Support NeoGAF

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

In 2010 Ubisoft unveiled a brand-new form of DRM for Windows PC Gaming that would require single player games to connect to an authentication server to check for the existence of an internet connection. This DRM was known as Ubisoft DRM, these days is commonly known as "Always Online DRM". In today's episode we take a closer look at the origins of Ubisoft DRM, its customer reaction, how it was easily defeated by scene cracking groups, and the legacy that it left behind in the video game industry.

 

[MMaRsu]

Ubisoft has always been trash in this regard, their newest games use Denuvo on top of their own DRM

 

[winjer]

Nothing like paying for a game and having to use a crack, just to be able to play it. The wonders of DRM.

 

[Silver Wattle]

I almost bought anno 1800 a few days ago, but there are recent comments about the Ubisoft DRM causing issues.
Ubisoft suck.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

PC gaming during the mid to late 00s was truly the dark ages. Just look at this shit.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I can understand why game studios want DRM. Hey, which company wants their games pirated? And let's face it, everyone knows zero DRM means copies. Anyone who claims "I've never pirated games or music. And it makes no difference because I was never going to buy that game anyway so they didn't lose anything" is a liar.

However, instead always on Duneuvo sucking up power, cant studios just do what Diablo does? Doesn't diablo require server checks because the game's items are generated server side so gamers cant pirate the game without the entire item generation feature fucking up?

So cant studios do something similar where there's something important that is only server side? But the rest of the game can run fine without Deneuvo kinds of stuff on your PC?

 

[MMaRsu]

I can understand why game studios want DRM. Hey, which company wants their games pirated? And let's face it, everyone knows zero DRM means copies. Anyone who claims "I've never pirated games or music. And it makes no difference because I was never going to buy that game anyway so they didn't lose anything" is a liar.

However, instead always on Duneuvo sucking up power, cant studios just do what Diablo does? Doesn't diablo require server checks because the game's items are generated server side so gamers cant pirate the game without the entire item generation feature fucking up?

So cant studios do something similar where there's something important that is only server side? But the rest of the game can run fine without Deneuvo kinds of stuff on your PC?

Piracy increases sales.

Diablo being online only is a horrible thing for consumers. There is 0 need for it to be online only.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/diablo-4-is-under-a-ddos-attack-blizzard-we-continue-to-actively-monitor-an-ongoing-ddos-attack-which-is-affecting-latency-connections-to-our-game.1658187/page-2#post-268114826

Online only is just as trash as DRM for paying consumers.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Piracy increases sales.

Diablo being online only is a horrible thing for consumers. There is 0 need for it to be online only.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/diablo-4-is-under-a-ddos-attack-blizzard-we-continue-to-actively-monitor-an-ongoing-ddos-attack-which-is-affecting-latency-connections-to-our-game.1658187/page-2#post-268114826

If piracy increased sales, no game company would be doing DRM.

It's no different than theft at stores. The ones with security guards and beeping sensor alarms are for stores where theft is an issue. High theft stores will also have more stuff behind locked glass cases or behind the counter. The ones that don't have shoplifting issues have zero security guards, front door sensors, or other theft deterrent.

 

[MMaRsu]

If piracy increased sales, no game company would be doing DRM.

Yeah The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring sold like shit on PC

(no DRM on those games)

People who pirate games, find themselves loving a game, they will buy it more times than not.

Piracy also doesn't equal a lost sale, because pirates weren't going to buy those games anyway.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Piracy increases sales.

Diablo being online only is a horrible thing for consumers. There is 0 need for it to be online only.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/diablo-4-is-under-a-ddos-attack-blizzard-we-continue-to-actively-monitor-an-ongoing-ddos-attack-which-is-affecting-latency-connections-to-our-game.1658187/page-2#post-268114826

Online only is just as trash as DRM for paying consumers.

 

[Spukc]

Don't buy ubisoft games kids..

 

[StreetsofBeige]

People who pirate games, find themselves loving a game, they will buy it more times than not.

Piracy also doesn't equal a lost sale, because pirates weren't going to buy those games anyway.

I knew a pirater would say that.

