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Ubisoft Plans Constant Online Authentication For PC Games
by Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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January 26, 2010
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In an attempt to make its PC games more secure and take advantage of online services, Ubisoft says it will require constant connectivity in "most" of its upcoming games for the platform.
Ubisoft has been particularly vocal about the severity of PC game piracy, with executives mentioning the issue in numerous analyst conference calls. Last July, the company pledged to cut down on piracy rates with then-unannounced tools.
Now it seems the company is moving away from externally-developed DRM solutions like SecuROM and StarForce in favor of online integration that is tied into the game itself.
In addition to verifying the game's legitimacy with Ubisoft's servers, the system will automatically make use of features that keep a player's settings and game synchronized online, making that data portable across PCs.
It's a strategy that is likely to be increasingly common in the PC gaming world, as internet access becomes more ubiquitous and publishers struggle to find ways to combat piracy in reliable ways. EALA's upcoming Command & Conquer 4 and Blizzard's upcoming StarCraft II will each make heavy use of online authentication to discourage piracy and enable persistent online features.
After announcing the system in a GameSpy interview, Ubisoft released an official Q&A detailing a number of aspects of the technology. The company says players will be able to install their games on as many computers as they like, with no need to keep the DVD in the drive, but they can only play it on one computer at a time.
Ubisoft noted that players must be online to play games outfitted with the system, even during single-player gameplay. The publisher claims that, in the event it takes the authentication servers down, it will release a patch to allow offline play.
The first game to make use of the system will be Blue Byte's PC-exclusive The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom. Ubisoft did not say whether Assassin's Creed II or Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, neither of which is exclusive to the platform, would incorporate it.
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They'll lose the customers they recovered when they released games without DRM, an experiment BTW which I'd love to hear how it went (I'd wager that they didn't lose a penny).
So, better than ShittyROM?. Yes. But DRM nonetheless.
I'll vote with my wallet. Bye, Ubi.
Ubi might make slightly more money in the short term (although no doubt the service side of running this kind of thing will take a wedge) but this kind of scheme fundamentally interferes with their ability to grow customers by not seeding enough of them early.
So "money now" sacrifices growth.
You missed the part about WoW being a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Two key words there "Multiplayer" and "Online"
Most PC users understand the need to havea constant internet connection when playing multiplayer games. What they havea problem with is the idea that they have to be babysat whle they play by themselves.
Have you ever had one of those bosses that is at your desk checking on you every five minutes? Is that kind of environment conducive to your productivity? No. It creates hostility in the workplace.
What makes anyone think that kind of behavior is acceptable to a consumer who wants to play your game by themselves? It creates hostility in the market. The kind of hostility that forces people to pirate the game just so that they can get away from it.
Game developers need to learn to trust their consumers. By extending trust to them they can foster more growth than by performing these kinds of actions.
Say I like to travel a lot with my laptop or I come from a place where the net is expensive, or is still dialup (which a lot of single player gamers fit into - think outside Western Europe and urbanised North America), or the servers are flooded, or go down for maintainance, or in 5 years Ubi decides to pull the plug (older Tom Clancy games) - I've just been locked out of my game and have no control. This only effects legit users and pirates are once again are community liberators allowing consumers to play the game in a more efficient, fun way by cutting the middle out. PC piracy is a problem but the key is providing a service users actually want/need, not what publishers decide to throw at them and expect to be greatful. The PC represents a different user base to the average console console with differing expectations and it is only by playing to the strengths of the platform and encouraging the user base rather than reprimanding legitimate customers that you can encourage growth. Yes piracy figures are high but question why is piracy so attractive? Has the publisher done a shoddy port, outpriced their demographic or is the game simply not worth the price asked? Ubi has not done a really solid PC game in a long time so people just sample and move on in disgust.
Check it out, just dig deep into the site for all the details and goodness:
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blo
g&id=100&Itemid=158
I don't disagree with Ubisoft's goal of losing fewer sales to piracy. But their chosen method of punishing the innocent -- because that's easier than going after the guilty -- is enough to put me off all future Ubisoft games as well.
I think Tadhg has it exactly right: Ubisoft's scheme to score a little more money today will wind up depressing their revenue tomorrow. I guess we'll find out.
