Assassin's Creed II for PC Locked Down by DRM
Some of you are going to hate this.
While some game publishers are getting a little more customer-friendly with its DRM efforts, Ubisoft has fused some pretty strict protection-schemes into its upcoming games that could cause some big headaches for PC gamers.
Last month Ubisoft revealed a new service that requires gamers to be signed in to a custom account and connected to the internet in order to play games.
PC Gamer UK received its review copies of Assassin's Creed II and Settlers VII and reported that the games aren't at all friendly towards gamers with shoddy internet connections. "If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected," the site reported.
This means that any gaming session of Assassin's Creed II you may have running can be taken down by your ISP failing, your wireless signal being weak, your router on the blink, or simply just someone pulling any number of plugs. Even worse, what happens when Ubisoft's Master servers are down?
Ubisoft's seemingly restrictive service does have a few benefits: it can sync your save games with the Ubisoft cloud so you can retrieve them from anywhere; and you're allowed to install the game as many times on as many PCs as you want (but you can only sign in at one machine at a time).
Ubisoft offered comment in an earlier story regarding its online-always service:
The platform requires a permanent Internet connection. We know this choice is controversial but we feel is justified by the gameplay advantages offered by the system and because most PCs are already connected to the Internet. This platform also offers protection against piracy, an important business element for Ubisoft and for the PC market in general as piracy has an important impact on this market. Any initiative that allows us to lower the impact of piracy on our PC games will also allow us to concentrate further effort to the creation and expansion of IPs for the PC - our goal is to deliver the best gaming experience to our customers, anywhere, anytime."
What's your take on this new DRM scheme?
- assassin's ,
- creed ,
- DRM ,
- ubisoft ,
- piracy
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This will just push people into using a crack or pirated version, way easier.
I agree, these measures will only result in scaring off the few people that were really planning on buying the game for PC. They're making the choice even easier for us; a hacked and (hassle)free game or an expensive game which restricts you in every way possible?
Their goal is obviously not to "deliver the best gaming experience to our customers, anywhere, anytime". Their goal is in fact quite the opposite, they're making sure to squeeze every penny out of their IP, even if it means crippling the game itself in the process.
A singleplayer game that can only be played when your PC or laptop is connected to the internet ...
"our goal is to deliver the best gaming experience to our customers, anywhere, anytime... except when you have crappy internet, in that case you're screwed ... or just download the cracked version
Greetz,
Ubisoft"
not a chance I will buy.I bought Dragon age since it had no DRM, anything with DRM will not happen. Period.
I usually buy originals, this is not new even Left 4 Dead 2 had downloaded almost 500MB before going to play after the installation from the disk has ended.
But it did allow me to play offline after that, and given the fact that its best Enjoyed as multi player game..
I liked the original Assassins, I usually buy what even Ubisoft throws on PC, coz I just love the way they make games..
But I choose to not to buy an original this time, ISP's here is partly to blame and partly Ubisoft for being skeptically protective..
What about people like us who buy originals and have very poor internet Service providers ..
Merely 3months after the console release debuts the PC version and they disappoint us.
Its like the Alan Wake news for me..
I cancelled my PC pre-order for this, I don't buy into DRM, I won't pirate it either but I won't support Ubisoft by buying it on either my xbox or ps3.
Is the DRM going to be included with the Steam version?
Is the DRM going to be included with the Steam version?
I would mind less if this "feature" was included in the Xbox / PS3 version. Why single out PC users?
If I bought the original I'd have to crack it to play the stupid game.
Big fail ubisoft.
This is another nail in the coffin for the future of PC gaming. I have been an avid PC gamer for near 15 years, but I also own an XBox 360 and PS3. I did seriously consider buying the PC version of the game, but the fact that it came out on the consoles first meant that I eventually bought it for my PS3. Now learning of the always on internet restriction of the PC version I am very glad that I bought the console version. My internet connection does occasionally go down and being booted out of a game I have genuinely bought due to a failed connection would have caused me considerable anger!
Downloading a cracked copy will be much easier than this so they've basically shot themselves in the foot!!!
Actually it would probably alot easier if it was brought out on Steam!
I've never pirated a game before as I believe in supporting the industry (and not being a thief), but this takes the piss.
They must be out of their minds to believe that people would rather pay £40 for that crap then download a free and easier to use copy illegaly.
i was actually going to buy this but no i dont now if i will
correct me if im wrong but i dont know if any of you guys have found this but if you copy the game to a folder on your desktop and extract all the files you dont need to install it and can get arround this?
i guess i will have to debug the game now to get rid of this stupied drm crap
(i wont actually remove it i will just remove the server stuff)
i dont't care much for online stuff so it suits me just fine
taking the piss this is and i wont be buying it if thats the case.
A$$holes
I have no problem with protecting revenue, they make it they can demand payment, but:
To restrict solo play on a game to someone with an internet connection only?? thats pure insanity. They must put an "offline mode" in before this is implimented of they will recieve nothing from me (i have the first one on steam).
also this worried me as Ubisoft purchased my favourite games developer recently (TrackMania's - Focus/Nadeo) and the new TM2 will hit the shores toward the end of 2010. This could hury my beloved TM and ubi more than they realise, i pay for my games and i do not want to be restricted if i am a paying customer.
Trying to stop piracy by making it easier to pirate the game than to actually own it.
I really hope the developers wake up at some point and realise they are persecuting the people who actually buy their games. and making life easier for those that pirate them.
Sop they know it`s controversial, eh? But are carrying on regardless? Well they can include me in their projected net loss on their profit margin then.
It seems that the more they want to avoid piracy, the more the end up inadvertisely promoting it. Way to go, ubi. Piracy has always existed and will never cease to exist. They should better focus on the quality of the game and upholding release dates. Most people who download pirated copies are simply unsure about the quality of the game and do not choose to spend +-50 bucks for something that might suck.
who honestly cares about console ports... more and more console games are just ported to PC these days, w/o even proper interface/controls. Ass creed is a game for modern warfare noobs. The above is what killed PC gaming, this is just the final nail in the coffin. RIP.
Since a long time I ignored all their protection... if a game asked me to install some copy-protection software I would just search for the crack on-line... in the meantime I switched to xbox 4many games coz I can't keep up with hardware req in PC games
I would be one of the people that was genuinely going to buy this (on Steam). Although I do hate DRM, generally it doesn't stop me from buying a game if it's not too ridiculous but there's absolutely no way I'll be paying for this now. To be honest, I will probably download the cracked copy as I still want to play it however.
My gaming PC is never connected to the internet, purely so I don't have to slow it down with anti-virus/malware. I know many people who also do this.
Unless these companies start paying to upgrade our PCs to handle the extra system load that comes with a permanent internet connection then this is another downfall in the PC gaming industry.
yeah but those greedy bastards do what they want and get on with it..