"Ubifail" is starting to sound more appropriate.

[owsf2000]

As shown on slashdot:

Ubisoft DRM Causing More Problems

I'm starting to wonder if I should keep a list of what games are using this online DRM shit, although it's far too easy to just say to hell with all of it. This time it's Settlers 7.

Want to know what the next gen consoles are probably going to require? :P

Sadly, I can see it happening.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I'll be glad when they finally realize and admit that this simply does not work, both in the sense of it acting as DRM and in the sense of, you know, their games actually functioning properly. I think this whole farce is going to get worse before it gets better though, if it gets better.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Of course, all of the asshats in the comments posting things like "Oh yeah, the cracks are totally working now" or even what are supposedly direct links to server emulators and such for Assassin's Creed or C&C4 and whatnot certainly aren't helping matters.

And all of that in response to a comment at the top saying "Don't buy and don't download cracked games. Maybe then all these idiot companies will get the message."

There are two sets of reasoning behind it in the comments, it seems. Group A(sshats) are saying that everyone should pirate the game and not buy it because it shows them that their DRM doesn't work, and so they shouldn't be using it. Group B are saying that nobody should pirate the game or buy it because it shows them that their DRM is unnecessary and, moreover, is actively hurting sales, and so they shouldn't be using it. Sadly, Group A(sshats) far outnumbers Group B.

My overall take on it is that, while the purpose of DRM these days may or may not be solely in response to pirating issues, that's what it was originally intended to combat. As such, it is, and always will be, the people who illegally download these things who are the main, core, root cause of the problem, regardless of what the companies do or don't do in response. Everyone who gets annoyed at the companies who implement this kind of DRM, myself included, needs to keep that in mind and not completely demonize these companies for it. Just mostly demonize them, because they're using DRM schemes for things other than only combating piracy, such as combating used sales and so on. Oh, and also for implementing retarded, draconian DRM schemes like this that A) never work any better than less invasive DRM because pirates will always crack it soon enough anyway and B) only hurt legit customers who either aren't willing to use the crack at all or who feel forced into using the crack if they want to use an otherwise completely broken product. Of course, when people continue to pirate their stuff anyway, it's just going to make them try something even more draconian next time, which will in turn, make the asshats feel all the more justified in cracking and distributing it. It's a never ending cycle.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

You want to know the irony? It tends to be the majority of Kotaku that also go "second hand sales are wrong and about the same as piracy because it hurts the developers."

I guess it all depends on their mood.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

This is seriously something that I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while now, pretty much ever since I first became aware of the issue.

How and why and where and when did game publishers get this nonsensical notion that they have any right to second hand sales, or that, because they obviously don't, they therefore need to start trying to put a stop to it through DRM and whatnot if they can't get their own fingers into that particular pie? And, worse, how and why and when did gamers start agreeing with this preposterous idea?

Of course, that second bit I can potentially just chalk up to my usual opinion that a good portion of the users on sites like Kotaku/Destructoid/Slashdot/etc. seem to be utter fucking morons. The first bit I can potentially just chalk up to the fact that those guys apparently are just greedy bastards.

[maverynthia.livejournal.com]

i thin people are agreeing to that idea because they are fanchildren to those companies and whenever Company expresses that it hurts them, the fans get all psychotic and start believing it... like religion.

Just try and reason with a Square fanatic that SE has lost their touch.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

That might be the reason, and you're correct about Square fans - the more zealotic of the bunch at any rate, but I think the real reason gamers are so quick to believe this is because of Gamestop.

We're not talking pawn shop sales here where you can reasonably expect to pay half price or less compared to a new game. People name Gamestop and the selling of used games for 5 dollars cheaper than new. I suspect they're more bitter that they're FORCING THEMSELVES to pay that rip off of a price so they're picking up the whole second-hand-sales-are-evil ranting.

I'd agree, it does seem to be ripping off the poor game companies to have used goods being sold regularly for just slightly less than new. But that's not the fault of how the system works. It's 100% the fault of dumb ass gamers who buy the shit, which makes gamers that rant on about this to look even stupider. (in my eyes at the very least.) If gamers wouldn't buy at Gamestop's outrageous used prices - GAMESTOP WOULD NOT TRY TO SELL THEM AT THOSE PRICES. (Caps for my fury!)

