What if the DRM works?

[Boris]

This is a hypothetical question:

What IF, just imagine...

If the DRM actually worked and SH5 cannot be cracked by pirates? And the only way you'll ever be able to play SH5 is buy buying it.

Wouldn't this completely justify the new DRM?

[McBeck]

If it had an offline mode that worked
If it had an online mode that worked
If it could not be cracked

Yeah, then it would be good.

[Alienfresser]

Don't think so. There is no real technical reason for such a complicate and error prone (I-Net is no reliable medium) solution.

And it won't solve the resale of used games, because you can create one account for every game as long as you have enough e-mail addresses. Common practice for "Account" games.
They will maybe get 5 % additional sold unit from this, but will loose 10% or 15% of their customer-base because of that system. Guess EA will be ready for a hostile "integration" of UBI when the concept is failing.

But with the competence UBI has shown in past there isn't a very high chance that the concept will work very good.

[walsh2509]

What is this DRM? I know little other than putting a disc into my pc loading the game and playing it.

This connected online ?

So when I go to my PC shop and buy SH5 get home and install it , I have to be connected to the internet to play it ? even with the disc in my PC.

So if servers are down or my connection goes down , I can not play it even though its on my hard drive and disc in my pc.

[McBeck]

What is this DRM? I know little other than putting a disc into my pc loading the game and playing it.

This connected online ?

So when I go to my PC shop and buy SH5 get home and install it , I have to be connected to the internet to play it ? even with the disc in my PC.

So if servers are down or my connection goes down , I can not play it even though its on my hard drive and disc in my pc.
Yup...thats pretty much the case :damn:

[Boris]

What is this DRM? I know little other than putting a disc into my pc loading the game and playing it.

This connected online ?

So when I go to my PC shop and buy SH5 get home and install it , I have to be connected to the internet to play it ? even with the disc in my PC.

So if servers are down or my connection goes down , I can not play it even though its on my hard drive and disc in my pc.

Yep, that's pretty much it. No connection, no play. But you do have one thing wrong... they're offering this awesome service where you don't need the CD in the drive to play!!!!
And your savegames are stored safely on their server!!! What a "service" :yeah:

[onelifecrisis]

This is a hypothetical question:

What IF, just imagine...

If the DRM actually worked and SH5 cannot be cracked by pirates? And the only way you'll ever be able to play SH5 is buy buying it.

Wouldn't this completely justify the new DRM?

You hit the nail on the head.
Unfortunately it won't work, and as usual it'll be the paying customers who have the hassle of the DRM while the non-paying customers don't.
Not that that will stop me paying. I have an always-on connection. Lucky me.

[Letum]

Benjamin Franklin said:
"Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither."

We are being made to trade a freedom for the protection of someone else (Ubisoft).


Now perhaps I am using over grandiose quotes and using them out of
context, but I think there is a point in there none the less.

[onelifecrisis]

Now perhaps I am using over grandiose quotes and using them out of
context, but I think there is a point in there none the less.

Keep looking for it and let me know when you find it. :rotfl2:

Nobody is having any freedoms taken away. We are all perfectly free to buy the game or not buy it. We're being fully informed about what buying it will entail (with regards to the DRM). There's no infraction here, just some pissed off would-be customers, many of whom (I have no doubt) will become actual paying customers, DRM or otherwise, if they have a stable internet connection and the game turns out to be good.

[Boris]

Benjamin Franklin said:
"Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither."

We are being made to trade a freedom for the protection of someone else (Ubisoft).


Now perhaps I am using over grandiose quotes and using them out of
context, but I think there is a point in there none the less.

Nice thought, but what is freedom here? We're free to buy this game or not. If we do buy it, we do know what we're in for.

On a side note, as a student of political science, I can say that according to many philosophers a person is only free in a socity of rules that "protect" freedom, whereas people living in a lawless anarchist world have no absolute freedom, since personal freedoms can be undermined by others at any time.

[onelifecrisis]

I've been thinking about how they could implement this OSP thing in the games in such a way that would really make it genuinely hard to crack, and I've come up with squat.

