Ubisoft ditches PC DRM tactics

Written by David Hing

September 6, 2012 | 09:21

Tags: #drm #piracy

Companies: #ubisoft

Ubisoft has abandoned its pirate-fighting strategy of requiring a constant internet connection for its PC releases to run.

The publisher has been notorious for its DRM measures that require a persistent internet connection, even for the single player portion of its games. It has argued in the past that this has been necessary in its fight against piracy.

However, the publisher's director of online games Stephanie Perotti told Rock Paper Shotgun that Ubisoft's DRM policy was abandoned back in June 2011 following feedback from the gaming community. The company's PC titles will now only require a one-time online activation to be playable.

As well as removing the constant internet connection requirement, PC games will also now have an unlimited number of installs and will be able to be activated on multiple machines.

Perotti also clarified claims made by Ubisoft chief executive Yves Guillemot last month that Ubisoft sees a 93%-95% piracy rate on its PC titles. She sates that this figure only related to 'some specific or popular PC games' and that the figures were based on internal and external research.

Ubisoft's requirement for a constant internet connection to run its games debuted in The Settlers 7 and drew further attention from the gaming press with its inclusion in the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2. The DRM strategy garnered particular criticism from gamers who frequently lost progress whenever their internet connection was severed.

In July this year, Ubisoft claimed that it considered its DRM strategy to be successful as it had seen a clear reduction of piracy on titles that carried the measures.
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