Ubishaft.

[FullAuto]

Ubisoft are doing away with conventional DRM in future. Basically, you will need an internet connection, it needs to be on all the time you are playing, and your saves will be stored remotely.

 

RPS link.

 

Goodbye Ubisoft. I'd like to say it's been fun, but lately it's been shit.

[Matri]

Ehh, this is what EA has planned for C&C4 when they announced it a few months back. A few naive idiots still believe this isn't DRM.

 

On an unrelated note, anyone want to buy an ocean? Slightly used, only 4 million easy payments.

[Civilian]

You both are right. I just realized that the whole on-line activation stuff is one of the major reasons why I do not play PC games anymore. Why do I need all the STEAM, LIVE or any other bloat-ware to simply play a game? And don't tell me that those games are more protected that way, it is simply not true. There are cracks for STEAM and LIVE games like there are for any other game.

 

If that^ is the future of PC gaming, well then my gaming days are over for good.

[Bomb Bloke]

This is actually an interesting move, as it won't just inconvenience gamers - it'll completely prevent some people from playing their games. It will drop sales, regardless of how good their titles are.

 

It'll also up the number of irate customers coming back to stores asking for refunds. That'll piss off retailers, who may start to think twice about stocking Ubisoft's less popular titles.

 

The main point of interest is how well their servers will hold up on release days. Unlike a regular activation server (which only has to serve each gamer for a few seconds and then that's "it"), their machines will need to maintain connections with every gamer every second they play. That'll require a fair commitment of hardware and maintenance time, in addition to any multiplayer services they're offering. Their daily running costs will be higher as a result.

 

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if the bigwigs completely ignore that little fact, then run into chaos when no one can play their games on release. At that stage they'll have two options; either switch to a "conventional" one-off activation system (which, unless they go with a limit of one single activation, will allow easy piracy due to the lack of a disc check), or fork out for more hardware/engineers (which'll require a long term investment of cash).

 

Of course, it may already be they've already thought this through, they realise that this is going to cost them a lot of money to pull off, and they've invested accordingly. But I suspect it'll turn into an amusing mess.

[Sunflash]

Only reason I put up with Steam is so far they've not blocked the ability to play games while disconnected (assuming it's not a multiplayer-only thing, of course).

 

Of course you have to set it up ahead of time, but still. >.> Better 'en nothing.

 

This things about Ubishaft, however, will make me completely avoid them I'm afraid. Which is a shame, because I love several of their series. I just refuse to jump through that many hoops. <.<

[Gimli]

Already discussed this elsewhere but yeah, no money from me. At least with Steam I can go into offline mode and play without a problem.

 

On a semi-related note, it would be nice if I could have Steam save my game on a disc and somehow tie it to my account so I don't have to download it every time I want to install it. This way I could install games even when I don't have an internet connection. Wait, is this already possible?

[Matri]

Wait, is this already possible?

Yes, yes it is. But rules require I can't post any details here, despite it being (debatably) legal.

[Space Voyager]

Yes, yes it is. But rules require I can't post any details here, despite it being (debatably) legal.

Why, it is PERFECTLY legal, you just need to buy the game at GamersGate. Screw Steam, screw the the DRM lot.

[FullAuto]

I admire Steam for selling some very niche games, or games that they won't necessarily make a lot of money from, but then it is cheap for them to do. Steam should just be an option, something you can connect to if you want.

 

There are numerous cracks and workarounds out there on the internet for Steam, and I doubt Ubisoft's system will be perfect.

[Pete]

A lot of non-valve games can work without even loading Steam after the initial download though I thought? Certainly you can find your way to the X-COM folder in Steam and just create a shortcut to the exe file and do it that way when I last checked.

[Bomb Bloke]

It seems to depend on whether the game is DOS based or not.

 

Because they need DOSBox for such titles, and DOSBox is released under the GPL, they can't wrap any DRM around it (and therefore the games are also free of such restrictions).

 

With native Windows apps, on the other hand, it seems they've got some sort of way of patching the game executables. If you try to run Steam's Interceptor directly, Windows will complain it's corrupt; if you try to execute their Enforcer, Steam will automatically load & sign in before the game will start.