The game saves to the server, and loads from the server, right? If that's all it does then cracking it to save to (and load from) a local disk should be a doddle. So do UBI have something else up their sleeves? What if the server responds to a request for a saved game by encrypting it with a random key just before sending it, and then sends the encrypted file (with the key) to the client, would that make a difference? The decryption algorithm would be in the game executable but the encryption algorithm would be on the server. Without the latter, the crackers would have to find a way to load an unencrypted locally-stored save game straight into memory, bypassing the decryption process altogether, which... might be difficult? Or not? I'm not knowledgable about such things. But I do know that they'd better have something clever up their sleeves or this whole OSP thing will be a waste of their time and money.

[Letum]

Nice thought, but what is freedom here? We're free to buy this game or not. If we do buy it, we do know what we're in for.


yes, although once we buy it, we are not free to use it, unless we
shackle our connection to Ubisoft. That is a freedom lost that would not
otherwise be.

[sergbuto]

And your savegames are stored safely on their server!!! What a "service" :yeah:
There is also a drawback to that. I remember people complained about long loading times of SH3 and that was loading from the hard drive. No loading via internet connection can be compared in speed to starting directly from the hard drive in the player's PC. This might be especially annoying for people trying to mod/working on a mod to the game since the game needs to be often restarted to check the changes made.

[Mikhayl]

In the past many publishers thought they had come up with the ultimate copy protection, and everything failed. If Ubi's DRM is performant, then it's possible that SH5 won't be cracked. But I can't imagine a title like Assassin's Creed 2 not getting cracked at some point (~day of release).

Btw regarding the DRM itself: people (Trenken mostly) say that it's "uncrackable" because the game is entirely coded around it and it would take months to remove it entirely.
-Either it's bull**** and then the game will be cracked in a matter of hours.
-Or it's true and then Ubi is lying when they say that if online support is discontinued (to use the servers for new games) they will publish an offline patch. If Ubi decides to stop supporting a game I doubt they'll pay some coders for an extended period of time just to create that patch for a game that admitedly doesn't make money anymore.

[Boris]

The thing that got me thinking was... can I really not buy this game? I bought all my other SH games, why not this one?
I have a stable and fast internet connection, so the DRM would not bother me too much. But I harldy approve of this DRM, and my dilemma is that I'd rather show solidarity to the community. But can I resist not having a peek at SH5? So I could not buy SH5 and play it anyway. But what if I find I have to buy SH5 to play it?

[onelifecrisis]

Here's another thought of mine which people will obviously be dying to read.

What if DRM (all game DRM, not just this OSP thing) does work, but indirectly?

Last year Ubisoft released Price of Persia without any DRM at all. Yes, those heartless bastards that you all love to hate actually went and did what no other major publisher has done: they decided to see whether a game without DRM would sell as well as a "protected" game! Food for thought for those who think UBI are the spawn of Satan, perhaps? Okay so their motives weren't exactly pure, but still... anyway I digress. Apparently UBI considered this experiment a failure, and certainly no other game publishers think that DRM is a bad idea either, so what if they are actually onto something? Maybe the question of whether or not DRM works is down to more than just whether or not the game can be cracked.

Take me for example. I buy games because I want to support the development of games that I like. But if I'm honest, I also buy games because I don't want to put cracked software on my machine, because who knows what the crackers might put in to the game while they're taking the DRM out? I'm also not overly keen on having my PC directly connected to the PCs of a thousand other morally dubious ****heads on the internet via some P2P network. Doesn't that mean that DRM is actually working on me? And isn't it relevant that I could have copied Prince of Persia without any of these concerns? Perhaps that's why the experiment failed?

[Mikhayl]

Same here, but basically if DRM is in I don't see a good option.

-I can buy the game and play it as is, thus supporting the devs and showing Ubi that I don't mind their DRM and they can give me more: :down:

-I can buy the game with the same effect as above, and get it through "another channel" as well so I'm not bothered by the DRM while playing, but this adds 1 to the pirate count (even if the game was bought) and Ubi figures that their sales are good but could be even better so why not an even more constraining DRM: :down:

-I can get the game through irregular channel and not buy it at all. Ubi figures that their DRM made them lose sales (like EA with Spore), but I'm not supporting the devs/franchise and so Ubi may pull the plug on SH: :down:

-I can buy the game in 6/8 months when an edition with no DRM is released, it has the same effect as just above except I don't play in the meantime: :down:

[BigBANGtheory]

If it worked 100% technically, with 99% customer satisfaction then Ubisoft would have a very lucrative patent on their hands worth more than the games they publish.

