Wait, but they already launched it without Denuvo. So pirates can easily crack the launch version without it, and only paying customers need to deal with the antipiracy bullshit? Nice, they took a pro-piracy hyperbole and made it actually real.
DRM ONLY ever affects paying customers, ergo DRM is always unethical malware.
Also, let’s never forget how Ghostwire Tokyo had Denuvo patched IN over a year after release.
Eh, I only meant hyperbole in terms of antipiracy affecting the pirates that had to figure out how to crack it. As a broad gesture at the fact piracy (consumption) depends on piracy (effort) to work
I'm thinking this too... like what's even the point of using denuvo if it's not applied day one? The whole point is to delay piracy so they sell more copies during launch week (in theory), so waiting until after day one completely ruins that since you can just pirate the easily cracked launch version.
The point is that they purposefully left (or created) bugs in the day one version that are fixed in this patch after you install denuvo
It’s not the first time they’ve done something like that, they broke another assassins creed game and leaked it to get people to buy the real copy, this is no different
Doesn't this make it easier to crack the denuvo as well though? Since now you have a list of changes to look at for where denuvo is implemented.
I mean, decompiling an obfuscated binary down to each individual CPU instruction is pretty nuts to compare two separate releases, even at that level, denuvo can be injected into game assets everywhere, so it gets hard to tell what’s an actual patch and what’s denuvo. I’m guessing it’s sort of on purpose, by combining legitimate updates with denuvo, it’s harder to tell what’s denuvo. If denuvo was included in version 1, it would be easier to tell what was a legit update in the patch, and rule out those pieces of the install being denuvo. But that’s all sort of the whole point of denuvo is that it’s all over the codebase, all over the binaries, the assets, the libraries. It’s hard to nail down every spot it exists
It's not a day one patch, but day-1 patch. The game will be released a few hours from now.
If non DRM version is given to reviewers, it will leak to crackers, unless you control 100% of reviewers you give a copy. This does not make any sense.
That's the thing: paying consumers always pay the price for DRM by having to jump through any hoops.
There are no “hoops” here though?
Sounds like they added it after the review embargo ended but before the game releases to the public.
You're right, according to Ubi the update on PC was 'included in the 41.6 GB game files ahead of Oct 5'. It was a prerelease patch, not day 1.
Nice of Epic to start directly exploiting the lack of PC physical media around the same time people are talking about getting rid of disc drives on consoles.
Epic? This is Ubisoft.
I think the primary method of PC sales for this game is on the Epic Game Store. Yeah I neglected to consider it's also available from Ubisoft+ or whatever but also does anyone actually use that
Epic Game Store also doesn't have any preloading, meaning they had all the opportunity to deploy Denuvo pre-launch but post-embargo without having preloads as a loose end.
What does Epic have to do with this?
So time for those reviewers to send their version.
😂 yeah if they want to get blacklisted and sued.
Unless each review copy is internally flagged, I wouldnt expect anyone to own up to leaking the copy to even risk being sued.
Reviewers get games prior to release day. So it may not be so likely that you can get a working game without the day 1 patch.
Yeah, but pirates won't be able to get the newer updates/bugfixes
Ubisoft does the Ubisoft thing - nothing new under the sun.
Refund, refund, refund. The only single thing they will ever care about is the $.
I think anyone who reviewed it should publish a secondary videos explaining this.
This seems like it's legitimately false advertising
Where is the false advertising?
None of the reviewers experienced the game with Denuvo. Reviews are a form of advertisement (good or bad)
That’s not how it works. Someone else reviewing your product isn’t advertising by you.
Providing a deceitful product for your reviewers before publication is kinda exactly that.
They’re not advertising anything.
The point is, the reviews represent a game that's not the one being sold. Additionally, it's reasonable to believe this was done on purpose. This should be simple to understand ?
You know what’s simple to understand? False advertising. They’re not advertising the game as “no Denuvo!!” and then putting in denuvo. A completely independent company doing a review isn’t the publisher doing advertising.
Of course it is.
Them sending a copy of a game in the hopes the media outlet will write a favourable review is marketing 101.
It's practically free marketing, so it's the best kind even.
If the review came after launch from a purchased copy, then your argument would have had a leg to stand on mate.
False Advertising has a definition, and that ain't it. Someone else doing "free advertising" for them isn't false advertising by them.
