Opinion: "Always On" should be turned off

Posted Feb 21st 2010 7:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Features, Opinion

Companies that publish PC games are in the business to make profits. We know this. PC games are extensively pirated. We know this too. DRM set ups don't really slow down piracy but do discourage a number of regular consumers from purchasing games. Again, all of this is well known.

Now we have a new situation that's brewing that will be bad for everyone; game developers, game publishers and consumers. Ubisoft's future PC games will now require an "always on" internet connection to play PC them, even if those games are designed solely for single player. That means that the PC games that you pay your hard earned money for won't be able to be played 24/7. The reason is, of course, that the internet for most people is still a flaky infrastructure to rely on for a "service" like Ubisoft's.

The publisher has tried to deflect the critical hits it has taken in the press so far by saying all of the good things they are allowing PC gamers to do with their new set up. Yes, you will be able to install all future PC games from Ubisoft on as many PCs as you like. Save games will be stored on a separate server which means you can play your PC games from the publisher wherever you are and still continue where you left off. And there will be no need to keep a CD in case you wanted to purchase a new PC.

However none of these benefits don't mean a lot if you can't play your game whenever and wherever you want. And that's the big problem with this system. As revealed on the UK PC Gamer blog, any loss of your net connection while playing a game boots you out of the game even if you are playing a single player title like the upcoming PC port of Assassin's Creed 2. In other words, the game that you thought you owned isn't really yours. If you have a flaky internet connection at home, as many of us do, good luck trying to play your next Ubisoft PC game. If you have a laptop and want to play future Ubisoft PC games on the road it will be even tougher. Finding a free WiFi spot is tough and even a laptop with a 3G access card can still get a flaky net connection.

Ubisoft's reasoning for such a move can be spelled out in one word: piracy. The Ubisoft rep that chatted with PC Gamer seemed almost paranoid that their PC game products would be pirated if they didn't do something like this. Their rep stated, "In the end it all comes back to one single truth: piracy is a big, huge, hairy problem. It's a market that suffered a lot because of piracy, and we're all just trying to figure out what we think is the best way to deal with it." The message embedded in that statement is clear; Ubisoft cares more about what PC game pirates do than they care about the people like you and me who actually pay for games. And that's just not a good business model to practice.

Let's look at a couple of other, and much larger, entertainment businesses that are also massively affected by piracy; the movie and music industries. There are still huge amounts of pirated movies and songs traveling through the internet. Now imagine if a movie studio or a music publisher said, in order to combat piracy, your DVD or Blu-Ray player or iPod must always be connected to the internet in order to watch a movie or listen to a song. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to figure out there would be a mass outcry from the general public and the press to such a set up. It's also not much of a stretch to figure out that those industries would quickly cave and put things back the way they were.

And then there's the biggest fact of all: that someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to hack this "always on" DRM set up to allow people to play Ubisoft's PC games without having to deal with a net connection. Even Ubisoft seems to admit this will happen, saying, "Do we think that it's the one system that God has sent onto earth that will never be cracked by anybody ever? We can't guarantee that, but we believe in it. " Well we believe this system will be hacked a lot sooner than Ubisoft seems to think. And after it does, where does that leave the company? With PC games that can still be pirated but still keeps consumers who don't use the hack from playing their games when and where they want.

We know that piracy is a problem in the PC game industry but it's certainly not exclusive to it. Console games, movies, music and other PC software are subject to online pirates. Yet Ubisoft wants to fight piracy by making this hard on real people who want to purchase their titles. That's just not the way to go. Why can't Ubisoft and the rest of the game industry's publishers try to ban together and actually fight PC game pirates by shutting down their servers and putting the people in charge of these servers behind bars? We think that would certainly be a huge deterrent and would show that Ubisoft actually cared about its customer base.

We know that the publisher is feeling the heat for these moves and will continue to do so. We hope they will do the right thing and take another look at their current plans for DRM set ups. the meantime we at Big Download will continue to report on and review any PC games from Ubisoft, but we will always mention that their games will require an internet connection in order to be played. In our humble opinion, their "always on" feature should be permanently turned off.

Tags: assassins-creed-2, drm, featured, ubisoft

14 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nicely written article. I completely agree with what you said. There are several Ubisoft games I was interested in buying for PC, but after hearing about how draconian Ubisoft's new DRM is, I can't complicitly support-it by buying their upcoming PC games (I also won't pirate them). The best way we can make Ubisoft reverse their decision is by the power of our wallets, and buy other PC games instead.Posted at 7:42PM on Feb 21st 2010 by TheHeeyyy

I will definitely be voting with my wallet and buying the CONSOLE versions of these same games (if I'm even interested in them, which the answer is usually "no").

The thing is, I stopped buying boxed PC games a long time ago because the older games were so fiddly (this was in an era before GOG.com, mind you) and the newer games had such high system requirements that only the richest hardcore gamers could play them.

Maybe these game companies should figure out a way to give gamers what they want by actually giving them a demo on their games, especially on a game like Crysis, that was really controversial due to the fact that gamers didn't know if the game could run on their PCs anyway, and there was NO demo, remember, so people had to pirate in that case just to see if that game could run on their computers.

