Print
We love Assassin’s Creed II. It’s a fantastic game that actually lives up to all the promise its predecessor fell just short of.
Its DRM, however, manages to undo all that good will and then some.
We weren’t entirely sold on Ubisoft’s new “anti-piracy plan” when the publisher ran it by us last month, but little did we know that we were witnessing the birth of DRM so sinister that we’re now petitioning to have the guy that created SecuROM canonized.
Here’s how it works (as discovered by the fine folks at PC Gamer UK): as you’re already aware, the DRM requires an Internet connection to authenticate your game. As you weren’t already aware, it requires that Internet connection at all times. Constantly. The second you lose that connection for whatever reason, even for a second – be it a faulty wireless signal, a clumsy roommate, or a fried server on Ubisoft’s end – your game goes dark, you lose all unsaved progress, and you’re locked out of the game until you resolve your connection issue.
We’re reminded, at this point, of an old Internet saying: DO NOT WANT.
Ubisoft’s also afflicting the DRM upon Settlers 7. We weren’t actually planning on purchasing Settlers 7 in the first place, and – shockingly enough – this hasn’t done anything to change our minds.
Is this a joke, Ubisoft? Because we’re not seeing the punchline. That is, unless you burst out laughing every time hundreds of thousands of pirates cause you to lose millions of dollars.
Comments are closed on this article
nekollx
February 18, 2010 at 10:40am
let's see. Spore was know to BRICK cd-roms so what am i going to do.
Buy a virus you can't uninstal because it installs a hidden root key that blows up your cd rom or get the same virus (or no virus, it's a crap shoot you know) for free?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Atomike
February 18, 2010 at 2:02pm
How about if you don't play the game at all, genius.
Why do you think you deserve to play this game no matter what? You have the most despicable sense of entitlement I've seen in a long time.
New concept for you - it IS possible to sacrifice some fun for a higher cause. Stand up for something and don't play the game at all.
Yeesh.
nekollx
February 18, 2010 at 2:40pm
Did i say which i did? No i simple presented the options.
For the record i bought the game but it is still in the shrink wrap, i instaled the crack that won't destroy my cd-rom though
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Atomike
February 18, 2010 at 3:20pm
Fair enough. I guess if you absolutely have to play the game, despite its DRM, you did it in the right way. I believe that anyone who purchased the game has every right to do what you did. Purchasing any DRM-heavy game, however, does support, and contribute to the spread of restrictive DRM - which is why it's better to simply not play it. But purchasing is still much, much better than piracy - so I applaud your compromise.
nekollx
February 18, 2010 at 5:16pm
at the time of purchase i didn't know of the DRM, but i found out before i cracked the seal. It was one of my rare in store impulse buy. Normally i just use Steam
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
x0ne
February 18, 2010 at 10:32pm
Well thats a bit of a grey area solution because by not cracking the seal your keeping your resale value, essentially you can sell it as 'new', if you do that then your no different to any other pirate it as you've played it without paying (or only a negligable amount) and you've lost the publisher another full sale.
If you want the moral high ground you should crack it open...
foolm2
March 03, 2010 at 5:38pm
Let me get this straight...giving money to companies that keep telling Will Wright his ideas will never work is good? If you know anything about Will Wright, you know he was told the Sims wasn't a good idea. His dollhouse simulator has spun off countless add ons and sequels and is the top selling PC game of all time. (Or was at one time for you fact-checkers). He had to fight and fight to make Spore. The fact is, game companies are full of rich idiots who borrow their money illegally through the fractional reserve system and then shit advertisements for their crappy games all over us. Good games can never get noticed without going through this mainstream delivery system and cannot compeat because they cannot buy advertising with fiat capital like the big boys. So we get shitty game after shitty game and now they don't want us to be able to trade in or sell games when they turn out to be crap. Do you think you are actually giving money to the creators? Most of them were laid off the day after the game shipped.
JeyNyce
February 18, 2010 at 8:31am
As someone said earlier, don't download it, just don't buy it. It would make matters worst if you download a crack copy of the game. I will not be buying it and I hope PC Gamer follows the same suit as MAXPC.
Tekzel
February 18, 2010 at 8:21am
I hardly play any games any more. Part of it is I am just tired of them. I have been a gamer since the days of the Atari 2600. I guess I am just done. I play the occasional game, I do enjoy a good FPS from time to time, but thats pretty much it. Part of my moving away from gaming is frustration with the controlling attitudes of game publishers. I guess I just have a problem with the maker of a product telling me when, how, and where I will use the product I bought.
These days, the only games I buy are ones that have been out for a long time and are CHEAP on Steam. I got Bioshock for $5. Last Christmas I got Crysis and Crysis: Warhead together for $13. I swore I would never buy them due to SecuROM, but at that price I figured I could put up with it. I also got Assassin's Creed for $5.