This isn't rocket science. They're not doing any advertising saying it has no denuvo.
By your logic, if I release a drug not mentioning it will kill you while knowing it will, I am not guilty of false advertisement even if I send it out for free knowing this will be published.
Murder sure, but not false advertisement.
If a game is being sent out without a performance limiting software with a clear plan of introducing this for the retail version, I would argue it follows the actual definition.
Quote: «the crime or tort of publishing, broadcasting, or otherwise publicly distributing an advertisement that contains an untrue, misleading, or deceptive representation or statement which was made knowingly or recklessly and with the intent to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to the public».
It’s deceptive. There is no arguing it. You seem like a bright dude arguing a moot point in to deep to accept being wrong.
I’m not wrong though, which is why I won’t accept it. They didn’t publish an advertisement. End of story. It’s shady as shit, but it’s not false advertising because they didn’t advertise anything here, let alone “no denuvo!”.
Then I suggest you stop talking about rocket science until you gain the ability to see the world in a bit more of a nuance mate.
Have a great weekend!
By “more nuance” you mean “ignore meanings of words and terms”, right?
If you didn’t advertise something you didn’t do false advertising.
Ok
Actually this guy is correct: What Ubisoft is doing here isn't false advertising, it's fraud.
False advertising is a very specific thing: You say something that isn't true in an ad or as part of your product's packaging. Like saying your product has a USB C port when in reality it has a Micro USB port and comes with an adapter. Companies that pull stunts like that rarely have legal consequences but technically it is against the law (why there's not usually legal consequences is because most retailers will refund a product within 30 days without any penalty to the consumer).
Ubisoft is giving reviewers a different product than what they're planning on giving to consumers. It's like going to a car dealership, test driving a car, ordering that model, then when it finally arrives it's a completely different car (e.g. smaller engine, different/weaker/flawed parts, etc). Case law is filled to the brim with scams like this. It's one of the oldest and most widely-repeated types of fraud that's ever existed: Bait and switch.
Denuvo has an impact on performance for many games, so they artificially inflated the performance, and some people don't buy games with Denuvo on principle, many reviewers will note that in their video.
That’s not false advertising by the developers/publisher.
Fuck off with your corporate shilling
Imagine being so dumb you think that correctly pointing out when something isn’t false advertising is “corporate shilling” 😂
You're arguing over semantics. Legally it's not false advertising but it effectively is. You're both talking past each other but only one of you is being stubborn for the sake of it. I'd have little patience for you too.
If Denuvo's claim that their DRM has no negative performance impact were true, then why Ubisoft pull this shenanigan (adding Denuvo DRM just hours before release)? Ubisoft must've know their game run better without Denuvo so they want the reviewers to play the drmless version.
Everyone knows Denuvo's statement isn't true. There are hundreds of games with Denuvo that have improved performance after being cracked, compared to the legitimately owned version. This conversation pops up all the time. It's quite funny when pirated games have a better experience. At least until Denuvo is removed to cut cost (it's a subscription).
Offering a specific version of the product for reviewers to write about that buying customers won't get? fry-im-shocked.gif
The sad part is that tomorrow they could release "Assasins Creed: Reflection". And people would make the exact same mistake all over.
You know Ubisoft has a shit reputation.
You know Bethesda is famous for broken, buggy, glitchy games.
You know Blizzard Activision isn't the same as old Blizzard. Don't you guys have phones?
I didn't buy this game. I didn't buy Starfield, and I didn't buy Diablo IV.
Anyone not blinded by hype could see this coming to all those games from a paid pre-alpha deluxe collectors gold season battle pass track booster mile away.
the error is buying a game from a series with 11 games in development
they are going to run out of words in the dictionary to name these fucking games, they will start using words in a different language for the codenames.
Origins was first AC game I played. 3 months after completing origins, which had bored me to death, I tried my hand at Odessey. The gameplay was exactly same. It felt like I was playing the same game again. Exact same mechanics and combat style. Uninstalled within half an hour.
Then I tried Unity and Syndicate, because people praise them so much. And I realised that Ubisoft has been remaking the same game over and over for more than a decade now. They just change the setting and rehash everything. The animations in Unity look exactly same as Odessey.
I had the same fear when I picked up Miles Morales, that it would feel the same as previous Spidey game. But they quickly introduced a few new mechanics which made the game feel ever so slightly different.
