With Denuvo Broken, Ubisoft Doubles Up On DRM for Assasin's Creed Origin, Tanking Everyone's Computers

from the destroying-reputations-monumentally dept

There are really two themes when it comes to DRM, software supposedly created to stop video game piracy. The first and most notorious theme is what an utter failure DRM has been in accomplishing this core mission. Even once-vaunted DRM platforms like Denuvo have been reduced to code-bloat within the games they're meant to protect. And that's the DRM on the effective end of the spectrum, relatively speaking. But the other theme, one that is arguably far more important and impactful, is how absolutely great DRM software tends to be at annoying customers and prohibiting them from enjoying the games they legitimately purchased. This theme presents itself in multiple forms, from people being flatout unable to use the software they purchased at all, to performance hits due to the DRM software slowing down the customer's computers, to opening up grand new security holes through which malicious actors happily dive into the lives of those very same customers.

The track record for DRM, in other words, is almost laughably bad. That AAA publishers haven't acknowledged this reality and still use various forms of DRM is an absurdity. But what Ubisoft did in reacting to the demise of Denuvo, essentially to double up on DRM, is backfiring in predictably frustrating ways. Ubisoft, being Ubisoft, included Denuvo's DRM for Assasin's Creed Origins. But with all the news for Denuvo being bad, the company knew the game would be cracked in hours or days using Denuvo. So, instead of simply removing the customer-annoying DRM, Ubisoft decided to add another layer of DRM on top of it, in the form of VMProtect.

According to Voksi, whose ‘Revolt’ team cracked Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus before its commercial release last week, it’s none of these. The entire problem is directly connected to desperate anti-piracy measures. As widely reported (1,2), the infamous Denuvo anti-piracy technology has been taking a beating lately. Cracking groups are dismantling it in a matter of days, sometimes just hours, making the protection almost pointless. For Assassin’s Creed Origins, however, Ubisoft decided to double up, Voksi says.

“Basically, Ubisoft have implemented VMProtect on top of Denuvo, tanking the game’s performance by 30-40%, demanding that people have a more expensive CPU to play the game properly, only because of the DRM. It’s anti-consumer and a disgusting move,” he told TorrentFreak.

If the VMProtect name sounds familiar, that's because it was the company that actually accused Denuvo of using its software in its product without properly licensing it. And if layering DRMs on top of one another and expecting it not to have a negative effect on legit customers sounds like the product of insanity, that's because it is. Basically, unless you're running an upper end processor, the game is likely to be unplayable.

“What is the normal CPU usage for this game?” a user asked on Steam forums. “I randomly get between 60% to 90% and I’m wondering if this is too high or not.”

The individual reported running an i7 processor, which is no slouch. However, for those running a CPU with less oomph, matters are even worse. Another gamer, running an i5, reported a 100% load on all four cores of his processor, even when lower graphics settings were selected in an effort to free up resources.

“It really doesn’t seem to matter what kind of GPU you are using,” another complained. “The performance issues most people here are complaining about are tied to CPU getting maxed out 100 percent at all times. This results in FPS [frames per second] drops and stutter. As far as I know there is no workaround.”

Well, gentle Steam user, there is a workaround, but it mostly involves buying games from a company that is more interested in providing a great gaming experience to its actual customers than attempting to stamp out game piracy when doing so has proven the most futile task in the industry. If even lowering the graphics settings doesn't keep the game from stuttering noticeably, it won't be long before the refund requests start pouring in. Especially when this decision to layer DRMs like sweatshirts causes customer machines to overheat.

The situation is reportedly so bad that some users are getting the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death) due to their machines overheating after just an hour or two’s play. It remains unclear whether these crashes are indeed due to the VMProtect/Denuvo combination but the perception is that these anti-piracy measures are at the root of users’ CPU utilization problems.

Ubisoft is always going to Ubisoft, I suppose.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: assasin's creed origin, denuvo, drm, video games
Companies: ubisoft


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 7:49pm

    When you buy Ubisoft....

    You deserve it by now!

    Fool me once, shame on you... fool me for the 15th game... yea STFU and stop bitching!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:49pm

      Re: When you buy Ubisoft....

      You know, I've been saying the same thing here for YEARS. If games stayed away in droves, rather than queueing up at midnight for the latest release, then vendors would either learn to stop using DRM or they'd go out of business. It'd probably only take one highly-publicized instance for them to learn the lesson and act on it.

