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[Peronthious]

Apologies if there is already a thread on this, obviously the search function is disabled, and I tried every word permutation I could think of in Google. Lock if old.

Anyway, this morning, announcements were flying around on Ubi dropping Starforce all future PC games:

http://www.edge-online.com/news/ubisoft-launches-new-pc-anti-piracy-measures

Ubisoft will cease using the StarForce digital rights management application in favour of new measures designed to combat PC piracy.

But there's a catch:

Consumers of the company’s PC titles will be required to connect to Ubi.com accounts to authenticate games online each time they play them, meaning players will always need to be connected to the internet.

Oh what a wonderful alternative! This is most assuredly better than Starforce, I could not dream of a more suitable alternative.

Now, connecting at the time of play isn't all that bad, if your Steam client is having a bad day it's just about the same. But that's not all:

http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

What will happen if I lose my Internet connection when I play the game?

If you lose your Internet connection the game will pause while it tries to reconnect. If the Internet Connection is unable to resume you can continue the game from where you left off or from the last saved game.

Yes, if you're internet is being screwy one day, or your connection gets cut for some reason, so does the game. How nice of them then to pause it while the game reconnects!

Of course, Ubisoft is properly understanding about this whole thing:

Why is Ubisoft forcing their loyal customers to sign up for a Ubisoft account when they don’t want to give their private data and only play single player games?

We hope that customers will feel as we do, that signing up for an account will offer them exceptional gameplay and services that are not available otherwise.

See, they obviously understand exactly what their consumers are going through. Thanks Ubisoft, you're the best!

Spoiler

And I was looking forward to Silent Hunter V

 

[Diomedeskun]

And here I thought they wanted to expand their PC audience.

 

[BocoDragon]

Sucks for laptop owners in a place without wifi! And even if you're on a home PC you could have issues... my internet connection went out for an hour this afternoon, for example.

Of course that pirate version won't require an internet connection....

 

[linkboy]

And the copies on torrent sites will have this net-force crap patched out, thus giving them a better copy to play.

So yet once again, people who buy the copies are getting screwed while the pirates play a clean game.

Nice going Ubi-Soft.

 

[JDSN]

Are they obliged to make PC games or something?
Why go this far to make an audience hate you when you could easily walk away.

 

[brain_stew]

Oh well, no more Ubisoft games for me.

The retarded thing is that they actually came close to doing DRM the right way, and then manage to fuck it all up and make it the worst yet. What a disaster.

 

[dani_dc]

"Why is Ubisoft forcing their loyal customers to sign up for a Ubisoft account when they don’t want to give their private data and only play single player games?"

You know it's not a good solution when you have to write that in your FAQ :lol

 

[Shalashaska161]

On the bright side, I'm going to end up saving some money because of this.

 

[Stabby McSter]

It's like they're encouraging piracy!

 

[Reginald P. Linux]

Consumers of the company’s PC titles will be required to connect to Ubi.com accounts to authenticate games online each time they play them, meaning players will always need to be connected to the internet.

At first I was thinking it didn't sound too unreasonable, but then...

If you lose your Internet connection the game will pause while it tries to reconnect.

What? It authenticates the game non-stop for the entire time you're playing? Makes no sense.

 

[Archie]

Hey guys let's treat our paying customers like criminals! It'll work like a charm!

 

[Darklord]

Pretty stupid. I don't mind connecting to the net to play games but pausing it if it doesn't have a constant connection seems a bit odd.

 

[Chris R]

I'm totally fine with a check during start up ala Steam, but continued checking, and then pausing if your connection dies out??? What a joke.

 

[civilstrife]

And the copies on torrent sites will have this net-force crap patched out, thus giving them a better copy to play.

So yet once again, people who buy the copies are getting screwed while the pirates play a clean game.

Nice going Ubi-Soft.

nailed it.

 

[bucklam66]

And the copies on torrent sites will have this net-force crap patched out, thus giving them a better copy to play.

