Ubisoft's DRM for Assassin's Creed II is Cracked

Sometimes it makes you wonder if developers are starting to throw these "barriers" in games..just to create challenges for those cracking them.

It's not like one of their first thoughts couldn't have been "Someones bound to crack this...whats the point of pissing off people who actually pay for the game?"

This DRM crap is only punishing legitimate customers- the pirates will laugh it off in the end eventually. It's one of the main reasons I think PC gaming is hurting. I've lost track of how many times DRM has malfunctioned or prevented me or people I know from running LEGITIMATE copies of games they bought and paid for. It wouldn't even be such an issue if the DRM worked properly to begin with, and didn't cause problems- but often DRM can be buggy and make a game unplayable. Who want's to pay for software that they know might not even start up- let alone work?

Ubisoft are one of the worst offenders with DRM. Give it up already- it doesn't work. Just do the CD Key thing and some sort of disc verifications to stop the regular joes from copying and leave it at that.

Thankfully it seems the DRM is getting slightly better lately on the PC- one of the main reasons actually I've started buying more PC games. Was delighted when EA decided not to do the DRM thing with Mass Effect II- like they did with the last one. I hope more companies follow suit.

Bottom line is: stop treating your paying customers like criminals. We've had enough.

So the scum that forced publishers to install Draconian anti-piracy measures is now forcing even more restrictive security upon legitimate users?

Why is everybody blaming the publishers and not the people who drive them to such measures? Probably because most people have at least a few games on their drive they downloaded illegally...

Well.. a friend of mine legally bought CnC 4 but ended up also searching for DRM-crack.
The same thing goes also for Assassin's Creed 2, the one my bro also legally bought. He ended up also waiting for the DRM crack, and he is very thankful to SKIDROW.
Both of the were thinking about buying Settler 7 but they just don't want to fall into the same hole twice, so they didn't buy it, and they said that they will not buy anything again with such kind of protection method.

wow really?
if i didn't already have the 360 version, i would have considered the PC version without thought.
I don't personally condone piracy as i'd give money to decent developers who had good games, but the DRM thing just makes paying customers seem like criminals, but i'm pleased skid row did this, and completely removed the authentication segment of the code, maybe now ubisoft will get the idea.

simply, well done skid row. This kind of DRM is just horrible. I like re-playing games, i have dos-box for the old dos games. Reliance on Ubisoft to keep a server going in 5, 10, 20 years just doesn't feel right

DRM is a bad idea and its execution is even worse, but rather than just casting blame on Ubisoft, you should also think about why such companies opt for ever more Draconian measures. Illegal downloading is a plague that sharply reduces profits on non-mmo titles (and even there private servers are causing trouble). If developers want to survive and keep publishing, they will have to end piracy. And many pirates say the lack of quality is to blame for piracy, but even quality titles are widely pirated.

nicely put Rad1d-BDGR. The publishers are certainly not stupid if i was a gambler i'd being going with 2 too.

When it comes to computers. The firewall came before the intrusion. The Anti-Virus before the Virus.
Piracy has always happend, but DRM is only promoting it.

And what does that change to the problem of publishers and developers losing massive amounts of profits because of piracy?

I absolutely hate things like DRM. They are one of the many things that annoy me of recent titles.

However, would such strict protection exist if the worst offence someone made was borrowing a game to a friend, like it used to be a few years ago?

and by a few years ago you mean at least 20 or 30 years ago. some of these warez groups have been around for a looong time.

but yeah, you guys shouldn't kid yourself thinking ubisoft didn't realize this would one day happen. I think they just went with the drm to snag the initial release sales. We're probably lucky they released for the pc at all, what with how good console sales must have been.

In other news, Ubisoft fires its software development team and hires the guys from Skid Row to properly improve their game.

Silmarunya, if someone pirates a game in the first place that probably means they weren't going to buy it anyway. Essentially all these companies spout nonsense about how every pirated film, album and game is equal to one sale and so they attach sums to the total number of downloads and start crying about how much money they've could of made when, in reality, they would of only made a small sum of it.

Well, if you're not willing to pay money for it, you shouldn't be playing it anyway. After all, a game you don't want to buy is unlikely to be a title you *really* want.

And besides, a lot of people pirate just about everything, including the games they absolutely must have.

Publishers lose a lot of money, period. And given a company's only motivation to make games is profit, gamers are shooting themselves in the leg by not buying games.

stupid stupid stupid....

I have no problem if i have to register to play multiplayer online. OR if the game connects to the internet and checks the game 1 time ONLY! After it you do what you want.

And if they are complaining, that they dont have enough money, they should make better games!!!

Modern Warfare 2 (Console v.) is a perfect example! It was the fastest selling game because the GAME ITSELF (nevermind servers) is good, not because it has a freaking protection!!!
A lot of people pirated it for PC, and even so they made a sales record!!!

