It is no secret that video games have long been intense digital rights management (DRM) battlefields, with game cracking groups engaging in an endless arms race with game developers. As soon as a new DRM scheme is released it is quickly cracked and released on P2P networks and "warez" group sites.
Ubisoft has taken this battle to the next level, starting with Assassin's Creed 2 and affecting all future Ubisoft titles. The new DRM scheme requires a constant internet connection in order to play Ubisoft's games on a PC. Yep, you heard that right. If you travel and enjoy playing Ubisoft games on your laptop in-flight you are out of luck. Or in a hotel where you don't want to pay $14.95 for 24 hours of Internet. Or if your Internet connection goes out. Or if their servers go down. Out of luck.
The new DRM system checks in with a central Ubisoft server when started, preventing the game from running if it cannot connect to the server. Not enough for Ubisoft, the DRM continues to check in during game play. If at any time the DRM system cannot reach Ubisoft's central servers, you are booted out of the game and lose any progress since your last checkpoint. So if your wireless router reboots or for any of a thousand reasons your game can't connect to Ubisoft when it checks in, you lose everything you have done since your last checkpoint and cannot play again until that connection is restored. Ubisoft was asked about the details of this system by CVG, and responded in a nutshell that piracy is "a huge problem" that "all serious companies need to address."
CVG had some legitimate questions for Ubisoft, which were addressed, but not particularly well. If a gamer wants to play back through Assassin's Creed 2 in five years, will the DRM servers still be up? What about maintenance of the update servers? Ubisoft claims that down the road they will "patch-out" the DRM and no longer require the check-in on older games, but if the servers are not available five years after the last time the game was played, how would it patch-out the DRM? Ubisoft essentially says "we plan to keep the servers up and available for a long time." Gamers have no more assurances that the $50-$60 they spend on games is well-spent than "we plan to make it wok." Hm.
More after the break.
According to NPD, an industry data group, about four percent of gamers pirate games. So Ubisoft wants to seriously inconvenience 96% of gamers to prevent the 4% who are pirates from getting Assassin's Creed for free? And the pirates are only stymied until the game is cracked, which never takes long. Additionally, it isn't clear how many of those 4% would have actually purchased the game if pirated versions were not available or how many legitimate copies would be purchased by pirates or their friends after seeing the pirated version. Rob Carmel, co-founder of game developer 2D Boy, told Gamasutra that he doesn't believe there is any difference in rates of piracy between DRM-ed games and DRM-free titles. "If it is that ineffective, he asks, why use it at all?" Good question, Rob. Good question.
Are the costs of developing and maintaining DRM servers, trying to fight pirates, and lost sales from people who refuse to purchase games with such restrictive DRM really worth it? EA recently came under fire for a similar move to more restrictive DRM and was rewarded with Spore becoming the most widely pirated game in history. Outraged gamers simply waited for it to be cracked and snagged the pirated version rather than deal with the cumbersome DRM. Then gamers piled on by "review-bombing" Amazon's comments, making the once highly-anticipate Spore one of the worst-rated games on Amazon.
In contrast, one game developer has gone the other direction, dropping DRM entirely and seeing very positive results. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, explained on his blog:
"So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers."
Stardock developed Sins of a Solar Empire on a small budget and with little fanfare, but still managed to reach number 14 on IGN's list of best-selling games of 2008, which does not include the online sales that accounted for half of Sins' revenue. With no DRM.
Most gamers are not pirates. Most gamers do not want to be treated like pirates. If you treat gamers like customers and provide a quality game for a fair price, they will buy it. If you treat gamers like pirates, they will respond accordingly. Ubisoft has put out some fantastic games but they make it really hard for customers to want to support them. In the long run, that is not good business.
