "Call of Duty 4" or "Halo 3" on their Xbox 360s last December, they decided to sue.

In a class-action lawsuit filed January 4, gamers Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith claim that they and millions of other Xbox Live users suffered damages in excess of $5 million.

Props to Farinhir over on the Ubisoft forums for providing the link.

[/quote]

Wow, I'm speechless, really. I'm pretty sure that got Microsoft's attention alright. Let's see how that goes for them.

 

[commasplice]

Wow, I'm speechless, really. I'm pretty sure that got Microsoft's attention alright. Let's see how that goes for them.

Never underestimate the audacity of a guy who knows a good lawyer.

 

[commasplice]

Oh boy, it's looking like the Ubisoft forums are down now, too. Is it just me?

Edit: Seems they're back up. Huh.

Edit II: And back down. Huh.

 

[Abedeus]

Oh boy, it's looking like the Ubisoft forums are down now, too. Is it just me?

Yep, they're down. Apparently, the servers were under an attack...

http://www.videogamer.com/news/ubisoft_confirms_server_attack.html

Ubisoft has revealed that the downtime of its DRM servers over the weekend was caused by an attack, making it difficult for gamers to play both Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 on PC.

"Apologies to anyone who couldn't play ACII or SH5 yesterday," said the publisher in a tweet. "Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30pm to 9pm Paris time."

Given the widespread negativity of Ubisoft's latest DRM policy - requiring users to authenticate the game over the internet - it wouldn't come as a surprise if the attack was orchestrated by members of the PC gaming community in protest.

 

[Sillyiggy]

I am pretty pleased with my DRM boycott now.

*dance*

 

[commasplice]

"Apologies to anyone who couldn't play ACII or SH5 yesterday," said the publisher in a tweet. "Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30pm to 9pm Paris time."

So, what, does that mean they fixed everything? Are the games playable again?

 

[Woodsey]

AHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

I knew it! I fucking knew it!

Idiots.

Petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ew15dl94&1

Yeah because online petitions always accomplish something.

Ooh I know next let's "boycott" ubisoft.

You're right, we should all just ignore it and do fuck-all. We might as well all get bum-fucked by some ridiculous system.

I highly doubt it'll work, but its more of an effort then I see you putting in.

 

[dochmbi]

It's just a little bit embarassing at this point.

Meanwhile, pirates (I assume) get to play their cracked version without issue. Nice job Ubisoft, really.

Not so. AC 2 hasn't been cracked yet, don't know how long it will take.

AC2 HAS been craccked, and has been for a few days now.

No it has not been cracked, so far there is only a half-assed crack which when combined with a save game file will allow you to run around but you can't do any missions.

 

[7ru7h]

Spoiler: long post snip

Devil's advocate:
Valve had a similar problem with their Steam service (which I hate beyond all human comprehension) and it's still extremely popular. Bioshock, I forget exactly what happened with it, but there was something going on that made the game unplayable for paying customers. Had to do with unlocking it or something.

XBLA, Steam, Ubisoft's authentication is nothing new. Yes, I realize that the former two are supposed to be more about digital distribution and not DRM, but I defer to that Bioshock incident as an example of how Ubisoft and Steam are not all that dissimilar in certain functions.

Frankly, I hate them all in ways I cannot possibly articulate, but if that's what people want, then who am I to argue?

From what I recall, Steam never actually went completely down. It was the download servers that had a huge amount of traffic, meaning it just took longer to download the games. Otherwise people were still able to play their games. I was lucky since I used the Steam beta and already had all my games transferred.

I also recall a feature to convert old HL1 games to Steam, anyways, don't compare a failure like this to Steam. Considering the fact that Steam started almost a decade ago, you can't say they didn't deal with their problems quickly. The only time Steam had problems afterwards was for Half-Life 2's release. Beyond that Steam has been perfectly stable during all major title releases.

I took the easy route and will paste from wikipedia because I'm not up to fishing for specific articles, but they were all over the internet when it happened. Juicier bits in bold.

The retail disk version of BioShock for Windows utilizes SecuROM copy protection software, and requires internet activation to complete installation. This was reportedly responsible for the cancellation of a midnight release in Australia on August 23, 2007, due to 2K Games servers being unavailable, as the game would be unplayable until they were back online. Through SecuROM, users were originally limited to two activations of the game. Users found that even if they uninstalled the game prior to reinstallation, they were still required to call SecuROM to re-activate the game. The issue was worsened by the fact that an incorrect telephone number had been included in the printed manual, as well as essentially forcing customers outside the United States to make expensive international calls to the U.S. In response, 2K Games and SecuROM increased the number of activations to five before requiring the user to call again. However, as no information had been provided by 2K on the existence of these measures prior to the game going on sale, or on the retail box of the game itself, many remain dissatisfied. Users also found that it was necessary to activate the game for each user on the same machine, which was criticized by some as an attempt to limit customers' fair use rights. 2K Games has denied that this was the intent of the limitation.

