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notanotherone
05-02-2010, 05:24 AM
In a move that hopes to thwart piracy but will most likely end up irritating legit customers only, Ubisoft revealed today that most of its upcoming games will require constant internet connection while playing.

Ubisoft has been vocal in the past about PC games piracy. Last July, the company pledged to defeat piracy with a then unannounced tool.

In addition to authenticating the game legitimacy with Ubidoft's servers, the new system will also store the player's configuration and savegames online and allow him to play the game from several PCs that are able to share the same data.

The first game to utilize the new system will be The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom. Ubisoft didn't say whether Assassin's Creed II or Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction would follow suit.

"Ubisoft's number one goal is to provide added value that will facilitate and enrich the gaming experience of our PC customers. The Settlers 7 beta version is enabling players to discover that this platform empowers them to install the game on as many PCs as they wish, to synchronize saved games online so that gameplay can be continued from where they left off (from any computer with an installed version of the game) and frees them from needing a CD/DVD in order to play," the company said in an official statement to the press.

The system requires internet connection to be active while playing single player games as well. If the connection becomes disrupted during a single player session, the game pauses until the connection is available again.

"The platform requires a permanent Internet connection. We know this choice is controversial but we feel is justified by the gameplay advantages offered by the system and because most PCs are already connected to the Internet. This platform also offers protection against piracy, an important business element for Ubisoft and for the PC market in general as piracy has an important impact on this market. Any initiative that allows us to lower the impact of piracy on our PC games will also allow us to concentrate further effort on the creation and expansion of our intellectual properties for the PC - our goal is to deliver the best gaming experience to our customers."

We expect pirates to hack the new system in few days and after its launch and offer hassle-free versions of the games on p2p networks. In other words, legitimate Ubisoft customers won't be able to play their money-bought games on their laptops while travelling nor on their home PC if their internet connection is off for some reason or another. Needless to say, all those restrictions will be removed from pirated copies.

tinkertiler
05-02-2010, 09:46 AM
Wont that just be for the PC as i cant see it saying anything about games consoles in the report?

10mg
05-02-2010, 11:39 PM
all i can say is...


Well done ubisoft, just another way to p*ss of your customers... Go on alienate the legitimate customers who actually pay for your games and expects to be able to play when 'on the road' or on holiday and no internet connection.


R.I.P ubisoft
Born 1986 died 2010

Diablo13
06-02-2010, 02:57 AM
It is just not true that "most pc's are already connected to the internet", as they say. There are a lot of pc's used by kids for playing games which do not have internet access! The simplest way for a responsible parent to control what is accessed online is to not give internet access to their children, especially if they are still young and impressionable.
If you don't need a disk then I don't see a problem copying a game and installing it because they say you can play it from any computer? They cannot track everyones ip address then, so someone will no doubt make a keygen or something, so that people can log in their pirate game and use a generated serial to authenticate it innitially, then play as normal with their pc logging in each time legitimately?
Unless you have to pay to be online to a server each time you play, like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 11, which would make it a 'do without' game for many people for a start?
The only people I can see being hurt by this is Ubisoft themselves through lack of sales and legitimate customers who fail to get online when they want to play.
The games manufacturing market is supposed to be seeing a large drop in sales at the moment anyway from what I have read?
Ask yourself, if you were going to buy a new game for thirty quid; Which one would you choose, the one with built in access restrictions, or the one without which you could REALLY load on any pc anywhere and take your game saves with you on a memory stick?
Or am I missing something here? :dunno:

saffronfox
06-02-2010, 03:32 AM
theirs somit more to this then just anti piracy, who is going to pay for the upkeep of theses servers? like Diablo13 said i can see this becoming pay per play games like wow (the biggest rip off in the world) and not gaming servers like bf2, cod, crysis ect were we rent servers for clans and lanparys.

if Ubisoft themselves pay for the upkeep of theses gaming servers then fair enough but i really cannot see it and as well as that unless its an online miltiplayer game then whats the point?

as for wii doing this sort of thing so what, with the softmods about now i cannot see it being a big problem nintendo dont really store any user data anyway and as well as that unlike other consols you dont need to input your life history to play a game lol.

Diablo13
06-02-2010, 04:34 AM
A good point is that Ubisoft say themselves they know "the game will be hacked in a few days", so a point in their favour would be "if you can't beat them join them"! If they release a full game to the public for download for free, then charge them for using their servers to play, they are quids in and will probably profit more in the long run in continued revenue from their servers than they would if they sold the game retail and people were bored with it in a week?
In that case it hurts their distributors more than themselves, but they can appease them by saying it is not our fault that people are not buying it. :-?