Ubi under fire as DRM servers go down

By Ellie Gibson Published 8 March, 2010

PC gamers unable to play ACII or SHV.

Update: Ubisoft has blamed the outage on outside attacks.

Original story: Reports are emerging that the servers for Ubisoft's new digital rights management system have gone down, preventing users from accessing their games.

Ubi recently introduced the new system with Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter V. It requires players to remain connected to the internet at all times. But posters on the company's official forum claim an error message is being received when trying to connect to the servers.

The problems appear to have begun over the weekend. Community manager Ubi.Vigil wrote on the forum, "I don't have any clear information on what the issue is since I'm not in the office, but clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly as I've been told these servers are constantly monitored." The server issues have been attributed to "exceptional demand".

Only those who purchased a copy of ACII or SHV legally appear to be affected. Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (58) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • monkey_man #1 2 years ago

    *Picard ASCII facepalm*

    Oh wait, this isn't Digg. What can you say?
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 09:22

  • Rirekon #2 2 years ago

    "I told you so"?

  • Earlyflash #3 2 years ago

    Sigh. Not exactly unexpected demand is it?

  • bumgut #4 2 years ago

    The server issues have been attributed to "exceptional demand".

    That makes me feel much better. Thanks Ubi!!

  • Meho #5 2 years ago

    Heh... Murphy's Law makes Ubi look like fools. More news at eleven.

  • PearOfAnguish #6 2 years ago

    So there's been a sudden rush on a three month old console port and a submarine sim? Who could have guessed they would be so popular.

  • ZuluHero #7 2 years ago

    Well the last line made me laugh... Same can't be said for people who bought the games.

    And the response “I’m not in the office right now” is a joke. IF you’re going to enforce such stringent and quite frankly draconian restrictions you better be prepared to have 24/7 support and tech teams to maintain it.

  • bad09 #8 2 years ago

    UBi next week I am buying a game or two, guess who's games would have been bought if the DRM was not there. Instead of AC2 and the rather cool looking silent hunter I shall buy Metro 2033 and have a nose at what else is around.

    What's the bloody point in beating the pirates (which after I researched some popular torrent sites comments you won't it seems as it's already semi-working and all the pirates expect it to be fully working as early as this week) if nobody who actually pays for their games wants to give you money?
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/10 @ 10:22

  • Eraysor #9 2 years ago

    It was inevitable that they would cock up badly somewhere along the line. The whole idea is a farce.

  • Buran #10 2 years ago

    " Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem."

    Sensationalism. Cracked versions doesn't even work properly.

  • bad09 #11 2 years ago

    @ Buran

    To be fair to EG it does seem they have been able to play it better than a lot of PAYING customers this weekend.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 10:13

  • Gl3n #12 2 years ago

    Idiotic policy is idiotic.

  • jellyhead #13 2 years ago

    How can you force people to use your service and then not have the support in place to allow them to use it. You're not exactly a small company or a new company so why were there no contingency plans? Why was there no official response to the fiasco?

    It's almost like they want people to stop buying their PC games. Sure piracy is the big bad wolf at the moment but driving your customers away with terrible customer service is not going to help sales. Concentrate on the people that pay not the people that don't or you'll find that pre-orders and launch sales decline while people wait and see if the game is actually playable. Like me, i'd say that many will now be holding off on Ubisoft's titles for while after launch, better revise those sales estimations and timelines for the future, Ubi.

    Terrible service, terrible.

  • dacicus #14 2 years ago

    WOW! What a surprise....In the meanwhile the pirates would get a better crack and the paying customers will get cumulated frustrations. And SH5 sold that many already????! I have serious doubts there. It was always a niche game. So I can only guess that there are no dedicated servers for one game in particular, but all are thrown on the same servers in a nice mix.

    Well, I've had 3 games that I've wanted from the spring lineup and all are having this beautiful DRM. They can keep their games, I can keep my money. See you, Ubi! Maybe after bankrupcy, seeing how your entire spring lineup is "blessed" with this DRM ( 7 games ). You should have followed the EA's example, that introduced the same DRM in C&C4 to test how the market will respond. But you fail again to learn from yours and others mistakes....

  • davisorle #15 2 years ago

    Ubi, just for that I'm going to dl the copy of your games ( both of them ) right now even if I was already not interested in neither just cause of all the delay and DRM convos. I won't have time to even play them more than half hour each after the installations but I'll only do it to contribute against your morronism. Fuck you too Ubi.