What are the chances of that vs noobing it up?

I remember threatening to take a retailer to court because they wouldn't accept that the DRM system on Crysis was faulty. Just because I had a certain type of DVD drive securom decided I wasn't using the proper disc. It was reported by 100's of users on behalf of 1000's and they didnt even acknowledge the fault I mean wtf?

There are just better ways to handle anti piracy than DRM or atleast until someone comes up with a DRM solution that works.

[sidslotm]

Seems to me that mfg's need to re-evaluate there selling and marketing techniques, the world is changing and the old over the counter sales pitch no longer works. Intead of putting preasure on the the honest customer, they need to focus on bringing the cheat into the fold where the benifits are greater than those of the pirate.

eg:- Bands no longer need the binding contracts of ruthless managment, they have the internet. Media is a multi-trillion dollar industry, if all that power and weath cannot over come the pirate without bashing me over the head every time I put a DVD on to watch a movie, some thing is wrong, and I would have to say, it's not the folks in here.

[Brag]

If DRM or OSP work, I refuse to accept that someone else will tell me how to use my computer. According to the pros, these systems are an intrusive add on to your machine.

No stinking Ubi suit is going to tell me how to play or use my computer. Grrr.

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/2048/ubi2.jpghttp://img63.imageshack.us/img63/710/drm3.jpg

[Shiplord]

If the DRM actually worked and SH5 cannot be cracked by pirates?
The main reason are not the pirated copies, these copies will spread also no matter what protection system is used.

The main reason is to cut off the second hand market of games. Every game which is sold second hand is a lost sale for the publisher. Here in Europe, a publisher sold a new game for 20-25€ to a distributer, the distributer sold it for 30-35€ to the retailer, the retailer sold it for 45-49€ to us. You see the sales for the publisher per new game is max. 25€ and that's also the price I must pay for a second hand game at Amazon or GameStop but that 25€ is for the retailer only, the publisher gets nothings of this second hand deal.

[andycaccia]

I HATE THIS THINGS..
And what if the connection fails? Or their servers? Not to mention all the people who have a non permanent connection or a hourly fee...

[Thomen]

Btw regarding the DRM itself: people (Trenken mostly) say that it's "uncrackable" because the game is entirely coded around it and it would take months to remove it entirely.
-Either it's bull**** and then the game will be cracked in a matter of hours.
-Or it's true and then Ubi is lying when they say that if online support is discontinued (to use the servers for new games) they will publish an offline patch. If Ubi decides to stop supporting a game I doubt they'll pay some coders for an extended period of time just to create that patch for a game that admitedly doesn't make money anymore.

I was thinking about that yesterday. Maybe someone who attended the Copenhagen Subim Meeting can comment on that, and share their observation if the shown demo/presentation needed a permanent connection. :hmmm:

[Antiacus]

Sure, that would be great. So long as i can still play at my cabin which is 100+ miles from the nearest internet connection.

[Kefru]

The DRM will work it will stop people reselling the game.

As for stopping pirates no chance, it will encourage it :nope:

[henriksultan]

Wouldn't this completely justify the new DRM?
No because my beef with it isn't that it wont be crackable but that I cant play while offline... I dont want to download the game I want to buy it and play it as all the other SH games I have... because I love em. But since my internet isn't the most reliable then buying it until the drm is gone isn't an option.

[Task Force]

The day this DRM works to stop pirates is the day that I figure out algebra perfectly... lol

[SteamWake]

Its invasive and rife with possibilitys for data mining.

How long did you play, when did you play, where do you play, hey look yesterday he played here now hes there, let us have a look at your cookies.. and much much more.

None of your freakin buisness... :stare:

[karamazovnew]

If it had an offline mode that worked
If it had an online mode that worked
If it could not be cracked

Yeah, then it would be good.

+9000!!!!!!

[Arclight]

The DRM will work it will stop people reselling the game.

As for stopping pirates no chance, it will encourage it :nope:
There ya go, someone who understands. ;)

Cracking has been going on since the dawn of PC games; no DRM will stop it. This is as much about preventing people selling on their games as it is about preventing day-1 piracy (ie. having at least a limited timespan after release before a cracked copy appears).