It was OK when the games were a bit smaller (and also makes more sense when played in the right order).
Going from 1 to 2 was a huge improvement, as 1 felt more like a tech demo. Then they added two more 2's, and frankly they were the exact same.
3 was a bit shit, and lost the city charm. It doesn't really work in the countryside.
Black Flag was massively popular at the time, because the pirate ship stuff was cool, and it also featured the least amount of Assassin's Creed gameplay. I think the more recent games still haven't matched that feel with any of the ship gameplay.
Unity shoehorned in multiplayer, and managed to annoy both single player fans (who don't want multiplayer) and multiplayer fans (because there's like 4 missions you can do in co-op).
I didn't play Syndicate because I was bored to fucking death of AC by this point.
Origins tried turning it into a massive RPG, with levels and choices that don't really do anything, and stopped assassinations from actually being a guaranteed kill if your stats weren't high enough.
Odyssey did more of the same, added the boat back in, and made the whole game ridiculously big. Like, there's good stuff in there (the Minotaur tourist trap is a favourite, along with some of the fantasy elements), but you've genuinely seen most of the gameplay the game has to offer before you've even got off Tutorial Island. It doesn't even really get harder. There's just more of it. It was in serious need of an editor to bring it down to about a third of the size.
I'm still so burnt out on finishing that like 3 years ago, that I've not played Valhalla either.
3 was great in the forest and old timely cities/towns
It also had better ship combat than 4
But like you said; it shouldn’t have been in the IP
I think Odyssey has comparable ship combat to 4
I tried Valhalla (on console so I pirated it) but I have no idea how long the game is. At the start of the game you’re told to wait “there” so I left the console on for an hour and it was still just waiting. Haven’t touched it since
I'm kind of the opposite side of the spectrum for at least some parts. If anything, I've been wishing the games would go back to the old formula. I felt like as the games progressed, they added just enough to keep me interested, and I liked the story. Black Flag was really great, despite the fact that it had less traditional AC game play in it. But I did like it when it was there, and the ship stuff was cool.
Then came Oddysee, which, I liked, but kind of wish it had more AC stuff. Played a decent bit of Odysee, but didn't ever get around to finishing it.
When they said they were going back to their roots, I thought that sounded awesome, but for obvious reasons was a bit hesitant to get excited.
Odyssey had a lot of QOL fixes over Origin
Miles Morales,
That’s funny because I hated everything they changed. If I’m playing a Spider-Man game why would I want to have a super punch (and metre to fill it)? And they showed that in the teaser for the next game so I feel they didn’t learn any lessons about spider man being spider man
Why the hell would they add the DRM after release when the game is already cracked before the DRM was added? I can never understand this logic.
To fuck over their customers. As usual.
Before and on release date, most sales are to a minority of highly engaged gamers that then create reviews and hype. Ubisoft needs that hype as they know the majority of the profit they will make is from sales after the release when the general public reads those reviews and then decide to spend their dollar on the game because the reviews were good. Also the majority of the general public won't pirate anyway...
But once it's out it's out. I at least understand the logic of DRM from launch because it delays cracks, but once you've released without DRM it's out there lol.
Maybe the drm is so fucked that the game performance suffers too much for the reviews
I have a hard time believing most people read reviews
I don't know how the launch went but these days the release version of games is usually a buggy mess with half the content stripped out of it so they can sell it later as DLC or a season pass
But... it's not cracked?
Ubisoft making themselves an even more loveable company...
Reviewers should subtract points from the rating of every new Ubisoft game, for the real potential of something like this happening after the review.
Reviewers take bribes.
Review versions of games are kinda like bribes.
If you're the only reviewer that doesn't get one then you won't have a review up for when people read them most, right on release day. So game companies can threaten to exclude you if you write something they don't like.
Imo they should be an everyone or no one deal, probably even by law.
We need a Micheal Ficher for game reviews.
Buys his own shit and tells the truth without nitpicking like a douche or fanboying like a simp
On another note this will make for an easy comparison of Denuvo ridden game vs Denuvo removed. The Day 1 Patch bringing some Fixes and Performance gains would muddy the results a bit but I think it's still a good idea to have a test like that. If the rumors/speculation about Denuvos performance impact are true I doubt even a Day 1 Patch would manage to balance out the performance difference.
Well, they've accidentally made a really easy workaround, then. Just download the day one depot and you can play without Denuvo.
