Yeah, it is crazy.
I hope you don't mind if I rant a little bit...
I need to vent some steam (and not the Valve type of Steam)
Warning, Wall of Text follows.
Ubisoft needs to look at the other companies.
I heard some sort of game with very restrictive DRM had a patch to remove it. (forget the name, came across it on the Subsim forums on a topic about the DRM issues with SH5)
Another thing I saw stuff about. Due to public outrage, 2K backed down from plans that Bioshock 2 was "initially intended to include every SecuROM anti-piracy measure known to man, woman, child and household pets". They finally opted for disk authentication, no install limits if I understand things correctly.
So, one company tried draconian DRM, and decided to drop it, and 2K realized their customer base was
off to hell and back and dropped much of it all together.
Another interesting pair of articles.
http://technologizer.com/2009/03/26/ubisoft-goes-drm-free-for-old-games/http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/12/pc-prince-of-persia-contains-no-drm-its-a-trap.arsNice article. Ubisoft has issues that are mentioned in the article...
Rainbow Six Vegas 2...
People who purchased the download version were unable to play the game, because they didn't have a disk to authenticate and activate the game with.
Ubisoft apparently 'fixed' it by using an illegal crack from a warez group...
Before that, it seems some owners of Assassins Creed were unable to play their own game because it would not authenticate over the internet.
Oh, the subject of the articles.
Of how Ubisoft dropped DRM from the boxed retail PC version of Prince of Persia.
The first article links to the second article, stating Ubisoft removed the DRM from the boxed retail PC version only to have proof of how much money they would loose for not using DRM.
It seems dumb for people to assume that.
I call into evidence, Spore. It had DRM, and was apparently pirated before it even hit store shelves. Releasing a DRM free game is probably going to have limited impact.
Heck, having no DRM to crack might just be enough to have some people no pirate because it would be no challenge to.
Back to the subject of restrictive DRM and the companies that use the draconian ones.
At first, when I heard that EA had plans to require an online connection at all time with their newer games, I thought they were nuts. Then I heard Ubisoft was going one step further... EA doesn't seem as bad anymore...
Both need to focus on attracting honest customers, not driving them away, treating them like criminals, or otherwise forcing them to endure stuff that probably only serves to punish and enrage honest customers while simply providing amusement, entertainment and perhaps even an eager challenge for real software pirates.
Look at Spore.
The first game (for me, anyways) whose DRM was a deciding factor in me not buying a game I would have otherwise loved to get.
I had plans to get it, but I didn't, due to the outrage of it having DRM not mentioned anywhere, and early stuff with the limited installs.
I didn't like people saying that they could upgrade/replace a single thing in a computer, and that kind of DRM suddenly thinks they installed it on a new PC and poof goes one of the limited activations.
Worse was people needing to tangle with customer support of some company, trying to convince them they actually owned the game so the activations could be reset so the people who upgraded often or wanted it on more than one computer could actually be able to play the game.
I consider it a serious issue if someone has to purchase a game, and then have to get the cracked copy or a crack in general, in order to be able to own the game and have a 'working copy'.
I know I thought about it with Spore, buying it, then getting the crack for it.
Instead, I decided to spite EA and not get it in general.
Especially after the hell of finding out the Spore Creature Creator DEMO had SecuROM on it...
Seriously, who the
needs DRM on a game DEMO?!
I gave up on getting rid of/disabling SecuROM when I found out one of the Sims 2 expansions I had gotten after that also had SecuROM on it.
I used to have a program that could monitor software processes. Whenever I got it running, 'something' relating to SecuROM would suddenly 'terminate' (or otherwise hide?). With all the bad things I have heard about SecuROM, I was less than happy.
Luckily, my combo drive (or I should say divers) hasn't imploded on me yet (I deleted the burning software for it, and a few issues up and vanished)
At least it's not Starforce...
A disk in the tray, and a seriel number, maybe also a 'phone home on install'... that's good enough for me.
Aside from Steam (which I find 'acceptable'), another service I like is Impulse, which is similar to Steam.
From what I understand from an article a friend read once, the company behind Impulse, Stardock, has an interesting approach.
They have more or less no DRM at all. I own Galactic Civilizations II, among a few others, and don't recall any intrusive or troubling DRM type stuff. I can just start up GalCiv2 without even having the disk in the tray, and with no signs of my external modem doing any 'phone home' stuff.
Their method to get customers to buy their games?
You need to register an account with them, and you must register a valid game serial number in order to get stuff like updates.
Simple, yes? A little added incentive to buy the game. Especially since they claim to be well aware that some 'pirates' are more of a 'try before you buy' mindset.
It probably also keeps away those that only pirate stuff for the challenge of it, since there is no challenge in pirating/cracking something that has no real protection in the first place.
One company (I forget which one) 'got in trouble' when they wanted to show how stupid that Stardock was for not using DRM, by spreading around a link to a torrent site where people could get 'pirated' copies of Stardock games.
That's right. Another game company provided links to a torrent site that had pirated copies of Stardock games, as 'proof' of Stardock's 'error' of not using DRM. (they later apologized and removed the link)
Oh, I also hear that Stardock has a few people (unsure if employees or fans) that actually wander the net from time to time, looking for Torrent sites and whatnot with pirated Stardock games, with Stardock then requesting for said sites to have said pirated copies be removed.
I can see how that would work well. Comply to a nice 'request' to remove 'illegal' software, or contemplate if some 'downloaded 10,000 times' thing is going to be a multiplier for fines relating to software piracy.
Genius, simply genius... stop
bitching about the problem, don't punish the honest customers, entice people to wanting to actually own the game, and actually put some efforts into actually protecting their IP and investments/sources of income.
Sounds better than jumping up and down and throwing a temper tantrum because things aren't going their way and beating up customers with draconian traps and senseless requirements while amused pirates watch from the shadows.
I wonder how long it will be until buying a game requires physically taking your computer to a game company, being stripped searched, and escorted to a super vault guarded by a paramilitary force where armed techs must oversee the installation of a special computer chip required for the game to even play, before then installing a copy of the game that is prone to self destruct if you so much as update a display driver at home without some armed corporate tech providing a one use 1024bit passcode needed to ensure the DRM that you aren't downloading a super hack 'n crack n' torrent program, and with an EULA that has loop holes saying the DRM can fry your computer for any reason it pleases just because it thinks you are chatting with someone that has the same nation wide covering ISP as a person that is a relative of some person that thought about cracking a game when they were a kid?
Okay, I think I am done ranting for now...
A final thought (or several).
What would happen if a company did finally get a DRM that did as they wanted, but that the game it was with was something that honest customers would not touch with a 10ft pole, or would be unable to play it, and that pirates didn't care because it took one all of 5 minutes to blast the DRM to bits?
That would be a sight. A game so heavily protected that only pirates with expert cracking skills can play it, leaving the company with a 99.9% return rate and servers crashed by support requests and complaints so numerous that it hits the company like a denial of service attack.
Heck, I wonder what would happen if someone created a DRM that was the equivilent of Skynet...
Maybe I should stop now...
I should get back to Dawn of Discovery (published by Ubisoft, not surprisingly...) and try to figure out how I am supposed to find, unlock and start a quest that I keep failing for not completing it in time... (damned 'needle in a haystack' quest markers...)
Back later. 
I think it is retarded. The only people who will be annoyed by this are the legitimate buyers, their customers.