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April 14th, 2010, 11:38 GMT · By

Ubisoft Will Continue to Evolve Its DRM System

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Will Ubisoft continue to push its new Digital Rights Management scheme for future titles? Despite the fact that there have been some problems with the titles using it until now, the French publisher seems determined to make sure pirates do not touch its upcoming line-up so the new system is here to stay, although with the caveat that this is still a work in progress, which will receive improvements as time goes by.

Talking to Eurogamer, a representative from Ubisoft stated that “Most forthcoming Ubisoft PC titles will use our online services platform” and that “as with any online technology, we are constantly working to evolve and improve it.”

The upcoming PC line up from Ubisoft includes: Splinter Cell Conviction, R.U.S.E., I Am Alive, Pure Football, TrackMania 2, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands and Ghost Recon Future Soldier. All those who plan to pick them up must have an always-on Internet connection in order to play them and accept that when the connection drops, the game goes too.

Ubisoft believes the new system will make it near impossible for pirates to get to its games and that this will lead to a big leap in sales on the PC, one of the platforms most affected by breaches of copyright.

The problem is that until now, Ubisoft has had quite a bit of issues with its always-on DRM. Assassin's Creed II, the first game to sport it, had a couple of days when it was unplayable because of problems with the servers and similar issues have plagued those who have bought Settlers VII: Paths to a Kingdom.

The thread detailing the issues on the official Ubisoft site had more than 10,000 posts and last week, the company said that “matchmaking in multiplayer mode and that keep track of profiles, campaign progression and stats in both solo and multi modes” were still affected.

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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Pac_Man on 14 Apr 2010, 20:39 UTC reply to this comment

Apparently Assassin's Creed 2 was successfully "cracked" eventually (about a week or 2 ago).

Look for Assassin's Creed II - Server Emulator coded by Dormine


Comment #2 by: ralph on 15 Apr 2010, 10:52 UTC reply to this comment

...and I will continue to not buy their games. We'll see how far their PC sales rise.


Comment #3 by: Not a pirate on 16 Apr 2010, 05:34 UTC reply to this comment

I have rarely "pirated" a game. I have, in the past, downloaded games to trial them, and if I enjoyed them I went and bought them. If the game was not deserving of my money, I didn't buy it. (I also rarely finished the game either).

Demos often are too short, or too limited, to get a full impression of a game. Along the lines of "Yes that single mission was fun, but are all the missions the same? Does it get boring/tedious? What progression is there?" In this case there was no demo.

In this case, I will never buy a game with such a draconian DRM. Why as a PC gamer do I have to put up with being treated like a criminal while console gamers have no issues? Why am I expected to pay extra $ for a game that is 6 months old? Surely Ubisoft has covered the development costs by now...from here on in it should all be profits!

Or did developing this DRM cost them a fortune?

Either way, I'm thinking that ubi will find Pc game sales will continue to slide. Treating your paying customers like pirates will become a self fulilling prophesy...or they'll just walk away.

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