Yes it is possible to pirate games on some consoles but it requires far more effort on the perpetrator's behalf and usually involves voiding the console's warranty!
I honestly don't understand why the big publishers still bother with PC releases. It's a dead platform for all but MMOs and the casual titles of devs who've been unsuccessful in breaking into XBLA/PSN/WiiWare. And the MMOs will make the transition to consoles soon enough!
Popular multiplayer games like Modern Warfare still have substantial audiences on PC, but if Activision released Moden Warfare 3 only on X360 and PS3, and kept telling PC gamers how awesome no. 3 is, I'd wager many of them would eventually get fed up of missing out and just go down the street to the nearest entertainment store and buy a damn console!
So.. basically i should go buy a console (a xbox360 then pay for xbox live, a complete wtf in itself) to play a game with worst control and graphic, when i have a machine twice as powerful sitting on my desk, because they won't make title X for PC, make sense, i think i will go play something else thanks you very much.
Fable 2 is a perfect example although i would buy this game, i will wait for a PC port (if it never come so be it) i rented it and played at a friend's once, but that's it, enjoy your missed sale.
This is the thinking behind Microsoft current strategy : They released some games on the PC at the beginning of the 360 lifespan and now everything published by Microsoft Game Studios is 360-exclusive.
However, they probably already found out that this is effective to keep their audience on the 360 but the transfers are minimal.
People that are still PC players now are those who enjoy things like modding, cutting-edge games and the ability to play all their games, including very old ones, on the same platform.
Releasing a big blockbuster on the consoles is not going to work either, especially in the case of a first-person shooter, because for hardcore PC gamers, playing such a game with a controller instead of a mouse is simply not an entertaining experience.
There is a substantial market on the PC of players who don't play on the consoles, who won't buy a console and who are willing to buy a lot of games. It's up to the publishers to reach that market or not, but using anti-piracy on a single-player game is just counter-productive.
Stardock has been doing very well (and has even experienced growth) over the past years by releasing PC only games, both multiplayer and single player, free of any DRM and clearly designed, marketed and distributed with the PC audience in mind.
As seen in SecuROM 7.34.0007 with online activation as first used in a little game called Bioshock. 10 Days from release to a proper working crack, Enough time to have people excited to pirate it go "Okay this is taking too long I'm just going to go buy it so that I can finally play it". It worked, SecuROM 7 was a success for once. Now? It takes about 25 minutes to fully crack something with SecuROM 7.
I also find it funny that they are using it on Settlers 7 first rather than one of their big titles that everyone will be pirating (Like AC2.) Settlers 7 is a rather niche game that probably wont be pirated near as much as AC2. By the time AC2 comes around this new DRM will be cracked wide open and AC2 will be a cake walk for the pirates.
Granted it could always be a case of trying it on small scale before you step up.
ByteShield has very low protection level, it is weak and almost useless in this case. More comfort to user more holes in protection. Just wait for the brand new StarForce testing results on reclaimyourgame.com, i may assure you you will be impressed.
You moan and groan at the thought now, but I'd bet that if all you had to play on PC was casual crap, you'd be singing a very different tune within a few months.
@Laurent Mandement
"because for hardcore PC gamers, playing such a game with a controller instead of a mouse is simply not an entertaining experience."
My thoughts exactly... once upon a time. Then I bought an Xbox and Halo and everything changed.
This news has caused some considerable frothing at the mouth amongst the PC gaming community already. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/01/27/new-ubisoft-games-must-always-be-onli
ne/
And all the while, I still haven't seen much in the way of a good, well analysed & researched study into the actual costs of piracy, whether pirates would actually pay for a game if they had no choice in the matter, where the majority of piracy occurs (is it in economically poor regions where a game costs a higher percentage of a workers monthly wage), etc. etc.
Not to mention that if someone can reportedly get past the hack prevention on a PS3 (which uses a mix of hardware and software protection) how difficult will it really be to get past one that is software only? In the end, the only people who are genuinely likely to be inconvenienced are the people who actually put the money down for the game... Again...
There are some people who just enjoy playing some very specific PC FPS with a mouse and who can't picture them playing any other way. I'm not even talking about some genres that are specific to the PC and impossible to port on the consoles until they are shipped with a mouse and keyboard. Strategy games, management games, simulations... The market for football management games alone is huge (Football Manager was the best selling games on all platforms in the UK when it came out for exemple).
