Today, Ubisoft, the publishers of Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Settlers and Cesar Milan's Dog Whisperer, announced a new approach to digital rights and copy protection on their PC games. It's a big deal. They're going to demand you're permanently connected to the internet so that servers back in Ubi HQ can check you're playing an authorised version.
If you don't - then you don't get to save your game. This is bad news. For PC gamers, for PC gaming in general, and, I believe, for Ubisoft themselves.
EDIT: Ubisoft statement added below the cut.
The sad fact is that PC gaming is probably stuck with some form of digital rights management forever now. Given that PC retail is fading, the vast majority of purchases are going to be made online. Online purchases come via Steam, or Direct2Drive, or any of the other digital vendors, and all of them place restrictions on how, and when, and if you can copy the game, or transfer your purchase.
Ubisoft's plan is different though. Admittedly, the DRM they're pushing offers a couple of conveniences. Once you've signed up for a Ubi account, you can install the game on as many PCs as possible. As you play, your save-games are uploaded, and made available to all your PCs, wherever they are. And, because there's online activation, you don't need to have the disc in your DVD drive when you play.
But.
All these advantages already exist for PC gamers elsewhere. I can install the vast majority of my games on Steam as many times as I like. More and more games are offering cloud saving. I often play Torchlight, for instance, on my laptop, and my work PC. And none of the games I've bought online need a CD check. So Ubi's perceived advantages are irrelevant to me as a hardcore gamer.
The disadvantages, of not being able to play unless I'm online, are insane.
Firstly, the number-one growth area for PC hardware sales right now is in mobile platforms - netbooks, laptops, and, the industry hopes, tablet PCs. That implies that consumers are looking to take their content everywhere - their music, their documents, their movies and their games. Mobile platforms aren't ever guaranteed to have online connections.
Worse, and the reason I think this is a disastrous move for PC gaming, many of those mobile platforms are selling to new customers. They're not the PC gaming base, they're moms, sisters, grandparents. They're the ones who are going to be surprised by their games not working when they're out and about. I wasn't being facetious when I mentioned Cesar Milan's Dog Whisperer above - Ubi have made significant investment in casual games.
Second: even in a desktop environment, online connectivity is never guaranteed. Pegging your ability to play a game on connection to a server somewhere else is a recipe for disaster. Either my connection goes, or Ubi's connection goes, and my evening put aside for playing Splinter Cell goes out of the window. And there's no guarantee that Ubi's servers are going to work. PC gaming is littered with the corpses of launches and services that simply failed to deliver what they promised.
Thirdly, we just don't know what happens when Ubi turn off their servers. Right now, they're promising that they'll patch the games to take the DRM and online features out. I don't actually believe them for a second. Earlier this month, EA turned off the online servers for their 2009 branded sports titles, and there was little outcry. We've seen similar promises made in the music and film industry as DRM formats grew. When they collapsed, no effort was made to alter or patch the DRM out of purchased content. When Microsoft pulled the plug on the MSN Music Store, customers who'd purchased music with their proprietary DRM were left hanging.
Finally, and most depressingly, we all know this isn't going to inconvenience pirates one bit. Pirates love to break DRM. Figuring out how to circumvent this form of DRM is going to be the number-one focus of the underground online communities, starting today. This is simply a red rag to a bull. The only ones inconvenienced will be honest, paying customers.
EDIT: Ubisoft say. "We are aware that there is a lively discussion with regards to our new online services platform that will be included in most of our upcoming PC games, and which gamers are currently discovering with the Settlers 7 beta. As there are a lot of question out there, we thought you might appreciate some of the following clarification: Ubisoft's number one goal is to provide added value that will facilitate and enrich the gaming experience of our PC customers. The Settlers 7 beta version is enabling players to discover that this platform empowers them to install the game on as many PCs as they wish, to synchronize saved games online so that gameplay can be continued from where they left off (from any computer with an installed version of the game) and frees them from needing a CD/DVD in order to play.
