Just read about the DRM working 'as intended' for Anno 2070 | Forums

[McChubs]

I've just had a quick read of the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article detailing Anno 2070's DRM. I'm having a bit of a problem understanding this. Not only do people who actually BUY the legitimate version get a limit on how many times they can install the game they legally purchased, if they change something as minor as their graphics card, the DRM says 'yup, there's another one gone!'. I'm seriously considering returning the collector's edition of 2070. I just don't see that paying customers should be shafted so violently in the name of anti-piracy, when someone could simply download a torrent, install it as many times as they liked, and not have to go through the headache of contacting Ubisoft JUST to install a game they bought legally! Not to mention, you have to be online at all times just to play the single-player campaign.

It's obvious: DRM doesn't work. You can almost always find pirated copies available within a day or two (sometimes before) of official releases... so the paying customer gets more and more nonsense DRM piled on them whilst pirates get the experience *I* should be getting, i.e. hassle-free, DRM-free. If Ubisoft hates PC gamers this much, couldn't they just say so, and stop making games? What a load of twaddle.

[phanku]

Once there was a man who loved Ubisoft products. This man was a die hard Assassin's Creed fan. The man had purchased and played Assasin's Creed (the first one) until he had beaten the game. The game provided many hours of entertainment. Then the same man bought Assassin's Creed 2 for the PS3 and once again happiness rained down on the man in glorious Creedness until his first gen PS3 became unstable. The machine would still turn on but the PS3 would randomly reboot. Knowing the PS3 is on the last leg he stopped playing it for fear of losing the many hours of game play.

The man simply bought a new PS3. Then the man began to attempt to transfer the saved game data to his new PS3. Strangely enough he could not move the saved game data from his old machine to the new one. The reason, he finds out later, is because Ubisoft in its great wisdom decided that the saved game data needed to be bound to the console playing the game. "Sir, that data is copyrighted", is the response he got from Ubisoft when he finally called them and asked how to move the data to the new PS3.

"So this means I can't move my saved game data to my new PS3", the man asked.

"No sir, you must start a new game", the Ubisoft representative stated.

I am that man. It burned me a lot to lose over 40 hours of game play time because of something as stupid as the lack of an ability to move saved game data from one machine to the other. Time had passed and I was starting to think about purchasing another Ubisoft game, Anno 2070 is looking good to me, until I find out that now Ubisoft is counting hardware changes as one of the licences count.

I understand piracy is an issue. I personally only purchase games I want to play in hopes that my support will cause the company to create more games I will enjoy. However, when a company begins to treat all the legitimate users as thieves, when a company's policies do everything in their power to undermine and alienate legitimate users, and when a company has no plans to implement ways to work around things such as hardware failures I believe that it is time to stop purchasing from that company.

I am willing to give Ubisoft another chance to change their ways. However until that happens I will do everything in my power to tell everyone about my situation, and experiences, with Ubisoft and tell anyone who will listen to never purchase games from Ubisoft.

I am glad I did not purchase Anno 2070. I am one of the hard core gamers in the market. I built my own computer, and keep it up to date with hardware changes, with the sole purpose to stay ahead of the curve in the gaming world. I easily spend 100 dollars a month on gaming and I can promise you that Ubisoft will not be getting any of my hard earned money.

[McChubs]

The thing is, I only found about their 'we hate our customers' DRM through the RPS blog. There's no obvious 'you have two installations left' counter or anything. I installed Anno on my laptop, and my desktop PC, which is in dire need of an upgrade. What this means then, is that if I install it on a new build, I can't reinstall it without calling Ubisoft up. If I even so much as dare to reformat my system, their DRM will refuse to allow me to install it, despite it being the exact same system!

Now all of this is one thing, but not allowing you access to your own PS3 saves, despite there being absolutely no risk involved of piracy, copyright infringement, whatever you want to call it, is a total disgrace. Buying console Ubisoft games, you'd at least hope to escape their frankly insulting and banal DRM. I feel your pain!

[phil1702]

If you contact support they will reset the number of activations - or should that be log a ticket, phone them, phone them again. phone them again. phone them again. phone them again and then they will reset the activations

[Moryarity]

I think you did not get how the DRM works...

You have three installations on different machines. If you use an installation you will have a 30 day cool-dowb, then you will get it back.

so if you installed the game on your desktop and your laptop you used 2 activations and have one left. However, after 30 days you get one activation back and 30days later the other one, so have 3 again.

Not only do people who actually BUY the legitimate version get a limit on how many times they can install the game they legally purchased, if they change something as minor as their graphics card, the DRM says 'yup, there's another one gone!'.

This is btw the same thing that you windows OS is doing. If you make a change that alters the hash value you need to contact support, revoke you license key and make a new license with the new hash value.
So this is not as unusual as you might imagine it is..windows is using the same system.

[McChubs]

That is totally irrelevant. The point is, I shouldn't have an installation limit AT ALL on a game I paid for. Whilst it's very lovely of them to be so kind as to refund me an activation after a MONTH, if I'd have pirated Anno instead of wasting cash on it, I'd have no trouble with their ridiculous DRM at all.

[Moryarity]

I honestly wonder about the lack of understanding, that an act is unlawful nowadays. Are you also shooting the cop who gave you a ticket for speeding because then you would have no problem with it?!?

Sorry, but I can't understand how claiming that everything would be better, if you do something unlawful can even be considered to be used as an argument.

[McChubs]

I honestly wonder about the lack of understanding, that an act is unlawful nowadays. Are you also shooting the cop who gave you a ticket for speeding because then you would have no problem with it?!?

Sorry, but I can't understand how claiming that everything would be better, if you do something unlawful can even be considered to be used as an argument.

Er... what? You're saying speeding is the same as legally paying for a game and complaining about its aggressively stupid DRM? Using that analogy then: I'm complaining because I bought a new car, but the police popped all four tyres and smashed in my windscreen to stop me from speeding. It has nothing to do with advocating piracy. I am merely saying, it's an odd way to run a company when pirates have a much easier time of playing something than I do, when I paid money for it and they didn't.

Not to mention with the upcoming Ubisoft server move, a lot of other 'punch our customers in the face because we already have swimming pools full of money' based DRM games will be unavailable to play. In single player mode. What. The fact you're in any way defending a system this monolithically cretinous is hilarious.

[godsesert34]

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