[CR6]

This news has been making its way around various gaming sites in the last few days

Once again Ubi's DRM punishing legit users

Isn't Ubi's always online DRM management enough? Why this now?
http://www.guru3d.co...titles-anymore/

Why Guru3D probably never will review Ubisoft titles anymore - Anno 2070
By Hilbert Hagedoorn, January 14, 2012

So it's Thursday in the 2nd week of January 2012. I Figure, hmm, it's time for a nice new VGA / graphics performance article on a game title. One of my favorite series is Anno, I still play Anno 1404 which in fact is included in our graphics card benchmark suite.

A few weeks ago the latest version of the game was released, Anno 2070. I've been playing it for a while now, and do like it despite the time it eats away ! Next to that, it's a good looking game as well with an updated graphics engine.

So yesterday I started working on a performance review. We know (well at least we figured we knew), that the game key can be used on three systems. That's fair, the first activation is used on my personal game rig. The second we installed on the AMD Radeon graphics test PC and the 3rd on our NVIDIA graphics test PC.
[...]
Here's what Ubisofts DRM is doing these days, they don't just verify the number of PCs you work on, nope .. they monitor hardware changes. So once we inserted that GeForce GTX 590 the hardware id # hash changed rendering our activation invalid.

What a bunch of rubbish ....

This means that if we'd like to make a VGA performance review on Anno 2070 we'd need to purchase the game seven times. Ubisoft claims that you can send an email towards their support so that the activations are reset, we did so .. yet are still awaiting reaction.

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 ?

[Rocky]

Seems excessive. It's not outwith reason to expect a gamer to have more than 3 hardware upgrades during the play-life of one game.

For example, "PC gamer" buys game finds it runs a tad slow on his ageing gaming system so buys a new GFX card - STRIKE 1. The game also east up some Gigabytes of hard-drive space, and "PC gamer" was planning on adding a new massive HD anyway because they are so cheap anyway - STRIKE 2. A few months down the line, his sound card packs in, or some RAM needs replaced, that's STRIKE 3.

Flash forward 18 months. There's a new intel processor out, so "PC Gamer" decides it's time for a complete rebuild, a brand spanking new gaming system. He spends upwards of £800 on a new rig, installs all his games, and finds that all his Ubisoft titles from 2012 refuse to run.

Does that seem fair? That scenario is not far fetched, been there myself and went through that kind of upgrade path and I'll bet others reading this have too.

As CR6 says, legit customers lose out, pirates, business as usual.

[ApexMods]

[...] legit customers lose out, pirates, business as usual.

You summed it up so perfectly!

If only Ubisoft could get their (apparently) solitary brain cell to fire fast enough to grasp that simple fact. Sigh...

[Rocky]

No apology for trotting the head of Valve's quote out again...

"One thing that you hear [Valve] talk a lot about is entertainment as a service. It's an attitude that says 'what have I done for my customers today?'" he said. "It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them."

Gabe Newell, 2010.

Here's another quote that seems to have relevance even though it is not about DRM.

"..you have to start with the customer experience, and work back to the technology..."

Steve Jobs 1997

[DarkAuthority]

Those guys must be quite paranoid about piracy. Firstly bulls*it comments how GR:O is supposed to be for PC gamers because of piracy and now this. I can imagine their CEOs waking up in the middle of the night screaming. I wonder if they wet their beds too. Quite discouraging, let's face it.

Plus it's completely useless. Scene groups will crack the thing sooner or later. Hell, if there is a proper crack dealing with this, I will crack my legit, already pre-ordered copy as well. In your face, Ubisoft. Otherwise what will I be supposed to do buying a new laptop in which everything's new? Buy another copy of the game? I don't think so

Edited by DarkMagic, 18 January 2012 - 02:34 AM.

[hezi69]

is the game still come to the pc platform i am now comfuse!

[thales100]

Plus it's completely useless. Scene groups will crack the thing sooner or later.

Thats the point, UBI' DRMs are always cracked some few days after game release, they are in fact only "punishing" legit owners of their games, and not stopping piracy.

[Zeealex]

i like it over the constant net connection one. but i think it would be more logical to have the program detect the BIOS or motherboard type in ALONG WITH the three parts that have changed. makes more sense as motherboards don't tend to blow out as quickly as far as i know.

i think if you are a legitimate customer you should be able to call up (not email) Ubisoft and ask for the game to be unlocked, perhaps print a unique serial number in the manual of the game for referance to customer support so they can then check if the code has been used by a different customer recently would make more sense.

just my opinion.

Edited by Zeealex, 18 January 2012 - 01:23 PM.

[OldGhost]

If............repeat........if........they have trashed the idea of the always on-line DRM,   . Then they have at least moved in the right direction

I think that the basic idea is sound but I agree with Zeealex that they need to monitor a more perminent part of a computers hardware.

But I am not sure what that would be

OldGhost.

[DarkAuthority]

The point is this: Ubisoft, make a game that's good enough and people will buy it anyway, regardless of piracy, scene groups, bittorrent etc. The Witcher 2 turned out to be awesome enough that pretty much every person excited about it bought the game apart from the fact its publisher released a DRM free version along with boxed, copy protected regular releases.

It is not the overzealous overwatch and bigotry in the gaming industry that will prevent piracy. It is quality and proper customer care than encourage people to buy games. There is so many people who fail to understand this, regardless if we are talking Ubisoft, SOPA or anything else out there.

[CJo1964]

DRM has always been the PC Gamers pain in the ass to be honest and I for one will not buy this GRFS if it has that, and also the fact that they didn't listen as usual and you can only play it in 3rd person perspective. This should have been selectable in the options, but no....they always know best don't they ?
I never thought it would happen, but I have moved on from GRAW and GRAW 2 (still have GRAW 2 on PC though, just havent played it in ages) and sadly, dont miss playing them anymore !
Been playing Battlefield 3 and CODMW3 and others.
A real shame UBI stabs its followers in the back once more.
And this is why piracy becomes rife......what idiots they must be.

[Papa6]

Ubisoft is just doing this to kill PC gaming so all they'll have to develop for is consoles. oh well... I just feel for my PC owning colleagues out here. This doesn't bode well at all for them. in the push to prevent piracy, they actually hurt the target audience and the pirates win anyways.

[Crossix]

Ubisoft and their lovely DRM, shame they dont learned that PC Gamers hate that, (Customer Feedbacks are nothing for Ubisoft, Sad)

Anyways DRM will hit the PC sales for sure if they insist using it.

Personally wont buy it if thats the case .

Cheers

[twcrash]

i had to do this with a legit version of Windows. I usually reinstall my OS at least 3 times a year due to windows slowly coming to a crawl. Well one time i reinstalled and it gave me a number I had to call to activate.. and everytime after that as well. I called and said activate my windows and they said why did you format. i was like what the F%^K do you care just activate the windows well they did but told me I would have to call everytime form now on... so I bootleg my windows now. Saves me money and headaches. Microsoft started their life by stealing form everyone else so one good turn deserves another.

[Papa6]

I wonder if Sales of this game with DRM, should they falter be blamed on the innocent PC gamers.

pretty much like, "Well PC Sales of GRFS are down.. Guess we can stop developing for the PC"