Ubisoft undone by anti-DRM DDoS storm
Protests over anti-piracy controls hobble games firm
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Ubisoft has confirmed its rights management servers were hit by a fierce DDoS attack over the weekend that left some customers unable to play its games for much of Sunday.
The attack is an apparent protest at controversial new DRM controls by the video game publisher which mean customers have to be online in order to play its latest PC games such as Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter 5.
The introduction of so-called Online Services Platform technology last month means it's impossible to play a game without an internet connection or save progress while playing a game if an internet connection is lost, as explained in a interview with Ubisoft by PC Gamer here.
The controls, designed to combat piracy, have sparked much negative comment in the gamer community and apparently inspired action by hacktivists over the weekend that curtailed gameplay for some.
"Apologies to anyone who couldn't play ACII or SH5 yesterday," Ubisoft said in a post. to its official Twitter account on Monday. "Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30pm to 9pm Paris time."
"95 per cent of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors," it added in a later update.
Meanwhile Ubisoft's much criticised controls have been broken by software hackers. A hacker group called Skid-Row managed to bypass DRM restrictions on Silent Hunter 5 less than 24 hours after the game was published. Skid Row has releasing a crack for the game based on this work, Zdnet reports. ®
COMMENTS
This is it!
I'm officially boycotting Ubisoft and all their DRM-infested shite. Even if they publish the BEST game in the world, I'm not touching it until they remove the DRM.
What, do they think we are stupid or something?
Theree is a patch available
You can find it on pirate bay called ***Full Version Cracked*** you have to Un-install the faulty version first though. Then you will be able to play without having to be connected to the interent.
Honestly, I don't know where the fuck the publishers think they are going with this shit. Taking the PC games industry to hell in a handcart, with consoles close in tow.
Viva la Indie games!!!!!
You've obviously..
Never tried working out the cost of five nines uptime on things. You don't get that on residential broadband, so you can be quite happy playing your game, all oblivous, until boom, you're dropped out for no apparent reason.
This is all very acceptable for online games (which have built in methods for handling 'linkdeath'), but are a really, really stupid idea for a single player game, especially one that apparently doesn't cache a save.
Whatever the arguments to and fro about DRM, piracy, ethics and what not, there are two simple facts at the moment:
1) If you purchased this game with the DRM in it, you can't it play right now.
2) If you obtained the pirated version of the game with no DRM, you can currently play it just fine.
All the niceties stripped away, that's what you have. Guess what message that sends to paying customers?
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