The amount of people tweaking and modding on the PC makes up for a huge community as well, and some of them actually prefer creating content than playing it. They won't buy games on the consoles if they can not mod it, tweak it or iterate on it.
Since the Xbox 360 was launched, a big part of Microsoft strategy was to get PC players to drop their machine and use the console instead (and pay the Xbox LIVE gold account, which is the part that really makes money for the company). It succeeded... partially.
But on the other hand, you have those audiences who play hardcore video games on their free time because they happen to have a computer that can handle them and because they know how to play them, but who are not susceptible to invest 300€/$ in a console because it looks childlish to them. And that's the people who buy (and don't pirate) games on the PC. That's the scientists, college teachers who play on their free time, that's the executives, lawyers or politicians who enjoy booting up Civilization or a good RPG. Those are the people who are susceptible to buy games, who won't pirate them but who will not buy a piece of equipment dedicated to that. I personnaly know people who have that kind of consumming habits and they have been left aside by the games industry although they are a potentially larger market than the teenagers and young adults who buy Modern Warfare 2 and Halo.
Please don't get me wrong: I'm not taking sides in the DRM/no DRM debate. (Well, not yet at least.)
I simply wish to understand how a video game developer is expected to make money if everyone can freely copy and play their game without paying for it. Should they go back to the shareware model? Should they give up trying to make money on single-player games all together? Are in-game ads the way to go?
> They'll lose the customers they recovered when they released games without DRM, an experiment BTW
> which I'd love to hear how it went (I'd wager that they didn't lose a penny).
Check the number of sells of the last unprotected PoP on PC: it's been pirated even more. Unfortunately having a noble image of the average PC player won't sell more games :(
I doubt that PC gamers are a larger market than console gamers in terms of raw numbers. Sales of games across all consoles seem to exceed sales of PC games, even factoring in guesses at digital downloads and online subscriptions. Having said that, I suspect that PC gamers are a considerably larger market than console gamers when it comes to income available for gaming purchases.
PC gamers have the disposable cash to afford a decent PC. They can similarly afford to buy pretty much any game... as long as it satisfies their gaming preferences instead of being a marginal port of some console-focused game. So why not go after the relatively easy money of PC owners instead of chasing console gamers who have less earning power?
That's a rhetorical question; of course I have some theories on that score. ("Captive audience" springs to mind.) But I'd be interested in learning whether there are any credible studies showing the available purchasing power of the typical PC gamer versus that of the typical console gamer. (Not how much they _actually_ spend, which is dependent on the limited availability of decent games for the PC, but how much they _could_ spend.) If those numbers are as I expect, then I have to question whether it's actually sound business judgment to drive away PC gamers through sins of omission (e.g., Fable II) and commission (onerous customer control tactics, Ubisoft's being only the latest).
Thank god for indy developers and companies like Stardock. Hell, even EA seems to have taken up the sword and is transforming itself into a champion of PC gaming. I'll still gleefully throw buckets of money at these guys, but Ubisoft can bite my shiny metal ass. I was gonna buy Assassin's Creed 2 when I got home in a couple weeks, but not now.
However, even if PC gamers have higher purchasing power they normally also have less time in which to play games. Even if every great game was available on PC with no anti-piracy whatsoever we may not see a massive jump in PC game purchases. Increased purchasing power allows for more game-buying potential, but is constrained by game-playing time. Overall game purchases might not outstrip the cash-strapped but time affluent kids/teens/college students.
The data would be viciously interesting to see and correlate, at the very least.
In this style of system the only weak points would be
A) An unprotected version of the code is leaked ahead of time
B) Someone gets a hold of the server executables
C) You don't use unique keys and someone builds a keygen
If they do this properly, then it could become the ultimate DRM, and when games like MW2 have 250,000 sold to 4,000,000 pirated, its probably this system or no PC version.
No more big publisher titles on the PC? Moaning? Damn it's a dream come true for all the small developer out there, can you make this happen now please? You can keep your Call of duty 12 and Halo 8 we don't need them thanks you very much...