      But it hasn't happened and it's not going to happen. Gamers don't have the self-discipline to make it happen.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        That One Guy (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:54am

        Re: Re: When you buy Ubisoft....

        Gamers, people who go to and/or buy movies, people who buy microsoft or apple computers, people buying music from the major labels...

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Bruce C., 2 Nov 2017 @ 5:06am

        Re: Re: When you buy Ubisoft....

        I have such a backlog of games I own that I haven't played yet, I can easily wait this one out. At this point, if it isn't on DRM-free GOG, I don't even bother.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 5:58am

        Re: Re: When you buy Ubisoft....

        The problem isn't so much that gamers don't have the self-discipline, it's that this group consists of a lot of very young people who haven't learned self-discipline yet and/or have never been burned since they're still fairly new customers.
        We have an ever rotating crop of fresh minds to dupe. There's plenty of evidence that lots of smaller publishers and gaming devs are learning their lesson. GOG's growing popularity is just one of the stronger ones.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Machin Shin, 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:28am

      Re: When you buy Ubisoft....

      Yeah.... This is why I bought a Ubisoft game on steam once. It then required me to launch steam to launch Ubisofts shit launcher to then launch the game.

      Next time I wanted an Ubisoft game I went to buy it, saw it used this annoying DRM and so I said "Fuck that shit" and I pirated the hell out of it. (glad I did too, was a shit game anyways)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 7:51pm

    Well, gentle Steam user, there is a workaround, but it mostly involves buying games from a company that is more interested in providing a great gaming experience to its actual customers.

    Or, as many of these people will no doubt do, downloading a pirated copy of the game which has stripped out the DRM. Is there an analogue to the Streisand effect for DRM and pirates? The Sparrow effect?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:14pm

      Re:

      Call it “The Blu-ray Effect”. After all, the first such piracy-specific Streisand Effect was arguably the breaking of the AACS encryption key used in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD—and the subsequent controversy surrounding the sharing of that key.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        JoeCool (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:19pm

        Re: Re:

        I'd have thought the DeCSS debacle for DVDs was first. People even had t-shirts of that.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Stephen T. Stone (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:23pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Ah, shit, that’s right. I wasn’t sure how big the DeCSS thing got, in hindsight. Shoulda done more reading on it. Then again, “Blu-ray Effect” rolls off the tongue a bit better. 😛

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:53pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            DeCSS is the reason that commercial DVDs play on Linux at all.

            Because anybody not using Windows and playing a DVD is obviously stealing your movie. /s

            link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Bergman (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:41pm

      Re:

      If you're the law-abiding sort, you might even buy the unplayably DRM-ridden version of the game before you download the cracked version. But even then, it's not the DRMed version you'll be playing.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Roger Strong (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:44pm

        Re: Re:

        That's how it's been since the Apple II.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        That One Guy (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:39am

        Re: Re:

        Which, funnily enough, I am almost dead certain would be just as illegal as someone who skipped the 'buy a legal copy first' step and went straight to downloading the infringing copy, leading anyone who bothered to think about it to question why they were paying in the first place.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Cdaragorn (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:00am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Fortunately you'd be wrong. Since you already own a legal version and downloading the cracked version from someone else doesn't involve you breaking the DRM, it's just format shifting which is 100% legal. Ain't copyright law great?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            That One Guy (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:14am

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            You could make that argument, but I'm not sure how well it would hold up in court. You're not taking the copy you purchased and removing the DRM(which would be a crime in itself, regardless of the legality of 'format shifting'), rather you are downloading an additional copy without paying for that one.

            Now, I can certainly see the logic in what you are presenting, if someone has paid for a copy of the game exactly what 'harm' is being caused by them downloading a working copy and playing that instead, but given how utterly insane copyright law is I suspect that it's not an argument that a company or a judge would buy.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:37am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              I think they're taking a *very* liberal interpretation of the clause that states you can make a copy for archival purposes.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              Avatar28 (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 5:57pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              This is also the flip side to the whole "you're only licensing it" bullshit. Since the license that allows you to use it is distinct from the physical copy they don't have to be the same. E.g. I have a license for Windows 10 on my computer. If I need to reinstall it it doesn't have to be the same copy I used originally. I can download a fresh copy and use that. As long as it's the same software (e.g. Windows 10 Pro) it's legit.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Roger Strong (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:16am

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            That depends on how you obtain your cracked version.

