Ubisoft DRM: the Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

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polonyc2

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in all the writing and bitching on the topic, everyone seems to be missing the most significant detail of this new system....everyone always assumes that all DRM will be broken immediately and pirated versions will appear instantly and anti-hacker measures never work...but this system is the one that will finally do a good enough job of holding off pirates...it won't hold them off forever but it will hold them long enough for the game to get its sales...

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/02/awful-anti-pirate-system-that-will.html
 
eh, I really doubt it. From the sounds of it, a cracker only needs to figure out how to spoof a legitimate activation and reroute the check to something on your home PC.

I didn't know that the saved game system was entirely cloud based though. The same should still apply, but that's kind of lame
 
adobe has been using remote activation for years... and look how far it got them.

it will be broken like all DRM and UBI will be surprised and how fast it is.

fail
 
that's a good write up

I agree with some of his points

but here's the thing

i wonder exactly how many sales they will lose to INFORMED customers?

i'm guessing pretty much all of them
 
how many people will return Ubi games because they buy it and it doesnt say you need an internet connection active 100% of time? I hope the media picks this up
 
polonyc2 said:
it won't hold them off forever but it will hold them long enough for the game to get its sales...
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Bad games marketed poorly sell poorly. AC2 will be no different. These games are certainly not entitled to their sales.

Sikkyu said:
adobe has been using remote activation for years... and look how far it got them.
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Easily bypassed by adding certain addresses to the hosts file, without going into too much detail. Their previous systems were actually more difficult to address.
 
phide said:
Bad games marketed poorly sell poorly. AC2 will be no different. These games are certainly not entitled to their sales.
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but you're wrong on that count...the game is getting excellent reviews across the board (based on the game alone and not the DRM)...it's a very good game and fixes most of the issues from the first flawed game...based on that alone it should sell well

he also brings up another good point in that article...

"Remember what it takes to get DRM to work. It doesn't have to be uncrackable. Nothing is. All it has to do is delay the hackers long enough for the game to get a couple months worth of sales"
 
that assumes that there WILL be any sales lol

if you're posting in this thread, and you plan on buying this game

RAISE YOUR HAND
 
We already know how well it's going to sell. 84% of [H] PC gamers who responded to this poll wouldn't even touch a game infested with Ubisoft's new DRM scheme. 6% are indifferent, and only 10% said they'd be willing to purchase the game.
 
i know, my larger point is that they are simply hurting themselves by doing this DRM shit

I mean nobody is always ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time online

outages do happen or some people do go places where there is no internet

or a router can go down, denying you access to internet or your modem can fail or you might not be able to afford your internet bill

all kinds of shit can happen

should that mean you can't play your game?

NO, NO, a thousand times NO
 
Sikkyu said:
how many people will return Ubi games because they buy it and it doesnt say you need an internet connection active 100% of time? I hope the media picks this up
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Because of the DMCA it's illegal to return opened software in the United States. If you open it, it's yours for good weither it works or not.
 
I'm sure it will 'work' just fine. I just don't like the idea of forcing the requirement of an always on Internet connection. Matter of fact, my net was down several hours yesterday.
Sikkyu said:
how many people will return Ubi games because they buy it and it doesnt say you need an internet connection active 100% of time? I hope the media picks this up
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Well like the other guy said, it can't be returned. I don't know any place that takes software returns of opened software. Places will take an equal exchange if you claim it doesn't work (disc is damaged or something) but never a refund.

As for sales, games without restrictive DRM sell better because they don't receive as much negative press. Now days it's almost like a marketing gimmick. "Our game has no DRM!" and the media is jumping all over it, feeding the hype bot.
 
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Sikkyu said:
how many people will return Ubi games because they buy it and it doesnt say you need an internet connection active 100% of time? I hope the media picks this up
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Normally just having the EULA online is enough (legally) to not accept returns of people 'declining' the EULA. So UbiSoft will have to work fairly hard to not leave those people holding a piece of software they can't or don't want to play.
 