BJPosted at 10:48PM on Feb 21st 2010 by BJ Wanlund

@BJ

Crysis had a demo.Posted at 10:55PM on Feb 21st 2010 by TheHeeyyy

If there is a game, it can be pirated. There is no way to protect your games. You just have to realize that pirates are not potential customers, they're people who want your game but don't want to pay for it - and once you've realized this, get the fuck over it and put your games on Steam.Posted at 12:05AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by That Guy

@BJ
Yeah, that's not the problem. Lots of companies put out demos. I just think that they don't advertise them enough. And if they can't get off a demo... it's usually a benchmark application... which is nice.

I don't really get what Ubisoft is trying to do. 1-Up VALVe? Try making games that I would actually WANT to buy on PC, Ubisoft.Posted at 12:24AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by ZaxCG2

I cannot imagine how they could decide to do such a thing. It's one thing to require a one time activation, most people can deal with that. Having to be online constantly while playing though, that's completely unwarranted. There is no way this will sell well.Posted at 2:23AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by Zoinks

Presumably (after a quick tag history-check), this is the DRM that will be used with Assassins Creed 2?

I have one of these flaky internet connections.

I am a Steam member and I expect to have these sorts of issues with Steam - it comes with the downloadable software bit. This is the same reason that the DLC from Neverwinter Nights and now Dragon Age doesn't irritate me - I am fully aware of the details when making my purchasing decision.

When I buy something in a box, I rather prefer to not HAVE to connect to the internet; particularly if I'm excited about the game and don't pay as much attention when buying. For instance, I didn't expect Dawn of War 2 to be a steam install. That was just strange.

It's on a box, on a shelf - like a book, I should be able to take it home, run it into the ground and sell or donate it to someone else.

Furthermore, this is all from the perspective of a person who is tech-savvy (or at least considered to be so by others). I feel sorry for the innocent/ignorant mum's and dad's who buy their children these sorts of games.

Unnecessary online authentication = poor retail experience in my opinion.Posted at 5:10AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by Ryan Schipper

Some games get pirated before they are even released. I know people finished Mass Effect 2 while I was waiting for it to be released.
But if the game saves the progress directly to the server (and using some encryption) then it could take longer for the games to get pirated and that is a huge advantage for a publisher.

Ubisoft knows they are taking a big risk here... but I can see why they are willing to try.

Oh.... and buying console games instead... probably benefits Ubisoft more than buying the PC version.Posted at 5:42AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by ahac

Quite simply the people paying for the game are not the ones pirating it. If AC2 didn't have the DRM I would definitely be shelling out $60 for it and I would play it and then that would be that. I paid for the game, why would I want to give it to someone who didn't pay for it? Why would I want to crack it or put it up on the internet? I'm not the criminal here so why should I be the one punished for it? These companies should concentrate on making a positive experience for their customers like me that DO happily pay for the games we want to play instead of penning us in with the criminal pirates and punishing everyone.

Sorry Ubi but I can't accept DRM measures like these and therefor will not be buying AC2 like I had planned. You implement this system to combat lost sales to pirates, people that may or may not have bought your game otherwise. Instead, your DRM has lost you a sale of a loyal customer, someone that would have definitely bought your game otherwise. Congratulations.

...bysmittyPosted at 7:59AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by bysmitty

Not to weigh in on one side or the other of the topic in question, but in most cases, you don't own a given piece of software, you lease it. This is covered in the EULA for each title.Posted at 11:36AM on Feb 22nd 2010 by justin

It's simple, if DRM makes a game more difficult to play ONLY for paying customers it's a bad idea.

Game companies need to find a way to reward customers who buy their games, not punish them for what pirates do.Posted at 8:42PM on Feb 22nd 2010 by sorensilk

well i suppose i wont be buying any ubisoft games ever. im not a pirate, and i do not like being inconvenienced.Posted at 1:50PM on Feb 22nd 2010 by goog9

I stopped buying the virus and malware-riddled Ubisoft titles long ago. This is wrong, there is no way you can spin this but turn out to be wrong.

In order to play a Ubisoft title, not only would I need a run through with virus removal (as all come packaged with DRM-viruses like this and yes, only drug addicts can sit there and say the Starforce, Securom, or this new Ubisoft-specific virus is anything but a viruse or malware); I'd need to hack the freaking game so I can play.

I'll tolerate having to hack a game with a No CD patch so I won't be inconvenienced and my discs and drive don't get damaged by constant use. Virus removal and hacking a single player game just for the sake of not having to keep my internet going constantly to actually play it.

So Activision and Ubisoft both have lost all future sales. May not be more than a few hundred bucks each. But it's still sales; as well as sales lost from me telling people about the issue. Activision has lost a couple dozen sales because of that. Posted at 11:41PM on Feb 22nd 2010 by Azrael

Count me in as well. I bought the first Assassin's Creed for PC a year ago and enjoyed it immensely, and I was looking forward to the second one. I even resisted buying it for Xbox 360 even though the PC version was delayed (this new DRM had better not been the reason why it was).

But then came the higher $60 price, and then these revelations, plus the potential issues with buying a used copy (because I'm not made of money) is making me change my mind. I refused to buy Spore, Crysis Warhead, and Mass Effect for PC until EA released the deauthorization tool for their Securom-enabled games. I have no issues with simultaneous install limits if I get an authorization back when I remove the game.

Looks like I'll be bypassing Ubisoft PC (and possibly period) games until a more reasonable solution is presented.Posted at 2:00AM on Feb 23rd 2010 by Nevadarain72

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