            If you use BitTorrent - where your computer is sharing the files with other user users as you download them - then you're not prosecuted for how or why you downloaded. You're prosecuted for sending it to others.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 5:46pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            It may not be the format-shifting that gets you in trouble, but it's definitely the DRM-circumvention, which is still a crime under the DMCA last I checked. Unless an exemption has been made by the Librarian of Congress.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              PaulT (profile), 3 Nov 2017 @ 2:34am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              He seems to be labouring under the assumption that obtaining a cracked copy is OK so long as you didn't personally crack it and you own a legal copy elsewhere.

              I doubt that's the case legally, and even if so it would be a defence presented in court when you're sued for pirating, not something that would stop legal action in the first place.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        PaulT (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:10am

        Re: Re:

        That's where we get into the inevitable bottom feeding frenzy that drives the middle managers.

        When I used to game on the PC (before crap like this put me off entirely), it was routine to buy & install the legal version of the game, then immediately go to dark corners of the web to install a no-CD crack or other way of circumventing DRM so that I could play the game properly.

        Unfortunately, this will have been interpreted not as "paying customer wants to be able to play on a flight / not have to search for the CD every time they launch the game" but as "OMG lost sales!". So, instead of realising that they were just inconveniencing paying customers, they double down on the DRM. "Stronger" DRM causes more problems for more paying customers, leading to more pirate downloads to make the product useful, and so on.

        I wish there was a way to quantify the amount of money actually lost to piracy vs the amount of money lost directly due to DRM and money wasted on its development and deployment. I wouldn't be surprised if they're at least equal, but alas there's no way to accurately quantify these things. But, middle managers will always want to cover their backs to make it look like they were trying to "stop piracy", even if their actions only lead to more of it.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          orbitalinsertion (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:20am

          Re: Re: Re:

          _not have to search for the CD every time they launch the game_

          Or spare an optical disc reader from unnecessary wear. I always assumed game publishers had a deal with the hardware industry here. Many who play a game frequently and aren't using the drive for anything else are simply going to leave that disc in all the time.

          IDK did optical drives ever get "smarter" and not leave the lasers on all the time, whether the drive is actually being used or not? (And i remember them polling incessantly for no good reason under older OSes as well, which was just annoying.)

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 9:46am

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            Those damned things crap out way too early, I think they make crap products on purpose in order to increase their bottom line ... and why not? ... Let's continue to fill the oceans with our crap that does not work because that will not bite us in the ass some day - I know this because our present administration (EPA etc) says so.

            I would laugh but this is sad

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              JoeCool (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:28pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              What I've taken to doing is using an external drive. When I need to use it (<1% of the time), I plug it into the computer. The rest of the time, it's not hooked to anything, so it's completely off. I get a LOT more life out of my optical drives since doing that.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 8:44am

      Re:

      "Or, as many of these people will no doubt do, downloading a pirated copy of the game which has stripped out the DRM. "

      From what I have been reading, the cracked version bypasses the protection but it is still there. So unfortunately in this case the cracked version is just as slow

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 8:53am

      Re:

      Well, I've heard it referred to as the 'Spore effect' sometimes... The SecuROM DRM was a major reason that game became the most pirated game of the year.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      David (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 4:05pm

      Re: Gentle Steam User

      They do have an option, refunds.

      The situation is funny enough that it might be worth buying the game just to return it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Stephen T. Stone (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:09pm

    DRM (noun; initialism for “Digital Rights Management”) — closed-source black-box code that gives control of at least part of a given electronic device to the company that either owns or operates that code; the digital equivalent of an ankle bracelet tracking device for paying customers that does nothing to actually prevent copyright infringement by non-paying customers; a stupid fucking idea

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      discordian_eris (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:08am

      Re:

      Let me fix that for you:

      Wrong - Digital Rights Management

      Right - Digital *Restrictions* Management

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        discordian_eris (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:09am

        Re: Re:

        Gah, I still can't get this darned markdown stuff to work right.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 9:54am

        Re: Re:

        I'll suggest that no fix is needed. Just remember that "management" here is used in the same manner as "pest management"

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 8:22pm

    no its russions steeling our computer cyclez

    minning bitcoin aifinkso

    oblitagory xkcd:
    https://xkcd.com/908/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:41pm

    When I suggested renaming the DRM "Data Speedbump", I wasn't just referring to the effect on hackers. It's far more effective against the users.