You could do that, but that means that more emphasis is placed on the server-side and having a substational, entirely stable internet connection. Not all users have that, and even then not all of the time. Fundamentally, this means that there is greater chance of complexity and failure when moving more in this direction, which is even worse for consumers.
Imagine that several years down the line, nobody can play a legitimate game that they purchased due to the fact that half the code is server-side and the servers don't exist any more. People can imagine that. This is why they avoid DRM such as this like the plague.
[Also, pirate copies do not necessarily mean "lost sales" and any comparisons to legitimate sales is fairly nebulous in my humble opinion]
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tbh, the really obvious point is that DRM has and will never work. PC games will always be pirated, irrelevant of anything. PC games will always sell, too. Therefore, why waste money and inconvenience your paying customers with DRM? After all, when pirates fundamentally get a better product with no restrictions for free, it's obvious that something is very wrong.
I agree that you cannot directly compare pirated copies of a game directly to sales, as a lot of people are only willing to download it if the price is free. That being said, if even 5% of those pirated copies were converted to paying customers they would have doubled their sales.
On ubisofts website they mentioned that should they every stop offering the online service, that they would offer a patched version of the game that does not require internet access to function. And I imagine that five years down the road when this game has made its money they will release the patched version, to save themselves from maintaining the servers.
With regards to the stability of the connection, I do not think this would be an issue as long as the server side functions are not latency dependent or heavy on bandwidth. But I do agree that this greatly increases the complexity of the system, and therefore the chance for failure. My point is merely that a system such as this could be theoretically impossible to crack, however if not implemented properly the entire thing could come crashing down like you suggest.
This will get cracked like any DRM-scheme before it. Requiring a constant internet connection never prevented people from setting up their own bootleg servers in MMO games so I don't see why this would be any different. The was a good article about reverse-engineering posted here last week.
I had cracked Half-Life 2 shortly after I bought it because I didn't have a stable internet connection to verify it on Steam every time I played. Like a month later, Valve released their own patch. Hopefully Ubi does something similar.
If you add multiplayer, co-op or DLC type stuff, people will buy the game. Given that it is a good game with worthy online features!
Piracy probably does more damage to bad games than the good ones. Everyone I know who plays WC3 or SC bought the game, everyone who plays Spore - pirated it, because it's just not worth buying.
And I am suspicious of anybody that whines about DRM just because it is DRM (and not really invasive like securerom was). Many console games have protections built in as well. And the key is to make it difficult enough to pirate that casuals don't pirate. There is a margin here, and content-makers have a right to protect their content. And yes, plenty of people that wuold buy games stop because of pirating.
All of the arguments being made here are the same ones made about music. Sorry, but if someone can get something for free without consequences they most likely will.
I'm surprised that a gaming developer site has so many people that would take the side of the piraters.
Anyone who plays the game, should have bought it. If it is worth playing it is worth paying for.
@Thomas Lo,
Most of the comments here come across to me as supporting the paying customer, not the pirate. Yes there are some people that are pirate sympathizers, but I for one am not. But I do support efforts to not screw over the customer just because someone else is stealing your stuff.
Would you shop at a store that had a policy of punching you in the face and yelling at you not to steal their stuff every time you stepped up to the cash register to pay for your purchase? Why would anyone want to buy a game that does the digital equivalent?
The difference between this and music though is that movies and music will always have the analog hole, and therefore any attempt to protect them through DRM is futile. Because of the interactive nature of games however, it is possible on a theoretical level at least to protect them from piracy.
This system will either work or it won't. If it works then it will be an interesting experiment that will show exactly how much piracy does effect game sales.
But I don't think being connected to the internet to play games is that restrictive, I mean isn't this exactly what onlive will require and charge you for?
I have no stats, but I'd guess that DRM has almost never given a company a net profit due to bad publicity and reduced customer loyalty.
Look at Stardock. They don't have DRM on their games, but they seem to sell just fine. I have bought 3 games from them this year. I am more inclined to purchase a game from Stardock because I know they don't have some nefarious DRM sceme.
Thankfully steam has done it right, and shows the other companies the benchmark.
I used to pirate games a lot, but that's when they were $100. Now I can wait for a steam sale for some bargains on games from this century.