  • hiddenranbir #16 2 years ago

    "Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem."

    Except those games are incomplete and don't work past the beginning??

    I can journalism better, woo!
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 10:35

  • Stardusted #17 2 years ago

    Server problems that prevent you from playing a single player game... I know that I am one of the many who said/say/will say this but come on... that's the epitome of stupid

  • bad09 #18 2 years ago

    @ davisorle

    I know it is HUGELY tempting to say "up yours Ubi!" and pirate the game, they have asked for it IMO. While I was nosing at the pirates progress on torrent sites last night I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to download it just out of spite, but it's really not the answer my friend.

    Just ignore their products and spend with people who actually care about their customers. It may deny you some great games but it's the only way to combat such disgusting companies.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 10:48

  • matrim83 #19 2 years ago

    I know it sucks for people who bought this but the mean part of me is going "Tough shit, you are part of the problem."

    Anyway all of Ubi is on an ignore from me till they unfuck themselves.

  • jellyhead #20 2 years ago

    Yes, please don't pirate it as they use those torrent figures to justify these draconian, anti-consumer moves.
    Just ignore Ubisoft and buy another game. There's planty of great games on the PC still and many developers actually deserve your support. If you really must have a Ubisoft game then buy it second-hand for one of the consoles. You play the game but Ubisoft get nothing still.

    Don't pirate it, that's why they're doing this garbage DRM in the first place.

  • Darren #21 2 years ago

    Correction: There is NO error message at all, what happened was that when you tried to resume your save game you saw a message that AC2 was "establishing network connection. Please wait" but it took an usually long period of time to do so, 35 minutes for me at one point. When the servers are working you don't see this bit at all as the game just loads normally once you select your save file.

  • sneetch #22 2 years ago

    " Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem."

    /20's tough guy mode on

    Hey, youse guys, this dame is alright! She's got moxie!

    /20's tough guy mode off

    BTW guys I think this is just an in-joke: Ellie and the others in EG know what people have been saying and this is a tip of the cap to that and to the whole "legitimate customers are the ones who get screwed over the most" argument.

    I will be avoiding all UbiSoft games like the plague until they drop this DRM. A pity as I was really looking forward to Conviction.

  • X3Entente #23 2 years ago

    i miss the halycon days of N64 goldeneye when u could just slot in your games and play without having to wade though a sea of half remembered passwords, firmware updates, account logins, account merging, synchronisation, server errors and verifaction processes.

  • Darren #24 2 years ago

    Aren't you the lucky one, Gremmi!

    The game worked fine for me on Friday and all of Saturday apart from pausing for a few minutes when my internet connection dropped. Sunday though was a different matter with the game randomly exiting to the desktop four times with no warning or error message (not even in the Event log) and four times taking over 5 minutes to log in with one exceeding 30 minutes! All the while there was no problem with my internet connection as I was still able to post Ubi Soft's forum, they were all due to server issues at Ubi Soft's end, which has now been confirmed through articles like this one on EG.

  • Caimbeul #25 2 years ago

    HAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    at Ubi, not the poor legitimate customers who are suffering.

    Anyone think this willhelp change thei mind?

  • KillerMonkey #26 2 years ago

    I can't help myself laughing at this. It's just so perfect.

  • Theorendil #27 2 years ago

    Score one for the pirates! AGAIN!
    It only took one weekend ("exceptional demand"! I mean who could have predicted that the weekends, when you know people have the most amount of free time, would be the busiest days of the week for gaming servers?) to prove that this system can't work and is absolute rubbish! The way i see it, developers should stop wasting their time developing all this DRM nonsense and just release their games DRM free. You can't beat the pirates, especially now that they seem to be providing a superior version (ie one that is playable 24/7) of the same product for free! Unless of course the conspiracy theorists are right and PC publishers are commiting slow suicide so that they can devote their full attention to the more lucrative console market... Because seriously, i can't think of another reason why Ubisoft with all this attention that their new DRM system has drawn from the press all this time, wouldn't have had a truck load of its employees on stand by to make sure that something like this doesn't happen during its first weekend ! I'm sure they could afford to pay some of their employees to work overtime!

  • Murton #28 2 years ago

    I don't have any clear information on what the issue is since I'm not in the office

    Well surely as community support manager it's your job to phone/IM/email the office to get those particulars is it not?

  • TeaFiend #29 2 years ago

    Take that naysayers who thought this might not happen.

