Ubisoft... Yet another company to stop supporting?

[jacobroufa]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/ubisoft-lied-about-from-dust-drm-ubis-war-on-pc-gamers-continues.ars

From the article :

The game was scheduled to be released alongside its console counterpart, but it was delayed at the last moment, with Ubisoft promising that it would not require an Internet connection to play after an initial activation. The game was finally released and... guess what? Ubisoft lied. The original forum post has been edited with the new information, the company is stone-walling fans and the press who ask for comment, and no one is happy. Oh, and the port is absolutely terrible.

"It's impossible to launch From Dust, even from Steam in offline mode, without being online. Launching the game fires up their new Ubisoft Game Launcher, which refuses to work unless it can find a connection," Rock Paper Shotgun reported.

There is no one-time activation; the game has to phone home every time you attempt to launch it or you cannot play the game you paid for. This is even more galling after being promised something completely different before the game's launch.

What's worse is the utter lack of care given to the game, even after the delay. The title is locked at 30fps, with no graphical options. There is also no support for anti-aliasing, causing the game to look jagged on the PC. To add insult to injury, the game has already been successfully cracked, making the activation requirement apply only to paying customers. Pirates, once again, get a fully functional version of the game.

What's the gaming world coming to, when several-years-old CONSOLE hardware is outperforming modern PCs? We have SOOOO much more capability in our ONBOARD GPUs than any console out would ever have... so why the fucking :bird: to PC gamers?

[B NEGATIVE]

Because it takes less time and resources to create a console game,one platform to rule them all....
You got grounds for refund on that,not fit for purpose.

[B NEGATIVE]

I am pretty gutted tho...i love GRAW,please dont fuck it up Ubisoft.....i dont want to fuck you off with Activision....but i will if you lie to us.

[Ezveedub]

Software companies make tons of money on consoles games. Since PC copy versions get hacked all the time, they won't pay it much attention anymore. And they want online connections to clamp down on the hacked copies running on PCc, that's the reason they do that.

[BrokenHalo83]

Software companies make tons of money on consoles games. Since PC copy versions get hacked all the time, they won't pay it much attention anymore. And they want online connections to clamp down on the hacked copies running on PCc, that's the reason they do that.

which is completely stupid since people have been able to hack past online activation as long as its been around. These are just lazy excuses to maximize profit and minimize cost. All the current gen consoles have been hacked and can play burnt games

[B NEGATIVE]

which is completely stupid since people have been able to hack past online activation as long as its been around. These are just lazy excuses to maximize profit and minimize cost. All the current gen consoles have been hacked and can play burnt games

Only for a while,then it gets patched and your console gets bricked....so you have to buy a new console which is more money,they aint stupid.
You will always lose out to remote firmware updates...

[nova777]

I live in Montreal,Canada home of Ubisoft.I have enjoyed playing some of their games.
The fact they are lying to the people putting bread on their table does not bode well
for Ubisoft.Tell the truth or Fuck Off.I will think twice before I buy anything from
Ubisoft in the future.
Cheers

[BrokenHalo83]

Only for a while,then it gets patched and your console gets bricked....so you have to buy a new console which is more money,they aint stupid.
You will always lose out to remote firmware updates...

only if you don't keep up on firmware updates. i know people that have had a modded 360 for over 2 years. they play on live, no issues. if you have enough common sense to stay on top of the updates (a new firmware update is usually out within a couple days of an update). So you usually only brick it if you're dumb enough to think that a single firmware is all you will ever need or if you're a complete idiot and go play a game on live/PS3 network before release date.

[B NEGATIVE]

only if you don't keep up on firmware updates. i know people that have had a modded 360 for over 2 years. they play on live, no issues. if you have enough common sense to stay on top of the updates (a new firmware update is usually out within a couple days of an update). So you usually only brick it if you're dumb enough to think that a single firmware is all you will ever need or if you're a complete idiot and go play a game on live/PS3 network before release date.

= 90% of PSN/XBOX LIVE....
Microsoft know a cash cow when they see it,why are profiles not banned for firmware modding? cos people will always buy another console.

[runnin17]

I am really surprised that Ubisoft is getting away with this kind of crap. It sucks because I wanted to buy the new Anon game that will be coming out. It is produced by Ubisoft. Guess that is another game that I will be passing on. Fuckers!

[XMT_Systems]

Ubisoft has been getting away with this crap for years. It all comes down to corporate greed. I can't help but wonder if things might be different should Ubisoft do away with DRM licensing and authentication servers altogether, and use the money saved to lower prices. In the current economy, and projected economic forecast, $50-$60 for a game you can beat in 2 days is way too much money.

If Ubisoft were to lower prices to something fair, become more customer centric (rather than criminalizing their paying customers with intrusive DRM), and knock it off with the fucking console port bullshit, I'd be willing to bet they would gain a lot more loyal customers which would also improve their bottom line. Fuck console gaming :bird:

(I know people that have purchased Ubisoft games, only to go and download a cracked DRM-free version to avoid putting that bullshit on their computer; I can't blame those people a bit)

[ricko]

What's the gaming world coming to, when several-years-old CONSOLE hardware is outperforming modern PCs? We have SOOOO much more capability in our ONBOARD GPUs than any console out would ever have... so why the fucking :bird: to PC gamers?

The problem is not as straightforward as one might think. Though console hardware may be even an order of magnitude slower in calculations/time t, there are certain functions they can still perform an order of magnitude faster than current gen PC GPUs. The issue at hand is not the GPU hardware (ATI or Nvidia); it is the drivers and layers of abstraction necessary to run a game at the application level.

For those interested check out the John Carmack interview here:

Embed please ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hapCuhAs1nA

Though I agree with the rest of the above. Fuck Ubisoft and fuck their DRM scheme on a shitty port that incentivizes piracy.

[jacobroufa]

If Ubisoft were to lower prices to something fair, become more customer centric (rather than criminalizing their paying customers with intrusive DRM), and knock it off with the fucking console port bullshit, I'd be willing to bet they would gain a lot more loyal customers which would also improve their bottom line. Fuck console gaming :bird:

This. Wholeheartedly yes. This is one of the biggest reasons I LOVE the influx of indie games, especially on Steam. Not a huge fan of where Valve has taken things in general, but their support of small-time dev shops is great to see. If more big companies were to develop their business models like small shops, the implication could be huge.

The problem is not as straightforward as one might think. Though console hardware may be even an order of magnitude slower in calculations/time t, there are certain functions they can still perform an order of magnitude faster than current gen PC GPUs. The issue at hand is not the GPU hardware (ATI or Nvidia); it is the drivers and layers of abstraction necessary to run a game at the application level.

Yeah, I know all that but that shouldn't be an excuse... It never used to matter so what has changed? Though, I was reading an interesting article on Ars a few months back where AMD was talking about greatly minimizing the abstraction layers.