Always Online DRM

If this does indeed succeed as an effective DRM method, I believe it might take sometime for the usual PC pirate crowd to shift to a purchasing frame of mind instead. It's really not black and white, people don't think like that.

 

I suspect what's more likely is it will simply take more time for the crackers to break it.

 

If it's just some sorts of check data (e.g. the client requests the server for some digital signature to check whether it's the authentic server), it's easy to bypass the check. Just patch the program to jump over the checks and it should be ok.

Another way is to put something on the server to compute. However, this is very hard to do well. It's preferable to be some random data. For example, if a game has randomly generated maps for each session, it's easy to make the map generation done on the server. This way, it's much harder for a cracker to replicate that. However, not every game is designed to work this way. If it's just getting the same thing from the server over and over, it's easy to replace them with locally stored data. For example, if the client has to get the map (a fixed data) from the server for each session, a cracker may be able to make a fake server which serves the same data (if there are digital signature involved, it can be patched away).

 

Looks like AC2 has been properly cracked, without a server emulator. So it took them a while, but I expect it to be quicker next time around.

 

I wasn't expecting it to last forever and one month seems okay for a version 1 of the system. If most sales do indeed happen in the first 1-2 months a protection like this could work. Whether this kind of DRM puts off some potential buyers still remains to be seen, though.

If they move more data and game logic to the cloud next time they might be able to make it hard enough for cracking groups so that it will last at least a few months.

Makes me wonder at what point it stops making financial sense to spend money on these DRM systems and it would simply be cheaper to not bother with PC versions at all.

 

If the programmers do their homework and see how the protection was attacked they can make it harder next time. If they stick to the same system, sure it will be broken way quicker. That's why off the shelf protections don't work unless your team is willing to spend time and resources customizing the code.

 

Likewise, the crackers now have an understanding and new tools with which to crack the new protection.

 

Just a semantics thing, but why isn't the server emulator a "proper crack"? Granted it's not as elegant as a new .exe, but it worked just spiffy and got around the DRM.

I counted the server emu as the legit crack date for that title, and I've been arguing about it with people so I thought I'd get the view from here.

 

I suppose an emulator doesn't meet "scene rules". If you think about it, an emulator doesn't excise the copy protection, but merely redirects to something that sends the proper responses to the untouched program. Because there hasn't actually been a crack of the game itself, an emulator isn't considered to have broken the DRM.

It's semantics, but it's the difference between cutting out the copy protection, and just fooling the program (in however a sophisticated way) to keep running with the original copy protection still in place.

The difference doesn't matter to someone who just wants to download the game for free, but in the world of scene cracking groups competing with each other, it's an important distinction. The only other difference is that there can be a performance hit with virtual machines/emulators, but it's probably less and less significant in these days of high powered gaming rigs.

I would guess that Ubisoft agrees with you and counted from the availability of the server emulator as when their AC2 DRM was compromised (as that's when you could play the game without paying). The fact that a scene group now has a handle on the DRM and may have done the tools and research to do the next crack of the same system in days rather than weeks may invalidate the whole system.

If the next game still takes weeks to crack because there may be a requirement to pull every game to pieces and find whatever all the trigger values are from the server, then Ubisoft may consider that successful enough to keep the first month's sales to themselves.

 

From the latest SKIDROW nfo:

Code:

ßßß  ° Û A little statement about the work involved:                    Û Û
     ± Û                                                                Û Û
     Û Û To clear the minds of the individuals who think: "Game x was   Û Û
     Û Û done fast and this one taking ages" etc.  The way the Ubisoft  Û Û
     Û Û DRM works, makes it so that every game is like a brand new     Û Û
     Û Û challenge. What it does do, is offload certain parts of the    Û Û
     Û Û game to a server, game then requests those things at runtime.  Û Û
     Û Û These parts can be anything that the developer wants. In the   Û Û
     Û Û case with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, those things  Û Û
     Û Û were:                                                          Û Û
     Û Û                                                                Û Û
     Û Û - Levers logic                                                 Û Û
     Û Û - Door timing                                                  Û Û
     Û Û - Upgrades                                                     Û Û
     Û Û - Abilities                                                    Û Û
     Û Û - XP & Levels                                                  Û Û
     Û Û - Area codes                                                   Û Û
     Û Û                                                                Û Û
     Û Û Every time you step on a button "in game", it sends a request  Û Û
     Û Û to server asking what to do. Server then sends the door code   Û Û
     Û Û to open, including how much time it stays open. Levers work    Û Û
     Û Û similarly, every time you press the "TAB" button to display    Û Û
     Û Û skills, game asks again server: "What skills do player have",  Û Û
     Û Û and so on and on.                                              Û Û
     Û Û                                                                Û Û
     Û Û All that stuff takes a lot of time to implement right and we   Û Û
     Û Û do implement it like the original do. All our doors open and   Û Û
     Û Û close with exact same time factors as the retail do. We just   Û Û
     Û Û wanted to clarify a little how the Ubisoft DRM really does     Û Û
     Û Û work, because a lot of those individuals we mentioned in the   Û Û
     Û Û beginning of this statement didn't seem to understand, yet     Û Û
     Û Û what kind of monster this is. It's not some simply "Values"    Û Û
     Û Û going around like it were with Assassin's Creed II.            Û Û

 

Brilliant. This kind of DRM will work even better on longer games because that will take even longer to find all server communications and completely emulate all possible responses. Maybe we'll stop getting 5 hour CoDs. I'm torn: invasive DRM or games that last longer than intercourse? Decisions, decisions!

 

Nice work. Now all they have to do is make it more subtle so a wrong "emulator" will have consequences further into the game. Imagine a guy who has pirated the game being stuck in the last level because the crack was not 100% accurate and reported the wrong value in level 1.

If the system delays the crack 1 month or so I'd say it has served its purpose.

 

That sort of DRM has already been done. Some games would have the characters run slower or effects run out quicker or have everyone explode into flames if the DRM wasn't perfectly removed.

 

Unfortunately that has been found to be very counter-productive as people download the game to see if it's buggy or simply because they won't pay, they see the DRM introduced bugs, and then report the game as being full of bugs. Genuine buyers are kept away by this reputation. The DRM working as it is designed actually discourages genuine sales because word of mouth labels the game as buggy enough not to buy.

Yes you've stopped people playing your game without paying (at least for a day or two until a crack arrives), but you've inadvertently generated a grass-roots, word-of-mouth advertising campaign driven by thousands of people on the internet that tell people not to buy the game.