Ubisoft vs. Ubisoft's Customers

[draythefingerless]

I miss FADE...yes, I am actually advocating DRM here (the lesser of two evils)

FADE is probably the biggest success in DRM history as it has NEVER been successfully in its entire 11 year history. Yes, 11 YEARS! And, contrary to popular belief, Bohemia Interactive, NOT Codemasters, created this ingenious system. Yes, the original FADE was invented by Macrovision, but BIS has since modified it so much that you can hardly call it Macrovision's product.

The DRM system works in three parts, a CD-KEY checker, a Hash Checker, and the executable itself where the two merge and that also works as a disk checker.

The CD-KEY checker checks the CD-KEY(shut-up!) for accuracy. It runs it against CD-KEY check algorithm for the given region creating two forms defense. First, you must be using a valid CD-KEY and second, it has to be for the appropriate region. So, no running off to Serials(no, I will not include the whole domain name) and grabbing yourself a set of German CD-KEYs if you live in the States...

Now, the CD-KEY checker CAN be spoofed...but that is what the Hash Checker is for. The Hash Checker hashes all relevant DRM bits of the game code and creates a hash table, and then compares it against the known-good hash table. If it's off, even slightly, it triggers FADE. And, if one attempts to modify the hash checker, you run the risk of breaking it, or tripping the FADE trigger in the .EXE

So, if you modify any one or two parts, the 3rd will get you. This system has proven so successful, that no crack group, has ever managed to crack it.

11 years, one full decade of uncompromised protection, and it's one of the least intrusive DRM schemes ever made! Just type in your CD-KEY and you are good to go. No online activation, no spyware, just a God damned CD-KEY check and disk check just like 15 years ago!




For more reading on FADE....

Whoops, can link ya there....

Hmm, and DRMwatch seems to have gone the way of the dodo....

And of course the wiki article is crap....

uhm...sorry to bust your balls, but FADE has been surpassed. Ive seen the Overlord games cracked, as well as Operation Flashpoint. both of which used FADE...so...sorry?

No, I'm sorry to be busting your balls...

Overlord uses just the disk check system that Macrovision pioneered and shares little in common with the BIS version of FADE.

There is not a single crack for OFP, Arma or Arma 2 that does NOT trigger fade. They deactivate the disk check sure. But, they leave the hash check and CD-KEY check intact. What's more, the game actually knows you are using a cracked .EXE and will taunt you for it, even going so far as to turn you into a seagull during the middle of gameplay!

The ONLY reason why pirated versions of Arma and Arma 2 are playable now is because BIS decided to remove the disk check, which removes the necessity of using a crack to get the game started.

hmmm, ive never played Arma Arma 2, and i certainly wouldnt have played it pirated, so i dont know how that shit went down... remains to be seen if they removed it cause it got cracked or vice versa. still, in the end,there are Arma and Arma 2(these are the most recentgames) pirated copies floating around that work just fine so...still a fail in my book.

Oh and another thing. dont say that FADE has been around for 11 years if youre gona use its triple check system as the defense. thats a new edition of it, and that has definitly not been around for 11 years. the gameplay degradation has(wich is hilarious DRM). To my knowledge, the hash and disck check were only added when the ARMA gmes came out.
in another note, another security measure(althou not for DRM) that i like that lately came out is Steam Guard.

 

[ph0b0s123]

-snip-

Too much to respond to completely, so I will try and respond to the main points in your post.

"Why would you dump that much money, and that much work into something, just to toss it post release?"

Because it makes the actual game less desirable than a pirate copy, once pirate copies are available. Is it right that people get the pirate copy, no. That does not change the fact that people would prefer to get a free copy that they can use without being booted off if their Internet connection is rubbish.

"Yes, yes they should. If a couple of people get copies of the game, that's lost revenue."

You are a crazy company if you cannot take even one person having a free copy of your game. You cannot 100% stop piracy, never have in the past, never will in the future. If you are poring resources into stopping just this level of piracy while the game is being copied around the Internet when cracked you are idiots.