Ubi literally stated you can't resell your game, and they know full well it's only a matter of time before the DRM is bypassed.

[Webster]

lets see, the question was "what if DRM works"

ok lets go with the fantasy that it will work perfectly as planned and UBI servers are never busy or overloaded and never need service or repair or break down.

this means only people from big cities can play the game because nobody else has the reliable stable internet service the game manufacturers think we do.

of these big cities many ISP will throttle your internet useage and start charging exorbinant premiums on all data transfers after a certain limit is reached. these fees can be as bad as those 900 number phone lines i am told.

so you figure if this thing works as planned and you eliminate ANY possible sales to rural or small towns and completely forget anything outside the cities. now how many customers did you just exclude from buying your games even if they want it as bad as an alcoholic wants a bottle.

but thats only if DRM works perfectly exactly the way its supposed to


oh, and you didnt prevent any pirates from pirating the game but you eliminated your customers from buying it

[HundertzehnGustav]

wich it wont

*unzips, and pees on a Ubi server-Rack, setting it on fire somehow*

:D

uh...

I feel better now...:yeah:


(ducks and runs for cover, as the site management Pivots the Guns in my general direction*

[Webster]

wich it wont

*unzips, and pees on a Ubi server-Rack, setting it on fire somehow*

:D

uh...

I feel better now...:yeah:


(ducks and runs for cover, as the site management Pivots the Guns in my general direction*


carefull, that could lead to a shocking developement :o

[John W. Hamm]

The main reason are not the pirated copies, these copies will spread also no matter what protection system is used.

The main reason is to cut off the second hand market of games. Every game which is sold second hand is a lost sale for the publisher. Here in Europe, a publisher sold a new game for 20-25€ to a distributer, the distributer sold it for 30-35€ to the retailer, the retailer sold it for 45-49€ to us. You see the sales for the publisher per new game is max. 25€ and that's also the price I must pay for a second hand game at Amazon or GameStop but that 25€ is for the retailer only, the publisher gets nothings of this second hand deal.


Umm I think that is the case with anything....I don't here BMW, Audi, Ford, Toyota etc...etc... complaining

And if I had a dime for each used car lot and their commercials I would buy out UBI and this would not be a problem.


And invariably someone will try to use the EULA saying that we own our cars and not the software, and that is the difference...well honestly if I don't own it...I would like to see any of the game publishers come take it back!

case in point if some one breaks into my house and steals it can I go back to the publisher and get another copy of the game? (receipt in hand) After all i already paid for the license to play it right? should i have to pay again?

The EULA can say what it wants but the fact is I paid for it I own it!

[Hartmann]

Its invasive and rife with possibilitys for data mining.

How long did you play, when did you play, where do you play, hey look yesterday he played here now hes there, let us have a look at your cookies.. and much much more.

None of your freakin buisness... :stare:

Band used, active internet services or programs and perhaps what ip are you visiting or using.
or the worst nightmare...used by hackers to enter in a computer

It means that you don´t own your game that you paid, and limited to play until Ubi wants if they decide that the game is outdated and shut down the servers

[FIREWALL]

This is getting beat to death. :dead:

"What If's"

"What if" Poop tasted like an Oh Henry bar.

Would you pick it up and eat it because, the Candy Co. said it was ok and wasn't that bad for you ? :-?

[onelifecrisis]

There ya go, someone who understands. ;)

Cracking has been going on since the dawn of PC games; no DRM will stop it. This is as much about preventing people selling on their games as it is about preventing day-1 piracy (ie. having at least a limited timespan after release before a cracked copy appears).

Ubi literally stated you can't resell your game, and they know full well it's only a matter of time before the DRM is bypassed.

If prevention of resales was their only concern they'd just sell the game through Steam like everyone else. No, I think there's more to it than that.

[Kromus]

There ya go, someone who understands. ;)

Cracking has been going on since the dawn of PC games; no DRM will stop it. This is as much about preventing people selling on their games as it is about preventing day-1 piracy (ie. having at least a limited timespan after release before a cracked copy appears).

Ubi literally stated you can't resell your game, and they know full well it's only a matter of time before the DRM is bypassed.