  • Sunyavadin #30 2 years ago

    Correction: There is NO error message at all, what happened was that when you tried to resume your save game you saw a message that AC2 was "establishing network connection. Please wait" but it took an usually long period of time to do so, 35 minutes for me at one point. When the servers are working you don't see this bit at all as the game just loads normally once you select your save file.

    Sounds an awful lot like Steam the week Half Life 2 came out, when I needed to decide 45 minutes in advance when I wanted to play it.....

  • sneetch #31 2 years ago

    @Murton
    Well surely as community support manager it's your job to phone/IM/email the office to get those particulars is it not?

    Well, they seemed to think it was worth stressing that they would not be waiting until Monday to sort this out: they're apparently forgetting that these services work on internet time and that always on means always on. Not always on unless it's the weekend or a bank holiday or Frank is having his birthday party that night.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #32 2 years ago

    Well, shit. Sorry for all the folks who are currently unable to play the games. Pretty much everyone had their doubts when Ubi announced this kind of DRM and it didn't even take a week until the first problems started to appear. Shame on you Ubi; I know you want to protect your IP, and I support that, but seriously; If you demand 24/7 online connectivity from your customers you should be able to provide 24/7 support.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 11:34

  • Krusty #33 2 years ago

    Haha, who didn't see this coming?!

    The thing that gets me is that it's on Steam, but they still insist on using their DRM rather than the authentication built into Steam.
    I would have bought AC2 aswell, but will not be buying anything by them from now on.

  • davisorle #34 2 years ago

    @bad09
    Like i said earlier, not only I dont have the time for those games, I also didnt plan on playing them over half hour eitherway since ive been fully put off with all the mess and talks about it.

  • SYS64738 #35 2 years ago

    @ Davisorle

    But by downloading you contributed to the piracy statistic that Ubi will use to justify their DRM measures. Whether you played the game or not is irrelevant.

    I'm forcing myself to not buy or pirate this. Am glad I did, even though I'm missing out on some great games.

    What I found quite curious though is the high demand for these games, either the servers are indeed shared as somebody said before, or perhaps this could be some type of DOS attack by pirates to make a point?
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 11:41

  • davisorle #36 2 years ago

    @SYS64738
    Id think the same thing about their servers but I bet they would of told us if it was attacked. Plus a DoSs attack takes a while more than them just saying its due to high demmand, making them sound as stupid as in " we didnt expect ppl to buy our game".

    But yeah I haven't neither plan on buying any of those two games. The only money they are getting from me are for SC:Conviction...

  • bad09 #37 2 years ago

    SYS64738 and jellyhead are right these companies wrongly use torrent statistics as "evidence" of "lost sales" to justify their control of paying customers, and sadly a lot of important people believe their rubbish claims.

    Just ignore their products and don't give the bastards an inch Davisorle.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 11:53

  • raion #38 2 years ago

    A DoS attack seems unlikely to me. First off, I think they would denounce if that was the case. Then, the DRM has already been cracked. Why go to through all the trouble to organize it, if there already is a (illicit) solution for those whom are bothered by it?
    Pubblic opinion is already firmly against it, as I gather, there is no need to hit them to prove something.

  • SYS64738 #39 2 years ago

    What I'm hoping for (especially after this PR fiasco for Ubi) is an offline version similar to Steam. What I don't like still is having to create (yet another) account. If I'd have to create an account for every single game company I purchased games for then half the data of the innernet would be related to me by now;)

  • Shikasama #40 2 years ago

    'Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem'

    Little more professionalism, little less trying to be funny

  • jellyhead #41 2 years ago

    @raion. I agree a DDOS attack is unlikely as from what i've read Ubisoft don't have the best reputation for server stability anyway. If they have the same ( suspected ) capacity and reliability issues at holiday times they'll be dead in the water this time next year i reckon.

  • Spekingur #42 2 years ago

    Even if pirates couldn't play it fully they at least were able to play some - something that paying customers couldn't.

  • jellyhead #43 2 years ago

    Apparently Ubisoft are insisting they were targeted by a filthy pirate attack on their servers. Shows how badly thought out and implemented this DRM is if pirates can stop legitimate customers playing their games.

    Nice one Ubi, now i have no faith in your service whatsoever.