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 is happening with this DRM is that more and more honest PC gamers, that never really knew about 'cracks' and 'torrent's', will get to know that part of the internet more and more.
I am not interested in the current UBISoft titles mentioned. but if I was, I would have no problem with buying a legal copy and then using any 'code' or 'services' out there to play my legally owned game the way I want to.
With all this ever more onerous DRM, I wonder how many pirate PC games downloaders have a fully legal copy of the same game in their collection too!
Can I also bring a new subject in as well: I am a collector of PC games. It has been my hobby for 20 years. This means I have CD-Rom games going back to Gabriel Knight and Privateer, I am finding that while I can still install 20-10 year old games with no problems, I am having more and more problems with PC games released after 2000 or so. With GTA San Andreas not reading the 2nd CD-Rom, and difficulty in reading disks on games like Aquanox, Anachronox, Age of Empires and Red Faction, for example.
This is leading me to believe that games companies, to make an extra buck, are using cheaper and cheaper CD-Rom's/DVD to copy onto, and that somewhere around 5-7 years they seem to start becoming unreadable/unusable. Eventually I am going to have a DVD reading problem with a game that cannot be bought on budget and isn't available on ebay etc. (Or is, but sells for £50 plus!). What am I going to do at that point? Write the game off and chuck it in the bin? Or download a torrent of the game so I can still play it? And if I own a legal copy of the game - how illegal would that be?
As we come to the end of PC games at retail we need more discussions like this, and if they are all of the quality of the above article, we will be in good stead I hope.
Unless your magical service can connect to the internet when there's no connection avaible, i fail to see where this new DRM system can let people play anywhere.
What about in 15 years time when i wanna replay a classic game? Oh wait, I can't play the game cos you turned the servers off. So anytime eh? not likely.
So in order to give me unlimited installs, cloud saving and not have to use a disk (things I can do anyway), Ubisoft have to disrupt my playing experience.
How does it make sense to punish legal buyers just so you can justify giving them something useful, that they could have anyway.
Many great franchises under the ubisoft roof, looks like they're all going to be ruined due to some idiot in management.
A well written article, in my opinion. Thanks for being willing to take this controversial topic up; it needs far more coverage in general as far as I'm concerned. Two things:
1) While digital distribution is increasing it is no where near being the dominant means by which people get their games - not even for the PC. Not yet.
2) If the day ever comes where there are no other models in use other than Ubisoft's system, or something practically identical to it, I will either find another hobby and give up gaming completely except for my existing games library or I will join the pirates. For the time being there are thankfully still some developers and publishers who have shied away from Ubisoft's methods. As long as they continue to do so I'm happy to pay for their games.
What is happening with this DRM is that more and more honest PC gamers, that never really knew about 'cracks' and 'torrent's', will get to know that part of the internet more and more.
I am not interested in the current UBISoft titles mentioned. but if I was, I would have no problem with buying a legal copy and then using any 'code' or 'services' out there to play my legally owned game the way I want to.
With all this ever more onerous DRM, I wonder how many pirate PC games downloaders have a fully legal copy of the same game in their collection too!
Can I also bring a new subject in as well: I am a collector of PC games. It has been my hobby for 20 years. This means I have CD-Rom games going back to Gabriel Knight and Privateer, I am finding that while I can still install 20-10 year old games with no problems, I am having more and more problems with PC games released after 2000 or so. With GTA San Andreas not reading the 2nd CD-Rom, and difficulty in reading disks on games like Aquanox, Anachronox, Age of Empires and Red Faction, for example.
This is leading me to believe that games companies, to make an extra buck, are using cheaper and cheaper CD-Rom's/DVD to copy onto, and that somewhere around 5-7 years they seem to start becoming unreadable/unusable. Eventually I am going to have a DVD reading problem with a game that cannot be bought on budget and isn't available on ebay etc. (Or is, but sells for £50 plus!). What am I going to do at that point? Write the game off and chuck it in the bin? Or download a torrent of the game so I can still play it? And if I own a legal copy of the game - how illegal would that be?
