Well we were afraid this would happen. The Ubisoft site went down and legit game buyers can't play while the hackers can (yep the brilliant anti-pircay scheme has been hacked) play offline
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/22...paign=20100311.

I was waiting for someone to post that for days. They will learn by their mistakes.

Ana

Just to be clear, the 2 titles that have been released so far with the new DRM, Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 (I believe they're the only ones so far) haven't been properly cracked yet. Silent Hunter is especially bad, with a ton of bugs (even more than the legit version), and pirates unable to complete missions. Anyway, it'll eventually be cracked. Starforce wasn't properly cracked until about a year after the first games with it came out. The pirates will always prevail in the end, and you would think the companies would've figured that out by now

That said, I am personally done with Ubi games, until that DRM gets taken off the market, since it's WAY too restrictive... Which is too bad since the story in AC2 absolutely blew my mind (Everyone I know who completed the game went 'What... The....(hmm, is heck alright?)' at the end)

All very sad, don't you think ????

I wouldn't overstate the problem. It was a glitch for a couple of hours.

I assume these security measures do cut down on piracy and therefore ensure games continue to be released for the PC.

cheers

"I assume these security measures do cut down on piracy and therefore ensure games continue to be released for the PC."

But how many of us PC gamers feel all these restrictions are actually worthwhile and so be willing to pay out for games under these circumstances ??

Not THIS one for sure

I would certainly be very upset if i were playing for two hours or more only to find out that my progress has been lost due to some glitch. As mentioned in the article, the irony is that people who paid their hard earned money couldn't enjoy the game while pirates continued to play the game without any problems. Good job Ubi, keep up the good work!

As I understand it, this new drm scheme for Ubisoft games is just for PC games? I haven't seen the 'a permanent internet connection is required to play the game' on the Xbox 360 version of Assasin's Creed II, for example.

I always suspected that something like this would be happening. Ubisoft could just have asked EA about their (EA's) experiences with the game, Spore. This game has a similar DRM akin to UBI's new DRM. People who bought the game legally wouldn't be able to play...

The problem with Ubisoft's new drm is this: You will loose your progress if you loose your internet connection. And, as I understand it, you can only save? in the cloud, e.g. online, not on your (own) computer.

I have maintained for ages that the restrictions that ALL DRM's impose upon players are both foolish and counter productive.
With all due respect to any other gamers, I do not buy any games with DRMs.

The only people who suffer the impositions of DRM's are the honest players who buy their games - and sometimes the suffering is not at all pleasant.
The very many pirates both get their games for free and suffer no hassles. How totally ridiculous - the only people who are hurt by the DRMs are people who buy the games legitimately anyhow - it is the others that anti copying devices try to stop - but it doesn't stop them in the slightest - I'm niot sure whether the challenge and competition to crack them only adds to their 'fun' activities and gives them an even greater excuse/justification (as if they need one ?!) for cracking.

No matter what, a percentage of games will be pirated. Some sensible Devs know this and add no anti copying routines and AFAIK lose income no more than the others.

So why penalise honest gamers ONLY ?

I hope this issue doesn't apply to my legit copies of CSI, CSI Dark Motives, CSI Miami, Myst 4, and Myst 5, as well as a few other games made by Ubisoft that I might want to replay once I get my old Dell PC fixed (as well as getting my new PC also).

Don't worry, they won't patch old games to include the new drm. But pretty much every future PC game from Ubi will have it.

Oh, I feel bad about all this.

EA has followed in their footsteps by forcing Command & Conquer 4 players to remain connected to EA's servers while playing in multi or single player miode. If there is an interruption in your internet connection your game will be suspended - even in single-player mode.

EA has apparently not learned anything from the failure that was Spore. In this game, there was very harsh DRM, and you also needed to be connected to the internet sometimes, I think? And EA lost a bunch of money on this game, I think...

On the Mass Effect forums (when EA/Bioware tried do something similar some years ago) I argues 1) not everyone has an always-on connection and 2) in the country (even in Denmark) people can't get broadbands connections that's fast enough to have access to the internet always and 3) people sho serve in the military (in the US, Denmark and other countries) have a lot of spare time. They use this spare time to play videogames. And they pay pr. minute they play.

If we look at Assasin's Creed 2, it looks like that it only is the PC game that is requuring people to be always connected to the internet while playing single-player games. Then, of course, there's the danger that Ubisoft's servers are down, simply because of the pressure from gamers that want to play their game, be it Assasin's Creed or Settlers 7 (seven).

To come back to the always connected to the internet story, EA executives seems to think that everyone in the world must be on the same page as them e.g. always being connected to the internet. Just because EA's execs are connected to the internet always, doesn't mean that people out in the country, or way out int he country, are conected to the internet as well.

Karsten -sounds terribleI can't understand the Companies who do these things or any DRM's forthat matter.
I have no stats to prove it, but I am convinced that they lose more business and money than they gain by limiting their number of gameplayers by puting restrictions on playing.
the real file-sharers are unaffected since they crack every DRM anyhow. It's only the honest paying customers who are affected badly - and many refuse to buy.
Doesn't make any sense to me - not even business sense.