Ubisoft's DRM now monitors hardware changes

[iuerg87yerg879e0rg9erugjer]

Ubisoft have managed to go a month or so without anyone loudly throwing their hands in the air and despairing at their DRM ways. They?ll be relieved to know the drought is over, with tech wizards

Guru3D discovering that Ubisoft?s limited activations of their games are not just limited to specific machines, but specific graphics cards.

Tying activations to hardware is not that unusual. Windows does the same. Much like a boat that?s had every plank of wood replaced, it?s a question for philosophers whether a PC with its guts exchanged is still the same PC, and you can?t really license a product to a case. If you change enough of your machine?s insides, Windows will eventually speak up and ask if something?s up. But Ubisoft?s Anno 2070 will refuse to reinstall if you just swap out something as simple as a graphics card.

That?s what Guru3D discovered when trying to run some benchmarking tests on the game, across three of their machines. Knowing the game had only three activations (a pretty controversial practice in itself), they kept it to a trio of boxes, and then switched cards. And the game stopped working. And refused to activate. They then contacted Ubisoft (this was four days ago) as instructed, but have had no reply.

To me this sounds more like a bug in their activation code than a defining principle of their anti-piracy measures. But then, this is Ubisoft whose DRM has previously outdone even the most outlandish parodies of the ineffective customer-baiting nonsense. We?ve got in touch with them to find out if it?s meant to be happening, and if they plan to fix it so people can change basic hardware without losing the right to play their games.

source

thats it, never again am i buying anything from ubisoft ever again.

[farmeunit]

thats it, never again am i buying anything from ubisoft ever again.

I decided that when they first released their new DRM.

[giantpotato]

Title is wrong, ANNO 2070 doesn't use Ubisoft's DRM, it uses the 3rd party TAGES.

[Vice]

I really do want to play Anno 2070 having been such a huge fan of the earlier Anno titles but the DRM has put me off it. I upgrade my computer constantly and in 12 months from now I'd hate to be locked out of Anno just because I upgraded my graphics cards.

This is one title I'll sadly have to skip.

[Phouchg]

More pain-in-the-ass DRM to p* off legitimate users. I will continue to use cracked files, where possible.

[Colin McGregor]

Will it work like windows though? i changed my hardware big time on my pc and my windows 7 key still works. It says its invalid but if i use the 2 minute automated phone activation it works like a charm.

[bryonhowley]

Well I will buy it I have never had a problem with any DRM so untill I do I am not going to quit playing just because there is a DRM in it. I also see no need to dowload an illegal crack to get around a DRM that will not cause any problems in the first place.

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

... a DRM that will not cause any problems in the first place.

:laugh: Good one!

[Phouchg]

I also see no need to dowload an illegal crack to get around a DRM [..]

Legality depends on clauses in EULAs mentioning reverse engineering, modding and online play. Technically if such a crack is illegal, game trainers and, for example, intro skipping by replacing movie files with 0-byte counterparts are illegal practices as well. And I don't even care of legality schmegality as long as my own conscience is clean.

[ozgeek]

Well I will buy it I have never had a problem with any DRM so untill I do I am not going to quit playing just because there is a DRM in it. I also see no need to dowload an illegal crack to get around a DRM that will not cause any problems in the first place.

That is the attidute of people until they get locked out because they installed too many times or they changed hardware often or install it on another computer.

EDIT: Oh and having to rely on activation servers to keep running so you could activate and play the games 20 years in the future.

[Glassed Silver]

That is the attidute of people until they get locked out because they installed too many times or they changed hardware often or install it on another computer.

It's a feast of joy for retro gamers, too! </s>

Retro gaming in the future with all those super old DRM crippled games that either never saw a DRM-free version (as "abandonware"), activation/constant authentication servers are offline since long ago or the DRM just plays games on VMs.

You better hope crack sites don't cease to exist if you ever want to play some of the games that fall into above scheme.

NOT PROMOTING CRACKS OR ANY ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR HERE. This is about games you legally own!

(</Disclaimer>)

Glassed Silver:mac

[giantpotato]

This is no different than Windows Activation. If you change hardware you can get more activations.

From the FAQ:

Question: How often can I activate my game?

Answer: To start with, you can activate your game on three different PC configurations ? if you have used up these activations, simply contact our Support Team who will provide you with further activations free of charge and without hassle.

[ozgeek]

Windows activations resets after every 120 days (3 months). Therefore you can activate once every 3 months over the net without having to call MS. If you activate too many times during the 3 months, yes, you will have to call Microsoft.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Windows activations resets after every 120 days (3 months). Therefore you can activate once every 3 months over the net without having to call MS. If you activate too many times during the 3 months, yes, you will have to call Microsoft.

This is the only way to make the whole process civil for the user. If the user is changing a lot of the hardware (more than just one part) in a very short period of time you can flag the user to reactivate. At the same time, you clean out the previous activations every so often to ensure that the user isn't impacted by these changes (they will reactivate online without issue and be severely impacted). After all, the goal is to catch the shared key and not the average user. A shared key will get a large number of activations in a short period where a real user wouldn't trigger many (especially if you ensure that it is a variety of major components that need to change first, such as NIC MAC; Graphics Card; HDD serial number; RAM amount; etc.) hardware change activations in a short time span.