    Whoever stopped snorting coke and sexually harassing co-workers long enough to declare "Let's put a speedbump on the speedbump!", needs to be used AS a speedbump.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    techflaws (profile), 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:53pm

    Ubisoft tells a different tale:

    https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/ubisoft-denies-pc-drm-is-slowing-down-assassins-creed-or igins/

    Should be easy to verify by people running the cracked version faster...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2017 @ 10:58pm

      Re:

      Great at protecting your property from your loyal customers, Ubi. Maybe try an interactive data-check every 2 minutes that makes the gamers press an "OK" prompt or the game shuts down. That'll keep them pesky gamers from gaming with the game they bought!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 12:39am

      Re:

      On one hand, I could believe the explanation offered by Ubisoft. AC: Origins looks like a game that would make even the most powerful gaming PC work hard to achieve maximum results. That explanation has an air of plausibility.

      On the other hand, we are talking about Ubisoft; I would sooner infect my PC with a bitcoin miner than give that company my trust. When did they even disclose their Inception-styled DRM to consumers—if they ever even disclosed it before news got out about these claims?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 1:03am

      Re:

      He also claims the game is running smoothly at "30 fps". But that is inconsistant with customer reports. It is difficult to say who is right here.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        ryuugami, 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:56am

        Re: Re:

        Not that 30 fps can be called "smooth" for that particular genre... 90's called, they want their framerate back.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Avatar28 (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:02pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          30 frames is probably fine. Since it's third person you can get away with a lower framerate. It's the first person stuff where you really want to shoot for 60 fps. I mean, yeah, the higher frame rate is great and all but it really doesn't make a significant difference. What DOES make a difference is not having the system continually stutter or drop down to teens or single digit frame rates momentarily because you put too much DRM on your shit.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 3:10am

      Re:

      A previous game 'protected' by Denuvo apparently had the game suffering serious issues thanks to the DRM calling home an insane number of times, so there's at least some evidence that the infection can have notable negative consequences as far as gameplay goes.

      Add an additional DRM infection on top of that and it's not hard to suspect that yes, it is the DRM causing if not all of the problems, then a good portion of them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Matthew Cline (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 9:43pm

      Re:

      VMProtect has "no perceptible effect," [according to Ubisoft]

      Some significant portion of the compiled game code (significant enough to attempt to deter piracy) is running in a VM with a different instruction set than the underlying physical CPU, and this is supposed to have no perceptible effect?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Andy, 2 Nov 2017 @ 1:41am

    DRM FREE!

    This whole polava will do one thing and one thing only , it will ensure that the game is pirated more than any other game when it is cracked and uses no drm at all.

    Games makers should have learnt that the only thing drm does these days is slows the pirating of a game by a few hours at most and makes the hackers/crackers a lot of money or whatever they get for breaking the drm.

    If they removed all drm and sold the game a little cheaper they would sell more and make more money.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:39am

    It's far beyond time that intrusive DRM is classified as malware and its use banned.

    There's no excuse for these issues.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Roger Strong (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:00am

      Re:

      I've mentioned before that I think we're missing an opportunity.

      We should be calling encryption "Digital Rights Management." Which it is, of course; it's only a matter of who manages the rights to the encrypted data.

      That way, powerful people who have declared jihad against encryption would be declaring jihad against DRM.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 2:47am

    Our sales are down!!
    IT HAS TO BE PIRACY!!
    And in a fucked up way, it is.

    Pirates who aren't going to ever pay you, have all of your attention.
    You invest large portions of the budget in the DRM that somehow magically this time won't fall.
    Lets put more DRM in!!!

    Lets see the result -
    The pirates are playing the game more than paying customers.
    Paying customers are having their machines fail.

    Pirates get awesome performance.
    Paying customers are expected to upgrade to liquid nitrogen coolers.

    Paying customers are wondering why they bothered.
    Pirates notice a surge in new recruits, some who paid & some who saw the horrible way paying customers were treated & signed up.

    Somewhere there needs to be an adult in charge, who can remove the execs who are destroying the company.