As we come to the end of PC games at retail we need more discussions like this, and if they are all of the quality of the above article, we will be in good stead I hope.
As it stands currently downloading a crack is still illegal even if you own a legitimate copy of the game in question. This has to do with the fact that you are tampering with the actual make-up of the intellectual property which you do not have rights to. Should the IP holder give their consent then it's okay. As for downloading an entire pirated game that is also illegal even if you bought the same game legally since you are acquiring intellectual property without paying the owner. It doesn't matter currently under law that you have already purchased one copy legally since that purchase only grants you a user license for that one copy and not any other copies without paying for them as well.
As to whether it is ethically unreasonable for a paying customer to download a crack or pirate version of a game they already paid for in order to get a hassle free (and quite possibly safer) experience, that's another matter. Laws may vary depending on which country you live in however, the games, music and movie industries have been actively trying to pressure various national governments to adopt legislation that favours their point of view and thus increasingly in many countries it is becoming illegal. That's the bad news. The good news is that laws can be changed - that goes both ways.
My personal opinion? If you have legal copies of games that are ceasing to function as promised then you do what you need to in order to keep them running. Just don't get caught.
@The_KFD_Case What you say is correct from a legal standpoint, I suppose I was talking about the morale aspects. Certainly I don't lose any sleep having a burnt disk 2 sitting next to my original disk 1 in my GTA San Andreas DVD case.
In 10 years, when all these servers have been closed down, re-activations not possible, etc, I will again not feel at all guilty downloading whatever code I need to be able to play these games....!
The problem is going to be for all those second level games. It's similar with finding patches for old games. Half Life and Far cry is easy, but what about Red faction and Clive barker's Undying type games? So it will be in the future.
Let's not forget how many MP3 sites (even one run by Microsoft!) have just closed down, meaning all the MP3's you had from that site stopped working - and no site has ever given compensation... So it not the big titles I am worried about, that will always have patches and cracks available, it all those slightly lesser titles that when the DRM runs out you have a dead game you can do nothing with!
@The_KFD_Case What you say is correct from a legal standpoint, I suppose I was talking about the morale aspects. Certainly I don't lose any sleep having a burnt disk 2 sitting next to my original disk 1 in my GTA San Andreas DVD case.
In 10 years, when all these servers have been closed down, re-activations not possible, etc, I will again not feel at all guilty downloading whatever code I need to be able to play these games....!
The problem is going to be for all those second level games. It's similar with finding patches for old games. Half Life and Far cry is easy, but what about Red faction and Clive barker's Undying type games? So it will be in the future.
Let's not forget how many MP3 sites (even one run by Microsoft!) have just closed down, meaning all the MP3's you had from that site stopped working - and no site has ever given compensation... So it not the big titles I am worried about, that will always have patches and cracks available, it all those slightly lesser titles that when the DRM runs out you have a dead game you can do nothing with!
Agreed. One thing I want to add though is that Microsoft, when faced with a lawsuit over shutting down its music server business, opted to let all users download their paid for songs to a single hard drive of their choice, but only once. In other words they could continue listening to their music as long as the kept using the specified hard drive and/or it doesn't break. It's still a bum deal although not a total loss. Regardless, it's still not a user friendly business model and I would not knowingly buy in to it. I'd rather go without.
I'm more relaxed about DRM than alot of PC Gamers. For example the thing recently about Bioshock2 having an install limit of 15 times doesn't bother me. I know the way I use my games means I probably won't even install it 3 times (But I will play it through at least 2, maybe 3 times). I don't despise GFWL like alot of people. I have an X360 as well as PC, Live works well on the Xbox and I remember when everyone hated Steam, but now everybody loves it. I never had a serious problem with Fallout3 on PC which uses GFWL. A few crashes, but nothing major, in over 100 hours with 2 different characters.