So yet once again, people who buy the copies are getting screwed while the pirates play a clean game.

Nice going Ubi-Soft.

Yup, it won't stop anyone who was going to steal it in the first place.

 

[jett]

Ubisoft needs to sit down and think shit over. They're only fucking the loyal customers here, the games will be hacked and pirated no matter what they do.

 

[John]

My gaming PC isn't connected to the internet, much in the fashion that my wallet won't be connected to Ubisoft's bank account.

 

[brain_stew]

I'm totally fine with a check during start up ala Steam, but continued checking, and then pausing if your connection dies out??? What a joke.

Steam only needs to authenticate your machine once. Not every time you play, not during gameplay, just a one time activation and you're free to play your game offline forever more. This is completely different. Ffs, there's a DRM scheme that customers actually like already out there, just use it.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

That's it. No more donuts for Masuka!

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

My gaming PC isn't connected to the internet, much in the fashion that my wallet won't be connected to Ubisoft's bank account.

A PC gamer that doesn't use Steam then?

What?

 

[Ourobolus]

Wow, that's absolutely moronic. I understand their intent, but this is probably at the opposite extreme on how to go about doing it.

So stupid. Guess I won't be getting any more Ubisoft PC games.

 

[John]

A PC gamer that doesn't use Steam then?

What?

Oh, I do, but my rig's two stories away from the nearest usable internet connection. I lug it down whenever it's worth it to install the next batch of games every few weeks.

 

[Agnates]

Um, didn't they already drop starforce like, years ago when the shit hit the fan? Did they secretly still use it? Or are they repeating that to have some good news to go along with the bad? That system sounds like complete fail with the "if you disconnect it pauses" crap. Funny shit, just don't put out PC versions Ubi :lol

 

[Pureauthor]

It's like the people making the decisions live in a completely different reality from us.

That or they're really just laughing to themselves as they create stupider and stupider DRM schemes to see how far they can push their fanbase.

 

[Doytch]

Makes it all the easier to skip the new Splinter Cell. Spies vs. Mercs removal sucked but I was still on the fence.

 

[Technosteve]

they probably have steam + ubi + games for windows live + secret back door drm

 

[Lafiel]

At first I was thinking it didn't sound too unreasonable, but then...



What? It authenticates the game non-stop for the entire time you're playing? Makes no sense.

Yeah, i wonder, does it constantly upload your data to the ubisoft servers with this method? that would suck for people with bandwidth caps.

 

[NO!R]

Wouldn't it be easier to just authenticate the game ONCE at the start of the game, so that in case your connection decides to dick off you're not screwed altogether? Or is there some pirate-thinger-magigle that can crack the game while offline... AFTER having authenticated the game? :S

Why can't people just fuckin' buy the games...? -_-"

Oh btw, I'm new. Hi. o.o

 

[Doytch]

Yeah, i wonder, does it constantly upload your data to the ubisoft servers with this method? that would suck for people with bandwidth caps.

Nah, it'd just be a pinging their servers with a kB of data every five minutes or so, probably. Not any amount of appreciable traffic. Though....it's Ubisoft and online so all bets are off.

 

[Roofy]

i prefer starforce

 

[Fredescu]

I was looking forward to Trackmania 2.

 

[DarknessTear]

Good job, Ubisoft. Punish the people who are buying the game, while the pirate version will most likely not require going online at all. :lol

 

[Uncle Dukey]

That's one big price to pay for online game saves!

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Good job, Ubisoft. Punish the people who are buying the game, while the pirate version will most likely not require going online at all. :lol

So true! :lol :lol :lol Bet they'll add a patch that fools the system that you're online. Whatever Ubicrap.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"I was looking forward to Trackmania 2."


...


Shit.

 

[Frawdder]

Ubisoft *sigh* They need to realise that people are going to pirate their games anyway and attempt to give their paying customers an equal experience. Use Steam (and Steam sales) and charge less for their PC games. Sure people are still going to pirate it, but you might be able to entice some of the potential pirates to buy the game at a reduced price.