Two months after the initial release, 2K attempted to alleviate customer complaints by developing a special pre-uninstallation utility to refund activation slots to the user. This tool however does not address situations where the game has been installed on a PC which uses more than one user account as it only works once per PC (unlike activations which are counted per user-account), nor is it able to revoke an activation if the installation has become unusable, for example by hard disk failure, effectively rendering such activations permanently lost. 2K Games has specifically mentioned each of these issues in the revoke tool FAQ, and have stated that until software solutions are found for such situations they will handle any further requests for additional activations past the five-activation limit on a case-by-case basis."LOL" - Icehearted

As of June 19, 2008, 2K Games has removed the activation limit, allowing users to install the game an unlimited number of times. However online activation remains mandatory. The deactivation of the system was promised by Ken Levine in August, 2007, after retail sales of the PC version of the game were no longer an issue.

So at least it was mostly addressed, but it took a year. Again I make no bones about it, services like Steam, and this Ubisoft DRM aren't all too dissimilar to me. I hate them both, and want this "virtual ownership" crap to cease. Any system or console that resorts to these measures has not and will not see a dime from me when it's an exclusive part of their platform or DRM. As much as I hate XBLA and MS mojo-dollars, at least once I buy it I own it, no DRM jackass or anything of that sort. Still, I wish Castle Crashers and Braid came on a disc. I could physically own. I'm still playing Sega Genesis games for cying out loud, games made some 20 or so years ago. If anything happened to my HDD, I wonder if MS will still have their Xbox servers running with these games for re-download in 20 years.

I'm going to stop now, this post is obscenely long already.

Maybe it's because I'm thick or I'm somewhat sleep deprived (I'm betting that last one), but I don't see how any of that Bioshock stuff related to Steam.

As for Steam's "DRM" being similar to Ubi's, I really have to call shenanigans. First, because Steam's "DRM" is quite nice to the customer: you pay for the game, download it, then it phones home once, and you are done. Anything above that is the game's fault, not Steam's. Second, you can play offline, you just have to make sure you let the game phone home that first time, then restart in offline mode. Finally, the "virtual ownership crap" as you put it, really is not all that different with Steam than with a physical copy, the only difference is that for Steam you have to make the backup for yourself (and if you think you really OWN any game you've bought in the last 5+ years, you are fooling yourself).

I like that long post snip trick... gotta remember that

I have, in my hands, a copy of Mirror's edge for the PC, I also have Mass Effect 2, GTA4, hoo boy I have a lot of games, and they're on a physical disc, of which I actually own and can maintain of my own accord, without having to dial in anything, without having to get connected to a server, I just input a key, or put a disc in my console, and off I go. That's ownership of a tangible property.

Digital distro means you own squat. You pay for it, but they can deny you play at their leisure. I'm going to reach a bit (because it's late, and I'm way too tired to think good and hard of an example in gaming even if I know they're out there) and point to that Kindle fiasco where Amazon basically decided to reach out and delete a book people had paid for. Again, I know it's a reach, but the principal is the same. The complacency of 'you don't actually own the games you buy' is what permits this kind of thing Ubisoft and Steam have created to permeate the market much deeper than they should have.

I own a copy of God of War 2. No activation required, no negotiations, the game is mine to play and enjoy. The intellectual property may not be, but the game is. That's the line they're blurring, and I mean no offense when I say this, but statements like the one you've made prove they've been succeeding at blurring this line with their customers.


Again with the long post... sorry I'm verbose (though this is a topic that bothers me quite a bit), but the sleepier I get, the more long-winded I can become.

I never said that I agreed with the non-ownership of games, I just stated the fact that on any piece of software "buy" is merely rented. If you read the EULA on pretty much any software it states that you don't actually own it.

Anyway, I highly doubt that Steam would disable games games that users have paid for, since they are a much smaller company than Amazon, and probably wouldn't be able to navigate the shitstorm of bad PR. Hell, IIRC, even if your account becomes VAC banned they don't stop you from playing your games, you just can't play on VAC enabled servers.

As for owning the game more with a physical copy, that's debatable. Depending on the game, you'd have to have the game dial home to activate it, and if they shut down the game servers, you no longer own that game. You could use a crack or something to get past that since you do legally own the game, but what's to stop you from doing that with a game you backed up that you bought with Steam? I buy almost all of my games via Steam because of the convenience, but I back them up to DVDs so I don't have to waste my bandwidth. By your arguments, by backing up my game to a physical medium, I now own it since I can just copy back and play.

