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PC Gamer Blog wrote:When we heard of Ubisoft's plan to require an internet connection for all their future PC games, we hoped they'd abort it or scale it back in the face of the outrage and astonishment it caused. They haven't, and it's here. Details are below.

We've just received Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII for review, and verified with Ubisoft that the DRM is the same as the boxed product. If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected.

The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers'. The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen - all my progress since it last autosaved was lost.

Ubi have asked that we not show screenshots of Assassin's Creed 2 on PC, so here's my best MS Paint illustration of what you'll see. [Image]

Even if everyone in the world had perfect internet connections that never dropped out, this would still mean that any time Ubisoft's 'Master servers' are down for any reason, everyone playing a current Ubisoft game is kicked out of it and loses their progress. Even massively multiplayer games aren't so draconian about the internet: you can't play when the server's down, but at least you don't lose anything for getting disconnected.

The only benefit we're being offered is the ability to store our savegames online. Personally, I'm in the rare position of getting to play PC games at work, and even for me this is a fringe benefit. How many normal gamers have two separate gaming machines on which they play the same single-player games? And how many of those don't know about DropBox, Live Mesh or any of the dozens of free services that can already sync your savegames perfectly well?

We've all seen again and again that you can't stop the piracy scene from cracking your game and distributing it, free of DRM. But you can stop the people who love your games from downloading it, and you do that by making the retail experience better - not worse.

Stark wrote:I dunno, if they're stupid and don't encrypt you can capture the traffic trivially.

As you say, the only real way to make DRM work is to require online verification, but honestly, this will last a week in the market and be patched out.

Gramzamber wrote:Compulsory online activation has always rubbed me the wrong way, then there's games like Dragon Age that prevent you from accessing DLC content (and thus saved games with that DLC content) unless it's verified through the internet (through a convoluted plugin that works only when it damn well wants to I might add).
Now this? What next? A monthly fee for single-player games?

Skgoa wrote:Do they not realize that the very business model of rapidshare, private torrent trackers etc. is to earn money by providing people with a vastly easier (and less insanely overpriced) way to get their product?

• On DRM:
  • Activation Bomb
    The Day-One DLC Trap
    I have seen The Future, and it is annoying.
    Building a better kind of DRM
    Online activation is a ripp-off
    The Impossible DRM
• On the socioeconomics of gaming:
  • Now that you're done firing everyone...
    10 ways to fight piracy
    The Price of Fun

Executor32 wrote:Any word on whether this will affect the Steam version? My connection to my wireless network tends to randomly drop out for a few seconds at a time, so if it has the same DRM as the box version I'll pass on buying it until either someone cracks it or they patch it out.

Ubisoft said in an interview with PC Gamer wrote: PC Gamer: Which PC games will require an always on internet connection?

Ubisoft spokesperson: All announced Ubisoft PC games will include the online services, whether sold online, or from brick and mortar stores. That includes Splinter Cell, Silent Hunter 5, Assassin's Creed 2, Prince of Persia and the newly announced Ghost Recon. "It's hard for us to say, yes, from now until the day that we all die all of our games are going to include this," says their spokesperson, "but most will."