[Doink the Clown]

Hot on the heels of our story Are The Days Of DRM Numbered? news reaches us that for its upcoming title, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Ubisoft is abandoning its despised always-on internet DRM, which continues to cause much controversy. This type of DRM requires the hapless gamer to have a persistent internetconnection, with authentication data constantly flowing between their computer and Ubisoft's servers. The instant that connection is interrupted, the game stops dead in its tracks with a warning message to restore the connection. What if someone experiences an extended ISP outage? What if they want to play while away on holiday, where there's no internet connection, or it's very limited and expensive? What if the authentication servers fall over as they have done so in the past? There are in fact, too many serious negatives to list here. This is a dreadful and shameful way for Ubisoft to treat its customers who are being handled like criminals with curfew electronic ankle bracelets. This requirement eats into a gamer's monthly bandwidth allowance just for the benefit of Ubisoft. No wonder it's despised and hated so much.

This drop is despite Ubisoft claiming that it has reduced piracy significantly. Apparently, they have seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success". What they haven't said of course is whether the reduction in piracy has actually increased sales. If it had, one would expect this glorious achievement to be shouted from the rooftops, wouldn't it? The only thing that companies listen to are their bottom lines and lawsuits, which really affect their bottom lines. Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that sales have actually reduced due to this draconian DRM. Also, the servers must be expensive to maintain, which eats into their precious profits too. Hence, it sounds like they're just keeping their options open with that statement. Shall we take bets on them dropping always-on DRM from all their titles in time? The sooner the better. PC gamers will have to wait until December, a few weeks longer than their console counterparts, to get their hands on the game.

http://www.techpowerup.com/154949/Ub...velations.html