In a surprising but not unexpected move this week, Ubisoft has rightly caved in to public pressure and dropped its never-popular DRM on its PC games, meaning that gamers can now play its PC games without needing an ''always on'' internet connection.
Hallelujah!
I have always hated Ubisoft's pesistance in keeping with this DRM and it was actually the reason I stopped playing Assassin's Creed 2 on PC, because it required that I have an ''always-on'' internet connection to play the game. Now that they've dropped it, I'll can play it again without fears of my gaming crashing because my internet has died.
Here's what I had to say about the ridiculous form of DRM in this blog in 2010: ''What about gamer who doesn't have access to a permanent internet connection? You'll also be screwed if your internet goes down at home (which we all know it does); you won't be able to play it at your grandmother's if she doesn't have internet; you won't be able to play it on a long train/bus/ferry trip; you won't be able to play it while waiting at the airport for that international flight. The implications are huge.''
In a great interview that is well-worth reading, Ubisoft told British gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun that ''no longer will PC players of Ubisoft's games be required to maintain a constant internet connection to the company's servers in order to play, nor will they suffer the kind of limits previously seen on the number of possible installations of any given game''.
''We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.''
Not surprisingly, though, the company refused to admit that the always-on DRM was a mistake, instead when asked about it by RPS, a company rep replied: ''We've listened to feedback, we will continue to listen to feedback, we will continue to make sure that we deliver great games and great services, and are now operating under this policy.''
It amazes me how so many company PR machines are reticent to admit when they've made a bad decision: Ubisoft, why not just admit you made a mistake with the always-on internet DRM? Gamers will respect you more if you're straight up honest.
Public pressure has forced the company's hand over DRM that penalised gamers who had legitimately bought software from them, and rightly so. So, how do you feel about Ubisoft's decision to drop the DRM on its PC titles? Are you going to go back to one you stopped playing because of the DRM - or couldn't you care less either way?
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After buying Ghost Recon: Future Soldier i was greatly disappointed with ubisofts efforts towards pc gaming, terrible ports, lack of keyboard binding, and locked at 720p until patches were released. And was scared that the fate of Far Cry 3 may be similar but after reading this some faith has been restored, i will order far cry 3 and hope they are not still just porting the console versions across.
Not knocking you #1 Kenny, but EA are making a bit of a song and dance about how SW: The Old Republic is set to go free to play in November so they're already well on board with the concept. Great way to give people a taste of something and if they like it they'll start to subscribe. My first, and still prob favorite free to play was the Steam title Alien Swarm. Such and awesome game, esp if you have heavy metal playing at same time. Adrenaline!
dan #3 on that point im just going to say SW the old republic was originally pay to play and is only going free to play due to lack of subscribers.
Won't argue with you there Museste. I'm an ex-wow junkie (quit a couple of months after Cat came out as was bored) and have taken to SW:OTR like a duck to water. Now this is not because it's better than WOW or anything, infact I've taken to it in some ways because it's so WOW like (not sure if it's homage/plagurisation (spell?)/or just the natural order that MMO's take). Honestly I'm still a little on the fence about F2P in SW:OTR - on the one hand it's great that it'll hopefully cause an influx of players which will improve everyone's group experiences but on the other if the EA marketing behemoth hadn't pressured Bioware to get it out the door would the game be coming out a year later but more polished for the extra time? Fantastic game with heaps of potential but a little concerned that that potential will never have the chance to be realised. My favourite (and classic Bioware) aspect is how story driven the game is for an MMO. Anyhoo...Sorry Gerard, i'm not aiming to hijack your thread. Soooo final comment - as a big Tom Clancy (Vegas 2 with a mate in co-op on 360 is still gaming nirvana for me on a Sat night) I am super happy to hear about Ubi's sanity check.
Good news. All 'always online' DRM ever seems to do is penalise honest gamers. Those who are going to get the game without paying for it still normally find a way to do so. Meanwhile those who pay for it can't play if they don't have an internet connection.
Finally a victory for common sense, I hope other game companies follow suit, EA and free from Steam or Origin malware.
I've played and brought computer games from late 1970s until three years ago, when I brought then latest iCore 7 computer only to be frustrated and disgusted with restrictive unworkable DRM even Steam & Origin are a pain, I like to play them offline not connect to the internet before I can. I envied those with a game console who could play it straightaway without those annoyances whereas I had to wait until the computer wanted to update itself to latest patch or client software then hassles of connecting to a server and being throw off during game play dumped back into Windows losing whatever progress I made then repeating the whole process all over again. I hated having to turn off the firewall and antivirus software just to play a game, it wasn't worth the risk once was bad enough. In utter frustration I brought my very first game console PS3 because of this, so I could keep playing the latest games.
I hope I can now look forward to playing latest PC games again. I'll give it a try and if its still infuriating then my boycott remains.
I still have to use it for my Steam Assassin's Creed games...WTF?
Hooray. Always-on internet is a deal-breaker for me and Gerard gave plenty of good reasons why it's such a pain. Ubisoft, I've avoided your titles because of it, but now you may just have gained me as a customer because you've seen the light.
DRM will always be circumvented if you want to buy a pirate version , so hopefull Ubisoft and EA will get a grip and go with free to play. Also as an avid PC gamer Im heartlily sick of console ports. The games are too linear and limited to a video card that came out 5 years ago. I have a an alienware with dual ATI 5897's which I bought in 2010 and it still plays the latest and greatest at max resolution with all the goodies turned on. Ported games look like crap , play like crap and we are made to pay top dollar for an inferior product. I have a PS3 which I never use at home. Hopefully Far Cry 3 and Medal Of Honour warfighter are decent PC games not ported over rubbish.
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I mustn't have played any Ubi games recently because I've never noticed this.
On a semi-related thought, I feel like we're on the edge of a big change in the gaming industry. The age of free to play. And I don't think big companies like Ubi or EA are going to like it.