 

[Rivdoric]

One should mention that Assassin's Creed first-of-his-name came with no DRM at all on PC and piracy was high AF.
If i correctly recall, it had very poor sales compared to console so i kind of understand why they created these DRMs.
However i also agree that these drms should not degrade player experience as much, you just have to take a look at the recent Ubilame servers shutdown for legacy games that rendered some DLC's and uplay rewards unavailable to verify this claim.
Removed content is the worst of the worst that can happen to a video game and has become a Ubisoft specialty.
There is also no long-term support on their games. Nvidia has been trying to get in touch with ubisoft support to help them fixing a flicking-bug in Watch Dogs 2 for months now and they get no answer.

 

[MMaRsu]

My receipt is Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Cyberpunk selling like hotcakes despite having no DRM and being able to pirate it day one.

What more receipts do you need?

 

[MMaRsu]

I knew a pirater would say that.

I have over a 1000 games on Steam alone. That's not counting games I bought on Switch, PS4, Xbox 360, 3DS.

I downloaded a 'demo' for Stardew Valley when it was new. I got so addicted I went ahead and asked the dev if I could transfer my 'demo' save.
He not only told me that I could, he also was very kind about it.

I went ahead and bought it, and then again on console and my phone.

So fuck off with your bullshit comment.

Why don't you go into my comment?

The Digital-Piracy Dilemma

New research suggests that piracy can help promote films and other digital products. But the authors warn against reading too much into that research: In most cases, they say, the costs of piracy still outweigh the benefits, and consumers therefore still deserve protections from piracy.

hbr.org

Piracy, the papers suggest, can actually boost sales of some digital products by increasing word-of-mouth and overall market awareness. This has led some industry observers to argue that efforts by firms and governments to combat digital piracy may be wasted.

EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help

Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error.

arstechnica.com

"This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users," the study authors write. Increased game sales may come from piracy as "players [get] hooked and then [pay] to play the game with extra bonuses or at extra levels,"

 

[MMaRsu]

One should mention that Assassin's Creed first-of-his-name came with no DRM at all on PC and piracy was high AF.
If i correctly recall, it had very poor sales compared to console so i kind of understand why they created these DRMs.
However i also agree that these drms should not degrade player experience as much, you just have to take a look at the recent Ubilame servers shutdown for legacy games that rendered some DLC's and uplay rewards unavailable to verify this claim.
Removed content is the worst of the worst that can happen to a video game and has become a Ubisoft specialty.
There is also no long-term support on their games. Nvidia has been trying to get in touch with ubisoft support to help them fixing a flicking-bug in Watch Dogs 2 for months now and they get no answer.

PC gaming in those days was still kind of in the shitter tho no?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I have over a 1000 games on Steam alone. That's not counting games I bought on Switch, PS4, Xbox 360, 3DS.

I downloaded a 'demo' for Stardew Valley when it was new. I got so addicted I went ahead and asked the dev if I could transfer my 'demo' save.
He not only told me that I could, he also was very kind about it.

I went ahead and bought it, and then again on console and my phone.

So fuck off with your bullshit comment.

Why don't you go into my comment?

The Digital-Piracy Dilemma

New research suggests that piracy can help promote films and other digital products. But the authors warn against reading too much into that research: In most cases, they say, the costs of piracy still outweigh the benefits, and consumers therefore still deserve protections from piracy.

hbr.org

Well there you go whiner.

You hate DRM yet claim to have 1,000+ games. So what's the issue?

 

[MMaRsu]

Well there you go whiner.

You hate DRM yet claim to have 1,000+ games. So what's the issue?

Whiner? What am I whining about?

You are the only whining here bitch

Also "claim"

The issue is DRM is trash. Whats YOUR issue?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Whiner? What am I whining about?

You are the only whining here bitch

Also "claim"

The issue is DRM is trash. Whats YOUR issue?

Relax.

You support no DRM and dont like online only. I get it. You hate DRM.

I can live with DRM. You cant. And I support any company trying to protect their product from thieves. Big deal. Play a game and sometimes it bogs down due to server issues for an hour. Woop-dee-do.

As for your 1,108 Steam games who cares. If you want to spend all your time and money buying a huge backlog of PC games go ahead.

