Oh, Ubisoft. You so quickly went from the guys that brought us Splinter Cell (young people: Splinter Cell used to be cool in the early to mid 2000s) to the guys that have created the stupidest DRM known to man. Oh, and you’re also incapable of telling the truth. The authentication servers for Assassin’s Creed II (I thought that comes out tomorrow?) and Silent Hunter V were completely inaccessible for a number of people yesterday. Why? Ubisoft claimed it was because of “exceptional demand,” but the real reason is that some punk kids (I assume it’s punk kids) decided to launch a denial of service attack. I suppose, technically, a denial of service attack involves, on some level, demand…
I’m almost overwhelmed with what I have to say about this. Let me put this in bullet points to better organize my thoughts.
• The people who initiated the denial of service attacks are morons. No one looks to them as heros for attacking Ubisoft. Seriously, the only civilized way to complain/protest the DRM measure is to simply not buy the game AND not pirate it. Pretend it doesn’t exist, and Ubisoft will be all, “Hey, why don’t we have more money? Is it because our DRM is dumb?”
• Why can’t Ubisoft just tell us the truth? If your servers were attacked, just say so! Don’t make up stories to make yourself look good. “Exceptional demand” my foot! Let’s be honest: Silent Hunter V isn’t exactly Modern Warfare 2 or New Super Mario Bros. Wii, sales-wise. And Assassin’s Creed II came out last fall: do you really mean to tell me that SO MANY people were looking forward to play the port that you didn’t have enough servers on hand to meet demand?
• This obviously doesn’t justify piracy, but man alive does it prove the adage that only legitimate customers are harmed by DRM
Those bullet points only slightly helped.
I seriously don’t understand what Ubisoft’s deal is. Did you know that Ubisoft said would consider an “offline” mode it if and when the DRM was broken? Then why bother in the first place?!
Pirates are going to pirate your game! You have plenty of people who would love to buy the game, either from Steam or from a boxed copy, who don’t want to be treated like Australia-bound thieves in the 18th century!
JUST LET US INSTALL THE GAME AND WE’LL BE ON OUR MERRY WAY~! BLAH~!