But I agree that pirates will always find a way around, and the best way to get customers is to make it worth while, make the retail version nice. An awesome box with a real manual like they had in the old days.
The mechwarrior 2 manual was badass.
The difference is, that although few people have PCs suited for recent games, the number of PC in use in the world is staggering compared to the number of consoles. There are only two real issues in the way of games that could take advantage of that huge potential market :
-The need to build a visually simple game that will run on pretty much any PC (So fancy graphics are out of the picture, at least for some time)
-The need to build games that will be both deep and appealing to the average consumer and not only to the people who already use to play games.
That's a very theoritical and ambitious view, but the industry, the developers need to really think about turning gaming from something for gamers into something that will be appealing to everyone. Casual gaming does not work, because it's entertaining, but ultimately futile, and the audience can percieve this. For gaming to reach a mass market audience (as wide as cinema, television or books), we will need new kinds of games with better and more original stories, games that are accessible enough gameplay-wise and that can be seen by most people as enriching experiences, and not only as an entertaining waste of time.
I guess it's a closer to a dream than to an actual possibility, but if the games industry focusses squarely on satisfying the teenagers who play Call of Duty and Halo, the insufficiant growth of the whole video game market may create some issues with increasing development costs.
I guess people who plan on playing the games on laptops when not connected to the internet will have to connect to the internet to download the hack that is available 30 days before launch.
Still, that's far more reasonable than this.
Anyway, the thing about PC sales, is because most the current schemes requiring activation, it prevents re-sale.
I myself own 3 copies of Galactic Civilizations II from Stardock, the base game, the gold pack, and the ultimate collection, because that was the cheapest way to get the expansion packs. But having gotten the 3rd version with the 2 xps, I cannot sell my previous two versions, since the buyer would not be able to activate the patched games. Same applies to all PC games, generally. Once a serial has been used, it's used.
On consoles, once a person plays a game, he can re-sell it. So publishers shouldn't be too eager to push away PC gamers to consoles. Granted, they've started trying to fight used game sales by including one use only DLC codes (see Bioware's latest game, and Forza), but still it's a huge business (basically what keeps Gamestop going)
Once DRM was proven intrusive and unreliable, once internet became such widespread that is unconceivable to own a pc without a connection, it was the next logical step. I love Cerberus Network and Bioware Social, and will definitely get Settlers to take a look at the viability of this anti-piracy method.
On my country, that is huge, and has lots of gamers, only 3% of the population has broadband, and about 10% of the population has internat at home (and knowing the other figure, that mean that of these 10%, the majority is using dial-up, since here dial-up is HELL EXPENSIVE, they only have "acess" to internet, this does not mean that they actually use it)
Lots of other places are like that, even in rich countries there are locations with bad internet.
However I think it is wrong that the PC as a gaming platform should just be left to die. Without it I think the gaming world would be a poorer one. I think we would see a distinct fall in the amount of innovation in creating games and pushing hardware development. There would be a distinct fall in the number of game genres available (Football Manager / Dwarf Fortress etc. with a ‘joypad’ anyone?), and not to mention the possible negative affect on the indie dev scene. A PC offers the gamer a great deal more choice (if a particular game suits the use of a game pad, at least I can plug one in, or a joystick, or a trackball etc.)
Reading through the rest of the posts here, I think it is a bit narrow minded of some of the console users to want to kill off the PC – where to they think game producers are going to recover their lost revenue from? -1 PC gamer does not necessarily translate to +1 console user.
I hear you, but I think we need to keep a bit of realistic perspective about the global markets.
Actually, the PC gaming market is FAR larger than the console market, but it may depend on how one defines "game." There are so many more games on PC than have ever been on any console, or even on all consoles combined, especially if we add in all the tools, emulators, etc that PC has, plus all the Flash, web-based, free to play games (look at the East Asian market... far greater population and most playing free to play in internet cafe's and bongs, etc).
So... in the Western market, it may appear that the PC market has dwindled, and in some ways, it has... specifically with respect to high end, demanding graphics types of games. However, the industry has itself to blame for that by crawling into bed with the graphics cards makers in the late 1990s. Such features have nothing to do with a game being enjoyable, and that's why so many older games still sell well. Not to mention all the Japanese etc PC games with very low system reqs but really terrific and engaging stories.