But what Ubisoft are proposing here is too much even for me. Requiring a permanent internet connection is just stupid. What if the connection at my ISP's side dies? What if it dies at my side? What if their server dies? What about people who live in an area without broadband?
I suppose if Ubisoft release a game that I'm desperate to play, like a Mass Effect or a Bioshock or something that big, I might try and put up with it ... I wouldn't ignore an elite game just on principle.
BUT ... Splinter Cell is not an elite game, IMO. Double Agent is the only one in the series I've played, on 360, and it was "okay". I was thinking about checking out the next one, but only on PC (shooter = I prefer mouse & keyboard).
I suppose this will mean weekly maintenance downtime, like WoW e.g. on Monday nights you can't play UBI games because of server updates.
Even on consoles where piracy isn't as prolific (well, certainly not in this country) you have to register with their UPlay service to unlock thinly disguised existing parts of the game (i.e. not the free extras they want us to think we're getting). EA/Bioware are leaders in this kind of thing, giving one-use codes in the box that you have to create an EA online account to use, and unlock existing parts of the game (did anyone think Shale in Dragon Age was really anything other than a main character, woven into the world as much as any of the other characters? He wasn't a freebie download, he was an unlock code). Buying a game these days isn't enough, you then have to join the UBI/EA collective to get 100% of the content. Imagine if you had to register with Fox to view the last 20 mins of a DVD you've bought, or Give Sony some nice privacy data to unlock the last few tracks on your CD - the bigger public wouldn't tolerate it, pushing more traffic toward torrents.
As others have touched on already, this crap only inconveniences the legitimate game buyers, not pirates.
I'm a hard-core gamer. I spend at least $100/month on gaming, often several hundred, and this seems pretty simple to me. When I'm looking over the latest titles wondering what my next purchase will be and it's between a kick-ass Ubisoft title or a kick-ass ANY OTHER PUBLISHER title, this is what is going to tip the scale away from Ubisoft. Why would I want a game I can't play during internet outages or while commuting on the train or at work on our locked-down internet connection? Precisely the times when I most want to be gaming.
I predict a meltdown and pulling of this moronic program quite quickly after the first couple of server outages and tens of thousands of angry, bewildered calls from the customers who didn't know any better when they bought Ubisoft's future crippleware. Hopefully they will give whatever genius MBA who thought this up the boot when the day comes (only a matter of time) when they decide to give up on this waste of money. At which point I would happily consider buying some of their titles again.
Hey Ubisoft! WAKE UP! The idea is to make life harder for pirates, not your paying customers.
I have enjoyed a lot of your games in the past, Capitalism 2, Anno 1404, Assassin's Creed 1 & 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Brothers in Arms (All 3 of 'em), Far Cry 1 & 2, Silent Hunter 4, Rainbow Six Vegas, all the Splinter Cells, Settlers II & World In Conflict + Soviet Assault. I WAS looking forward to the new Settlers, Splinter Cell and RUSE, but I'm also looking forward to about two dozen other games that I can happily buy instead.
I WAS a paying customer for years. Hopefully I can be again when they fix this. Until then I'll just be another statistic on their star MBA's spreadsheet who will assume they have lost another sale to piracy, when really they just lost it to their competition.
This is a good article, Tim, but the real question is when Assassin's Creed drops for PC in March with this crippling DRM scheme, will PC Gamer give it a 9.4 (assuming it's otherwise not a broken port, which given the AC1 may be too much to assume)?
Or will you give it a 6 or a 7 because you can't reliably play or save the game? Because gamers complaints are falling on deaf ears, and if the sales are bad, Ubisoft will blame piracy and react with something even stupider. But if the metacritic score takes a nose dive when publishers use game-breaking DRM, maybe they'll wake up.
...will PC Gamer give it a 9.4...Or will you give it a 6 or a 7...
As a regular reader of PC Gamer magasine you will already know know they give scores as percentages not out of 10, so the answer is "none of the above"
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