True, but will also prevent you from getting any other updates or bug fixes. This is such a scummy action for Ubi to do, I wouldn't it put it past em to pair this with some sort of game bricking.... "glitch" that needs a patch.
They did exactly that In another assassins creed game
It's simple. Stop buying crap products!
That's the thing though - they deliberately made the product crappier after people already bought it.
Think this applies if Denuvo is included from the beginning, but it wasn't here
Lesson is to make steps being even more patient and play backlogs and opt for older titles that are cheaper. Doesn't even have to be super old. Could be just within a year. Very few games these days that are an absolute much play the moment it drops. Haven't actually come across any of that caliber past decade, but maybe I'm too patient.
I've heard that Baldur's Gate 3 was a massively successful launchday title, though it's not my cup of coffee.
There are still good games around, just unfortunately not the majority of them
There were still a lot of bugs that they are still patching. But even on day 1 baldur's gate 3 was amazing.
Baldur's Gate 3 also was in Early Access for a few years so people had plenty of independent experiences to base their opinion on. The release content was more, true, but there were a lot of known factors.
Yeah but it's an assassin's screed game it was crap before denuvo.
Hope people demand refunds over it.
Half the people don't know what denuvo is.
Well I know what game I'm not buying. This should just fuel the pirate ships I'd think.
That's a brand new way to fuck users' ass. Very impressed.
ELI5?
Denuvo is a very complex anti piracy system for games that is pretty controversial. There's a lot of evidence that it affects performance and it forces games that wouldn't otherwise need Internet to be activated online regularly.
It's the kind of thing that a reviewer would mention and that some people would use in their buying decisions. Sneaking it in after launch is going to make some people pretty mad and I'd feel used as a reviewer.
Denuvo is like having to call your helicopter mom every other minute to make sure you still have the right to play.
If the call fails, or she doesn't pickup, or if you can't call for any reason (maybe your in the woods and have no service) you're instantly teleported into a dark room and all your toys are gone because everyone assumes you're a criminal now.
All great explanations, thanks everyone! But this is my favorite so far, thanks!
Denuvo is always online DRM software, that usually results in performance issues (reduced frame rate, increased latency, stuttering, etc.).
In this case it appears Ubisoft avoided tried to skirt the potential bad press from performance issues by delaying the inclusion of denuvo until after people had bought the game/early reviews came out.
Are there any publishers that aren't actively trying to sabotage their own userbase? Activision? Ubisoft? Blizzard? EA? Even Valve now going to town on shitty microtransactions and deleting CS:GO?
CD Projekt Red..?
I guess they did it since Denuvo is generally known to cause performance issues in games.
So, reviewers gave scores on the denuvo-less game, which would have better performance, thus better scores, then they patched denuvo into it, so that they will get their drm and any performance drops will not play a role in any low scores.
But I can't understand why reviewers can't update their review... maybe it's expensive for major reviewers?
I'm sure some will, the result will still be as intended though: a higher Metacritic score
Denuvo bad.
In the (vain) quest to make people stop pirating, it goes so far (admittedly also comes the closest to "working") that it starts causing significant side effects. It's also apparently always online, which is a historical pet peeve for a lot of people: it doesn't add any value to the game, but it does add a buttload of possible extra ways for the game to crash or become unavailable. With no benefit to you, the player, and not much you can do about it, other than playing the games of someone who's not quite as much of a dick.
Early adopters pay more for less anyway and they will remove Denuvo after a few months, because it's a subscription service. Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.
Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.
You serious?
Obviously the sooner they crack it the sooner they can sell to impatient pirates. The market is only going to decrease over time, and if you're beaten to the punch you lose out on loads of customers.
Lol pirates by definition don't pay for software, there's no profit in developing cracks beyond cred.
Paying for a pirated game? If I wanted to pay for it, I wouldn't be looking into pirating it in the first place.
I also would not pirate anything at all because it's illegal and I'm only speaking hypothetically.
Lol, no, pirates dont pay for anything. The cracking community is almost entirely clout based, its just for the bragging rights of being the smartest programmer out there.
Empress is an anomaly, and I dont actually think shes ever been paid her obnoxious "fee." And even she is only claiming a fee for the clout, as a way to say "no one else can do what I do so its pay up or fuck off"
It was the same with lies of P.. I think it's becoming a trend and someone needs to stop it, it's false advertising. None of the reviews are credible, they're not reviewing the same game
I think Valve has the power to end this nonsense...