I just don't care enough to pay full price for games any more.
lunchbox73
February 18, 2010 at 9:18am
I hear you loud and clear. Call me a cheapskate but I just can't pay over 20 bucks for a game. I can wait until it's on sale at Steam. $40 STILL for COD4? Thanks but no thanks.
LatiosXT
February 18, 2010 at 8:24am
Ubisoft, EA... maybe Activision, they all want to give PC gamers some sort of stick up the rump. I say, screw them. They don't like us, we don't need them. And you might be wondering... we don't need them? Well we don't.
Of course, all these big name publishers care about is their bottom line. They see PC gaming as a high-risk, no-return investment (when we could probably agree half the crap they develop came from PC gaming in the first place...). Why settle for companies that want to churn out nothing more than what they think makes them money? I keep thinking this is similar to music where during the glory years of rock and roll (somewhere when Black Sabbath was at their zenith), companies were thinking "how could we make even MORE money?". Then they found something, and it was called Disco.
But whatever shall we be doing for games? We look to the independent game scene. Sure it may not be as OMFG technologically advanced as say Crysis and would render spending anymore than $1000 on a PC moot, but the indie gaming scene has still produced quite a bit of great games. The ones I can think off of the top of my head are La-Mulana, Tale of a Drunken Paladin III, the Touhou series, and Iji. And games like Portal basically came from indie gaming (so to speak).
PC gaming don't need these big companies who treat its user base like dirt. I would bet that if AC2 legitimately sold like crap, they'd still blame piracy. But in any case, there are plenty of game development tools readily available for PC users, and someone with enough time and dedication (and a little bit of programming know-how) can create something some big publishing company wouldn't think of approving.
I just hope if some of these more successful indie gamers get approached by a big publishing company that they have the will to tell them to go to hell.
eetrinko
February 18, 2010 at 8:00am
Yeah sooner or leter it will be cracked! Rest assured!
Jess
www.privacy-tools.de.tc
dullthud
February 18, 2010 at 7:53am
Wait till someone cracks it then buy the game and download the cracked version. Keep the bought game on the shelf and play the cracked version. The people that play pirated software WON'T BUY IT ANYWAY! Publishers seem to forget that fact. They see people playing their games for free and they think this is lost revenue. It is not, those pirates wouldn't have bought the game in the first place. As long as the game sells well don't worry about it.
As for the death of PC gaming, I've been hearing that one for 10 years. HA! PC is the showcase for new technology, because it constantly updates. But your game needs to be good on a PC for people to buy it, unlike consoles where the users in general are less fussy. Until someone comes out with an upgradable console system, PC will always be the king. Not to mention casual games, remember Grandma might own a PC, but I doubt she has a PS3. (Note: Your Grandma may differ)
Atomike
February 18, 2010 at 8:17am
You are part of the problem. Don't download the cracked version - don't buy the game. Just don't. If you do this, you're still putting money in Ubisoft's pockets. Money that they will assume means that the DRM is okay. No. You don't need to play this game. It won't kill you. Grow a spine for once.
Dullthud - you are personally responsible for this DRM problem. The only way publishers will stop acting evil is if people stop buying their games. Also, people need to stop downloading cracked games. If you buy DRM games, or download or pirate cracked games, you cannot complain about DRM. You are the one causing DRM to exist.
The only people who are helping PC gaming are those who don't pirate, and don't buy heavily DRM'd games.
Use your head, people. This thread is just full of idiocy.
planetouched
February 18, 2010 at 8:58am
I agree that we need to teach these companies DRM is not ok, but unfortunatly, they equate lost revenue with piracy, not disatisfaction with DRM
EvilRusk
February 18, 2010 at 7:20am
This was tried with Lost Planet, on Steam. It was a travesty that if your router dropped your single player game stopped. Shortly after a patch was released to fix it, but I had hoped never to see it again.
People will "boycott" like MW2, then buy it anyway because they are fools. With PC sales barely denting console sales, Ubisoft wont give a crap whatever noise you make. A petition only works if people actually DON'T go and buy the game anyway, otherwise it just sounds like sour grapes.
jko
February 18, 2010 at 6:51am
I refuse to buy games due to their crazy DRM. IMHO when a game is reviewed the DRM restrictions should be listed so consumers can decide on if the games worth it. Having to discover what the DRM is not right. We need to show companies that this is unacceptable by voting with our $$.
foolm2
March 03, 2010 at 5:45pm
It's pretty hard to even find DRM information. I don't remember seeing it on any of the boxes anywhere. It should have to be in big red letters on the front. Then I would know what not to buy. There are so many games out there we should have to play these games that assume we are all thieves.
stradric
February 18, 2010 at 6:31am
This is definitely pretty crappy. But to be fair, the game autosaves quite often. If you lose connection and have to restart, you're really not going to have to do all that much over again.
