Ubisoft’s Uncrackable DRM Lasted a Mere 24 Hours
Ubisoft’s Uncrackable DRM Lasted a Mere 24 Hours
Posted 03/06/2010 at 2:23pm
| by Justin Kerr
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We've tossed around some pretty harsh criticisms of Ubisoft's new PC DRM approach, and it's very much deserved. Piracy is a tricky issue to combat, we get it, but we also know that no amount of DRM will ever stop the dedicated few kleptomaniacs who for one reason or another, simply refuse to pay for software. The only truth when it comes to copy protection is that the stronger it is, the more honest customers you will accidentally burn with it. This isn't anything we haven't said before, but it's ironic how all of our predictions seem to be coming true.
According to ZDnet a version of Assassin's Creed 2 sans DRM has appeared on Bit Torrents, and the date confirms it took a mere 24 hours to defuse Ubisoft's DRM of mass destruction. If this version works as advertised, it would leave the gimped version in the hands of paying customers who will needlessly be forced to suffer through another failed attempt at heavy handed copy protection. Its hard to gauge if all the bad press is having any impact on Assassin's Creed II's sales, but a quick peek at the Steam player stats ranks the game in 29th place, just below the original Day of Defeat (a game released 7 years ago).
The best way to vote against this type of behavior is with your wallet, not your Bit Torrent client, but perhaps the evolving reality of the situation will force Ubisoft to take action and release a patch for its loyal patrons.
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dstevens
March 09, 2010 at 9:37am
do you think that just maybe these developers of awesomeness might get a clue and quit with this laame drm?
if : most games didnt suck so hard, wernt so annoyingly filled with DRM, and released, err patched atleast to playability, and werent overpriced.... cmon who wants to pay $60 for a game that you find out absolutely blows only to find out you cant return it cause you are a pirate and you obviously copied the game and now you are stuck with it. and its even worse if you had a dl copy from someplace like steam. who wants to pay 60 for a game that takes over your machine all the time? hell i wont ever look at AOL again because they started taking over your windows installation more and more and more, and thats free! how much less would the game cost i you subtracted the drm development cost? how much better would it run if the drm wasnt there to begin with? oh yeah, lets not even mention, how stupid are these companies? they might as well hand over thier code in a pre hacked state instead of giving very eager hackers and talented coders (obviously more talented than the ones employed by the game companies) targets to aim at. kudos to whoever did disinfect AC2 from its malware errr drm.
Trooper_One
March 08, 2010 at 12:15pm
Adding to the nubmerous comments on DRM, I have to say, I hate them as well.
I purchase all my games these days (too many in fact) - and mostly off of Steam. I fit the dreaded male, 26-35 category who don't watch a lot of TV and I spend a good $1300/year on games/PC Hardware. Here's my take on DRM issues.
I find that most DRM annoying but if they don't interfere with my daily use and the occasional reformat, I'm okay with it. However, the AC2 DRM seems pretty annoying, as such, I'll follow the corwd and not be bothered with it (AC1 was an excellent game btw). The hassles I experienced with Spore left a bitter taste. I hope games publishers read these comments from their customer.
nekollx
March 08, 2010 at 9:57am
hehehehehehehehehehehehe
Sorry...can't....breath....call...me...later.
Seriously, Ubisoft FAIL
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
linkmaster6
March 08, 2010 at 6:28am
I own the game and I downloaded a crack for it. Any idea why? Cause I don't put up with this kind of continuous activation bullshit.
A dial up only customer has to do what a dial up only customer has to do.
Athlonite
March 08, 2010 at 5:00am
cost is a factor if you take the amount they paid for their shitty drm license off of the price of a game you'd be left with game that costs probably a third less that alone would encourage me to buy but at a range of $99.99 ~ $120.00 bucks or more here in New Zealand for new release games im not likely to pony up ... 1 big reason me and my mates still play Quake III over a lan we get maps up the wazzoo and character skins and bots all for free
Play till it breaks then learn how to fix it!
ken247113
March 07, 2010 at 6:25pm
Free things never get pirated. If someone tells you this item is unhackable and uncrackable, what do people try to do next? People just want Instant Gratification without emptying their wallets.
Piracy is an Unstoppable Force
Baer
March 07, 2010 at 1:53pm
What are you, 12 years old? Your comment has no redeming social value. Yes the DRM is something that makes those of us that are willing to pay for a game real angry but sophmoric comments like this add nothing to the discussion and in fact take away from the many well thouight out posts.
WindowsXP
March 07, 2010 at 7:56am
I think these guys will learn their lesson: Make even more restrictive DRM, which requires you to call in to their offices every time you want to save your game.