Ah shit... Removed it from my wishlist. At least I didn't already buy it.
Nah, they don't need to stop this at all. This basically lets people pirate games all they want so long as the devs don't intentionally throw in a game breaking bug on the review version.
Yeah I will never not dislike Ubisoft games on principle
Wouldn't buy from there crap launcher anyway.
Last I checked, you had to download and launch from Uplay even if you buy game from other stores.
I haven't buyed any of their games after they pull a stunt on Brotherhood anyway.
Man I uninstalled Steep from my PC yesterday. I had to download an update to their shitty launcher and then login just to remove a game from my PC. I also have ghost recon on Epic games which requires you to use the launcher to launch another launcher to launch the game.
Buying the games is genuinely a worse experience than pirating them. Fuck Ubisoft but also EA and other publishers that do this bullshit.
Yes very true Ubisoft games take much longer to launch than others. I believe because of this. And by longer I mean like an easy minute longer.
I… but… that… that isn’t how this works…
You’re putting the cat outside after it already ate the canary.
Fuck Ubisoft
It’s Ubisoft, who would be surprised? Pirates get a better experience than paying customers and it’s been that way for over a decade
Hardly anyone is streaming it. It's the same cringy dialogue with the same boring game as its predecessors. I haven't seen anything in any of the streams that would change my mind.
That ahould be a DLC.
Ubisoft is pretty much the most evil gaming company so this is not surprising at all.
EA, Konami and Blizzard give good competition, I wouldn’t be so sure.
OOTL, Konami?
So even if they had sold it on Steam, this was likely not going to work on Steam Deck? Doesn't this denuvo kind of stuff cause issues?
Denuvo doesn't prevent games working on Steam Deck, but depending on how it's implemented it can cause other problems like preventing a game from launching if it hasn't been able to connect online in a while, or weird performance issues. It varies from game to game.
Denuvo works perfectly fine on the Steam Deck/Linux. IDK why people keep repeating this.
Good to know. I haven't run into any issues, but I dunno if any games I've played had it. I had considered getting Mirage for Steam Deck, but I really don't want to own it on ubisofts app.
And people wonder why pirates still exist
What is the point of that, do they have a contract with denuvo stating that they must apply it or are they just stupid or something?
Somebody ELI5 this for me
I'm not following closely and haven't gamed on PC in a while but:
Denovo is a technology that is supposed to prevent copying games (DRM). Not sure what it's current state is or might be mixing it up with other DRM, but DRM is known for causing headaches for paying customers. Using excessive system resources, refusal to launch for legitimate paying customers, spyware/excessive data collected and sent to a corporation, etc. In some games, volunteers will patch bugs out of a game, and this will cause the game to think it's cracked and refuse to launch.
Some DRM is "phone home" and can't be played offline, so people in remote areas can't play. And sometimes the company doesn't want to keep servers online when the game has been out for 10 years, so people that purchased the game can no longer play.
In this case, the company let reviewers rate the game and got the initial scores and sales, then pushed the unpopular DRM update. It's scummy. If you're using it, then use it. Don't bait and switch.
Wait, but they already launched it without Denuvo. So pirates can easily crack the launch version without it, and only paying customers need to deal with the antipiracy bullshit? Nice, they took a pro-piracy hyperbole and made it actually real.
DRM ONLY ever affects paying customers, ergo DRM is always unethical malware.
Also, let’s never forget how Ghostwire Tokyo had Denuvo patched IN over a year after release.
Eh, I only meant hyperbole in terms of antipiracy affecting the pirates that had to figure out how to crack it. As a broad gesture at the fact piracy (consumption) depends on piracy (effort) to work
I'm thinking this too... like what's even the point of using denuvo if it's not applied day one? The whole point is to delay piracy so they sell more copies during launch week (in theory), so waiting until after day one completely ruins that since you can just pirate the easily cracked launch version.
The point is that they purposefully left (or created) bugs in the day one version that are fixed in this patch after you install denuvo
It’s not the first time they’ve done something like that, they broke another assassins creed game and leaked it to get people to buy the real copy, this is no different
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/935316-assassins-creed-directors-cut-edition/43146901
Doesn't this make it easier to crack the denuvo as well though? Since now you have a list of changes to look at for where denuvo is implemented.