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

This is why it's all such a vicious, retarded cycle.

Game company releases game -> gamer A buys game -> gamer A sells game to Gamestop for half price or less -> Gamestop resells game for slightly less than full price to gamer B -> both gamer A and gamer B feels ripped off by Gamestop -> Game company says "Hey, we're supposedly losing money to pirates (oh and resellers, too) so let's put craptastic DRM into our games! That'll show Gamestop!" -> gamers A and B say "Ha ha, yeah, I agree with that practice because it screws over Gamestop!" -> piratesdouchebags say "Hey, that DRM sucks! Let's crack it and make the game available for free to everyone!" -> everyone else gets shat upon -> return to first step in the cycle and repeat ad infinitum.

As for the Square thing, Square hasn't been quite the same since Hironobu Sakaguchi and some others left to form Mistwalker, right around the time of FFX-2 or thereabouts. That's also around the time that Nobuo Uematsu left as well (although he's back for Final Fantasy 14, but that means nothing to me since it's a MMO). FFXI was also a MMO, which I ignored, and FFXII sucked for the most part. FFXIII has been the only FF game since FFX that I even kind of enjoyed. I did finish FFX-2, but I honestly don't remember much of anything about it now, aside from the fact that they slutty'd up Yuna's and Rikku's outfits and added new character Paine. The story? Uh... I don't know... something about spheres or some shit? Oh, and some dude that looks like Tidus but isn't.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in response to your observation about how later consoles will probably require more and more strict DRM, I will copy/paste this comment (which was in response to a previous comment saying that unless the DRM is expanded to consoles, then Ubisoft's sales probably won't be affected).

"Well, just to throw a spanner in your works.

I have a console, and a PC (obviously). I game on both... I have pirated games on both. It was actually easier to copy ACII on console than PC.

Your move..."

This is exactly the kind of smug asswipe that I'm talking about as being the core problem, overall.

So, yeah, I can totally see the next gen of consoles being far more restrictive as far as DRM goes. And I can totally see that DRM being cracked and the dedicated pirating resumed with a short period of time and the whole damn thing starting all over again.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Oh holy crap, I certainly hope that this (http://www.onlive.com/index.html) doesn't catch on and become the Next Big Thing™ in gaming. It looks like the current Ubisoft DRM on monster steroids, from what I can tell. Basically, based on the 30 seconds or so I spent looking at their site, it appears that they hope to be a service like Steam or some such, except that the entirety of the games are merely streamed from their servers, and there is almost nothing client-side. Given the problems we're seeing now with just the Ubisoft crap, this sounds even more horrible.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

And lastly (for the time being anyway), I'm getting kind of tired of the whole "hey it's not piracy, it's copyright infringement" thing. Yeah, yeah, okay, you're right, offended Slashdot commenter, you're right. Technically.

Thing is, it doesn't really matter what it's called, whether it's "piracy" or "copyright infringement" or "blargfarting". The point is that it's still a pretty damn scuzzy thing to do, and trying to flower it up doesn't help matters, in my opinion.

But, that said, "piracy" and "pirate" have come to be the commonly accepted, informal terms for illegally copying and download software and for those who do it, respectively, and have been for decades now, whether it's justified or not. I've noticed that the only people who seem to get all butthurt over this distinction tend to be the ones who engage in the practice and who are trying to justify it somehow. In my not at all humble opinion, if one torrents a video game and plays it without ever paying for it, they deserve to be ostracized for that, and if calling them "pirates" is a way to do it, as ineffectual as that may be, then so be it.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

In defense of offended Slashdot commenter, such things are generally pet peeves. You know what those are like, right?

I tried to write a more detailed explanation but... pet peeves, especially linguistic ones, are hard to explain. Particularly because in many cases the people that need it explained ("why is this so important to you?") simply don't care enough to consider it a valid point or won't consider it important.