    You spent more on DRM that is going to drive people to pirate the game. Period, there is no upside, you tripled down on 'we'll bet the pirates this time!!!' at the cost of the people still stupid enough to pay you for the game.

    Imagine a burger place fighting a war against raccoons raiding the dumpster.
    To get more money for the next weapon to repel the trash pandas, they decide to let the coolers run warmer.
    Meat spoils, customers get sick, sales stop, more meat ends up in the dumpster... but this new 'Trash Panda Repelling Rock v4.5' is totally going to work.
    You have a few people who still come in to get burgers, but they get sick 75% of the time and are thinking perhaps its time to try a new place.
    Meanwhile in the back of the restaurant the trash panda's have stolen a lighter & are using the rock to cook up the meat.

    A normal person would tell you that this is so far fetched and stupid no one would do it... but they never bought a Ubisoft game.

    You are actively screwing people who want to give you money for your product to chase people who are NEVER going to pay you. You are shocked that there are growing numbers of people who will never pay you, while you keep punching that last few paying customers in the nuts every 3 minutes they play the game with the latest nutbuster DRM.

    The company exists to sell a product.
    You have focused more resources on those who won't pay, than offering the best product possible.
    Maybe its old fashioned but maybe focus on making sure the paying customer gets the best possible game instead of worrying about dumping real money chasing imaginary money. You no longer care about paying customers. Pirates can play for hours and not have their machine crash... and you can't put your finger on why more people pirate the game....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 8:23am

      Re:

      This is the best explanation I've ever heard for why DRM always fails.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 9:18am

      Re:

      To be fair (in a way), Ubisoft's PC ports are shite regardless of DRM. They never run in a way you would expect.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      nerd bert (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 10:15am

      Re:

      Interestingly, most publishers have gone to less oppressive DRM schemes and have learned to accept some "losses" from piracy over the years. Back in the day, I spent more on a Lattice C compiler than I did my car, but publishers learned that by cutting the price they actually made more money so things changed.

      Game makers haven't changed, however. Yes, their target demographic generally tends to have less money to spend so they're more likely to pirate to play. Still, the fact that their content plays much more poorly with DRM installed drives ever more of their customers to pirate solutions. I know that I would be tempted to go that route if I were a young gamer these days just because the DRM sucks and causes more problems than it's worth. Being an old fart, however, I don't need to play the latest games this very second to have cred with other gamers. I can wait until both the price comes down and the DRM goes away, so I do.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        That Anonymous Coward (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 3:37pm

        Re: Re:

        One of the biggest problem is they think they can stop it.
        They have dreams that every pirate DL is costing them tons of money, ignoring that in all honesty there are people who pirate first to see if its complete shit.

        You want someone to plunk down $60+ in the age of bought reviews, day 1 patches, DLC shipping on the disc. Can't trust reviews on YT, can't trust released images (because they render them on super computers), the entire industry (well the big boys) seem bent on lying to paying customers... then are shocked, just shocked, that piracy happens.

        System requirements are a joke, as wide as possible to sucker more people to buy something thats gonna run like crap... but why do we care? We got paid, we don't need to worry about them... now lets chase some pirates.

        I'm old enough to remember getting a demo disc from ID where they offered single playable levels of their games. I could see how well it ran on my setup & if the game lived up to the hype.

        Perhaps it's time to run the MBA's out of the business.
        They focus to much on deadlines, cutting costs, & keeping control... at the cost of the game experience for paying customers.

        Gone should be the days of 2 yrs of promises of new releases soon, but at the same time stop shipping broken crap because the release date is here. Gamers would have way more respect for a delayed release because they refused to ship crap thats broken day one.

        Put the focus back on the people who want to pay you money, hell even giving them half the effort you waste on pirates and you would have the best studio rep ever.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Daydream, 2 Nov 2017 @ 3:57am

    Hmm, the EULA...

    http://store.steampowered.com//eula/582160_eula_0

    "IN NO EVENT SHALL UBISOFT BE LIABLE IN CONNECTION WITH THE COMPONENTS THAT MAY BE INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER BY ANY DRM SOFTWARE OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE ANTI-TAMPER TECHNOLOGY."

    (Copy-pasted. Blame them for the capslock.)

    Translation: We won't give you a refund for the game because the DRM makes it unplayable, so there.