 

[MetalGenocide]

Convenient. Fast. Expected. Highly amusing. And puts a smile on your face. I know, it put one on mine.

Now, to put it in a picture.

Spoiler

 

[Denamic]

I'm totally surprised this happened.
No, really.

 

[Xanthious]

Soooo only about 8 hours from the US release and the game is still down. Oh boy this is getting REALLY interesting. Of course knowing Ubisoft they will just wait for a scene release and use the crack as a patch like they did a few years ago.

 

[shadow skill]

I think this [http://asset.soup.io/asset/0715/1183_0bd6_800.png] image says everything about DRM like this.

 

[Flour]

just like Hellgate: London.

IIRC, Hellgate still has a single player function. Can't imagine it has even half the content the online game had though.

 

[Icehearted]

Spoiler: long post snip

Devil's advocate:
Valve had a similar problem with their Steam service (which I hate beyond all human comprehension) and it's still extremely popular. Bioshock, I forget exactly what happened with it, but there was something going on that made the game unplayable for paying customers. Had to do with unlocking it or something.

XBLA, Steam, Ubisoft's authentication is nothing new. Yes, I realize that the former two are supposed to be more about digital distribution and not DRM, but I defer to that Bioshock incident as an example of how Ubisoft and Steam are not all that dissimilar in certain functions.

Frankly, I hate them all in ways I cannot possibly articulate, but if that's what people want, then who am I to argue?

From what I recall, Steam never actually went completely down. It was the download servers that had a huge amount of traffic, meaning it just took longer to download the games. Otherwise people were still able to play their games. I was lucky since I used the Steam beta and already had all my games transferred.

I also recall a feature to convert old HL1 games to Steam, anyways, don't compare a failure like this to Steam. Considering the fact that Steam started almost a decade ago, you can't say they didn't deal with their problems quickly. The only time Steam had problems afterwards was for Half-Life 2's release. Beyond that Steam has been perfectly stable during all major title releases.

I took the easy route and will paste from wikipedia because I'm not up to fishing for specific articles, but they were all over the internet when it happened. Juicier bits in bold.

The retail disk version of BioShock for Windows utilizes SecuROM copy protection software, and requires internet activation to complete installation. This was reportedly responsible for the cancellation of a midnight release in Australia on August 23, 2007, due to 2K Games servers being unavailable, as the game would be unplayable until they were back online. Through SecuROM, users were originally limited to two activations of the game. Users found that even if they uninstalled the game prior to reinstallation, they were still required to call SecuROM to re-activate the game. The issue was worsened by the fact that an incorrect telephone number had been included in the printed manual, as well as essentially forcing customers outside the United States to make expensive international calls to the U.S. In response, 2K Games and SecuROM increased the number of activations to five before requiring the user to call again. However, as no information had been provided by 2K on the existence of these measures prior to the game going on sale, or on the retail box of the game itself, many remain dissatisfied. Users also found that it was necessary to activate the game for each user on the same machine, which was criticized by some as an attempt to limit customers' fair use rights. 2K Games has denied that this was the intent of the limitation.

Two months after the initial release, 2K attempted to alleviate customer complaints by developing a special pre-uninstallation utility to refund activation slots to the user. This tool however does not address situations where the game has been installed on a PC which uses more than one user account as it only works once per PC (unlike activations which are counted per user-account), nor is it able to revoke an activation if the installation has become unusable, for example by hard disk failure, effectively rendering such activations permanently lost. 2K Games has specifically mentioned each of these issues in the revoke tool FAQ, and have stated that until software solutions are found for such situations they will handle any further requests for additional activations past the five-activation limit on a case-by-case basis."LOL" - Icehearted

As of June 19, 2008, 2K Games has removed the activation limit, allowing users to install the game an unlimited number of times. However online activation remains mandatory. The deactivation of the system was promised by Ken Levine in August, 2007, after retail sales of the PC version of the game were no longer an issue.

So at least it was mostly addressed, but it took a year. Again I make no bones about it, services like Steam, and this Ubisoft DRM aren't all too dissimilar to me. I hate them both, and want this "virtual ownership" crap to cease. Any system or console that resorts to these measures has not and will not see a dime from me when it's an exclusive part of their platform or DRM. As much as I hate XBLA and MS mojo-dollars, at least once I buy it I own it, no DRM jackass or anything of that sort. Still, I wish Castle Crashers and Braid came on a disc. I could physically own. I'm still playing Sega Genesis games for cying out loud, games made some 20 or so years ago. If anything happened to my HDD, I wonder if MS will still have their Xbox servers running with these games for re-download in 20 years.

I'm going to stop now, this post is obscenely long already.