"It's lost money, and you don't go into business, or invest in a business to lose money."

No, but you build in the fact that you will have losses in production, transport etc and theft of your product. And to my knowledge none of the most pirated games have resulted in games companies losing money, they just have not made as much profit as they think / hope they can make.

I am not going to get into a debate on how much piracy is equal to an actual lost sale, as you look to have already made up your mind. Since there is hardly any evidence out there on this it is pretty much a 'matter of faith' for most people and until there is actual evidence, it is pointless debating it. Even all the industry can say is that piracy cost them sales, but even they cannot workout how many sales it has lost them and therefore the damage it has done to them (apart from the crazy figures that pull out of their butt all the time). Saying piracy cost sales is just as true if you lost 1% of your sales to piracy, as it is for if you lost 90%. You can argue that even 1% is too much, but every game ever released has had at least this much piracy without the games companies falling into the toilet, or making a song and dance about it until the Internet came along.

Your point about Crysis which I believe was actually Crysis 2 with the leak before launch, was not good as the reality was that everyone knew the leak was an alpha. Also the reports were that people showed a lot of self control and did not pirate the leak as much as feared (http://torrentfreak.com/crysis-2-leak-fails-to-result-in-massive-download-fest-110213/). That it was pirated after the release or did not having as many sales as expected, has not much to do with the leak, but to do with it only having DX 9 at launch (and no options). I certainly did not buy it until the DX 11 patch came out (which meant I paid less than the release price) and I was a big Crysis fan, buying a new PC mainly for the requirements second game might need...

And the idea that most of the people who complain about DRM are pirates is stupid. Pirates don't have to deal with DRM, that's the point. Your anecdote about Mass Effect does not change this fact, just that the people who cracked Mass effect did a bad job of it, it was a one off. For every other cracked game the pirates don;t care about DRM as they don't see it. Hence why it is counter productive.

I complain about Ubisoft's DRM because I am a legitimate customer who has had to go through their DRM. I don't pirate and don't support it. I am fed up of being punished for something I am not doing. The best / worst case was HAWX 2 where I finally got to the end of a very difficult mission for the first time, in many attempts, and just before saving that I had finished, the game stops and tells me it cannot connect to the server. After about 10 seconds it sees the server again, but instead of putting my back where I was, it starts the mission again. In amongst the expletives going through my head, I did ask myself at that point 'why did I buy rather than pirate this again?'. This was 9 month after the game had come out when everyone who was going to pirate had already done so, but my game was still stuck in 'must stop piracy' mode rather 'thanks for purchasing' mode....

 

[BeerTent]

[...]Because it makes the actual game less desirable than a pirate copy, once pirate copies are available. Is it right that people get the pirate copy, no. That does not change the fact that people would prefer to get a free copy that they can use without being booted off if their Internet connection is rubbish.[...]

From their perspective though, it's the many vs the few situation. Piss off one Cx for every 10,000 that's happy? Or make everyone happy, and just put your game out on a string for anyone to take?

The latter is not very appealing.

[...]You are a crazy company if you cannot take even one person having a free copy of your game. You cannot 100% stop piracy, never have in the past, never will in the future. If you are poring resources into stopping just this level of piracy while the game is being copied around the Internet when cracked you are idiots.[...]

And all companies are clinically insane. Even out of the gate, DRM still works. Case in point, my roommate, who couldn't get around the simplest of security measures to save his life. They'll never get to stop it 100%, but again, which sounds nicer? Stopping it 90%? or spending money to drop that number back down to 0%?

[...]No, but you build in the fact that you will have losses in production, transport etc and theft of your product. And to my knowledge none of the most pirated games have resulted in games companies losing money, they just have not made as much profit as they think / hope they can make.[...]

