DRM News

Well if you believe Ubisoft, no it hasn’t. As reported by Computer and Videogames:

Ubisoft has told CVG that reports of its new always-online DRM system having been cracked already are false.

Well that’s a relief for Ubisoft isn’t it? I guess its just a prank by some punk kids. Wait. What?

Ubi added: “Please know that this rumor is false and while a pirated version may seem to be complete at start up, any gamer who downloads and plays a cracked version will find that their version is not complete.”

So it has been cracked, its just not the full version. So why tell us it hasn’t been cracked? The other thing odd is that there is no mention of what they are missing from the ‘full’ game. Is it just the ability to save games online? If so, then I fail to see how this would be different from any other game out there right now. Maybe a cracked version cannot get patches, and that constitutes not having a full game in the eyes of Ubisoft? This is all speculation though, and until there is more news out there about what a pirated version is missing, that’s all we can do.

*Update* Rock Paper Shotgun is reporting that some pirates are having problems playing through missions, which are supposedly on the Ubisoft servers and not loaded into the game. However some people are reporting they are able to play without problems. Its still a guessing game and until Ubisoft clarifies its rather vague comment, it will continue to be.

Browsing through a few forums I have seen a bit too much glee that Silent Hunter 5 has been cracked a day after release. How will the game developers or publishers ever take gamers seriously if we are glad their product gets pirated? This only makes sure that they just refuse to listen to us, and then decide they need to use even more harsh DRM on their games. If you don’t like the DRM on a game, don’t buy it and send an email or letter to the company explaining why. Don’t yell, don’t scream, don’t swear, don’t threaten, write a nice letter explaining why you refuse to buy the game. The bottom line is the only thing companies will listen to.

On another tack, roman2440 a user at the wargamer.com forums tested out the DRM on Silent Hunter 5 and had this to say:

The game does not dump you out if you lose internet connection during the gameplay.  In fact it continues on like nothing ever happened.   You can save the game fine, you don’t have to, the game will continue to play fine.  You can exit the game fine, however without an internet connection you can’t launch the game.  When you do finally launch the game after restoring internet service, the game will automatically sync up and save game files to the server (which seemed practically instantly in my case).  So the games you saved while offline are there.

So really, not overly harsh. Its still an account based system, but at least for this game you don’t lose any progress you’ve made if you lose connection to the internet.