And they will wonder whats wrong when the game gets cracked in a mere 28 hours.
igoka
March 07, 2010 at 6:55am
I wanna add just that DRM stopped me to buy Battlefield Bad Company 2. Big Battlefield fan . It is on Steam but you still have to have stupid activations. And i agree vote with your valet . This is lame excuse to steal or pirate . If you don't wanna buy , don't steal.
Retnil
March 07, 2010 at 10:36am
BC2's DRM is't bad. You have the option of online activation (limit 10 computers) that can be deactivated to regain activations or you can have the disk check which leaves out those nasty activations.
D3lt4
March 07, 2010 at 11:27am
Minus, all the server problems.. which happen when a game gets very popular.
The DRM was one of the least obtrusive, one time activation with no disk needed afterwords... on 10 computers... plus the game rocks!
shutesie
March 07, 2010 at 5:17am
The DRM stopped me from buying Silent Hunter 5 and any future games that use this DRM. My question is regarding the whole voting with my dollar concept.
How do we let them know that the reason their game isn't selling is because we find the DRM to be unacceptable. I am going to assume that they feel that the DRM is okay so any lack of sales would have to be caused by some other reason. They will probably view the lack of sales on the fact that we are all thieves - just look at all the bit torrent downloads - rather than that we hate DRM, or that we just don't like the game, or that PC games are not where the money is and stop making them.
So my question to people like Maximum PC or to people in the know is this.
You say vote with your dollar but how do I tell them the reason for my vote. My feeling is that simply just not buying the game will merely stop them from making a sequel because people weren't interested in the game rather than the real reason that the DRM was too draconian.
My time is valuable to me and for the record I don't steal games. If it isn't worth PAYING FOR it isn't WORTH PLAYING.
NSain
March 07, 2010 at 11:34am
Flood the offices with letters stating that you didn't buy this game because of DRM. Low sales won't be attributed to DRM but to other factors. If enough people wrote in, ie. thousands (I wish), 1000 x $50 = $50,000. The more that write, the more they see the sales they lost.
I Jedi
March 07, 2010 at 1:44pm
You're treating the gaming industry like at bunch of incompetent retards. The truth is that all of them are a business first and gaming publishers second. They know people hate their DRM, and they'll continue to use it because their mandated by their publishers to use it. The reason why incentives aren't more widely spread out. e.g. 10% off next game purchase, DLC codes, etc... is because now-a-days businesses focus more on getting the most for giving as little as they can to the customer. There once was a time when businesses thought customers should be treated way better; however, those days are long since gone.
aviaggio
March 07, 2010 at 3:47pm
"You're treating the gaming industry like at bunch of incompetent retards"
Because it's clear that they are by the decision to implement such a retarded DRM system.
imagonex
March 06, 2010 at 7:46pm
As the author says, Vote with your wallet, not with a torrent!
DRM is an epic failure and they'll never admit to it.
I get so angry when the consumer is being made the scapegoat in all of this. Just maddening beyond belief!!
The first thing that infuriates me about corporations shoving DRM down the consumers' throats is the fact that these same corporations created the infrastructure, the tools, the hardware and everything else they sold to create this situation. It wasn't the consumer's fault.
Besides, this didn't happen overnight. It's not like computers sprouted out of nowhere and then, BAM! People just started to hack, illegally download and/or pirated their code. Come on guys! Please!
Basically, all these megalomaniac corporations sat their own a__es on a chair, tied themselves to that chair, poured the gasoline all over themselves and lit up the match on their own.
And...who's to blame for profits, piracy and them blowing their own a__es off? The consumer!! Yeah...right! Give me a break!! What the..?!
If there's someone to blame for their EPIC FAILURE, it's NOT the consumer! It's them and their incompetence and being unable to foretell the future of the markets and its tendencies. They had 20 years to put something in place and they epically FAILED! FAILED BEYOND BELIEF! Not my (sic) problem! So, they can take their DRM and stick it where the sun don't shine.
And, in the end, when all bit-torrent sites are shut down, who will they blame then?! The Sun? The Moon? Gravity? Aliens?
So, VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET, not bit-torrent.
reutnes
March 06, 2010 at 7:16pm
If it's man-made, it can be man-broken. DRM is never going to put an end to piracy. If they really want to get rid of illicit piracy, they should completely ditch their DRM wars and put the money the saved from not making new DRM into suing people who are actually thieving the software.
Relying on DRM to stop piracy is only hurting the legit users. Pirates are enjoying better software for free because publishers weigh down the legit versions in an effort to make sure it doesn't get pirated in the first place.
What I'm posting here is nothing new. Bloggers and commenters alike have been saying it for ages. I don't get why corporations don't go out and read feedback on what they're doing. Perhaps more people would be willing to buy if they actually catered to what users want.