So I'll just be quick and to the point. I disagree that those caring enough to make the distinction are mostly those engaging in it. I would think, and know many, people that engage in it and simply either don't care about the term used or take PRIDE in being called thus.

It is a shitty thing to do for current or recent releases of ANYTHING (not just games) in most cases, but with the duration of copyright already exceeding the expected lifetime of humans it's terribly broken and does the opposite of what it was intended for in the first place.

Ok stopping here before I hit full rant mode. I gotta go to work.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Okay, fair enough I guess. I see where you're coming from there.

In any case, all people who break copyright law are not "pirates," at least to me. It should be pretty obvious that I'm not talking about some guy getting sued over drawing a parody of Mickey Mouse here (though I'm sure Disney would disagree there). I agree that the estate of some author who's been dead for half a century or more still trying to keep complete control of said author's work, despite the fact that they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with its creation, is somewhat questionable, even if they may be well within their rights to do so under current copyright law, but that's not the issue at hand. Also, if someone is downloading a game that was released 10 years ago and is no longer actively being supported or sold by the company that released it, assuming that company even still exists, and is no longer legitimately available for purchase anywhere, then I'm mostly okay with that as well and don't consider those people to be "pirates" either, even despite the fact that it is still technically copyright infringement, but again that wasn't what I was referring to here.

I am only referring to people who download games (or whatever) that haven't even been released yet or that have only been out a month or a year or whatever, and which are still being actively sold and supported by the original creators. There is no justifiable reason for doing this, in my opinion, aside from maybe, maybe, the "trying to get the software that you already legally bought to operate in a manner that is not complete, unusable shit thanks to retarded DRM" thing. I disagree even that the "try-it-before-you-buy-it" thing is a valid reason, primarily because from personal observation this tends to turn into the "not-buy-it-even-after-playing-all-the-way-through-it-because-at-that-point-why-bother" thing. These people are reprehensible, regardless of what other term is used to describe them. However, the people who make these downloads available to begin with, even (hell, especially) if they themselves may have no actual interest in the game in question but are just doing it because they can, are even more reprehensible, since without them the first group wouldn't exist, nor would any form of DRM be necessary to begin with. These are the people I am referring to when I speak of "pirates." It's not a technical term, as far as I'm concerned. It's merely an insult.

But when referring to such in the future, I will no longer use the term "pirates," since that seems to be a point of contention (assuming I can remember to not do so, as it's kinda ingrained, but I'll try). From now on, I will refer to them simply as "asshats" or "douchebags" or "people who would do well to die horribly in an extremely hot car fire" or something, instead. That is what the purpose of calling them "pirates" was about (again, in my eyes at least), to ostracize them and not to describe them in a technically correct manner, and I feel these other terms will better get that across. That's all they are, in my eyes. The people I'm referring to still won't care, of course, and that's fine. A pile of turds, by another other name, will still reek just as bad. And as far as that goes, the guys who are actually proud of their work in the field of illegally cracking and making available commercial software are almost, but not quite, as worthwhile as people who are proud of the dumps they take (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&gid=2376627431) (to keep with the shit theme of the previous sentence), and are only slightly above those who create computer viruses and are proud of it.

(split for length)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

if they themselves may have no actual interest in the game in question but are just doing it because they can, are even more reprehensible, since without them the first group wouldn't exist, nor would any form of DRM be necessary to begin with.

This part I disagree with. DRM is created not just by acts, but by fear. Shareholders fear lost profits. CEOs fear being fired by shareholders. Companies that make DRM love playing on this as it's hard for any CEO to tell their shareholders why they refuse to spend X dollars to save the estimated millions that the DRM makers promise will be saved.

This is pretty much one of the reasons why early game consoles were cartridge based rather than using floppies or other mediums. There was a TV editorial video on youtube for a while (I think it's pulled for copyright reasons :P) that showed a discussion amongst the senior heads at Imagic back in the atari 2600 days when they were discussing their competition.

