UbiSoft Online Controversy

[Toejam]

as a long time heroes player i think this blows.. screw ubi, i hope they can find a new public for there games but for me it stops when they are pulling these tricks...

[astral76minor]

There was a thread here about Heroes being bought from Ubisoft to another European company. So if Heroes is made from someone else, we may end up with a decent game.

[Arzang]

I hate this internet arrogance. I live in Stockholm, Sweden and not having an internet connection here is almost unheard of. Everyone I know has a broadband connection.



BUT people on the countryside, in other countries or playing on computers other than their primary computer may not have an active internet connection.



Quite a stupid decision.

[Roman]

I guarantee that I will not purchase any Ubisoft games that have this Draconian DRM (DDRM) no matter how good thay may be otherwise.



Do not despair, however, my fellow gamers. EA has tried pulling something like this (though nowhere near as bad as what Ubisoft is trying to do) on its customers in 2008 and 2009. The backlash was huge and those of us who care about some of the games they publish were consistently vocal about it, both on EA's boards and elsewhere on the internet as well as to our real life associates. There were petitions and practically wherever an EA game was talked about on the internet there would be a mention of their DDRM system. We campaigned against it vigorously for some time although for many months it looked like a hopeless endeavor. Eventually, however, EA buckled under the PR pressure and relented from its practices. Its newer titles no longer require online authentication to play and we have happily returned to buying their titles and the campaign against them stopped.



I don't care enough about Ubisoft's titles (the only title I am going to boycott is HoMM VI or a new MM game, neither of which are even confirmed, since I wouldn't likely have bought their other titles anyway) to participate in an active campaign against the company like I did against EA's DDRM system - I simply won't purchase any of Ubisoft's games. However, rest assured that sustained PR pressure CAN have an effect on major corporations and CAN lead to a change in their behavior and removal of DDRM from their titles.

[GreatEmerald]

I don't care enough about Ubisoft's titles (the only title I am going to boycott is HoMM VI or a new MM game, neither of which are even confirmed

No, MMH6 is confirmed, and it's named MMH6, not HoMM6.

[Corlagon]

Urrgh, not if I can help it. I still haven't gotten over that dreadful name change.

[Kalah]

Penny Arcade's response: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/2/19/

[ToweringAmishPlumber]

I couldn't agree with you more. I will NOT buy any more Ubisoft games

if they actually institute this policy. Besides all the negatives you mention, what about when you are traveling (plane, train, bus, whatever) and there is no way to connect to the internet and you want to play a game on a laptop?

In a similar vein, I really, really wanted to buy "King's Bounty: Armored Princess" because I enjoyed "King's Bounty: The Legend" immensely. However, apparently the only way is to download it. This pisses me off to the point where I won't buy it. I would be more than willing to spend extra for shipping, handling, etc. to have my own discs.

[rdeford]

Good article. I agree with ALL of it. I will add this: I continue to play many old games from time to time. HOMM3 and HOMM4 are just two examples. How could I play these games if I had to connect to the company server with an Internet connection? Easy answer: the company no longer exists so I could not play them. To put it another way, I have outlived many corporations (not just game developers) and I intend to keep on doing so. Consequently, I will not buy a game that forces me to connect to a company server while playing. Any corporate marketing fool who thinks I am in the minority of gamers is in for a rude awaking. I hope he or she can live on the French equivalent of unemployment.

[klaymen]

If they use their new DRM in new HoMM game, then the series would be dead for me. Simple as that.

And if anything (=low sales), they can still blame piracy, right?
I hope they will fail hard.

[astral76minor]

None of this thread really matters if someone buys the rights to Heroes. On CH, there was a post about a company who was rumored to buy Heroes (I think it was a racing vehicle type game company).

Without a LAN based function, yes, this thread is relevant. We all know that the servers are inferior. Turning Heroes into an MMORPG would be the end of everything.

[Kalah]

For now, Ubi have no intention of selling the M&M franchise; they want to develop it themselves. I think they will only try to offload it if sales drop drastically.

[Ethric]

Or when their ideas have driven them to the brink of bankruptcy

[Ryder]

@ ToweringAmishPlumber - Check Ebay Australia mate. I got mine from seller pulsar-au and they have 10 copies available at the moment.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I won't be buying a single player game that requires an online connection and stores my games on the company server. Servers go down. Servers have down time for maintenance, ect.

Ubi may say they don't care what the fans say about the issue but if the fans boycott their products they'll come to their senses.

I skipped buying Spore because of EA's stupid DRM. Maybe I'll pick it up in the bargin bin some day.

[ByteBandit]

Looking ahead with this idea, and they had a map editor for the game, I guess this means you would have to go online to make it. For those with limited online hours it would be out of the question to make a quality map on time. You'd be thinking more about how much time you have left rather than the quality of the map. Kinda turns off the creative juices a bit does'nt it? What a can of worms!

[rdeford]

@ GOW -- I went ahead and bought Spore against my better judgement. Sorry I did it. As far as I can tell, the online connection was supposed to give me a sense of being in a community. I think this "benefit" was targeted at those people who like being in a social network more than they like playing a game. However, the game is not much fun to play, so the social networking benefit was lost on me.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Thanks for the feedback on Spores. I thought it would be a neat game to try but the DRM nixed it for me. I heard they made some changes to the DRM now but I haven't looked into it.

I have a constant internet connection but it is just the idea of it being required, plus my single player games being stored online and being limited in playing the game whenever they are doing server maintenance.

From what I hear the servers for UBI has for HOMM5 are unreliable and there is no reason to trust they will be improved for HOMM6.

[klaymen]

My faith in humanity has been lost.

Of course, Steam forums are a sewer full of trolls, fanatical Steam fanboys and overzealous moderators, but this OP sounds like complete moron or Ubisoft employee.

[parcaleste]

... Also if they ever shut down the servers they have stated they will release a patch to make this game not require servers...