Just to support this post (and one quoted before).

Dragon Age:Origins was cracked about 2-3 days before official release and all DLC packs were cracked about a week after the launch.
Even if you had to log on Bioware servers to get some DLC packs officially - few of them were incorporated in different versions of the game (collector edition had different than normal etc) from the start but still every single one was cracked.

Not to mention that I`ve bought 400 bioware points just for "Return to Ostagard" DLC (should`ve been out on 1/5/2010) and it was released only yesterday BUT leaked cracked version was out at 6-7th of january.

And yes, as the ppl above say, it will only encourage pirates to race who will be the first to crack that new crap.

[longam]

If they would just employ all of the hackers and pay them well, the problem would be solved. Heck they might even make an OS that is compatible with everything else. :rotfl2:

[Safe-Keeper]

Benjamin Franklin said:
"Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither."

We are being made to trade a freedom for the protection of someone else (Ubisoft).Drama much?

[Bubblehead1980]

The main issue here is FREEDOM to use a product one purchases with his own money when he wants to, without worrying about being online etc.

We should be able to buy SH 5, install it on computer, play it offline whenever we want with no catch.Internet connection is not a problem for me, but one should be able to play a game offline and store their saved games on their computer, not somewhere.

Theft is part of any business.Own a store? Well common sense says that you will have some losses due to theft, just something you can't change without viloating customers rights.Sure you could frisk people when they leave your store or have them go through a full body scan, but it's a store, not the bloody airport.So as a business you suck it up and deal with it.Same for UBI, strike the balance between being customer friendly and protecting their product from piracy.

[Letum]

Drama much?

Like I said,
Now perhaps I am using over grandiose quotes and using them out of
context, but I think there is a point in there none the less.

I was being more than a little factious.

[Onkel Neal]

This is a hypothetical question:

What IF, just imagine...

If the DRM actually worked and SH5 cannot be cracked by pirates? And the only way you'll ever be able to play SH5 is buy buying it.

Wouldn't this completely justify the new DRM?


Hell, yeah.

But if pirates crack it, Ubi should rebate us 50%.

[Arclight]

If prevention of resales was their only concern they'd just sell the game through Steam like everyone else. No, I think there's more to it than that.
I said "just as much", didn't I? ;)

Really, it's about preventing as many lost sales as possible, not stopping piracy altogether. Preventing day-1 piracy keeps people that are actually interested at release from obtaining a "full demo" and subsequently not buying the game for whatever reason, and preventing resale makes sure any interested people buy a new copy (or goes pirate, but not everyone does this).

[Nisgeis]

If we assume that pirates don't buy games anyway, then it's just like a bookstore forbidding people to read in the alleys. They won't get one extra penny from the "alley only reader", and such policy will piss off many regular buyers. Clear loss.

At one point you used to get demos on magazine covers and you could decide if you liked a game before purchasing it. This is the same with the reading books in an alley. The bookshops eventually caught on that if they provided seating and coffee, people would sit more and would consequently buy more books. Treating customers like decent folk gets you more custom. Treating them like potential thieves isn't always the best way to do it.

[Nisgeis]

Last year Ubisoft released Price of Persia without any DRM at all. Yes, those heartless bastards that you all love to hate actually went and did what no other major publisher has done: they decided to see whether a game without DRM would sell as well as a "protected" game! Food for thought for those who think UBI are the spawn of Satan, perhaps? Okay so their motives weren't exactly pure, but still... anyway I digress. Apparently UBI considered this experiment a failure, and certainly no other game publishers think that DRM is a bad idea either, so what if they are actually onto something? Maybe the question of whether or not DRM works is down to more than just whether or not the game can be cracked.

Have you got a link to where you read that? I can't see Ubi deciding to test a no protection scheme strategy on a premium game, as if it went wrong their losses would be great. It would make sense to try it on a title they didn't think would sell very well anyway. How did they deem it to have failed - projected sales versus actual? Maybe it was just a buggy game that didn't sell well?

[Sgtmonkeynads]

I want to see it work. I want to know what exactly happens durring my game if I lose connection. I am not going to invest hours of game play when at any unknown second it could all be for nothing.
Waste of time for no reason is differnt than waste of time with something to show for it.

