Opinion: Ubisoft's content protection system defeats the point of single player gaming

Posted on 7 Apr 2010 at 07:01

I've been playing The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom. It's a reasonably fun addition to my strategy games collection, offering military, economic or technological paths to victory in any given scenario. The game is the first in the franchise to offer online multi-player games. Unfortunately, it's also the first in the series that requires you to be online constantly, even for single-player gaming.

I only found this out when my internet connection failed and the game promptly froze with a black screen and a pop-up telling me that I could either wait until my connection had re-established, or save my game and quit to Windows. Even my save games have to be stored on a remote server – this is actually a great idea, as I like to game on multiple PCs, but I'd still like to have a local copy that I could load instead if necessary.

Ubisoft's stance, as stated in a Gamespy interview with Customer Service and Production Planning Director Brent Wilkinson, is that "most people are always connected to an Internet connection".

However, even the most stable connection can suffer downtime for one reason or another. This weekend I was plagued by a faulty network port, and even my usually-stable Virgin cable broadband service has been known to go offline due to damage or scheduled maintenance.

And you know what? It's exactly when my net connection is down that I'm most inclined to play a single-player game. I find that it helps to stave off the symptoms of ravening internet withdrawal. The requirement for a net connection also means that I'll never be able to play Settlers 7 to while away long train journeys or plane flights.

For me, internet downtime is rare, but I know people in more remote parts of the country who are dependent on mobile broadband or even dial-up internet connections. Using either method to provide a constant connection while gaming could be an expensive prospect, depending on your subscription plan. Ubisoft's position is made no stronger by reports of server outages on its end that have prevented players from connecting.

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User comments

Let me go out on a limb here...

These idiots don't get it. THEY are ruining sales not pirates. Overpriced and over-DRMed. Let's see how long it takes for an internet-free version to appear.

By DrTeeth on 17 May 2010

Dear God. I don't have an internet connect AT ALL at home. So how do they expect to sell to an old time Daggeffall/Morrowind/Oblivion and original C&C for DOS gamer like me?!? I have bags of cash to spend, nothing to spend it on!

By MikeE on 9 Jun 2010

"will they ever learn?"

Anyone remember that only a week or so past, half the UK found itself without an internet connection for hours?

OK, so not being able to play your current favourite game for half a day is hardly a call for COBRA to meet, but it might deter you from picking up the game again - or from buying the sequel.

Perhaps someone should remind them of how Sony shot itself in the foot. Some years ago they created a new recording format called the Mini-Disk. Musicians across the world were wowed - it was a digital format that gave brilliant sound (much better than mp3) and you could record on to a mini-disk with great fidelity, and it had (at first) the promise of really good archiving virtues.

Then the fly in the ointment became apparent - Sony's obsession with DRM. They were really worried that people would copy things on to a mini-disk and then use that fantastic quality to make further copies.

So they crippled it. You could record on to a mini-disk via a mike, but not any other way. You could transfer what you had recorded on to a hard drive via optical link, but not the other way round.

There were devices which allowed both-ways copying, but they were expensive and strictly not portable.

Reluctantly musicians realised that this was not a serious tool for writing and editing music. Most of them stopped using it for that reason. (The remainder discovered that the units which looked so lovely didn't last, and couldn't be repaired - which SO Sony.)

Sony recently said that they were giving up on the mini-disk.

Maybe the quality issues would have sunk it anyway, but the obsession with DRM led to the manufacturers crippling the product.

Kat, thanks for the warning about Settlers 7 - I'll not buy it, and I'll double check the T&C on other games as well.

Good job I've still got some old fashioned ones waiting to be played.