Exactly what Reviewers Said Would Happen to UBI’s DRM Happened March 8, 2010

I’ve held off talking about Ubisoft’s new Digital Rights Management that they intend to put in all of their PC games from now on because it seems that the issue has already been gone over with a fine tooth comb well before I even got this website up and running.

To say nothing of the fact that nobody liked it.  To say nothing of the fact the only people who did was Ubisoft (reviews went through the floor on their games and they lost probably millions in sales from people like me who are just not buying it) the people on the internet have another “told you so” they can give to the big man.

When reviewers started getting the prerelease versions of these games they tested the limits of it and were not happy.  You would not be able to restore your game if your connection failed for any time, and if the connection on either end failed (and it would) you were not able to play your purchased game.

UBI said this would never happen….on their end.  They said that their DRM servers were perfect and would never fail.  They did, all weekend.  I’m sorry, you were told better, you should’ve listened.

On the other side there are much better services already in existance you could’ve used and ignored for some reason.  Valve’s Steam, another online based program does not require online use after inital authorization.  You’re more than welcome to run the Steam program in offline mode, and it will not stop your game immediatly after login.  You’re also welcome to install Valve’s games either through disc or internet download on as many PC’s as you’d like (but please only play one game on one computer at one time).  Like with anything, Steam’s had its problems, but it doesn’t punish it’s user for them.  If you had such a demand for online authorization, you should’ve used them.

Better start working on those 1.02 patches and fast.  Retailers are probably going to be demanding their money back from all the users that have probably already returned their games defective to the store.