14 DAY TRIAL // In his latest GameTrailers show, analyst Michael Pachter said he supported Ubisoft's decision to implement an always online DRM component into its PC game. “I’m an old guy. I’m ethical and I’m a lawyer by trade. I feel if you steal a copy of a game by copying a friend’s file then it’s like going into the shop and stealing a copy. That’s how I feel about it. Please feel free to disagree,” he went on to say.
He continued to comment that, “When a company sells you a game they have no problem if you resell it and someone else buys it and they have no problem if you give it away. If you make copies, though, it’s against the law. The guys that ran bittorrent are in jail: it is illegal. I think anything a publisher does to make sure you don’t rip off their games if their [sic] right, and I think that people who steal should be in jail.”
This digital rights management system for PC was launched by Ubisoft back in January this year. It requires customers to be always online while they play their game, even if it is in single player. A disconnection means the user must quit the title and resume it when [s]he is online again from the last save. The first titles that included this controversial anti-piracy solution were Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers 7. Many gamers were unhappy with this solution, as Ubisoft's servers did not always work and the wireless connections some used weren't stable enough to warrant a problem-free playthrough.
Both games were eventually cracked, leaving paying customers to struggle with the buggy DRM, while illegal pirates enjoyed their stolen copies regardless of the state of their Internet connection. Splinter Cell: Conviction was also shipped on the PC with this DRM and was cracked on launch day. Multiplayer using the official network was also cracked, something that was not possible with other, older DRM solutions or a simple key check.