This is what I mean in lost money.You have 5 products selling at $10 each? And one gets stolen. If that didn't get stolen, you'd have been $10 richer if they all got sold. That's $10 lost. Gone, never to be seen again. Ignore the cost to make, or purchase the product from the Manuf. You still lost $10 from your tiny business. If we look at more expensive product's, or a torrent link for a cheaper product, again, it's lost money. I agree that Piracy will never drop someone in the red, but they won't go as far up in the black.

Aside, it's not something you'd ever want to admit, that you lost money after coming out of the production stage. We're both going on speculation on this one.

As for the other tidbits, as I also think you got a good idea with going point by point, and it's a bit of a pain to cut out and point at different parts with quote tags.

"I am not going to get into a debate on how much piracy is equal to an actual lost sale, as you look to have already made up your mind."

It kind of is, and keep in mind, I'm skittering around Escapist's rules by admitting this, but for someone like me, who has a few friends who ask "What games are good?" ETC. My opinion, and my EXHDD speak for roughly 20 people. If your game is below par, that's 20 people lost back then. If the game had an easily accessed Multiplayer, again, potential 20 sales lost.

Now, not every single pirated copy speaks for 20 people. I could say it's from 1 to 20 people who may or may not have bought the game. Again though, speculation.

"You can argue that even 1% is too much, but every game ever released has had at least this much piracy without the games companies falling into the toilet, or making a song and dance about it until the Internet came along."

Back when I was a kid, it was actually pretty tough to come across games that were copied. A copied Floppy went around to 4 elementary school tech savvy kids. 15 teenagers, and if you were older, you probably didn't give a fuck because you have disposable income. (And you had to buy one copy yourself.) A torrent? There's a good reason why we're screechin' about them when it reads "35,000 seeds." And that's 1 or 2 bought copies.

"Your point about Crysis which I believe was actually Crysis 2 with the leak before launch[...] [TENT IS WRONG!]"

Perhaps I was thinking of another game. Thanks for your time for looking into this better than me.

"And the idea that most of the people who complain about DRM are pirates is stupid. Pirates don't have to deal with DRM, that's the point."

Oh, no... They still have to get around it. Assassin's Creed 2 for example. (I liked it, so I bought it.) Requires you to host your own auth server and modify your Hosts file, which is a bit of a security risk. Trust me when I say that's a lot of work and resources. Especially on a 7yr. old machine.

I know I'm bouncing back and forth, saying that any idiot could get their cracked copy, but then saying that piracy aint easy. I should have said that it depends on the game. Some games, which just use CD-Key auth, and mostly single-player experiences, or just require a CD in my non-existant Disk Drive are easy as fuck. Some games though, like AC2, ANNO, mostly Ubisoft titles and VALVe titles (Because of their multiplay only game design) are just downright impossible to effectively pirate. Wheras games like, or, Bastion and Minecraft(own both as Xmas presents.) are sort of a joke when it comes to the cracker's table.

I will state that your experience with HAWX is not unjustified though, and while I can't say either or, I'm willing to bet poor server management is to blame. If you are going to run an auth server, it needs to be up 24/7. And it can't take a second downtime, no matter the cost. I can't say anything for UK internet connections, but if it's as atrocious as the US's net, or even as bad as ours in Canada. I agree that Ubi should return to the drawing table for it's DRM.

My core point in all of this though, is that there is a reason why software companies look to these people and say "Hey, there's a reason why we're paying you to include this in our software." If DRM is as big of a problem to legitimate customers as you say it is, if it's so pointless and aggressive, and really does piss off more than just PC gamers with entitlement issues and would-be-pirates. (Again, not directed as you, this IS a problem for PC gaming.) then they wouldn't have put the money into it. This isn't cheap. You don't staple a note to the side of your box and call it DRM. This is a serious fucking investment. It works, and it doesn't work. Make sense?