I Jedi
March 06, 2010 at 7:55pm
There is only ONE problem with your theory, and that is that the R.I.A.A., in the music industry, tried suing people to hell and back and it never worked. Millions of songs are stolen each and everyday; however, when they stopped putting DRM on their tracks, and sold individual tracks for a buck, it made buying it a lot more sweater, rather than stealing it. If you truly believe suing individuals to scare the masses will stop the masses, you are mistakenly wrong. Offering incentives, and doing away with DRM is the way to go. DRM always gets broken, so why spend the time trying to make a "full-proof" system when it'll be torn down a week later?
Dexter243
March 06, 2010 at 6:24pm
Nutcracklng snack
after the crap i went threw with far cry2 were i payed for it did the install and then i reinstaled my os and redownloaded far cry2 and i spent hr's trying to get it reactivated threw steam i uninstaled it and never payed for a nother Ubisoft
game and i never will
the fact that i have to reactivate a game on steam just becous i want to log in to a nother pc at my frinds hous or i have to reinstall my os
is all i need to never buy from Ubisoft ever
end of story
Tenhawk
March 06, 2010 at 5:53pm
Stating the blindingly obvious and being proven right is not ironic. It's having two braincells that haven't yet been fried by whatever they're smoking at Ubisoft.
Now, the full DRM system hasn't been totally cracked yet, but that's not a surprise. It should take about a week, I'd say, give or take, before we see fully playable versions of Silent Hunter and AC2. The nature of the DRM will probably require someone to play through the entire game while logging communications between the servers. Then a couple days dev time, some coding, and presto... Ubisoft will have officially flushed away their DRM investment, whatever it was.
Until then, of course, every Open Source Loving Gamer out there will have sworn off the game and their sales will suffer to one degree or another. <shrug>
You know, I just don't understand the logic they use to be honest. VCR's didn't destroy the movie studios, damn it. Burnable CDs did't destroy game publishers OR music companies... and the internet isn't going to destroy content providers. Why do they keep claiming the same bullshit over and over again, when they've been PROVEN wrong??
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What if you claim different results despite the world consistently proving you wrong? Are you insane then? Or are the rest of us because, apparently, we're willing to let the government bend us over so the content providers can get their aim *just* right?
I Jedi
March 06, 2010 at 6:17pm
I can totally agree with your pont of view. Gaming publishers obviously see things differently, but they live in a fantasy world of 10 years ago when downloading GBs of data was hard. Now a days, it has become common place to download large files, like movies and games. Gaming publishers need to get up to speed, and realize that they live in a world where protecting your digital/physical content is no longer guranteed and probably won't work out in the end. I stated in another post, in this topic, that I believe the best way to reduce piracy is to offer an incentive for buying a video game legit. This includes, but not limited to, offering free DLC codes, being entered into a raffle of some sort, or finally getting a discount off of the next game purchase from that company.
Havok
March 07, 2010 at 6:58am
My incentives for buying Supreme Commander 2 was 10% off of the Steam version, playing it anywhere courtesy of Steam and having the extra Steam content (achievements etc.)
I totally agree I Jedi. My work-mate pirated Torchlight and was pissed that he couldn't activate it on Steam to get the achievements and Steam cloud abilties.
CLICK.
jason27131
March 06, 2010 at 4:46pm
Silent Hunter is not cracked either. Half the game doesn't work.
JohnP
March 06, 2010 at 4:43pm
ZDNet article says that Silent Hunter 5, not AC2 was cracked.
It's hard to tell how much piracy really hurts a game. Yes, folks download it and play it but would they have bought the game if they did not get it for free? That is the real question. What we need is an impartial study done with a high enough statistical basis to see the truth.
How about this? Release a game with DRM which is cracked quickly. Wait 6 months and then release the game again without any DRM and make all original copies DRM free. See if there is any significant improvement in sales of the game. In 6 months time, most buyers already have a copy so even if the piracy is rampant afterwards, it will not affect the long term prospects for the game much. But if sales JUMP, then the company can truthfully say that the DRM did hurt sales.
Vegan
March 06, 2010 at 5:19pm
"Yes, folks download it and play it but would they have bought the game
if they did not get it for free?"
I've always hated this argument. If you want something enough to play it, you want it enough to buy it. Period. The argument of, "But I wasn't going to buy it no matter what!" is so fallable, I don't know where to begin.
Athlonite
March 08, 2010 at 5:03am
yeah really i'd love to buy Assassins Creed II but i'm not going to why i here you ask because i'm not going to pony up 120 bucks and be treated like im the criminal
Play till it breaks then learn how to fix it!
aviaggio
March 06, 2010 at 7:30pm
I disagree. Most games simply aren't worth what they cost. Some games you play for 10-15 minutes, decide you'll never play it again, and that's that. Was that worth $50?
Demos are a good way to go. But sometimes they don't always give you a good feel of the game. There have been many times I played a demo, thought it was great, and then bought the game only to find out the demo was the best part and the rest sucked. $50 out the window.