    ...Hey, I wonder; if you sent someone something (like a funny cat video) with an EULA that basically said 'in order to view this video, you must consent to have software installed which will access your personal information for the purpose of withdrawing $100,000 from your bank accounts', would it be enforceable in court?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Roger Strong (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:09am

      Re: Hmm, the EULA...

      It's worse than that. They're refusing liability far beyond their game. Think Sony Root Kit, which caused crashes, "disappearing" CD-ROM drives and security problems outside of the game.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 5:49am

    I would have bought this game without a second thought - oops, there's one hell of a second thought.

    Will get something else and wait for this to be re-released on GOG

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Amos Professional, 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:14am

    I bought Amos Proffessional

    When Amos first came out as the new bewt game programming system for the Amiga computer in 198x some time ago, i didn't buy it thinking that Amiga Basic was good enough, and it was. I then was given a copy of Amos for free cause a friend copied it as they were not protected by anything in those days. I used it for a while all the time thinking , this is a great system and much much better than Amiga Basic. So what did i do next, yes i bought a copy not only of Amos but their much much pricey system called Amos Professional no less for $300 back then. If i hadnt been exposed to Amos for free i would never have thought about it and continued using Amiga Basic. Amos was just a better system to use for graphics and so better displays.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Rabbit80 (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:26am

      Re: I bought Amos Proffessional

      You really bought it? One of the popular Amiga mags of the time gave it away free on a coverdisk!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Roger Strong (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 6:27am

      Re: I bought Amos Proffessional

      I pirated Flight Simulator II for the Apple II. I could never have afforded it at the time, and would never have had the opportunity to even try it otherwise.

      But I was hooked, and I paid for the Amiga version and then every version for the PC - plus many add-ons - for over 20 years until Microsoft stopped making it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        orbitalinsertion (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:28am

        Re: Re: I bought Amos Proffessional

        They must have killed their market by putting that flight sim easter egg in Excel 97.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Roger Strong (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 8:45am

          Re: Re: Re: I bought Amos Proffessional

          Just the opposite. Back in the early '90s I picked up the Aircraft & Scenery Designer add-on. This let you compile a text file full of commands into Flight Simulator scenery. Mountains, buildings, signs, etc.

          And so our inventory system, written in-house, which would output data to Excel for graphing, suddenly got Flight Simulator 4 as an alternate graphing package. You could fly through the mountains and valleys of your product class history report.

          Granted, it was more demoed than actually used.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            orbitalinsertion (profile), 2 Nov 2017 @ 9:36am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: I bought Amos Proffessional

            I was merely kidding. But it was amusing in Excel. I never messed with it beyond the sheer blackness of a default new spreadsheet and however it generated a non-flat landscape from that.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 2 Nov 2017 @ 7:28am

    Down Right Maddening

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2017 @ 10:05am

    DRM is just a puzzle game for a different audience.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    LittleCupcakes, 2 Nov 2017 @ 11:46pm

    Mob reacts without evidence-Internet shocker

    The increasingly shrill Techdirt lathers the rabble about Origins. Comments section predictably prepares torches and pitchforks. Ancient grievances are raised. Evidence provided, none.

    Nope, no proof of any sort that DRM has any effect on the performance of Origins. None. Just a crowd and a grudge.

    Yep, Techdirt isn't what it used to be.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Cowardly Lion, 3 Nov 2017 @ 1:05am

      Re: Mob reacts without evidence-Internet shocker

      "Mob reacts without evidence"

      Mob? Speaking for myself Cupcake, I don't need to see any "evidence". I've experienced this shit 1st hand for myself.

      And I'm betting I'm not the only one.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      PaulT (profile), 3 Nov 2017 @ 2:39am

      Re: Mob reacts without evidence-Internet shocker

      "Nope, no proof of any sort that DRM has any effect on the performance of Origins."

      None. Apart from user complaints. And common sense, since the systems in place will absolutely use system resources. But, you won't read the article, you just need to bitch about the site you voluntarily visit, for some reason.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2017 @ 10:16pm

        Re: Re: Mob reacts without evidence-Internet shocker

        I'm more amused by the fact that one of out_of_the_blue's most recent gimmicks was to claim that posters who rarely left comments behind were "zombies" as a part of a greater Techdirt conspiracy. And now we've got one-off nicknames trying desperately to be clever.

        To think that this is the sort of rodomontade that MyNameHere wants elevated and respected. It's telling.

        link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.