I have seen other companies try it and it sucks. Makes modding, even with their built in verrsion of Jsgme, impossible. Because once your modds are inplace, if they decide to patch anything, your modds get written over. Once you notice your modds not working, you remove them along with the re-written parts, now you could have a screwed up game. When you go to reinstall, it says you cant because you have already registered your copy.
Oh, but that is why you have unlimited installs ! Yes, but now I have to download everything again, reinstall game, install all patches, reinstall modds, and hope like hell it recognizes my save games, otherwise I have to start a career over. All that depends on weather or not I can even get a signel with my Cellphone that day inorder to use the internet in the first place.

Aaaaagh...

[onelifecrisis]

Have you got a link to where you read that? I can't see Ubi deciding to test a no protection scheme strategy on a premium game, as if it went wrong their losses would be great. It would make sense to try it on a title they didn't think would sell very well anyway. How did they deem it to have failed - projected sales versus actual? Maybe it was just a buggy game that didn't sell well?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHMA_en-GBGB348GB348&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ubisoft+prince+of+persia+drm

[Kaleun_Endrass]

Makes modding, even with their built in verrsion of Jsgme, impossible.
Dan said something else...
While I can't comment on the DRM solution, I know it wont affect the modability. reference... (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1249645#post1249645)

[onelifecrisis]

I've had a thought.

Why didn't they decide to just stream the content?

What really bugs me personally about this DRM is that it won't work. From what I've read, it sounds just as crackable as any other DRM.

If they're going to require an always-on connection to Ubi, why didn't they just make it so that the Ubi server streams the game content to the players, sort of like an MMO does? Wouldn't that actually work?

[Letum]

On my 64k connection?:rotfl2:

[karamazovnew]

If they're going to require an always-on connection to Ubi, why didn't they just make it so that the Ubi server streams the game content to the players, sort of like an MMO does? Wouldn't that actually work?

Look, if you can download a 8 Gb game, the argument of "I can't play it online because my net connection sucks" argument falls flat. Sure Ubi's servers might go down and all but still...

[Boris]

I've had a thought.

Why didn't they decide to just stream the content?

What really bugs me personally about this DRM is that it won't work. From what I've read, it sounds just as crackable as any other DRM.

If they're going to require an always-on connection to Ubi, why didn't they just make it so that the Ubi server streams the game content to the players, sort of like an MMO does? Wouldn't that actually work?

Yeah, the only way I can see this working is if they stream critical game files that cannot be isolated by the pirates.
They're going to need to have a card up their sleeves which the pirates can never get.

[onelifecrisis]

Yeah, the only way I can see this working is if they stream critical game files that cannot be isolated by the pirates.
They're going to need to have a card up their sleeves which the pirates can never get.

Indeed. I find it interesting that this SH5 developer (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=161023) seems to actually have faith in the new system. Makes me wonder... :hmmm:

[JScones]

Not sure where he states that he has faith - he does state that "in the end...it had to be done", which is more like resignation to me...and towing the boss's line to keep his job.

[onelifecrisis]

...and towing the boss's line to keep his job.

Yeah, I'm aware of that aspect of things. At the same time one has to consider the fact that he was not obliged to respond to the message at all, and I do think that faith in the DRM system is implied by his message. Which means either he's a corporate kiss arse who was hoping his name would not be left out of the public copy of his message, or he genuinely thinks the new DRM can prevent piracy.

[bigboywooly]

Yeah, I'm aware of that aspect of things. At the same time one has to consider the fact that he was not obliged to respond to the message at all, and I do think that faith in the DRM system is implied by his message. Which means either he's a corporate kiss arse who was hoping his name would not be left out of the public copy of his message, or he genuinely thinks the new DRM can prevent piracy.

Judging by his last line they are staking the SH future on it working and selling

[CaptainHaplo]

If they are staking the future of the franchise on this - we are seeing the end of the Silent Hunter line.

I will buy the game - WHEN this DRM/OSP is removed.
I bet I won't be the only one either.

The real question is - what will Ubisoft do when they see amazingly crappy sales - release the no online requirement patch - and see the sales jump? Will they get the hint THEN?