Imagic was the second 3rd-party developer on the scene making 2600 games, right after Activision. They made high quality games too, although I don't think they survived the crash. Anyhow, they discussed the starpath system which basically used audio tapes to store the roms and you'd load it into the ram cart or whatever it is. Made some interesting games since you had more ram available with this setup. Even back then these guys essentially scoffed at the idea of using audio tapes, citing unlicensed copying from friends to friends as to why they weren't going to do the same thing. "You'd sell 1 for every 10 copies out there."

The world would do better if everyone just had a bit more respect for the companies and individuals that produced shit. However at the same time, most of those companies have given little to no reason to respect them over the years and an ever increasing list of reasons why not to.. :/

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Not feeling too well at the moment, so this will probably be a shorter reply than I otherwise would have made.

Yeah, mostly my comment there was just a kind of generic "if people weren't copying the games, then the creators wouldn't have to bother with DRM," but if it is the case that they were being preemptively paranoid about this stuff even way back then, enough to put in DRM or copy protection or whatever it was called back then, then... yeah. I guess it's kind of a chicken/egg thing almost, at that point.

But, even so, I still don't think that the simple fact that DRM exists at all is a valid justification for cracking it, whether it is seen as a "challenge" or as a "duty to the public" or whatever. Hell, I would rather the crackers did care about the game, not that it would make it any more palatable, rather than a mere "found some DRM... gotta crack it" attitude that some of these dedicated crack groups seem to put forth, regardless of whatever the game is.

I feel kind of weird about it, overall. On the one hand, I hear the stories about these retarded DRM schemes being cracked within a few days, and part of me is like "Ha ha, serves 'em right, high five guys!" and part of me is like "You fucking dumbasses (referring to the crackers), you assholes are the problem and I want to wring your goddamn necks."

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

(continuation of previous comment)

Although, to actually touch on the semantics of the whole thing for just a bit, for what it's worth and if Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement) is to be believed, those engaging in what was essentially copyright infringement were being called "pirates" even as far back as 1603, a full 100-plus years before the first known copyright law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne) was enacted. Still doesn't mean that it's the proper term to use, but it does show that it's the de facto term that was being used for more than a century before the so-called proper term, i.e. "copyright infringement," had even begun to come into existence. Of course, I admittedly wouldn't have known that myself had someone else not posted it in the slashdot comments, in reply to the first guy who was complaining about "piracy =/= copyright infringement".

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Okay okay, one more.

This is a comment I found buried about halfway down the comments page and I found it to be very interesting.

I don't really think it leads to more sales. Let's suppose I'm a pirate (*ahem*). If I can't play Settlers 7, or Assassin's Creed 2, or whatever hot-game-of-the-minute, I will find something else to occupy my weekend. I'm not going to feel the overwhelming urge to go "haha, ok Ubisoft you win this time" and give them $70, when there are hundreds of other recent titles available right on the first page of my torrent site. In fact, if something is known to be "uncrackable" a pirate is more likely to NOT want to buy it, for fear that it will rootkit their PC, mess with Daemon Tools, or phone home with a list of all the other ill-gotten software they have.

Now I'm going to take a rather offensive stance: I, as an occasional producer of (low budget) software, pirate my own stuff. By that, I mean I routinely package the product that I myself created, throw in a valid unlock code, and seed it on torrent trackers, push it through Usenet, stick it on Rapidshare. Why in the fuck would I do that ? Because pirates make up the oldest and largest social network of all time. I shit you not, I have been making more money and more repeat sales. The reasoning ? There are several types of pirates, I lump them into four main categories:

1. Hardcore pirates who won't pay for software, ever
2. Casual/bored pirates who will download whatever's new and try it out
3. Average Joe who shares stuff with a few friends and relatives, might do group buys
4. Try-before-you-buy types (yes they do exist)

#1 is most likely 12 years old and/or living in the 3rd world, might as well forget about them there is no hope for this category

#3 is small peas, blue-collar cheap-ass. Even legit businesses don't spend much on marketing to these types

#2 and #4 are GOLDEN. The try-before-they-buy types often become life-long supporters. These are the guys who will chat you up in the forums and spread your gospel to coworkers and acquaintances. The casual pirates are similar, but they won't buy your product: their friends will. The casual pirate will blog about your app or mention it on IRC/Facebook, proportionate to your app's quality and apparent ease-of-use.