It will work once. The first game to come out with the new DRM will take a few weeks to crack while the scene reverse engineers it. After that, the second game may take a few days. Within a few more we will be seeing same day torrent releases of the games.

Look at Bioshock. The pirated copy didn't come out for a few weeks until after the game was released because it was the first one to use Securom with activation limits, but after that games were on torrent sites soon after release.
 
dr.stevil said:
eh, I really doubt it. From the sounds of it, a cracker only needs to figure out how to spoof a legitimate activation and reroute the check to something on your home PC.

I didn't know that the saved game system was entirely cloud based though. The same should still apply, but that's kind of lame
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already been done with steam games.. they have been using that style of DRM by putting triggers in random parts of the game to make it contact the steam server.. the game save things easy to fix just by changing the save location code..
 
I can't wait until game makers realize pirates don't buy games, atleast not at $50-60, stopping them from being able to crack a game won't make them buy it, they simply won't play it. If the time/money spent toward making these DRM were eliminated, they could lower the price of the game and both reduce piracy and improve sales.
 
dr.stevil said:
eh, I really doubt it. From the sounds of it, a cracker only needs to figure out how to spoof a legitimate activation and reroute the check to something on your home PC.

I didn't know that the saved game system was entirely cloud based though. The same should still apply, but that's kind of lame
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I can see a VPNish crack used to fool the games. Just something you install that acts as it's own lan connection, spoofing the server and dropping you saved game into a file on your hard drive.
 
dr.stevil said:
eh, I really doubt it. From the sounds of it, a cracker only needs to figure out how to spoof a legitimate activation and reroute the check to something on your home PC.

I didn't know that the saved game system was entirely cloud based though. The same should still apply, but that's kind of lame
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Or bytehack the executable to never run this part of the software in the first place.
 
It's all unnecessary and a step in the wrong direction. Eventually, AC2 will be cracked, so what's the point?
 
the point is to give AC 2 as long a shelf life as possible as a sales product before it's mass pirated
 
What makes you think this form of DRM will work when every other form of online authentication ever conceived is cracked in a matter of days following release? :rolleyes:
 
i never said it would work

he asked what the "point" was, i answered that question from Ubisoft's perspective
 
I also question the correctness of his statement that saves are stored remotely on ubi's servers. I have not seen anything from ubi confirming the application of cloud architecture for saves.

If true, this of itself is enough to warrant not purchasing the game, imagine all the possible issues with saves being lost, corrupted, unavailable, etc. Ubi really needs to pull its it out of its ass. :rolleyes:
 
I think developers like Ubisoft seem to think that if the game is uncracked on day 1 that piracy is less, I can't see that being accurate, even if the game turns out to be great.
 
you don't really think they care about it? They care about that as much as Infinity Ward/Activision does with IWnet and hackers
 
If someone isn't going to pay, they aren't going to pay even if it means waiting for the cracked version.
More companies need to be like Stardock and put that money and time investment currently put towards DRM into making the game better (pay artists for higher quality graphics sets for pc games and more quality testing, for example)

As for how long this takes to break? Depends on how much of the save functionality is client-side. If they went cheap to save on bandwidth and the only thing going to the server is a save permission request it'll be hacked in no time.
 
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I'm a hardcore gamer and I was looking forward to AC2 and Splinter Cell Conviction and Silent Hunter 5 - preferably on pc but I was willing to forsake my beloved pc for my ps3 and my samsung 46" LCD hdtv and my comfy couch because my console is also connected to the internet via my DLink router.

Now because Ubisoft has just gone and pissed me off I won't be buying any of their games just like I did not buy Bioshock 2 - regardless of price. As far as I'm concerned Ubisoft does not exist as a company.