 

Oddly enough, they didn't apply any patches to the Windows version of EU (which is bundled in with the DOS version). This could be because it'd break f0dder's loader (which is essential for getting the game to work on most systems, unless you want to convince users to play with their hardware acceleration settings manually).

 

As for copying the games, I did a raw copy'n'paste of my collection after a computer upgrade. Installed Steam, signed in, told it to set those games up, and they all instantly popped to 100% "downloaded" and were ready to run. So at least they don't seem to be locked to hardware or anything like that. But perhaps that differs depending on the game; I only have the X-COM set.

 

Granted, getting Steam installed and running took far too long (something like five minutes or longer for the sign in process, thought it'd crashed), but once it loaded it seemed happy enough.

 

A problem with working around Ubisoft's protection will be the save games. They're now supposed to be stored online - cracks will need to alter that to allow local saves.

[Gimli]

Apparently, games will be paused when your connection is lost, but it still doesn't solve the problem of playing offline.

[Matri]

Apparently, games will be paused when your connection is lost, but it still doesn't solve the problem of playing offline.

Awfully long pause time there.

 

CAD: "We should see other people"

[FullAuto]

Sony joins in, targeting second-hand games.

[Civilian]

Seeing a multi-billion dollar company attacking small kids selling their old games to buy newer ones is, frankly said, disgusting. But knowing the work-climate and -style that exist in other Japanese corporations (I worked for Nintendo once) it is not really a wonder for me. If they could they would sell their grandmother, kill her AND sue her at the same time to make more money. Dim views for the future of gaming. It will lead to a lot of freeware (and other older e.g. DOS) games, though, those will become increasingly important and wide-spread.

 

And out of sheer greed sooner or later those will be targeted by corporations like Son-tendo, too, undermining them with In-game-Ads or law-suits. Or ingenious ways to make them no longer run under the newest OS'ses, just you wait...

 

I feel like a bit like that prophet seeing the future without being able to change it.

[Space Voyager]

Seeing a multi-billion dollar company attacking small kids selling their old games to buy newer ones is, frankly said, disgusting.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

It really is.

[Pete]

@BB - nah, you can copy the whole steam folder with any game of any age and have it work alright it seems. I've got Valve's Portal, L4D, L4D2, TF2, Half Life 2 as well as Railroads and all of X-COM and it all copied across with no quibbles whatsoever.

[FullAuto]

I wonder if they have any idea how much second-hand games drive sales?

 

When I was a poor student, hardly earning (leeching) enough money to keep me in food, drink and drugs, the only way I could afford new games was to buy one, finish it, and trade it in against another. I know a lot of people who don't have a lot of disposable income (parents, f'r instance) who operate the same way, it's not just poor lower class scum and kids that do it.

 

I don't know if the comparison with other types of media holds any water, but you don't see publishers, film studios etc complaining about their second-hand market.

[Thorondor]

All this goes with the growing trend we're seeing of "you bought it but you don't own it", really: convoluted license agreements, limited number of re-installs, expansions and DLC that is never put in a box and now online savegames.

 

Eventually things might step up to mainstream cloud computing gaming and we won't even have the game installed on our Personal Computer. Which means that when a service of that kind (SteamCloud?) goes 'kaput' or the entity behind it goes belly-up all your purchases become vaporware.

 

For a present day example just look at what happens when MMOs slam their doors shut - bye bye chiseled multi-year character builds, bye-bye gameworld...

 

"All your game are belong to us".

 

::

 

How I miss the golden shareware days... That was progress!

[Matri]

Get used to it. There's no way the publishers are ever going to grow a brain and figure out that the only outcome of this will be the increased popularity of DRM cracks.

 

Heck, more often than not the first piece of advice I hear on forums when someone can't get their game to work, is to try a no-DVD.

[Bomb Bloke]

The licenses have been like this for a long, long time: at least, the ones I've been reading for the past few years are. They all state that you can't copy or resell your games. Ditto with DVDs and music CDs. Read the small print on the back of the cases, it's in there along with all the stuff about not showing it in public etc.