 

[luckshot]

I complain about Ubisoft's DRM because I am a legitimate customer who has had to go through their DRM. I don't pirate and don't support it. I am fed up of being punished for something I am not doing. The best / worst case was HAWX 2 where I finally got to the end of a very difficult mission for the first time, in many attempts, and just before saving that I had finished, the game stops and tells me it cannot connect to the server. After about 10 seconds it sees the server again, but instead of putting my back where I was, it starts the mission again. In amongst the expletives going through my head, I did ask myself at that point 'why did I buy rather than pirate this again?'. This was 9 month after the game had come out when everyone who was going to pirate had already done so, but my game was still stuck in 'must stop piracy' mode rather 'thanks for purchasing' mode....

this entirely and completely rounds up every stray objection i have to heavy levels of DRM (i do use steam a lot and am mostly comfortable with it) and why i missed out on some games from ubi i was looking forward too and part of it is even though i have a high speed connection every once in a while i have to reset the modem after i lose connection thus making the games distasteful on other than principle

 

[ResonanceSD]

All they have to do is release their games on Steam with some Team Fortress 2 items. That's all it fuckin' takes Ubisoft!

They did that with Assassins Creed: R. The fact that the game itself was a boring reskin of AC:B, which itself was a reskin of AC:2 didn't really help.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Sharp_Dresser

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Dashin%27_Hashshashin

It's kind of scary when you think about it. More and more publishers are treating us consumers like we're renting the game instead of buying it. You don't rent movies, books, and cd's for full price, do you?

You're aware that you don't actually own any games you may have on Steam right? You've essentially leased a CD-Key from valve.

 

[Sylveria]

I'm still baffled that people buy Ubisoft games on PC.. or anywhere at all. Their "Hey paying customer, screw you!" position has been cemented for a long time.

Beyond that, the company just seems bitchy. They're always complaining about how someone is screwing them over.

 

[infohippie]

This is exactly why the last Ubisoft game I bought was Assassin's Creed. The first one. Once I heard about their new always-online DRM plan, when it was still new, I decided then and there I was never going to buy another Ubisoft game until they stopped this bullshit. I'm proud to say I have stuck to this decision. Ubisoft will not receive another cent from me, on any platform, until they abandon their shitty DRM.

i know soooo many people who just go to a guy and pay him 30 bucks to chip their consoles. so. many. people. chipping is practically a business.

Some computer stores here in Australia advertise this service on banners out the front of the store. The legality of such a service has been challenged in the courts here and been declared legal.

 

[vxicepickxv]

*sigh* Ubithoff... [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/7265-Stolen-Pixels-175-Ubisoft]

You know, sometimes when I'm feeling a little tinfoil-hatty, I can't help but think that this DRM isn't about piracy, or used sales, or anything like that. It's about control. Controlling the customer. Or if not that, than their products. To what end? I don't know. But considering how many companies seem to LOVE forcing in DRM programs to monitor your computer to make sure you're not doing something they don't like, it doesn't sound too far fetched.

Or, perhaps they're just incompetent.

Neither option is particularly appealing...

When given the choice between maleficence and idiocy, Occam's Razor dictated that idiocy is the simpler of the two answers.

 

[Weaver]

It just makes me sad cause I really like the Anno series

 

[SandroTheMaster]

Hmm... the servers also check for the Always Online DRM games.

Like The Settlers 7, Heroes VI, and so on.

So it is not that little information.

Sure, it only makes things worse. They set-up servers that need to function 24/7 checking every second if every single copy of all those games are connected, and thus, are being properly used.

Just to make sure the people playing it aren't pirates.

Because pirates wouldn't connect to the certification servers to begin with.

How much does it cost again to keep this up?

The stupid makes my head hurt...

 

[masticina]

.. the old hold on to what they once felt to be forever. The tower in tarot though teaches us that every tower no matter how good build can fall.

And so shall it fall with those who blindly believed in its strength. The old King shall fall.. the new leader shall arise from past the Hermits teachings.

In short.. yes they are being stupid. Because they fear a future