Companies need to do this right... I'm not a huge DRM fan, but Microsoft is a strong model to look at since their DRM has to be the best implemented in my experience.

[Glassed Silver]

This is no different than Windows Activation. If you change hardware you can get more activations.

From the FAQ:

That's nice, but I still think that activations (and DRM in general) just should be forbidden. Yes, I go as far as that.

DRM hurts the costumer and does nothing against piracy. (wrong term for that, but we'll leave it at that)

Windows activations resets after every 120 days (3 months). Therefore you can activate once every 3 months over the net without having to call MS. If you activate too many times during the 3 months, yes, you will have to call Microsoft.

Oh, I didn't know that, thanks for the info.

Do you have a source for that? :)

Glassed Silver:mac

[farmeunit]

This is no different than Windows Activation. If you change hardware you can get more activations.

From the FAQ:

It's a hassle to start with. I've also had very few interactions with tech support that were handled quickly and correctly. I've only had Windows ask for re-activation once or twice for hardware changes. Depends on how picky it is with different components.

[Gerowen]

So if I were a PC gamer, and I upgraded the graphics card in my PC to get better performance out of my games, I could very well void a legitimately activated game?

Why don't they just activate based on MAC Address? That's something that is unique to each PC, and isn't likely to change even if the person adds a second network card, because the MAC for the on-board NIC would still be the same. Not that I'm saying this kind of DRM is good, but if they're going to do it, why not base it on something that isn't likely to change, especially in a PC where people upgrade video cards regularly?

[+LogicalApex MVC]

That's nice, but I still think that activations (and DRM in general) just should be forbidden. Yes, I go as far as that.

DRM hurts the costumer and does nothing against piracy. (wrong term for that, but we'll leave it at that)

I agree, DRM in almost all forms is bad. In this case, slowing the piracy of a game, it isn't useful at all.

The part I don't understand, game companies claim the major reason they invest so heavily in DRM is to ensure they get sales for the first 120 days or so the game is on the market. So they aren't expecting to beat those who crack the games over the long term, but to hopefully keep them from having a crack out on release day. I can understand the business motivation for that, but what I don't understand is why they don't set a specific date with their customers to remove the DRM altogether. I mean after the game has been on the market for 1 year (arbitrary number for discussion) then there is definitely a crack out and the game sales have trailed off since it is now selling for 15% of its original price... What reason is there to keep the DRM on the game and harm the legitimate customer?

[Glassed Silver]

I agree, DRM in almost all forms is bad. In this case, slowing the piracy of a game, it isn't useful at all. The part I don't understand, game companies claim the major reason they invest so heavily in DRM is to ensure they get sales for the first 120 days or so the game is on the market. So they aren't expecting to beat those who crack the games over the long term, but to hopefully keep them from having a crack out on release day. I can understand the business motivation for that, but what I don't understand is why they don't set a specific date with their customers to remove the DRM altogether. I mean after the game has been on the market for 1 year (arbitrary number for discussion) then there is definitely a crack out and the game sales have trailed off since it is now selling for 15% of its original price... What reason is there to keep the DRM on the game and harm the legitimate customer?

This so much, Frazell, I seriously want to hug you! :laugh:

Glassed Silver:mac

[joker999]

When any games company is shut down, cant play :(

(if games need activated before start game)

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I agree, DRM in almost all forms is bad. In this case, slowing the piracy of a game, it isn't useful at all.

The part I don't understand, game companies claim the major reason they invest so heavily in DRM is to ensure they get sales for the first 120 days or so the game is on the market. So they aren't expecting to beat those who crack the games over the long term, but to hopefully keep them from having a crack out on release day. I can understand the business motivation for that, but what I don't understand is why they don't set a specific date with their customers to remove the DRM altogether. I mean after the game has been on the market for 1 year (arbitrary number for discussion) then there is definitely a crack out and the game sales have trailed off since it is now selling for 15% of its original price... What reason is there to keep the DRM on the game and harm the legitimate customer?

Thats it. Topic closed.

(Y)

[Amarok]

While I'm not a fan of UbiSoft's DRM and it has mildly inconvenienced me as a customer (I bought AC2, played it, uninstalled it, and then when I reinstalled it later I had to go through a big ordeal because I forgot the UbiSoft ID that I tied the game to, but that's somewhat my fault.) it's really not as bad as people say it is. In the event you go over your activation limits you can just call them, speak politely, and they'll assist you fairly quickly.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Yes, it is as bad as people say.

I was NEVER able to play AC 2. Yup thats right NEVER.

It won't let me log in.

After one whole week of trying and contacting them, I finally gave up and played it on XBOX of a friend'

[Zain Adeel]

Well.. sorry to break it to them. But their DRM gets cracked every damn time..

Guess what..

AC2 Revelations DRM ****ed me off to death.. it freezes the game at times and what not.

What did i do? got myself a crack and i was able to play it offline.

Whats the use of this DRM? im pretty sure its to end piracy. But i dont see it doing any good.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Yes, its thier way of thinking that posing DRM will end piracy.

But guess what, they areignorant in thinking that because pirating customer will get it playing normally while the legit customer gets screwed