[iNvid02]

Update:

From the original Guru3d article cited by RPS. When contacting Ubisoft marketing here in the Netherlands, their reply goes like this: 'Sorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to 3 hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that. We also do not have 7 copies of the game for you'. I'm sorry, but I am not about to purchase the title seven times to make a review that by default benefits Ubisoft sales. Welcome to PC gaming Anno 2012. Please find the results of our massive VGA performance review below on the one chart. With one hand in the air I wave to Ubisoft, more puzzled about this then anything. What do you think ? Update monday Jan 16 - 2012: We have been contacted by bluebyte over the weekend, the company that developed the Anno series. Our key has been pretty much unlocked allowing us to properly work on this article. To be continued .... Wish there was a way to support Bluebyte without giving a dime to Ubi..

Original:

Ubisoft have managed to go a month or so without anyone loudly throwing their hands in the air and despairing at their DRM ways. They’ll be relieved to know the drought is over, with tech wizards Guru3D discovering that Ubisoft’s limited activations of their games are not just limited to specific machines, but specific graphics cards. Tying activations to hardware is not that unusual. Windows does the same. Much like a boat that’s had every plank of wood replaced, it’s a question for philosophers whether a PC with its guts exchanged is still the same PC, and you can’t really license a product to a case. If you change enough of your machine’s insides, Windows will eventually speak up and ask if something’s up. But Ubisoft’s Anno 2070 will refuse to reinstall if you just swap out something as simple as a graphics card. That’s what Guru3D discovered when trying to run some benchmarking tests on the game, across three of their machines. Knowing the game had only three activations (a pretty controversial practice in itself), they kept it to a trio of boxes, and then switched cards. And the game stopped working. And refused to activate. They then contacted Ubisoft (this was four days ago) as instructed, but have had no reply. To me this sounds more like a bug in their activation code than a defining principle of their anti-piracy measures. But then, this is Ubisoft whose DRM has previously outdone even the most outlandish parodies of the ineffective customer-baiting nonsense. We’ve got in touch with them to find out if it’s meant to be happening, and if they plan to fix it so people can change basic hardware without losing the right to play their games.

rps

[ClovingWestbrook]

People still buy Ubi PC titles?

[StoppedInTracks]

How about Ubisoft just drops out of PC space altogether.

[Polk]

This is beyond stupid.

I wonder if it also counts adding new hdd or ram as new "hardware".

[Omiee]

How about Ubisoft just drops out of PC space altogether.

Are you kidding me i looooooooove revelations in max in pc

[iNvid02]

People still buy Ubi PC titles?

im not playing games i love in an inferior way because their drm sucks, just like im not
gonna stop buying ea games because they're exclusive to origin.

what ubi are doing is terrible, they just make bad decision after bad decision and
when it fails they do a u-turn, only to make another bad move a little while later.

but its not enough for me to revert back to ps3, once you taste maxed out pc
gaming its hard to go back to consoles

[Scum]

Such eloborate ways just to get out of making PC games. Give it up already, Ubisoft.

[kitch9]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall of Ubisofts board meetings.

I've got visions of hand banging happy clappers all banging the table to the tune of The Yellow Submarine.

[KingJ2002]

looks like DRM is killing PC gaming... reading stuff like this just makes me want to avoid PC gaming in it's entirety.

[alr1ght]

im not playing games i love in an inferior way because their drm sucks, just like im not gonna stop buying ea games because they're exclusive to origin. what ubi are doing is terrible, they just make bad decision after bad decision and when it fails they do a u-turn, only to make another bad move a little while later. but its not enough for me to revert back to ps3, once you taste maxed out pc gaming its hard to go back to consoles

so basically you'll take whatever they give you.

[SatelliteOfLove]

Pirates: *laughs*

[iNvid02]

so basically you'll take whatever they give you.

up to a point yeah, until i feel like they've screwed me so hard the next
time they try it i'll bleed - thats when i'll stop buying ubisoft games altogether.

shitty customer service and some server downtime is not enough

[Gully State]

looks like DRM is killing PC gaming... reading stuff like this just makes me want to avoid PC gaming in it's entirety.

Ubishit isn't even lose to representing the vast majority of the PC gaming landscape.

[SteelAttack]

Wow, that's pretty shit if true (I mean, if it's actually DRM designed to work like this).

[sixteen-bit]

That's awful.

[shuri]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall of Ubisofts board meetings. I've got visions of hand banging happy clappers all banging the table to the tune of The Yellow Submarine.

We lost many gaffers who died trying to bring us this exclusive footage of meeting at Ubisoft Paris. Watch it before they take it down

[shagg_187]

So you're saying that when I upgraded my Graphics Card, I lost activation key?

[Rapstah]

How fucking ridicolous. It's not enough that they're making sure any one license can only be used once at any given time, because you have to be logged into their service and online?

[Ziltoid]

Clearly the Guru3D guy made a mistake and bought the Anno 2070 OEM version.

[Weenerz]

People that support Ubisoft for PC gaming deserve this. They are shit and do not deserve money.

[Suikoguy]

Any game that does this, and does not increase activations over time, is bullshit, it should be called a "rental" instead.

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

I don't see how someone can complain about how games don't sell on PC, then does things like this. Seems like a self fulfilling prophecy to me.

[Aeana]

People that support Ubisoft for PC gaming deserve this. They are shit and do not deserve money.

Well, perhaps they don't look at it the way you do. Perhaps they look at it as "playing a game I'm interested in on PC" instead of "supporting a company."

[Gully State]

From the original Guru3d article cited by RPS.