Here's my Steam count. Congratulations. You have 65x more Steam games than me. If you want I'll send you 3 games to make it 1,111.

 

[MMaRsu]

Relax.

You support no DRM and dont like online only. I get it. You hate DRM.

I can live with DRM. You cant. And I support any company trying to protect their product from thieves. Big deal. Play a game and sometimes it bogs down due to server issues for an hour. Woop-dee-do.

As for your 1,108 Steam games who cares. If you want to spend all your time and money buying a huge backlog of PC games go ahead.

Right, support the million dollar corpo's instead of looking out for your fellow gamers.

I get ya they do need the money

You do you don't @ me anymore thx

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Right, support the million dollar corpo's instead of looking out for your fellow gamers.

You aint slick

You do you don't @ me anymore thx

You're doing a fine job supporting corporations already. You got over 1,100 games despite hating DRM.

 

[MMaRsu]

You're doing a fine job supporting corporations already. You got over 1,100 games despite hating DRM.

Who said those games have drm?

In all fairness, some do have them. That doesnt mean I have to support it as a paying customer or state some blanket statement that all pirates never buy games etc.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Who said those games have drm?

In all fairness, some do have them. That doesnt mean I have to support it as a paying customer or state some blanket statement that all pirates never buy games etc.

Where did I say above pirates never buy games?

And who said those games can have DRM? You did in your next sentence.

 

[MMaRsu]

Eh forget it, im not trying to discuss this with you anymore. Im gonna grab some food cuz im getting hangry and that aint good

 

[Fafalada]

In 2010 Ubisoft unveiled a brand-new form of DRM for Windows PC Gaming that would require single player games to connect to an authentication server to check for the existence of an internet connection

The 'first time' is a stretch - there's been single-player games that have done this before - some more successfully than anything Ubisoft's ever put out - but I digress.
But it's the second bit that I take more of an issue with - the way Ubisoft's DRM worked was not authentication at all - it farmed out parts of game functionality that were needed to function (think of it like online API calls, in Web/Mobile world). So game wasn't asking the server for "are you there / am I valid/connected" but simply to do things like "Move player / get camera / etc."
And yes - that is every bit as stupid as it sounds like for a single-player game - but that's how the 'DRM' was designed to function.

 

[Trogdor1123]

My receipt is Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Cyberpunk selling like hotcakes despite having no DRM and being able to pirate it day one.

What more receipts do you need?

That isn’t how it works. You need some kind of evidence to back up a claim that piracy increases sales. Companies don’t put it in to twiddle their evil moustaches. They put it in due to sales impacts. A game selling good does not equal a game selling better due to piracy.

 

[winjer]

That isn’t how it works. You need some kind of evidence to back up a claim that piracy increases sales. Companies don’t put it in to twiddle their evil moustaches. They put it in due to sales impacts. A game selling good does not equal a game selling better due to piracy.

EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help

Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error.

arstechnica.com

 

[Trogdor1123]

EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help

Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error.

arstechnica.com

That is a good start. Pretty recent too. It certainly merits more study.

I’d like to read some more of that study when I have time.

 

[winjer]

That is a good start. Pretty recent too. It certainly merits more study.

I’d like to read some more of that study when I have time.

This study was withheld for a few years, because it goes against the entertainment industry policy.
Piracy is the perfect excuse for incompetent CEOs. It's never their fault, it's always someone else's fault.

 

[Trogdor1123]

This study was withheld for a few years, because it goes against the entertainment industry policy.
Piracy is the perfect excuse for incompetent CEOs. It's never their fault, it's always someone else's fault.

Certainly possible. I appreciate the share. Hopefully these studies continue so we can learn more.

I’d be very interested in a long term study too, see if the efforts pay off over time rather than on an item by item basis.

It’s an interesting topic of study.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

People are cherry picking what they find on google. And I see the exact same links when I do a google search.

Here's some more.

People got to remember theft is theft. Saying "well, I guarantee I would had never bought it anyway" is a bogus answer. That's like saying someone doing yoga classes costs zero sales loss because they keep sneaking into a free spot in the back corner and the person claims they would had never exercised if it wasnt free.

