Ubisoft's DRM now monitors hardware changes

[c3ntury]

So if your GPU dies, you have to rebuy your Ubisoft games? Wut?

[Zain Adeel]

:p lol at pirating customers :p

[Amarok]

So if your GPU dies, you have to rebuy your Ubisoft games? Wut?

Nope. All you have to do is call their support line, explain the situation to them, and they'll help you. It would take about 5 minutes. =)

Yes, it is as bad as people say.

No, it's really not. You had a bad experience and that's really unfortunate but it's totally impossible for UbiSoft's DRM to be as bad as people say that it is. It's an annoyance at worst.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

And annoyance is pretty bad.

You are paying a healthy amount of money. You are a legit customer. And what you get in return?

Thats right. Annoyance

While those who pirate it, don't even get that

[Gerowen]

:p lol at pirating customers :p

I'm not much of a PC gamer, let alone somebody who pirates PC games, but this method of DRM is just a little ridiculous. I think companies should be focused more on making money because their product is good and people want to pay for it, not making money by forcing customers to re-buy the same product because they tried to upgrade their hardware to squeeze more performance out of a game they've already paid for.

[Arkose]

One sure-fire way to turn a customer into a pirate is to treat them like one.

What makes Ubisoft look even worse is that they are one of the few publishers still using machine-based DRM; an increasing number of publishers are now using account-based DRM (Steamworks, Origin, etc.) for all their games. These systems don't care about your hardware at all and have other customer benefits like automated patching.

Nope. All you have to do is call their support line, explain the situation to them, and they'll help you. It would take about 5 minutes. =)

That works in 2012, and probably 2013, but what about 5-10 years from now when the publisher is dead and/or no longer supports activation renewal for that title? Do I download a crack just to get my legal purchase working? Sure, that will work, but why should I need an extra step--especially a questionably legal one--that many other recent/upcoming releases don't need?

[Wakers]

Why are licenses not tied to the customer rather than a machine?

[Amarok]

That works in 2012, and probably 2013, but what about 5-10 years from now when the publisher is dead and/or no longer supports activation renewal for that title? Do I download a crack just to get my legal purchase working? Sure, that will work, but why should I need an extra step--especially a questionably legal one--that many other recent/upcoming releases don't need?

Historically DRM has been completely removed at that point, but yes that could be a concern. I don't think it's anything to worry about with UbiSoft though, I really don't think they're going anywhere.

Why are licenses not tied to the customer rather than a machine?

Good question. A lot of companies could learn a lot from Valve in the DRM department.

[Minifig]

Why are licenses not tied to the customer rather than a machine?

Because machines don't tend to live as long as the customers who use them, and companies want to screw people out of their money as much as possible...

[giantpotato]

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.

The only time the Revelations DRM does anything online is upon first installation. Their DRM servers were down the other day when I wanted to play and guess what? The game just gave me a notice saying it was not able to connect to the server and I was able to play single player fine in offline mode, without having to use any cracks. Even uPlay achievements/rewards worked fine offline.

Oh, and there's been an update to the original story, after contacting the developer, Guru3D's key has been unlocked and can be used on as many installations at they want.

[Packet1009]

i do wish gaming companies would out-source their DRM to somebody like Valve - and let Steam tie the game to a user instead of computer.

Much simpler/better solution than trying to roll their own each time with often customer-unfriendly results (each time).

Now we just need some of those gaming companies who require their own login credentials after logging into Steam to at least integrate into the game UI rather than a separate application... (Wings of Prey, i'm looking at you...)

[Azusa]

The one question i have to ask is why is the reaction to DRM to just pirate the game why not just show them how much they've tainted the game by just not playing it?

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Pirating is worse than not playing it.

Show those little ******* that if you don't change your stupid policy, we'll keep doing this

[giantpotato]

Pirating is worse than not playing it.

Show those little ******* that if you don't change your stupid policy, we'll keep doing this

No, pirating just gives them an excuse to add stricter DRM. If nobody was pirating, they would have no reason to justify spending money implementing new forms of DRM.

[Azusa]

Pirating is worse than not playing it.

Show those little ******* that if you don't change your stupid policy, we'll keep doing this

first response pretty much sums up what i mean!

[neufuse Veteran]

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.

yeah, never had that work for me... I installed win 7 on a machine, imaged it and always reinstalled it from the image, well I deicded to make new images 3 times since I first got the Win 7RTM do to stuff like Service packs and such (1 image for RTM, 1 for SP1, 1 for some of the latest patches) well the other day I had my OS HDD fail, and I decided eh just make a new image install since I have a lot of new software, installed windows and it couldn't complete activation..... it's been over 6 months since the last image was made... activation never reset, had to call the automated enter all your number sill read back the numbers to you line...... I've always had this problem with windows vista and now win 7.... never with office strangely