When contacting Ubisoft marketing here in the Netherlands, their reply goes like this: 'Sorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to 3 hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that. We also do not have 7 copies of the game for you'. I'm sorry, but I am not about to purchase the title seven times to make a review that by default benefits Ubisoft sales. Welcome to PC gaming Anno 2012. Please find the results of our massive VGA performance review below on the one chart. With one hand in the air I wave to Ubisoft, more puzzled about this then anything. What do you think ? Update monday Jan 16 - 2012: We have been contacted by bluebyte over the weekend, the company that developed the Anno series. Our key has been pretty much unlocked allowing us to properly work on this article. To be continued ....

Wish there was a way to support Bluebyte without giving a dime to Ubi..

[Puppet Shadow]

Well, perhaps they don't look at it the way you do. Perhaps they look at it as "playing a game I'm interested in on PC" instead of "supporting a company."

Would you buy a game knowing that when you update your video card you can no longer install it?

[butter_stick]

When contacting Ubisoft marketing here in the Netherlands, their reply goes like this: 'Sorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to 3 hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that. We also do not have 7 copies of the game for you'.

WOOOOOOOOOOOW

[Haunted]

Terrible, just terrible.

From the original Guru3d article cited by RPS. Wish there was a way to support Bluebyte without giving a dime to Ubi..

Bad publisher reflecting back on the developer. :( Bluebyte are good people.

[teh_pwn]

This would be like if you had 2 consoles or brought the game over to your friends house and it wouldn't launch because it's a different console.

What dumbfucks. They have no idea what their customers are.

[MTMBStudios]

Our games are selling bad!

Blame piracy and make horrible (worthless) DRM and (sometimes) shit ports.

Our games are selling worse!

???

[2San]

Bad publisher reflecting back on the developer. :( Bluebyte are good people.

I'm guessing they had a hard time finding other publishers. Being a PC dev signing with Ubi, must be a though decision to make.

[subversus]

is it TAGES? My activations for Riddick dissapeared when I changed RAM and CPU and I ended up being locked out of the game for a month.

as for Ubi... I've read a funny comparison on Twitter about them from a person who had been in the industry for 15 years or so. What they do is sort of ridiculous. It's like you have a cafe and then people stop going there. You still have some visitors and you are able to meed your ends but instead of courting these remaining people you stop cleaning, you stop buying good ingredients for food, your have shorter hours and so on.

[VALIS]

GAFs Origin fears = Unfounded and over the top.
This = Legit, serious bullshit.

[subversus]

Would you buy a game knowing that when you update your video card you can no longer install it?

If I knew this I would uninstall the game and then install a video card. But as this shit is ridiculous I wouldn't even think about such possibility as I didn't think in case of Riddick.

[subversus]

GAFs Origin fears = Unfounded and over the top. This = Legit, serious bullshit.

it's only a matter of time when EA does shit like this. I mean they removed some weapons which people bought in BF: play4free and didn't offer any refunds.

[Gully State]

If I knew this I would uninstall the game and then install a video card. But as this shit is ridiculous I wouldn't even think about such possibility as I didn't think in case of Riddick.

I don't think you get activations back by uninstalling in this case..

[MTMBStudios]

The fact that they said 'We also do not have 7 copies of the game for you' just makes me think that Ubisoft thinks about PC gaming in a way different from every other human on the earth. What a malicious way of thinking about a product your customer bought.

[Reuenthal]

Ubisoft deserves to fail.

[Lostconfused]

GAFs Origin fears = Unfounded and over the top.

Origin's implementation is still shit. So having to put up with it's sub-par services is a negative.

[Jintor]

Wow, Ubisoft (as distinct from BlueByte) need to stop doing marketting.

[Gully State]

GAFs Origin fears = Unfounded and over the top. This = Legit, serious bullshit.

Linking your forum privileges to your game access privileges is pretty bad..

[subversus]

I don't think you get activations back by uninstalling in this case..

this can't be true. Activations are always reverted when you uninstall the game.

[LiquidMetal14]

Sorry AC fans, this is not worth supporting the company over. At least not on PC. Going to buy Rayman on Vita but it still leaves a bad taste supporting a company that has this stringent a DRM in place to begin with.

[Haunted]

I'm guessing they had a hard time finding other publishers. Being a PC dev signing with Ubi, must be a though decision to make.

They have a long-standing relationship with Ubi, iirc. I remember Jimmy Connor's Tennis for SNES being published by Ubisoft.

edit: oh wow, I didn't know. They were actually purchased by Ubisoft 10 years ago.

[Josh7289]

That's a pretty disgusting way to treat someone who's given you money.

[[Nintex]]

Ubisoft's Dutch arm is quite... 'interesting' to look into to say the least.

[CecilRousso]

I can to some extent understand companies using DRM to try to battle day 0 piracy, but I would really like to see some kind of proof that limited activations like this has any effect whatsoever when the game has been craccked and released.

[Biggzy]

So they are targeting the thing that pc players upgrade the most. Yep its bullshit.

[Gully State]

this can't be true. Activations are always reverted when you uninstall the game.

I thought that was the big deal with tages,x number of activations withou ability to revoke..

[Cromulent_Word]

Bad publisher reflecting back on the developer. :( Bluebyte are good people.

I'm guessing they had a hard time finding other publishers. Being a PC dev signing with Ubi, must be a though decision to make.

Just FYI, Ubi owns Blue Byte and has for, like, 10 years

[subversus]

I thought that was the big deal with tages,x number of activations withou ability to revoke..

no, you can deactivate tages afaik.