But this just goes to show how much disdain Ubisoft has for the PC. The first AssCreed on PC was a miserable port. And this one looks like it's going to be too. Boycott it, but be aware that the game already sold tremendously on consoles. A boycott of this game will more likely lead to no development on PC at all rather than smarter DRM.
Shadai
February 18, 2010 at 5:31am
You know, in the day and age of prematurely calling PC gaming Dead over and over again on a almost weekly basis, this hardly surprises me. Ubisoft has been the dumbest game company... well... ever. They first got my ire back when they boycotted EGM for telling the readers the truth about their sly underhand tactics. Now this. I have to say that this is right up their shady back-alleys and for one, I am hardly surprised.
If you are going to make a game, and you want to make money off it, don't you think you'd want to make it actually, you know, ATTRACTIVE to consumers? I mean the goal is to get them to spend their hard-earned cash on your piece of shit regurgitated sequels, is it not?
I wasn't going to buy that game anyway, but now its even off the impulse buying list. I seriously refuse to buy anything from that company until they pull their heads out of their collective asses.
Matarsak
February 18, 2010 at 3:23am
Right. 'Cause treating paying customers like pirates is really going to show the pirates who are entirely unaffected by the (soon to be) cracked DRM.
And then, when sales flatline, they'll blame piracy.
Yusonice
February 18, 2010 at 3:17am
hackers will find a way eventually with DRM. i mean most games has torrents for it. jus thave to wait for crack
QuakindudeMod
February 18, 2010 at 1:34am
And yet another game I won't be buying due to DRM. Direct Removal of Money.
*****MaximumPC Moderator. Report inappropriate/SPAM comments to
QuakindudeMod at Gmail--dot--com with a link. My personal comments do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of MaxPC or Future US*****
shomval
February 18, 2010 at 1:11am
are you serious?! we need an internet connection?! wtf! my internet is ALWAYS bad , keeps going on and off at times (can't fix it) omg....... and to think that i was looking forward to it.............
FRAGaLOT
February 18, 2010 at 12:58am
Who's buying this platformer game like this on a PC anyway? The DRM that's used on consoles (360/PS3) aren't nearly as bad as this, yet cost at least $10 more to buy it than the PC version. DRM is irrelivant; those "Pirates" will remove it anyway, and offer patches even for those poor saps you DID buy the PC version.
JohnJuan
February 18, 2010 at 12:57am
I found out that RaceDriver 3's DRM isn't compatible with Vista or 7. It made me really happy to find out that while GRID ad DiRT have similar DRM, I don't have to worry about it, because I bought them from Steam. I buy almost all of my new games there now so I don't have to worry about any DRM issues.
Saltboy
February 18, 2010 at 6:10am
You do know that Steam passes on to you whatever DRM is there with the game?
Atomike
February 18, 2010 at 8:21am
He does not. Nor does he realize that Steam itself is incredibly restrictive DRM. Try to re-sell your used Steam game. The ONLY use for steam is $5 sale games. If you buy a new $50 game on Steam, you're just a total and complete idiot.
ThermoGel
February 18, 2010 at 12:59pm
Please explain how you are a complete idiot for buying new games off of steam
DBsantos77
February 18, 2010 at 12:47am
Sad day. Don't the publishers understand the customer's point of view? Oh wait. They're eyes are blocked by
$ $ signs. (Sigh.)
-Santos
johnny3144
February 18, 2010 at 12:43am
i was on the line of deciding to buy it or not, this made hell lot easier.
not.
Caboose
February 18, 2010 at 9:25am
I'm with you on this one mate!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Whudunit
February 18, 2010 at 12:42am
Me too.
I've had it with PC Gaming. Microsoft does nothing for Windows, GFWL sucks donkey balls.
To many games are not being released on the PC consistently now, and we're the ones getting ass raped over DRM, yet I know people who burn PS3 games etc.
I'm tired of being treated like the milkman's son by most every videogame company. Crysis was released when? yet they are no longer making patches for the game to people who bought it can play it? How long until Star Trek online goes the way of The Matrix online and every other MMO not named WoW.
I guess my money isn't worth anything, so I'm giving in and buying the next console that comes out.
snapple00
February 18, 2010 at 12:33am
That seems a little extreme.
I'm just going to keep playing the games I have now over and over. When I'm bored with them, I'm throwing in the towel to PC gaming.
hinokin
March 02, 2010 at 4:35pm
Proper crack for Assassin's Creed II 100% works!
Download link:
http://www.envirofile.org/download/12693
****************************************
INSTRUCTION1. Disconnect internet first!
2. Copy crack to game folder.
3. Run game.
4. Minimize .
5. Run aces2.exe
6. Enter game from taskbar.
7. Play!Special thanks to NForcer's Team