I mean, decompiling an obfuscated binary down to each individual CPU instruction is pretty nuts to compare two separate releases, even at that level, denuvo can be injected into game assets everywhere, so it gets hard to tell what’s an actual patch and what’s denuvo. I’m guessing it’s sort of on purpose, by combining legitimate updates with denuvo, it’s harder to tell what’s denuvo. If denuvo was included in version 1, it would be easier to tell what was a legit update in the patch, and rule out those pieces of the install being denuvo. But that’s all sort of the whole point of denuvo is that it’s all over the codebase, all over the binaries, the assets, the libraries. It’s hard to nail down every spot it exists
It's not a day one patch, but day-1 patch. The game will be released a few hours from now.
If non DRM version is given to reviewers, it will leak to crackers, unless you control 100% of reviewers you give a copy. This does not make any sense.
That's the thing: paying consumers always pay the price for DRM by having to jump through any hoops.
There are no “hoops” here though?
Sounds like they added it after the review embargo ended but before the game releases to the public.
You're right, according to Ubi the update on PC was 'included in the 41.6 GB game files ahead of Oct 5'. It was a prerelease patch, not day 1.
Nice of Epic to start directly exploiting the lack of PC physical media around the same time people are talking about getting rid of disc drives on consoles.
Epic? This is Ubisoft.
I think the primary method of PC sales for this game is on the Epic Game Store. Yeah I neglected to consider it's also available from Ubisoft+ or whatever but also does anyone actually use that
Epic Game Store also doesn't have any preloading, meaning they had all the opportunity to deploy Denuvo pre-launch but post-embargo without having preloads as a loose end.
What does Epic have to do with this?
So time for those reviewers to send their version.
😂 yeah if they want to get blacklisted and sued.
Unless each review copy is internally flagged, I wouldnt expect anyone to own up to leaking the copy to even risk being sued.
Reviewers get games prior to release day. So it may not be so likely that you can get a working game without the day 1 patch.
Yeah, but pirates won't be able to get the newer updates/bugfixes
Ubisoft does the Ubisoft thing - nothing new under the sun.
Refund, refund, refund. The only single thing they will ever care about is the $.
I think anyone who reviewed it should publish a secondary videos explaining this.
This seems like it's legitimately false advertising
Where is the false advertising?
None of the reviewers experienced the game with Denuvo. Reviews are a form of advertisement (good or bad)
That’s not how it works. Someone else reviewing your product isn’t advertising by you.
Providing a deceitful product for your reviewers before publication is kinda exactly that.
They’re not advertising anything.
The point is, the reviews represent a game that's not the one being sold. Additionally, it's reasonable to believe this was done on purpose. This should be simple to understand ?
You know what’s simple to understand? False advertising. They’re not advertising the game as “no Denuvo!!” and then putting in denuvo. A completely independent company doing a review isn’t the publisher doing advertising.
Of course it is.
Them sending a copy of a game in the hopes the media outlet will write a favourable review is marketing 101.
It's practically free marketing, so it's the best kind even.
If the review came after launch from a purchased copy, then your argument would have had a leg to stand on mate.
False Advertising has a definition, and that ain't it. Someone else doing "free advertising" for them isn't false advertising by them.
This isn't rocket science. They're not doing any advertising saying it has no denuvo.
By your logic, if I release a drug not mentioning it will kill you while knowing it will, I am not guilty of false advertisement even if I send it out for free knowing this will be published.
Murder sure, but not false advertisement.
If a game is being sent out without a performance limiting software with a clear plan of introducing this for the retail version, I would argue it follows the actual definition.
Quote: «the crime or tort of publishing, broadcasting, or otherwise publicly distributing an advertisement that contains an untrue, misleading, or deceptive representation or statement which was made knowingly or recklessly and with the intent to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to the public».
It’s deceptive. There is no arguing it. You seem like a bright dude arguing a moot point in to deep to accept being wrong.
I’m not wrong though, which is why I won’t accept it. They didn’t publish an advertisement. End of story. It’s shady as shit, but it’s not false advertising because they didn’t advertise anything here, let alone “no denuvo!”.
Then I suggest you stop talking about rocket science until you gain the ability to see the world in a bit more of a nuance mate.
Have a great weekend!
By “more nuance” you mean “ignore meanings of words and terms”, right?