 

However, any bits of a license that are against the law can be ignored. Hence media can be backed up in certain areas (eg Australia), and second-hand shops seem to be all over the place. If a license clause is deemed unfair to the consumer, it doesn't count.

 

Which makes me wonder what'll come of a move to enforce the "no re-sale" rule: Will it trigger lawsuits? Keep in mind this move doesn't just target gamers, it targets the companies that sell second-hand games. For some (eg EBGames here in AU), that's big business.

 

I think it was the head of ID who was quoted as hating second-hand software more then piracy. His logic was that if someone pirated one of his games, they still had the same amount of money they did before; hence they could still potentially buy his software. Not true if they spent their cash on second-hand stuff. Frankly, I don't think the odds of him getting a "true" sale change all that much, but technically he's right.

[FullAuto]

Good points. Second-hand game sales mean a lot of money to retailers, especially as they seem to be moving towards offering credit and not cash these days.

 

The pricing on second-hand games, in the major retailers here in the UK, often isn't much less than the price of the same title new. In some cases they are

[Matri]

If a license clause is deemed unfair to the consumer, it doesn't count.

You mean like limited installs, activation servers, and "always connected" authentication?

 

His logic was that if someone pirated one of his games, they still had the same amount of money they did before; hence they could still potentially buy his software.

He's absolutely right, you know... Zero is an amount, right?

 

The thing with piracy is, a lot of people equate one pirated game with one lost sale, but that's not necessarily the case, nor is there any proof for that, nor is there likely to be in the future.

Good luck convincing them of that. Statistically speaking, there's a higher chance of a poker-trained seaslug being hit by lightning, getting eaten by a shark, then run over by an 18-wheeler painted blue with purple highlights sporting a John Kennedy decal dancing the macarena over firepit, than there is of these people learning about that fact.

[Bomb Bloke]

You mean like limited installs, activation servers, and "always connected" authentication?

Apparently.

 

Even so, if such features stop enough legit gamers from playing what they payed for, it can lead to class action lawsuits. Putting disclaimers on the packaging, such as "our servers may go down and we have no responsibility to put them back up again", but companies tend not to like admitting that there's a good chance their product/service will be defective.

 

Remember, companies have a tendency to test these things out in the wild before they test them out in the court rooms. It's only when they're losing more money in legal fees then they're making in profit that they consider changing their ways, and even then they'll seldom admit that they were "wrong".

 

Take Sony, for example. After losing the "root-kit" battle in the courts, they promptly sued the company they'd hired to make it in the first place. It seems that, from their point of view, their only mistake was getting caught.

 

Good luck convincing them of that. Statistically speaking, there's a higher chance of a poker-trained seaslug being hit by lightning, getting eaten by a shark, then run over by an 18-wheeler painted blue with purple highlights sporting a John Kennedy decal dancing the macarena over firepit, than there is of these people learning about that fact.

I suspect they know, and all this DRM business has nothing to do with piracy anymore. That's just the excuse for finding ways to force people to register their software (for marketing purposes), stop them reselling/lending discs, and generally force their logo in the face of anyone who gets near a computer.

 

The joke is that all of this stuff only really applies to PC games - thus far. On consoles, the copy protection is built into the system itself. Once that's busted, every game out for that system is effectively free of copy protection... And yet publishers just keep churning out games, knowing they'll be open to pirates from the day of release (assuming they weren't leaked earlier).

[Space Voyager]

All this goes with the growing trend we're seeing of "you bought it but you don't own it", really: convoluted license agreements, limited number of re-installs, expansions and DLC that is never put in a box and now online savegames.

Really, this is pukative. BTW, I don't mind if whole games, expansions or DLC are never put in a box, but the rest is really bothering me.

 

Get used to it.

Emmmm, NO.

 

I am going to fight it the only way I can; buy at e-stores that don't have the obnoxious on-line demand or whatever or, when this all fails, buy boxed games (again). I will NOT buy games otherwise, no matter how well they are rated, raved and talked about. Enough great games out there, there is no need to succumb to the crap Steam and the rest are trying to pull on us. I've only installed Steam when my brother gave me the Orange Box, and deinstalled it after playing through HL2 and Portal. Will never install it again and I will NOT buy Episode3 ever if they don't change their policy.