Ubisoft DRM Targets Hardware Upgrades?

[Fletcher]

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen to attempt to combat piracy. Everytime you change a piece of hardware in your PC, for instance a graphics card, the new Ubisoft DRM considers it an install, potentially blacklisting your PC.

Read about it here:
http://www.qj.net/pc-gaming/news/ubisoft-d...e-upgrades.html

Nearly every games publisher builds an install limit into their games. Put simply, when you buy a game, you are authorized to install it on a certain number of machines before you hit the limit and have to buy a new copy. It'€™s a relatively fair way to ensure you'€™re not sharing the game with all your friends or up to some other nefarious purpose, and most gamers rarely encounter the install limits on their software.

Ubisoft, however, seems to have taken a different approach to the situation. It seems that their DRM is tuned to detect hardware changes in the system, which means if you upgrade the graphics card in your computer, the game you'€™re playing will consider the new card to be a second install. Once you'€™ve made a few upgrades to your computer, you'€™ll find your Ubisoft games unplayable as you will have '€œused'€ all of your available installs.


The issue was discovered by Guru3D, who was attempting to do graphics card comparisons on the new game Anno 2070. Once the game had been activated on three PCs (the install limit), it refused to boot up if the graphics cards in any of the PCs were switched, instead telling Guru3D that his install limit had been reached.


Thinking this block to be nothing more than an error, Guru3D contacted Ubisoft to let them know what was going on. The company's response was not encouraging:


'€œSorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to three hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that. We also do not have seven copies of the game for you."


So that'€™s that - if you want to play Ubisoft games, you are limited to three installs. Changing anything about your hardware setup could potentially count as an entirely separate install, and Ubisoft seems completely content to leave it that way.


What do you think of this limited DRM? Is Ubisoft about to end up on the wrong end of yet another DRM fight?

Really Ubisoft? Really?

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Hielor]

Ubisoft has always been a leader in ridiculously draconian DRM schemes.

[Syrus]

Aaaaaand another one to be crossed off my list of "games I could potentially buy". Looks like it's becoming less and less publishers who I would give my money to.

I remember times when the customers weren't treated like cattle.

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[ophidian]

That is why I never buy any Ubisoft game from the last 3 years on PC. If they don't release it on consoles, then I don't buy it at all.

Cannot be arsed by some 0 iq moron's design.

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[Silmathien]

I remember at times when games were freeware. Playable by anyone with anybody. Hope Looking Glass, Egosoft etc. won't end like this.

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[AeternusDoleo]

Windows XP Home and Vista used to have similar issues as I recall. Requiring a reactivation every time you tweaked some components. No matter, as long as these nutters keep grafting DRM onto their apps, rather then fully integrating it into the core of the engine, it'll remain relatively easy to just cancel or bypass the DRM check with a crack.

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Korny]

Ye, and again, honest buyers are screwed off, instead of the actual target group, pirates.

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[NixOlympica]

That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in ages. How exactly is that gonna stop pirates? This just affects those who buy the game legally ...

Wow can't wait till they start to cry about 50% increase on piracy of their games...

[mwerte]

Ubisoft has always been a leader in ridiculously draconian and ineffective DRM schemes.

FTFY

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[ProwlerPC]

These companies have a habit of punishing the honest buyers while the pirates are still laughing. The largest form of a free expression we have in this regards is to simply stop purchasing from that publisher. Can't say I'm seeing any real innovations lately that justify the new release prices anyways. This internet is a revolutionary new medium but the business aspect of it refuses to modernize itself and is still locked in the past before the internet was given to the public. The way software is going and this new easy form of sharing continues to grow I predict the gaming companies being made obsolete because the public will be writing their own games and making them available bill board style via internet. The way software has been going I won't be surprised if many games of far better quality then those being dished out from the publishers will become available from your average Joe who doesn't have the greed to be a millionaire after selling just 100 000 copies of his game. This talk of high prices due to piracy argument the companies make seems empty to someone who had to pay $80 for the first Final Fantasy game that was released for Nintendo (now granted this title does stand as one of innovative markers in the gaming industry but note the price during a decade in which the dollar was worth more then it is today.) a game on a 8 bit console. The publishers have an overblown sense of value to their products, the public has been whispering this for as long as the industry existed. I say whisper because on top of complaining they still go and buy but this is more due to the fact that alternatives have been slow to rise. As game programming gets easier this will change.

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