I know these observations don't directly scale to these big-name game houses. Obviously there is a greater benefit to indie guys like myself, but on some level, people will always buy a certain portion of their software... for some it's 100%, for others it's zero, and I don't think DRM has much influence on that.

Piracy is a constant. You can't kill it, no matter how clever you get, it's still just a software or hardware lock, and both can be broken by someone with a bit of smarts, time and motivation. DRM is nothing but a series of small pyrrhic victories and each incremental tightening of "security" leads to an equal or greater increment in the cracker's knowledge and skill. The only ones who truly profit from DRM are the people selling DRM.
--
-Billco, Fnarg.com [fnarg.com]

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

One very definitely final thing on this thread (at least perhaps until I get home later, and see if there are any replies to which I may want to respond):

The whole "well, if Ubisoft manages to get enough would-be pirassholes to buy the game instead of download it within the first few days before the cracks become available, then the DRM was a success" thing that I was seeing in the comments.

Okay, let's say that some people went ahead and bought the game, rather than torrenting it as they otherwise would have done had a working crack been available immediately. They bought a game that can, and probably will, crap out on them at any moment thanks to said DRM, probably feel gypped by Ubisoft and that they wasted their money on the game, and are more likely to simply not bother with Ubisoft games in the future, assuming they can't find them on a torrent somewhere. How is that a success for the DRM? Oh, wait, Ubisoft apparently doesn't care that the DRM makes their game broken and shit, they just care that enough people spent money on it rather than downloading it for free. Guess it was a "success" for them, in that sense. Well, I answered my own question there.

(Yeah, I know I'm all over the board here, at one moment blasting the DRM, and at another blasting the shitbrains who make DRM "necessary." Suffice it to say that I hate them both more or less equally.)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

The issue with this is that that kind of individual doesn't actually exist imo. The only people that would buy legit copies if they couldn't get it on torrents/p2p/etc are those that would fall into the "buy before you try" group. And even then, they'd probably wait around for the cracks anyway.

The only people who would download and purchase are those who were planning on purchasing it anyway. At which point it's more accurately an "advanced copy" of sorts. Still technically illegal but in this case there's absolutely no damage being done. Unless the company involved goes apeshit and tries suing the individual to hell and back - but the damage there is in their reputation, and all future purchases that individual would have made. (And remember in this particular case we're talking only about those who definitely plan on purchasing it when it's available in stores.)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Yeah, obviously I mean the "try before you buy" group.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mostly agree, and that's sort of what that guy I quoted above was saying as well. If someone had been planning on torrenting the game anyway, they're not going to suddenly decide to buy the game if they find out they can't play the torrent due to DRM. They'll just go find something else to download, or else just do without until the inevitable crack is made available. And if someone had been planning to buy the game anyway, most likely they probably weren't going to be dealing with torrents to begin with, or else it just wouldn't have been a major deciding factor, and would have just gone ahead and bought it. Or, if they're like a lot of us, they might hear about the dumbass DRM and just say screw that and buy something else. Mainly, these companies are banking on the people who don't care about the DRM, possibly because they don't know enough about it to care, or if they do they just don't think it's "all that bad."* (But then, of course, they'd have to factor in all of the inevitable customer service complaints due to "hey my game doesn't work what the hell you guys?" Seriously, the more I consider it, the more I wonder just how in the hell they thought this DRM was ever a good idea.)

* - Which is kind of like me and the SecuROM stuff that was in Spore. I'd previously had games that had the secuROM in them (which I learned had it after the fact or else I might not have bought those games and would have been as paranoid of it as everyone else seems to be), yet I never had any horrible problems with those games and them hosing my computer or whatever, so I didn't think the Spore stuff would be "all that bad" either, which is why I got it anyway. This Ubisoft stuff, and now EA as well (and probably won't be long before Activision gets into it as well) about requiring constant internet connect even for single player games is too much, though.