    And here we go: [link url=http://www.videogamer.com/news/ubisoft_confirm s_server_attack.html
    ]http://ww w.videogamer.com/news/ubisoft_c...[/link]

    *sigh*
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 12:24

  • neems #44 2 years ago

    The sad thing is, 'exceptional demand' suggests that Ubi did in fact sell significant numbers of these two pc games, so what is this whole DRM thing about? Or perhaps what Ubi actually did was just put both games authentication on a single box, not realising that there are still people out there who actually pay for their pc games.

    Am I correct in thinking that Silent Hunter (Hunter Gathers) is a pc exclusive? One that sits in a decidedly niche market at that, and is the 5th in a series? And yet it gets made - Ubi must expect to make money on it, presumably the others have made money. If the Silent Hunter games can make money, any major AAA release on PC surely can?

  • ignatiusjreilly #45 2 years ago

    If the Silent Hunter games can make money, any major AAA release on PC surely can?

    Yes they can, but publishers look at console profits and decide PC releases aren't making enough money.

  • tossum #46 2 years ago

    @X3Entente Remember these halcyon days baby?:
    [link url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jet_Set_Willy_co lor_card.gif
    ]http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jet_Se...[/link]

  • Tangled #47 2 years ago

    Ubisoft offices, late evening...

    Intern: "Sir?"

    Management guy: "That took you some time, Matt. Let's be quick with this report - they're waiting for me to play a marbles game."

    I:"Right, um... ah there it is: AC2 launch went pretty well, the new DRM is doing good so far, we've seen no complete crack ye..."

    MG:"Great! Let me see that... Hahaha, we've shown the fuckers this time! Eat this, m***ckers! Who's your daddy? Who is?!"

    I:"...sir, it's been only a few days..."

    MG:"You dirty' stinkin' stingy bastards, we owned you! You...
    What is this? Matt, come and take a look at this. It appears... we have some people playing our game RIGHT NOW!"

    I:"Well yes sir, it's the custome..."

    MG:"What the fuck do they think they're doing!? You... you said it was secure! Fucking wankers! Matt, make them stop!"

    I:"But sir, they have pai..."

    MG:"You do something Matt and you do it fast, or you and each one of your coders is going to wear an Altair costume from the main hall and go out there get rid of the fuckers personally!"

    I:"Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" (hurries out of the office)

    MG:"We'll show them! No one is going to play our game! You hear me? NO ONE!! Now, where did my marbles go..."

  • jellyhead #48 2 years ago

    And LensLok.
    That was a stunning example of ill thought out DRM. Maybe it was Ubisoft's inspiration for OSP?

    i'd post a link but the random EG "Forbidden message" pops up. Sort it out, Craigy!

  • alcides #49 2 years ago

    Intellingence is NOT what drives a career. Proof: idiots thinking they can fight piacy by screwing consumers.

  • makeamazing #50 2 years ago

    I hate Pirates with a vengence and everything should be done to stop them, but this is no way to treat real customers :(

  • icematt12 #51 2 years ago

    This happened a lot sooner than I expected, it was inevitable really. Way to go Ubi, guys at Activision should be a little happier now.

  • Darren #52 2 years ago

    What really, really, really, really irks me about this DRM is that you can have a 100% stable internet connection but if there's a problem with the server itself then the game will just exit to the desktop, just like that... no warnings, nothing. If the problem is with your own connection dropping out then the game pauses until it can reinstate it.

    This method is so inane that I can't believe UbiSoft even allowed it because no server is 100% reliable and the last thing you want when playing a single player game which uses auto-saves only is for it quit out on you all of a sudden. Believe me it's immensely annoying.

  • jellyhead #53 2 years ago

    The people playing Silent Hunter 5 who drop out midway through a patrol agree with you wholeheartedly there, Darren.
    Stalking a destroyer, about to strike, heart in mouth and Blammo. Desktop.

    Awesome work there, Ubi.

  • jellyhead #54 2 years ago

    Looks like their forums are down. Probably being 'attacked by pirates'.
    Can anyone confirm it's them and not my connection?

  • SYS64738 #55 2 years ago

    Yep. Seems like forums have gone down to chinatown.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/10 @ 13:53

  • hahayou #56 2 years ago

    Well, isn't karma a bitc---TO COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE CONNECT TO OUR BROKEN SERVERS---

  • dacicus #57 2 years ago

    If Ubi's servers are vulnerable at a DDOS attack, that makes the problem larger then a downtime because the servers crushed or your connection dropped because of ISP. It shows how secure those servers are. Good PR is good PR, right?!

  • X3Entente #58 2 years ago

    @tossum
    i was born in 1988 so...not really lol