Maybe it's because I'm thick or I'm somewhat sleep deprived (I'm betting that last one), but I don't see how any of that Bioshock stuff related to Steam.

As for Steam's "DRM" being similar to Ubi's, I really have to call shenanigans. First, because Steam's "DRM" is quite nice to the customer: you pay for the game, download it, then it phones home once, and you are done. Anything above that is the game's fault, not Steam's. Second, you can play offline, you just have to make sure you let the game phone home that first time, then restart in offline mode. Finally, the "virtual ownership crap" as you put it, really is not all that different with Steam than with a physical copy, the only difference is that for Steam you have to make the backup for yourself (and if you think you really OWN any game you've bought in the last 5+ years, you are fooling yourself).

I like that long post snip trick... gotta remember that

I have, in my hands, a copy of Mirror's edge for the PC, I also have Mass Effect 2, GTA4, hoo boy I have a lot of games, and they're on a physical disc, of which I actually own and can maintain of my own accord, without having to dial in anything, without having to get connected to a server, I just input a key, or put a disc in my console, and off I go. That's ownership of a tangible property.

Digital distro means you own squat. You pay for it, but they can deny you play at their leisure. I'm going to reach a bit (because it's late, and I'm way too tired to think good and hard of an example in gaming even if I know they're out there) and point to that Kindle fiasco where Amazon basically decided to reach out and delete a book people had paid for. Again, I know it's a reach, but the principal is the same. The complacency of 'you don't actually own the games you buy' is what permits this kind of thing Ubisoft and Steam have created to permeate the market much deeper than they should have.

I own a copy of God of War 2. No activation required, no negotiations, the game is mine to play and enjoy. The intellectual property may not be, but the game is. That's the line they're blurring, and I mean no offense when I say this, but statements like the one you've made prove they've been succeeding at blurring this line with their customers.


Again with the long post... sorry I'm verbose (though this is a topic that bothers me quite a bit), but the sleepier I get, the more long-winded I can become.

I never said that I agreed with the non-ownership of games, I just stated the fact that on any piece of software "buy" is merely rented. If you read the EULA on pretty much any software it states that you don't actually own it.

Anyway, I highly doubt that Steam would disable games games that users have paid for, since they are a much smaller company than Amazon, and probably wouldn't be able to navigate the shitstorm of bad PR. Hell, IIRC, even if your account becomes VAC banned they don't stop you from playing your games, you just can't play on VAC enabled servers.

As for owning the game more with a physical copy, that's debatable. Depending on the game, you'd have to have the game dial home to activate it, and if they shut down the game servers, you no longer own that game. You could use a crack or something to get past that since you do legally own the game, but what's to stop you from doing that with a game you backed up that you bought with Steam? I buy almost all of my games via Steam because of the convenience, but I back them up to DVDs so I don't have to waste my bandwidth. By your arguments, by backing up my game to a physical medium, I now own it since I can just copy back and play.

Again, this is that consumer complacency that worries me. By this logic, I don't own anything. I didn't design my clothes, that belongs to the company's design team. I don't own my bottle of Coke, the formula and bottle were designed by the Coca Cola company. My tooth paste, bed, sliced provolone, money... where does it stop?

The only business that really uses such brainwashing (no offense intended) on their customers most is software, though the entertainment business as a whole's been trying to pull this crap for years now too (OMG you heard a song on someone's radio as they passed by in a car, you awful awful thief!!!).

That's my point. As I see it, I paid for it, it is a property that exists in a physically tangible means and can ergo be stolen. Let's say you went brick and mortar and bought God of War 3 and as you take it home someone races by you and yanks the game from your hands, disappearing before you know what hit you. Did they just steal from Sony or from you?

My logic is based on that, and not on the idea that nothing I buy is mine. I have an extensive library of games, most of which I own physically. If they were ever stolen, I doubt I'd be pissed because my 'rentals' were taken. I'd be pissed because the games I own were taken.

I feel like I'm harping now, my apologies for that.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

AHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

I knew it! I fucking knew it!

Idiots.

Petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ew15dl94&1

Yeah because online petitions always accomplish something.

Ooh I know next let's "boycott" ubisoft.

You're right, we should all just ignore it and do fuck-all. We might as well all get bum-fucked by some ridiculous system.

I highly doubt it'll work, but its more of an effort then I see you putting in.

Fair enough, but I also see the absolute futility in trying to change a ridiculous system by signing some paper. I'm just the type of person that would rather do nothing and move on than do something pointless and get angry. Besides the effort I'm putting in is not buying their DRM stuff. Not in an effort to end DRM or anything, but just because I'm not gonna waste my money.
But do what you will if you must. Call me when the petition ends DRM.