Anyone here saying everything they pirated is a 100% "I would had never bought it anyway" IMO is a liar. It goes for games, music, movies etc...

Does Piracy Impact Sales? A Look at the Data - Corsearch

Does piracy impact sales? People have been asking some version of this question since Napster launched in 1999 and iTunes was still two years away from going live. It seems as if piracy has always been a step ahead of digital distribution. Megaupload, one of the earliest and largest piracy...

corsearch.com

The Gaming Industry Loses Billions Of Dollars To Piracy Annually – Your E Shape

www.youreshape.com

 

[winjer]

Certainly possible. I appreciate the share. Hopefully these studies continue so we can learn more.

I’d be very interested in a long term study too, see if the efforts pay off over time rather than on an item by item basis.

It’s an interesting topic of study.

One issue is that most studies about piracy are ordered by the music, film and gaming industry. So there id a strong bias to confirm what they want to be told.

And in the end, it's the paying consumers that get punished with DRM. Pirates don't care, as they get the game for free, with no restrictions, and sometimes with better performance.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I have over a 1000 games on Steam alone. That's not counting games I bought on Switch, PS4, Xbox 360, 3DS.

I downloaded a 'demo' for Stardew Valley when it was new. I got so addicted I went ahead and asked the dev if I could transfer my 'demo' save.
He not only told me that I could, he also was very kind about it.

I went ahead and bought it, and then again on console and my phone.

So fuck off with your bullshit comment.

Why don't you go into my comment?

The Digital-Piracy Dilemma

New research suggests that piracy can help promote films and other digital products. But the authors warn against reading too much into that research: In most cases, they say, the costs of piracy still outweigh the benefits, and consumers therefore still deserve protections from piracy.

hbr.org

EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help

Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error.

arstechnica.com

Did they mention HOW they are converted? I wonder how many were because it just became easier to not pirate it?

 

[MMaRsu]

Did they mention HOW they are converted? I wonder how many were because it just became easier to not pirate it?

I did not research this, but I assume the boom of digital storefronts on PC certainly helped bring a lot of people over from strictly pirating software, to purchasing them. Not to mention achievements etc..

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

PC gaming during the mid to late 00s was truly the dark ages. Just look at this shit.

Especially when we were still with miserable ADSL with regular unsync and fiber was just a "impossible dream".

 

[Hudo]

Ubisoft has always been trash in this regard, their newest games use Denuvo on top of their own DRM

And if you buy that shit on Steam, you have Steam itself as a third layer DRM.

Edit: This is also the reason why I don't even consider buying Ubisoft games anymore (even if they are good and look interesting to me) because I am already annoyed as fuck with Steam itself and now you want me to make an additional account (Ubisoft Launcher or whatever that shit is called) and deal with that as well? Fuck off. I'm not a fan of having all my shit account gated.

 

[jshackles]

High theft stores will also have more stuff behind locked glass cases or behind the counter.

Sometimes even that isn't enough:



People are weird.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Only game I bought from Ubisoft is Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. I needed to crack it on PC to play it without oppressive DRM. There is some irony in that.

 

[Kenpachii]

People are cherry picking what they find on google. And I see the exact same links when I do a google search.

Here's some more.

People got to remember theft is theft. Saying "well, I guarantee I would had never bought it anyway" is a bogus answer. That's like saying someone doing yoga classes costs zero sales loss because they keep sneaking into a free spot in the back corner and the person claims they would had never exercised if it wasnt free.

Anyone here saying everything they pirated is a 100% "I would had never bought it anyway" IMO is a liar. It goes for games, music, movies etc...

Does Piracy Impact Sales? A Look at the Data - Corsearch

Does piracy impact sales? People have been asking some version of this question since Napster launched in 1999 and iTunes was still two years away from going live. It seems as if piracy has always been a step ahead of digital distribution. Megaupload, one of the earliest and largest piracy...

corsearch.com

The Gaming Industry Loses Billions Of Dollars To Piracy Annually – Your E Shape

www.youreshape.com

Piracy being negetive can't be measured.

What can be measured is that steam exists, and steam developers that have there games being pirated day one are selling millions without effort.

Shit DRM is what forces people to piracy.