Or you could piss everyone off and have people pirating the game just out of spite.

I was looking forward to Trackmania 2.

Damn.

 

[tmarques]

And the copies on torrent sites will have this net-force crap patched out, thus giving them a better copy to play.

So yet once again, people who buy the copies are getting screwed while the pirates play a clean game.

This is so ridiculously obvious it's actually shocking Ubisoft can't see it.

 

[Hugbot]

Jesus. I'm fine with authenticating on startup, for the most part, but pausing the game if your internet is flaky? What the hell? That is about a bad a solution as you can get.

 

[Archie]

I was looking forward to Trackmania 2.

And I thought Ubi buying Nadeo was a good thing. :lol

 

[MoFuzz]

Oh that's fine, so long as I don't have to pay $10 more for a PC release of a months old console port.

Wait a minute...

 

[Slavik81]

If there's one thing I really hate, it's the thought that pirates will get the better product. Not just a cheaper one, but a better one.

Making your product worse is not an effective way of attracting buyers.

 

[Garryk]

Well, now I don't have to wait to get AC2 on PC, console it is!

 

[onken]

Holy shit that's terrible, I play games on my laptop in wi-fi free areas all the time.

 

[luka]

Good thing I'm not interested in anything ubisoft has coming up or I might have been upset.

Hell it propbably wouldn't have bothered me anyway. The last couple years of DRM, DLC, and preorder bonus wankery has made it very easy for me to ignore games completely and not feel like I'm missing anything. Sometimes it feels like this is the next stage in human evolution and I'm ahead of the curve.

EDIT: Wait...they are publishing Trackmania 2?

That's....a shame...

No, I'm okay. I just got something in my eye...

 

[NO!R]

And I thought Ubi buying Nadeo was a good thing. :lol

Now THAT sucks.:lol TM has such a loyal (and hardcore) fanbase though.

 

[Shai-Tan]

This was always going to happen eventually but most thought it wouldn't until internet is more pervasive.

This is a bold move on the part of Ubisoft, however I would say it's more so the bad press, being the first to move on this, not the fact that it excludes part of the relevant market because I'm guessing the proportion who plays the latest games on laptops with no internet is relatively small. Most laptops can't even play the latest games

This isn't just an internet check by the way, it's building the game into the internet. Games aren't going to be pirated the same day if the crackers need to emulate server side processes to get a game to work.

 

[BobTheFork]

I remember the RAGE(tm) I felt when I tried to play HL2 for the firs time but had to wait until my I could connect online because my PC was having issue that day. Pausing the game if you briefly lose connection is way worse.
It's a rough place for a company to be in. If you don't put in this kind of protection, people will torrent the game by the thousand, if you do they bitch at you and form poor boycotts and ask "why are you punishing the paying customers"? I heard someone suggest that Ubi was doing this on purpose to give themselves the talking point needed to never make a PC game again. Right now I agree.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Oh that's fine, so long as I don't have to pay $10 more for a PC release of a months old console port.

Wait a minute...

Correction: 3 months old console port.

This news is horrible. They may as well just stick to DRM - it's the same asshole principals to keep the consumer in check.

 

[Chris R]

Steam only needs to authenticate your machine once. Not every time you play, not during gameplay, just a one time activation and you're free to play your game offline forever more. This is completely different. Ffs, there's a DRM scheme that customers actually like already out there, just use it.

I thought it was during Steam's boot that rights were checked (due to not being able to play offline unless you let it work offline)

I don't care how it works because I've never had a big issue with Steam.

 

[jaundicejuice]

Online authentication checks, background DRM software, having to create company specific accounts to tie to my games, limited installs and I'm the paying customer, or used to be. Shit like this combined with the DLC strategies many companies are adopting (pre-order specific content, retail chain specific content, selling missions mid-game or having DLC immediately after launch) drives me away from purchasing PC games.

When people who steal your games and get a better product than paying customers, there's something seriously fucked up with your business model.