Things You Should Boycott: Assassin’s Creed II and Its Horrendously Restrictive DRM

Posted 02/17/2010 at 11:22pm | by Nathan Grayson

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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.