News Ubisoft disables Uplay over free game exploit

Grabbing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon not exactly subtle.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/04/10/ubisoft-uplay/1

 

Read further: it has only taken the ability to download a game away; you can still play your already-downloaded Uplay games (including those that were downloaded using the exploit, for now) without issue - unless you've heard differently? (I can't test it: there's no Uplay client for Linux.)

 

Yeah, that's what Ubisoft has told me - but I wondered if Corky42 knew something I didn't. Like I say, I can only take Ubisoft at its word: I have no Uplay installation to test out.

 

No, it isn't. You've made several unwarranted assumptions there, based on your own bias. First, and least: I am not Bit-Tech. Bit-Tech is not me. Bit-Tech is a site which publishes words written by as diverse a group of people as you are likely to find sharing a common interest. Amazingly, we don't always agree on a given subject. Shocking, I know. Anything I write should not be taken as "Bit-Tech saying" anything, but simply something I am saying on Bit-Tech. See the distinction.

More importantly, you have misinterpreted the statement in a way that conforms to your pre-existing view - confirmation bias. At no point in the article did I claim in any way that digital distribution requires DRM. Look at the Humble Bundle: digitally distributed games, no DRM. Clearly, it works.

What I said - and, indeed, what you quoted - is that a given digital distribution service lives or dies by, among other things, 'the strength of its digital rights management (DRM) implementation.' This is a fact: a digital distribution service with a weak DRM implementation will not have publishers banging on its door. This is not the same as saying that DRM is required - just that if it is present, it must be reliable. Amazon's Kindle platform is not the best example, but one that is easily accessible to the public: it has (trivially breakable) DRM, but the publisher can choose whether or not to use that DRM. It's as simple as a checkbox when you publish your book: "Use DRM." Tick the box, DRM gets used; don't tick the box, it doesn't.

The Humble Bundle gets used despite not having any DRM, by publishers (or indies, in most cases) who have decided they don't need or want DRM. Other services offer - or, in some cases, force - DRM, and are used by publishers who have decided they do want DRM.

Still confused? Let's simplify: imagine three digital distribution services. Let's call one Bumble Hundle, one PlayU and one Vapour. Bumble Hundle has no DRM, PlayU has DRM that has been proven ineffective, and Vapour has DRM that has so far resisted attack. If I'm a publisher who has decided that my latest and greatest game should be protected from those filthy piratical types by DRM, which am I going to pick: the one without DRM, the one with known-vulnerable DRM, or the one with apparently secure DRM?

Exactly.

As I said, digital distribution services live or die by the perceived security of their DRM implementations. What I didn't say, and what perhaps may have prevented you from misreading the sentence quite so badly, was this: digital distribution services live or die by the perceived security of their DRM implementations where such implementations exist. Does digital distribution require DRM? Of course it doesn't, as a glance at the Humble Bundle proves.

Hope that's cleared things up for you.

 

Actually, I'm on my laptop right now.

So you should be. Hyperbole? On *my* internet?