Ubisoft DRM goes down, tempers go up
Ubisoft’s authentication
servers went down the other day while users were enjoying their regular gaming sessions. For most of the games Ubisoft is releasing, they are requiring that you maintain an internet connection so that the game can get in contact with the authentication server. If the connection is lost, the game stops and shuts down. This really makes it look like pirating a game the more advantageous choice after all.
However, Ubisoft has stated that the server’s failure was due to a DDoS attack, that is, a distributed denial of service attack. This didn’t bring down the entire server, but blocked roughly 5% of it’s users from connecting. Even at 5%, that number is still extremely high for any amount of users not able to play a game they legally bought while users who pirated the game were able to continue playing.
Ubisoft does claim that while pirates may have been able to continue playing their illegal version, they weren’t playing the full game. Cracked versions of the game are incomplete in that they are missing some or whole parts of games and important updates. New updates are delivered from Ubisoft’s servers and require authentication.
My take: I feel like Ubisoft was trying to live up to Steam with it’s own authentication and content delivery system. However, with the exception of strictly-online games, most if not all games on Steam can be played in offline mode. This allows users to continue with their gaming even in the event of no internet connection. A game such as Assassin’s Creed II should not need an internet connection just to run. Even purchasing the game through Steam has an excerpt:
3rd-party DRM: Ubisoft’s Online Services Platform. Ubisoft requires a permanent Internet connection to play this video game at all times.
So, in addition to Steam validating the game, Ubisoft still tacks on their own ruin-your-experience authentication. Isn’t that just cumbersome?
