Actually, the newer Starforce stuff is pretty unobtrusive. DCS Black Shark has it, and it’s just an online authentication check when you install the game. No rootkits or other funny business. So, yeah–I’d definitely take that over Ubi’s DRM.
The solution is simple: boycott them. Only way to hurt them is to hit where it hurts the most: their pockets.
DCS black shark was released on april 2nd 2009 in north america. It was cracked on april 14th 2009. So it took longer than splinter cell, admittedly, but it’s not exactly a high profile title. That protection might be unobtrusive but it’s not effective.
As someone that pays for games, I really don’t care if pirates crack the protection the same day or never. In fact, I’d rather have the pirates crack the protection immediately if it means the shipped DRM is less hostile to me.
You’re missing the point entirely. This is a 59 page thread, so it’s not your fault.
To reiterate, Ubi wants to delay cracks as long as possible under the theory that pirates will buy a game if they can’t steal it.
What’s the current delay between the release of an Ubi game and the release of its crack? A week?
According to 4 posts ago, about 12 days on a non-high profile title.
I think you’re missing Telefrog’s point that, as a paying customers, we don’t give a damn about the pirates and if they crack it, we want a product that works. In fact, many paying customers probably prefer they crack it sooner so they can apply the crack and alleviate themselves of any annoying DRM.
Anyway, my gut feeling about AC2 was that the DRM wasn’t worth it. That doesn’t mean Ubi will be ditching it though.
That non high profile title didn’t use the new ubisoft DRM, it was an early 2009 release using starforce referenced by another poster.
My feeling is that Ubi is pretty happy about the AC2 DRM performance as it delayed the crack by a full six weeks. They probably aren’t happy with splinter cell, which only took a couple of days.
As to how that six week delay actually impacted sales, I have no idea. Hopefully negative.
The funny thing is that MULTIPLAYER is completely cracked in Splinter Cell. All you need is to have a ubi.com account which you can create for free. The crack even works with the recently released patch 1.02 to improve multiplayer.
So Ubi is sponsoring the playing of pirates of their multiplayer modes on their servers.
Very well done! They really showed the bad guys who’s boss.
Well, it looks like the new Prince of Persia is cracked. Skidrow reports are that Ubi changed the DRM methodology, instead of call and response checks it was more game data. Player skills and door functions being their cited examples.
It seems like the next Ubillogical step is to stream the entire game from their servers, forcing pirates to record the whole damn thing, since putting key elements alone up isn’t doing it.
Ubisoft sucks. I’m more likely to buy from EA or Activision these days, because they’re less evil.
Yeah, with the exception of Assassin’s Creed 2.5, Far Cry 3 and Splinter Cell 6, FUCK YOU UBISOFT!!! NEVER AGAIN!
I missed this thread.
There is a new PoP?
Forgotten Sands.
Yeah, according to the crack group, every time you hit a lever to open a door it sends a request to the server, telling the game which door to open an how long. Looks like they moved quite a lot of game logic to serverside.
Didn’t help em, though. Since prince of persia is a linear game, there’s a strictly limited number of actions, and even the new DRM scheme only delayed the crack by two weeks. Then again, that’s two weeks longer than they would have had with safedisk, so again, maybe Ubi is satisfied.
PoP went straight to bargain bin price on Zavvi.com a week after release on all platforms so no I don’t think this one was a big hit for Ubifail.
Next PC game will be R.U.S.E. which is by design a multiplayer game.
However the delays don’t bode well for it anyways.
Next real tests will be AC: Brotherhood / Ghost Recon: Future Soldiers but so far the cracking groups can claim a flawless victory.
In time, Intruder, they always will. Anti-piracy measures are delays at best on the hopes that someone is going to be impatient enough to just decide to give up and buy it now. I’m sure it works on a few people, I just don’t think it’s enough to make up the loss. I’d be happy to give Ubisoft my money, but they obviously don’t want it.
It’s ultimately about delaying long enough to get the casual pirates to just buy the game, but it fails to account for the fact most pirates are on limited budgets like everyone else. They may have already spent the money on something else, or just didn’t want to spend money on that DRM. Maybe they didn’t have the money to begin with.
That’s the gamble Ubi is making, that the delay is enough to convince people who weren’t necessarily going to buy it but have the money to go ahead rather than wait for it, and that there are enough of them to offset the cost of the DRM itself and the lost sales. They know they’ll never stop the piracy entirely, they’re just going for maximum delay.
No in reality they go after the 2nd hand market + they try to push their “Uplay” as a micro-transaction shop.
Since the game(s) are linked to your Ubi.com account you have to include the account details in the sale meaning ALL games tied to this account will be going to the buyer unless you create a ubi.com account for EVERY game (and who does this?).
It’s like Steam.
If you take a closer look at the Uplay “shop” right now you can “buy” costumes etc. for “coins” earned in-game for certain actions (headshots etc.). Not much imagination needed that one day those “coins” will have to be bought with real money.
Ubilauncher is the attempt to stop 2nd hand sales + yet another micro-transaction shop forced down our throat.