MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: How do you measure a reduction in game piracy?

> > > > You don't. You just make a bullshit claim without any possible way of backing
> it
> > > up.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-28-ubisoft-drm-strategy-is-a-success
> > >
> > > The weird thing is - they mean Steam right? That article makes it sound like its
> a
> > > Ubisoft propriety thing when loads of people publish exclusively on Steam these
> > days
> > > Just sayin
> >
> > No, they don't mean Steam. Steam does NOT need to be connected to the internet at
> all
> > for you to launch or play a single player game. This DRM requires a connection at
> all
> > times while playing.
>
> Well the article says
> "As revealed earlier this week, Driver: San Francisco is the latest Ubisoft PC title
> to demand users only play when they have an internet connection"
> And here http://store.steampowered.com/app/33440/ is the link to purchase said
> 'Driver: San Francisco' on Steam
> So either Ubisoft have their own DRM in addition to also publishing via Steam, in
> which case the article is misleading or they just have no idea about what you can and
> can't do with Steam!
> So there!

It has become more common among the major publishers to use multiple DRM schemes together on a single title. Ubisoft is indeed using an additional layer of their own DRM in addition to Steam, and have been doing so for some time.

Ubi have already proven that they're wrong:

March last year, they were hacked and shut down for several days, stopping anyone from playing their offline single player games.

April last year, the DRM was hacked, allowing pirates to play the games even when paying customers couldn't.

January this year, patches were released removing the DRM from a couple of the games, but they left it in others and said they would continue to use it.