[theluckyone17]

Might be a good idea to drop all mention of that anonymous Dev PM, btw. Neal's post in other thread is pretty spot on... it was intended to be private, so we ought to act like it wasn't made public.

[Boris]

If they are staking the future of the franchise on this - we are seeing the end of the Silent Hunter line.

I will buy the game - WHEN this DRM/OSP is removed.
I bet I won't be the only one either.

The real question is - what will Ubisoft do when they see amazingly crappy sales - release the no online requirement patch - and see the sales jump? Will they get the hint THEN?


In the purely hypothetical case that this DRM actually does prevent the game from being pirated, there is no more point in boykotting the DRM IMO. In such a case Ubi will have succeeded and the DRM is justified.

Should Ubi claim for this DRM to be uncrackable however, the cracking scene is going to swarm all over this one to take the challenge. The different scene groups will race to be the first to have cracked the uncrackable protection, if only for the prestige.
So I can't realistically see this DRM staying uncracked for long.

[tater]

Look, if you can download a 8 Gb game, the argument of "I can't play it online because my net connection sucks" argument falls flat. Sure Ubi's servers might go down and all but still...

Not true. I can have my machine restart a DL if it gets screwed up---or is incredibly sluggish because everyone else is DLing too. Once I get the game via DL, all it takes is a server problem or whatever and I can't play. Kids are asleep, wife has to go in to the ER---I have 1 maybe 2 hours to play---oops, ubi is doing server maintenance, no game for me!

[tater]

In the purely hypothetical case that this DRM actually does prevent the game from being pirated, there is no more point in boykotting the DRM IMO. In such a case Ubi will have succeeded and the DRM is justified.

I sort of agree with this, but the justification also requires that the DRM not be so onerous as to reduce legitimate sales below some critical threshold.

I have a 100% uncrackable DRM idea. Don't distribute the game, period.

That DRM works, 100%. Trouble is that it's obviously too onerous for the end-user to pay for a game, and not receive delivery of it :)

Clearly there is a happy medium between that and giving it away free. Finding it is tricky. Of course it's far harder on the publisher side since any DRM scheme needs to be 100% effective. Anything less, and the game is cracked, and the torrents begin.

[theluckyone17]

In the purely hypothetical case that this DRM actually does prevent the game from being pirated, there is no more point in boykotting the DRM IMO. In such a case Ubi will have succeeded and the DRM is justified.

Not in my eyes. The problem is personal: The DRM introduces limitations upon my use of SH5, along with other concerns (privacy, what else are they using the connection for, what they might use it for in the future, etc).

If OSP prevents all piracy, then the only thing I gain is knowing that everyone else playing SH5 has paid for it (I back up my data locally, and install my games on one PC only. The other "advantages" of OSP aren't). I lose the ability to play without a connection, lose the ability to be sure what information if any Ubisoft is gleaning from my PC, and lose the feeling of security knowing what's going on with my PC at what time.

I'm also not comfortable with this setting a precedent, either. Even if I fully trusted Ubisoft, I definitely do not trust EA. I can't imagine what Sony would do with a guaranteed constant connection to my PC. If other companies look at OSP and make it an industry standard, then I'm going to be very worried.

So yes, even if OSP works perfectly and prevents piracy, I still have a reason to boycott it.

[Sailor Steve]

In the purely hypothetical case that this DRM actually does prevent the game from being pirated, there is no more point in boykotting the DRM IMO. In such a case Ubi will have succeeded and the DRM is justified.

Not for me. If it means I can't play it then it doesn't matter to me how well it works - I still can't play it.

[CaptainHaplo]

Ultimately, this is not "uncrackable". In fact, I can already think of ways that it could be done. But I don't support piracy. Everyone here complaining about the OSP obviously doesn't either - because we are not interested in whether or not it gets "cracked" - we want to be able to BUY it and PLAY it as we want - with or without an internet connection.

IF - and its really not an if but lets pretend - that this OSP makes SH5 un-stealable. You know what is going to happen? Every game company will start using it - but the PRICE for games won't drop one red cent. They know we will pay 40 or 50 bucks for a game now - and when games first went to that price they claimed it was due to piracy. What will happen is the next blockbuster you will see the same # of sales, and a lot less people playing those games because they couldnt steal em. But you won't see the price drop. Bank on it.