Ubisoft ditches PC DRM tactics
Ubisoft has received a great deal of criticism regarding its DRM measures on its PC titles.
The publisher has been notorious for its DRM measures that require a persistent internet connection, even for the single player portion of its games. It has argued in the past that this has been necessary in its fight against piracy.
However, the publisher's director of online games Stephanie Perotti told Rock Paper Shotgun that Ubisoft's DRM policy was abandoned back in June 2011 following feedback from the gaming community. The company's PC titles will now only require a one-time online activation to be playable.
As well as removing the constant internet connection requirement, PC games will also now have an unlimited number of installs and will be able to be activated on multiple machines.
Perotti also clarified claims made by Ubisoft chief executive Yves Guillemot last month that Ubisoft sees a 93%-95% piracy rate on its PC titles. She sates that this figure only related to 'some specific or popular PC games' and that the figures were based on internal and external research.
Ubisoft's requirement for a constant internet connection to run its games debuted in The Settlers 7 and drew further attention from the gaming press with its inclusion in the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2. The DRM strategy garnered particular criticism from gamers who frequently lost progress whenever their internet connection was severed.
In July this year, Ubisoft claimed that it considered its DRM strategy to be successful as it had seen a clear reduction of piracy on titles that carried the measures.
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Oh wait its September.
I'm still boycotting any Ubi' games until it's confirmed they don't use any of the old DRM, online activation and a serial number is ok I guess but nothing more.
Watchdogs, on the other hand, makes me salivate every time I think about it, although it might be a huge disappointment. Like Prototype was. I remember being moist with anticipation when I saw the preview screenshots, and then the finished product was a stinking mess (IMHO).
Same. If they have changed their ways then hey they can have my custom again. I'm just glad they didn't put it on Rayman as I LOVED that game and wouldn't have played it if it had that BS.
Fixed it :)
Could anyone test Splinter Cell conviction? I fancy trying that game (when's its a fiver or something) but held off due to the DRM.
This is exactly how I feel. At least now if they do come out with anything good I will be much more inclined to make a purchase.
Hmm looks like it could be good. I haven't been paying much attention to it recently, probably because I knew it was Ubisoft and would have DRM...
I'm with you on that one, though one thing Ubi does well is the generally high quiality of thier games...... after a few patches :p
all i see is a big pile of meat (sirloin medium rare with a draught of castle larger beer) and when u take it a big box traps u. now u live the rest of ur life in an expensive bird cage.
I'd like to think that this post made sense, but I just can't seem to :?
was channeling michael from "the office US" with his weird ways of explaining but u know what he means :D
im saying its a trap. have u never put down bird seed under a box and when the bird comes pull the string and down goes the box to trap it? i used bird cage cos this children tactic was mostly used on birds, well in my area.
Does that mean that 95% of all people playing the game were playing pirated copies?
If so, does the remaining 5% represent a significantly smaller number of actual sales than would have taken place without the piracy?
The second question is key and of course impossible to answer but it strikes me that these statistics may be a little bogus.
P
That was fixed ages ago on Steam. I've just tested myself....
Can someone fire up the ubi exec to human translator?
The Uplay never bothered me at all though but clearly bothered most people, only thing that did bother me about it is it didn't stop their games from being pirated, surprise, groups love a challenge & it wasn't much of one for them, these protections will be like a game within the game for them to conquer lol, shame though because the money for the weak protection could have gone into games.
So, it didn't take them long to conquer it so Ubi should have given up pushing the DRM because it mostly bugged the people who bought the games or might have bought them, some enough to boycott Ubi, personally I really like quite a few of their games too much to boycott them & I had no problem with boycotting greedyvision games or at least COD, was bored to death with COD type games anyway. :D
I'll bet money on the 95% stat being about the ratio of people who hated the DRM, makes perfect sense. :)
Ubisoft 5% club.
On my computer, it still refuses. Hmmm. Maybe I'm just the unlucky one with the right combination of wrong hardware and software...
Given that I mainly game on my laptop when I have no internet connection, that policy instantly ruled out any purchases from me in the past.
Well whatever the reason it's good news and now I can look forward to WatchDogs :)
Probably won't work that way but we'll see...
I went through a period of about two months last year where Steam refused to accept that Offline Mode was usable on my Surround rig.
I 'cured' it by copying the steamapps folder to a different drive, uninstalling Steam, having a quick hunt in the registry for any leftover Valve/Steam related stuff, removing it and reinstalling Steam. From that point on, it worked again.
I think Steam sometimes gets its wires crossed.
...
As for Ubisoft and their DRM... well, I'll believe it when I see it. Other than that, I'll probably just stick to buying their stuff when they release it on GOG. Because that doesn't even have a one-time activation.
ed: actually I had to look up the old news thing that popped up. Specifically this: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2012/08/23/ubisoft-driven-to-f2p-market-by-piracy-rate/1
According to them they had piracy rates of 93% - 95% but now they claim that the DRM was successful. Huh?
By all means Ubisoft, bring out some more sob stories. I think its all pretty funny.