Plenty of other better games more deserving of my money from Bioware and Naughty Dog.
 
but this system is the one that will finally do a good enough job of holding off pirates...it won't hold them off forever but it will hold them long enough for the game to get its sales...
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I doubt if this new DRM will ever hold off pirates for long. If anything, the increasingly annoying DRMs that have been cropping up only served to hold off my impulsive tendencies to buy games whenever I'm at a store.
 
defiant007 said:
I also question the correctness of his statement that saves are stored remotely on ubi's servers. I have not seen anything from ubi confirming the application of cloud architecture for saves.
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According to reviewers, you *can* save your games online, but you don't have to. Ergo, game saves are not part of the copy protection scheme.
 
Spewn said:
According to reviewers, you *can* save your games online, but you don't have to. Ergo, game saves are not part of the copy protection scheme.
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this statement makes no sense to me bro, it goes against everything that's already been reported

tell you what though, since you're willing to believe something like that

buy the game and pull the plug on your internet and let us know if it works or not, that way we can get some more accurate first hand reporting from you
 
sad thing is the only people negatively impacted by Activation based DRM are the ones who bought the game. I wont be buying anything from UBI after this either, DRM is making pc gaming a hassle and a good part of the reason i game primarily on my consoles now. Steamworks is the only DRM I feel is halfway decent.
 
Fail said:
this statement makes no sense to me bro, it goes against everything that's already been reported
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Does it? I didn't say the game wouldn't require you to be on-line anymore.

tell you what though, since you're willing to believe something like that
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http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235290&site=pcg

"Addendum: Some people are inferring that your savegames are only stored online - that's not the case. You can set the Ubisoft Game Launcher not to upload your saves, and even if you permit it, it seems the saves are made locally first and then uploaded when you exit the game. Whichever setting you choose, you still need to be online to launch or play the game.
"

How about some first-hand reporting from someone who's been able to play it, and actually experience the DRM for themselves. That's what they say about it. I'd be surprised if they somehow imagined the existence of the Game Launcher and the online/offline setting. Yeah, it still uploads the saves, but that's only so you could continue at someone else's house.

Saves are stored locally, even if the game doesn't use them. Don't ask me why, wasn't my decision.
 
Q-BZ said:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035389472&postcount=14

You asked it as a question there like you weren't sure. Are you sure or not?

I couldn't care less about saving my games online. So where does that put me with this?
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The game will store your saves online and locally if you choose to store them locally. It won't really affect you, but it does put a dent in the whole "Saves are uploaded and encrypted, take THAT pirates!" argument.
 
Spewn said:
The game will store your saves online and locally if you choose to store them locally. It won't really affect you, but it does put a dent in the whole "Saves are uploaded and encrypted, take THAT pirates!" argument.
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But it doesn't solve the "if my Internet farts while I'm playing offline I'm going have my game and progress interrupted" concept, does it? That's still staring us in the face?
 
Oh, of course, that's part of the protection scheme. I was noting that it had been reported the save games being stored on-line were either part of the protection(because they were encrypted at Ubi's server), or that they were the reason for getting kicked out if your connection drops. Near as I can tell, that's not true, and you get kicked out because that's what the copy protection is designed to do. There's no game mechanic that actually requires a connection, aside from the copy-protection.

If nothing else, it makes the possibility of a no-drm patch (who knows when) brighter.
 
Spewn said:
Oh, of course, that's part of the protection scheme. I was noting that it had been reported the save games being stored on-line were either part of the protection(because they were encrypted at Ubi's server), or that they were the reason for getting kicked out if your connection drops. Near as I can tell, that's not true, and you get kicked out because that's what the copy protection is designed to do. There's no game mechanic that actually requires a connection, aside from the copy-protection.

If nothing else, it makes the possibility of a no-drm patch (who knows when) brighter.
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I seem to recall UbiSoft themselves made some passing mention about patching out the DRM in one of the Shacknews stories about this. I got the idea it could be patched out very easily.
 
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