This is sheer fucking genius

[Craigs]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235290&site=pcg

Thanks Ubisoft. Thanks.

I bet you all wish you could have come up with such a clever and fool proof way of countering pirating.

[cybdmn]

Welcome to the future of gaming.

[Maes]

If their target group is the same people to whom "radio" means listening to "podcasts" via an iPod's wifi and considering USB-based chargers a good, ubiquitous thing, then I don't see a problem. For the rest of the ass-back... err... pleb... err... paup... err I mean users, we'll eventually learn to embrace this new [sic] technology [sic] meant to protect and enhance [sic] the final user experience.

[kristus]

If they hate the PC users so much, why do they even bother making games for the platform?

[Maes]

kristus said:

If they hate the PC users so much, why do they even bother making games for the platform?

Probably only because it's easier than ever to port stuff between platforms thanks to advances in gaming SDKs (in other times it would be a major undertaking/complete rewrite in each platform's assembly language), so they just port the stuff over by changing a cross-compiling SDK's flags, and play that card too for little added cost.

[Khorus]

Maes said:

so they just port the stuff over by changing a cross-compiling SDK's flags

..and add a healthy serving of DRM.

[Maes]

Khorus said:

..and add a healthy serving of DRM.

Just to keep themselves -and the consumers- reminded of why certain video game creators eventually move/have moved to gaming consoles, at least those who can.

[kristus]

Alienating your customers isn't gonna make them switch to consoles to play your stupid games. They'll hate you for it and do everything in their power to rip it from you. So there's no good reason to make a PC version just to DRM the shit out of it and make your customers hate you as much as you hate them.

[geekmarine]

If past DRM has taught me anything, pirates will have it cracked within a week and the only people who will be affected in the slightest will be paying customers.

[GreyGhost]

Whenever I wonder if copy protection systems can become any more retarded - something like this comes along. :D

[Maes]

kristus said:

So there's no good reason to make a PC version just to DRM the shit out of it and make your customers hate you as much as you hate them.

Usually the decision to include copy protection/DRM is added as an afterthought, usually at the request of the publisher, if we're talking about a "publess" developer. There are even cases where this was removed in later patches (e.g. Warlords Games) by the developers themselves.

In the case of a big name like Ubi Soft, the decision is often taken at hierarchy levels well above mere code monkeys and beta testers -top managers, CEOs, publishing department, "marketing consultants" etc. or it's simply a black on white company policy that all published PC titles they release MUST have copy protection.

[kristus]

As is the decision to which platforms to support.

[Maes]

Which is turn is made a no-brainer by the fact that porting is now -relatively- easy compared to the past. Compare e.g. porting Doom or Quake 3 or even Halo to porting Outrun back in 1986-1987: in Doom (and much largely, Quake 3 and Halo) you can use the codebase as is, there are no unsurmountable hardware differences to overcome, and for the most part you won't even have to get dirty with assembly.

With OutRun on the other hand, they had to accomodate an arcade game running on a custom multi-CPU 32/16 bit hardware (twin 68000, FTW!) with ROM space to spare, to anything ranging from an Amiga with floppies to a ZX Spectrum loading from tape.

So yeah, the big heads give the "go ahead" since it's so easy by now, and add DRM because hey, after all it's the PC scene where everybody warezes shit, right? For a little extra effort they can rip off a few poor bastards cash some extra buck, so why not do it? They don't care about my or your hippie DRM-free ideologies.

[Patrick]

This thread has inspired me to go smash an XBox 360. Seriously, I was actually considering buying this game. I refuse to buy anything from Ubisoft.

[kristus]

Maes said:

They don't care about my or your hippie DRM-free ideologies.

No. But they obviously also doesn't care about returning customers. Or the fact that DRM is making it more likely that their games will be warezed than without it.

[Maes]

kristus said:

Or the fact that DRM is making it more likely that their games will be warezed than without it.

*shrug* I thought that DRM-free stuff gets warezed more easily, from a technical standpoint. From an ethical one, I dunno.

In any case, I presume they have hired enough bean-counters to do the maths of whether it pays or not, and it seems most big-name companies are not letting DRM/copy protection any soon. Then again, Sony thought that their rootkit was a good thing...

[GreyGhost]

There's no challenge in warezing DRM-free software, you might as well be torrenting stuff from SourceForge. ;-)

The major publishers are either too dumb to realize that their copy protection measures are part of the problem or - having factored the cost of piracy into their product pricing - they're competing with each other to see who can develop and deploy the most god-awful, guaranteed-to-piss-of-customers DRM system. Either way it doesn't affect me, the few new games I've bought in the last several years have been from indie developers.

[Gez]

I would say this made me decide not to buy that game, but I already had absolutely no intention of ever playing it anyway.

[Mr. Freeze]

Fuck you twice, Ubisoft. Once for ruining Tom Clancy's games, and now this stupid shit happens.

[kristus]

DRM is one of the first things I look at before buying a new game.

[Mr. Freeze]

kristus said:

DRM is one of the first things I look at before buying a new game.

I pirated Spore out of spite. And I almost NEVER pirate games.

[Patrick]

Locks only keep out law-abiding citizens.

[Kaiser]

BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[pavera]

Good thing I bought it on console.

[zap610]

Is this even a multiplayer game?

[PhilibusMo]

That decides it, I am buying it for PS3 not PC.

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

Gay.

[Snarboo]

zap610 said:

Is this even a multiplayer game?

I know for a fact that Assassin's Creed 2 is singeplayer only. I believe Settlers 7 might be too, so yeah, it's pretty stupid.

[eargosedown]

It's still gonna get pirated.

They know that, right? lol

[dew]

my matlab (under university license) worked like this. finding a crack was easy so it will be even easier for a popular game.