PLEASE understand this... people wont run in the store to buy something. just because they cant get it for free.

Well, if they don't want to go to a store, and I'm like that too, I either order it online, buy it on Steam or something similar or just don't bother getting it.

I don't see DRM making a difference at all not even to the initial release sales, people who wont buy it will wait and if someone on the inside stole a copy then they had the code long enough to crack it anyway.
As its killing them anyway then i challenge Ubisoft to release a set of games without DRM and make a big thing about it plaster it all over the net etc, pass the savings on to the public and compare the sales to a set of games released with DRM, also advertised all over the place and see which nets more money.

Mactronix

It was only a matter of time!!!!

@Silmarunya, don't worry about the publishers, the stuff they say about losing X million due to piracy is lies, they know full well that less then 1 in 100 people who download a pirate game would actually have bought the real one if they had no other choice, its the same with the music industry claiming millions in lost revenue, its just not true

SkidRow FTW!

A lot of hyperbole here.

- Yes the Ubi servers were down at first, just like Steam didn't cope with the Half-Life 2 release. I chalk it down to growing pains. I was furious when I couldn't play Settlers 7 when I bought it (april 8th), but since these hiccups I've been playing almost every day without any hiccup. So yes there were problems but do not blow them up please. The official apology I got from an Ubisoft manager for the downtime helped a lot too, btw.
- Ubisoft always knew the DRM would be cracked, they just wanted to snag the release sales. Seven weeks until cracked must be a new record. Settlers 7 and Silent Hunter 5 haven't been cracked as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), and it's fantastic to play my copy knowing the freeloading pirates can't. :-) So again, every game gets cracked eventually but it's all about snagging sales in the first weeks. DRM DOESN'T WORK SO DON'T BOTHER AT ALL = hint of truth wrapped in a lot of hyperbole.

All in all, knowing about the Ubi DRM certainly lowered the value for me, but not enough to not buy the game. I'm not too worried about not being able to play the game in 5, 10 or 20 years either. Looking at what I play today, the only 'old' game I still play is Civilization 4. And claiming to know for sure Ubi won't patch out the DRM eventually is iffy too. I don't expect them to, but we'll see. Maybe they'll surprise me :-)

DRM is not the problem it is how they implement it
for example remember securarom
if they came up with a method that is easy to use that dosnt require accses to the internet then they would be onto a winner but having t obe constantly conected to the internet is a killer to there buissness

Maybe game publishers should include a dongle for the PC release of their games. Steinberg do this for Cubase and I have yet to find a reliable way around it, it works pretty well. I am sure this would be cheaper than getting into an arms race with the cracking community because, as this article proves, the developers WILL lose!

Also, think about the upside, you can stick the dongle into a USB port and you won't need the CD, just play. Installed it on your mates machine? No problem, just carry the dongle with you. 10 years down the line you decide you wana play some 'retro' gaming, stick in the dongle - play.

Simples!

I think you're barking up the right tree. Hardware methods are definitely more secure, but they're certainly not unbreakable. The way around that particular protection would be to patch the software in order to fool it into thinking it's got a valid dongle. Extremely difficult- but not impossible for someone with enough determination.

Unfortunately dongles would also be very expensive to package with every single game- they would push up prices greatly for the consumer. It's OK for software like Cubase because it's expensive anyway- but I don't think it would do for the average PC game.

The only real way that piracy could be thwarted for sure would be if the size of games (and their storage medium) bloated to such an extent that downloading became completely unfeasible. If you think back to many years ago (when we didn't really have this problem) what was stopping pirates from downloading? Answer: slow dial-up connections! Back in those days downloading 800 MB worth of data from a CD was so excruciatingly slow and expensive that it just wasn't worth the trouble- it was far cheaper and easier to go out and buy the product in the first place. There's no way around a limitation like that- the hardware prevents it.

Of course that's not really an option today given how reliant publishers are from online sources such as Steam. And even the new 100GB Blu-rays (while stressing most net connections to the extreme) are not out of reach for someone with a fast enough connection and big enough download quota.

There is no silver bullet for this problem, only sticking plaster counter-measures. I just wish we didn't end up getting caught in the cross-fire all the time.

People who claim that piracy increases game sales don't convince me at all.

People who say they only pirate because they "just want to see it before they buy" don't fool me either.

They pirate because they are digital magpies and, in my opinion, cheapskates.

They wouldn't go into a shop and photograph magazine articles to read at home "as a tester". I don't see how game piracy is any different.

Piracy is crime and I don't support piracy in any way but DRM is worse than crime and I definitely don't support it also.

Software pirates are stupid ass holes but people who create and implement DRM are morons without brains.