Previously we’ve written about the new DRM that Ubisoft has developed in-house that requires a 24/7, uninterrupted internet connection (not even for a modem reboot or lost sync) to the master Ubisoft DRM servers.
At the time there was a lot of speculation about “What if your modem reboots?” or “What if Ubisoft’s DRM server goes down?” or “What if your route to the DRM servers is interrupted due to some 3rd party hardware issue?“ I expected it would be about 6 months to a year before we got those questions answered… but it wasn’t, it was last weekend.
Apparently the universal answer to all the questions above is simply: You’re fucked.
This past weekend the Ubisoft DRM servers went down all weekend long and the result was that no one that purchased the game could play during the weekend.
Take some time to appreciate what is bolded in the previous sentence. The folks that pirated Assassin’s Creed II (for example) were playing all weekend, just fine. The folks that paid for it were unable to load it up, had lost save games and progress or reported the game locking up trying to access the save/progress information as the servers were down.
DRM continues to teach us that we are paying to experience failures. We are paying to not play in fact. There is no value-ad caused by this draconian DRM that encourages us to do so. At this point anyone that has bought the game is better off digging up a pirated copy so they can actually play it than trying to play their real copy.
I think there is a much more inventive and creative solution to DRM that people are not taking the time to think of — incentives to get people to stop pirating or to pay the $60 for the full retail copy — and fucking your customers in their asses isn’t one of those incentives Ubisoft.
Thanks