If you didn’t advertise something you didn’t do false advertising.
Ok
Actually this guy is correct: What Ubisoft is doing here isn't false advertising, it's fraud.
False advertising is a very specific thing: You say something that isn't true in an ad or as part of your product's packaging. Like saying your product has a USB C port when in reality it has a Micro USB port and comes with an adapter. Companies that pull stunts like that rarely have legal consequences but technically it is against the law (why there's not usually legal consequences is because most retailers will refund a product within 30 days without any penalty to the consumer).
Ubisoft is giving reviewers a different product than what they're planning on giving to consumers. It's like going to a car dealership, test driving a car, ordering that model, then when it finally arrives it's a completely different car (e.g. smaller engine, different/weaker/flawed parts, etc). Case law is filled to the brim with scams like this. It's one of the oldest and most widely-repeated types of fraud that's ever existed: Bait and switch.
Denuvo has an impact on performance for many games, so they artificially inflated the performance, and some people don't buy games with Denuvo on principle, many reviewers will note that in their video.
That’s not false advertising by the developers/publisher.
Fuck off with your corporate shilling
Imagine being so dumb you think that correctly pointing out when something isn’t false advertising is “corporate shilling” 😂
You're arguing over semantics. Legally it's not false advertising but it effectively is. You're both talking past each other but only one of you is being stubborn for the sake of it. I'd have little patience for you too.
If Denuvo's claim that their DRM has no negative performance impact were true, then why Ubisoft pull this shenanigan (adding Denuvo DRM just hours before release)? Ubisoft must've know their game run better without Denuvo so they want the reviewers to play the drmless version.
Everyone knows Denuvo's statement isn't true. There are hundreds of games with Denuvo that have improved performance after being cracked, compared to the legitimately owned version. This conversation pops up all the time. It's quite funny when pirated games have a better experience. At least until Denuvo is removed to cut cost (it's a subscription).
Offering a specific version of the product for reviewers to write about that buying customers won't get? fry-im-shocked.gif
The sad part is that tomorrow they could release "Assasins Creed: Reflection". And people would make the exact same mistake all over.
You know Ubisoft has a shit reputation. You know Bethesda is famous for broken, buggy, glitchy games. You know Blizzard Activision isn't the same as old Blizzard. Don't you guys have phones?
I didn't buy this game. I didn't buy Starfield, and I didn't buy Diablo IV.
Anyone not blinded by hype could see this coming to all those games from a paid pre-alpha deluxe collectors gold season battle pass track booster mile away.
the error is buying a game from a series with 11 games in development
https://en.as.com/meristation/news/ubisoft-has-11-assassins-creed-games-in-the-works-n/
they are going to run out of words in the dictionary to name these fucking games, they will start using words in a different language for the codenames.
Origins was first AC game I played. 3 months after completing origins, which had bored me to death, I tried my hand at Odessey. The gameplay was exactly same. It felt like I was playing the same game again. Exact same mechanics and combat style. Uninstalled within half an hour.
Then I tried Unity and Syndicate, because people praise them so much. And I realised that Ubisoft has been remaking the same game over and over for more than a decade now. They just change the setting and rehash everything. The animations in Unity look exactly same as Odessey.
I had the same fear when I picked up Miles Morales, that it would feel the same as previous Spidey game. But they quickly introduced a few new mechanics which made the game feel ever so slightly different.
It was OK when the games were a bit smaller (and also makes more sense when played in the right order).
Going from 1 to 2 was a huge improvement, as 1 felt more like a tech demo. Then they added two more 2's, and frankly they were the exact same.
3 was a bit shit, and lost the city charm. It doesn't really work in the countryside.
Black Flag was massively popular at the time, because the pirate ship stuff was cool, and it also featured the least amount of Assassin's Creed gameplay. I think the more recent games still haven't matched that feel with any of the ship gameplay.
Unity shoehorned in multiplayer, and managed to annoy both single player fans (who don't want multiplayer) and multiplayer fans (because there's like 4 missions you can do in co-op).
I didn't play Syndicate because I was bored to fucking death of AC by this point.
Origins tried turning it into a massive RPG, with levels and choices that don't really do anything, and stopped assassinations from actually being a guaranteed kill if your stats weren't high enough.