I think your argument is actually the other way around. Those that *really* want the game are willing to buy it. Those with just a passing fancy for a title are probably not willing to pay full price for it. If they can't pirate it they'll either try to find it used, wait a year till the price is $10 on Steam, or simply not play it.
I think it's safe to assume that most who have pirated a game would not otherwise go and buy it at full retail price.
Neufeldt2002
March 06, 2010 at 5:34pm
That is not true, Demo's of games are the best way to play before you pay. I myself have played many demo's where I was thankful I didn't pay for the game. I recently got a free copy of Dark Void (Legit) and I gave it to my son because I thought it was awful. Glad I didn't pay for that except the download bandwidth. My son said "Dad, why did you give me this piece of Sh*t?" So twice a game didn't offer value, that is selling for $60.00 where I live. The argument that someone wouldn't buy it in the first place is very real. I also know people that download these games to play, and then they buy the ones they like. (I don't)
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I wanted a signature, but all I got was this ________
I Jedi
March 06, 2010 at 6:10pm
I can see your idea of wanting to test the DRM idea by seeing if having no DRM will increase sales; however, I am here to say that I personally do not believe DRM has an impact one way or another. DRM is usually always cracked, and if people don't want to buy it, and can find another way to get it for free, they will. Now, for some reason, people lose moral sight when they are on the Internet. They steal what they can on the Internet what they won't steal in stores because it's easier, and they themselves believe they will never be cought because of a false hood of "privacy" on the Internet.
Here is my resolution to slowing down the piracy of video games. This, I believe, is the only "true" method that will ever work for video game publishers. First and foremost, though, no gaming publisher can effectively "stop" the pirating of their games, not even the Xbox 360, Wii, or PS3 games are safe from piracy. There will always be people out there who would rather steal a game, rather than fork up $50 to pay for someone else's hard earned work.
Secondly, game publishers need to STOP punishing their loyal customers. We already know that DRM does not work, so why install secuROM, and other malicious content unto a customer's computer? You think people who pirate your games have to install your secuROM, game publishers? The answer is no.
Third and lastly, game publishers NEED to offer incentives for customers who BUY their games legit. This may include offering free DLC codes, giving a discount on a next purchase from that company,or being entered into a raffle of some sort.
Finally, I ALWAYS buy my games legit. When Mass Effect 2 came out, I was very much so happy to buy it because I got the special edition armor, free DLC, and other things that made buying the game worthwhile. Plus, the story line was great. Now, I have a moral obligation to not rip gaming publishers off because I realize they, not I, have worked very hard to create these vitrual worlds. I always go for the approach of "If it were my game, would I want it ripped?"; however, again, gaming publishers need to STOP punishing their loyal customer fan base. I hate having secuROM on my PC, and having to keep my Internet on for server activation. Oh, and gaming publishers need to realize that going to the console systems is not going to always be the sure way to keep piracy down. More and more, as time goes on, people are becoming more familiar with how to rip game disks from console systems, which effectively spreads piracy of the console games in the end.
Learn to find better ways gaming publishers
jason27131
March 06, 2010 at 2:49pm
actually, the drm may be cracked, but the game is still unplayable. Ubisoft servers send triggers to the game to activate certain points, such as the first animus, the escape, and missions in the game. Without the trigger, the game just freezes and stops. So yes, the drm of the internet connection is cracked, but you also are locked out of the game.
Biceps
March 06, 2010 at 3:50pm
Not buying it. Look, I absolutely do not download pirated games. Ever. But I also don't buy games that change the way my OS works or invade my privacy. Heavyhanded DRMs don't do squat. Even if the current DRM hasn't been broken, give it another 24 hours and it will be cracked. AND I'm still not buying it, ever.
If these companies are so darn worried about Pirating, they should all be using services like Steam to sell their games, and crack down HARD on the jerks who steal the games in the first place. DRM doesn't work and drives away valid customers, and, just as importantly, doesn't attract new customers. ugh.
Biceps
March 06, 2010 at 6:49pm
Well, that is really super sad. Goes to show you that corporate executives have their heads just as far up their butts as ever. I really should just start my own DRM company. All the software would do is make it so no one at all can play the game for the first 48 hours it is released, and then crash everyone's computers to blue screens. Then I'll charge the gaming companies a few hundred grand for it, and they'll eat it up, because I can guarantee no pirates will be able to play the game for at least 48 hours. Anyone wanna help me program it? We'll be rich!!
Biceps
March 08, 2010 at 12:01am
People in Europe can't even play the game right now. That's it, I need some investors and an incompetent programmer - and we'll be RICH!
johnny3144
March 06, 2010 at 2:39pm
That lasted almost 24 hour longer than the last DRM at the cost of merely few million potential customers.
i am not playing it.
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