Odyssey did more of the same, added the boat back in, and made the whole game ridiculously big. Like, there's good stuff in there (the Minotaur tourist trap is a favourite, along with some of the fantasy elements), but you've genuinely seen most of the gameplay the game has to offer before you've even got off Tutorial Island. It doesn't even really get harder. There's just more of it. It was in serious need of an editor to bring it down to about a third of the size.
I'm still so burnt out on finishing that like 3 years ago, that I've not played Valhalla either.
3 was great in the forest and old timely cities/towns
It also had better ship combat than 4
But like you said; it shouldn’t have been in the IP
I think Odyssey has comparable ship combat to 4
I tried Valhalla (on console so I pirated it) but I have no idea how long the game is. At the start of the game you’re told to wait “there” so I left the console on for an hour and it was still just waiting. Haven’t touched it since
I'm kind of the opposite side of the spectrum for at least some parts. If anything, I've been wishing the games would go back to the old formula. I felt like as the games progressed, they added just enough to keep me interested, and I liked the story. Black Flag was really great, despite the fact that it had less traditional AC game play in it. But I did like it when it was there, and the ship stuff was cool.
Then came Oddysee, which, I liked, but kind of wish it had more AC stuff. Played a decent bit of Odysee, but didn't ever get around to finishing it.
When they said they were going back to their roots, I thought that sounded awesome, but for obvious reasons was a bit hesitant to get excited.
Odyssey had a lot of QOL fixes over Origin
That’s funny because I hated everything they changed. If I’m playing a Spider-Man game why would I want to have a super punch (and metre to fill it)? And they showed that in the teaser for the next game so I feel they didn’t learn any lessons about spider man being spider man
Why the hell would they add the DRM after release when the game is already cracked before the DRM was added? I can never understand this logic.
To fuck over their customers. As usual.
Before and on release date, most sales are to a minority of highly engaged gamers that then create reviews and hype. Ubisoft needs that hype as they know the majority of the profit they will make is from sales after the release when the general public reads those reviews and then decide to spend their dollar on the game because the reviews were good. Also the majority of the general public won't pirate anyway...
But once it's out it's out. I at least understand the logic of DRM from launch because it delays cracks, but once you've released without DRM it's out there lol.
Maybe the drm is so fucked that the game performance suffers too much for the reviews
I have a hard time believing most people read reviews
I don't know how the launch went but these days the release version of games is usually a buggy mess with half the content stripped out of it so they can sell it later as DLC or a season pass
But... it's not cracked?
Ubisoft making themselves an even more loveable company...
Reviewers should subtract points from the rating of every new Ubisoft game, for the real potential of something like this happening after the review.
Reviewers take bribes.
Review versions of games are kinda like bribes.
If you're the only reviewer that doesn't get one then you won't have a review up for when people read them most, right on release day. So game companies can threaten to exclude you if you write something they don't like.
Imo they should be an everyone or no one deal, probably even by law.
We need a Micheal Ficher for game reviews.
Buys his own shit and tells the truth without nitpicking like a douche or fanboying like a simp
On another note this will make for an easy comparison of Denuvo ridden game vs Denuvo removed. The Day 1 Patch bringing some Fixes and Performance gains would muddy the results a bit but I think it's still a good idea to have a test like that. If the rumors/speculation about Denuvos performance impact are true I doubt even a Day 1 Patch would manage to balance out the performance difference.
Well, they've accidentally made a really easy workaround, then. Just download the day one depot and you can play without Denuvo.
True, but will also prevent you from getting any other updates or bug fixes. This is such a scummy action for Ubi to do, I wouldn't it put it past em to pair this with some sort of game bricking.... "glitch" that needs a patch.
They did exactly that In another assassins creed game
It's simple. Stop buying crap products!
That's the thing though - they deliberately made the product crappier after people already bought it.
Think this applies if Denuvo is included from the beginning, but it wasn't here
Lesson is to make steps being even more patient and play backlogs and opt for older titles that are cheaper. Doesn't even have to be super old. Could be just within a year. Very few games these days that are an absolute much play the moment it drops. Haven't actually come across any of that caliber past decade, but maybe I'm too patient.
I've heard that Baldur's Gate 3 was a massively successful launchday title, though it's not my cup of coffee.
There are still good games around, just unfortunately not the majority of them
There were still a lot of bugs that they are still patching. But even on day 1 baldur's gate 3 was amazing.
Baldur's Gate 3 also was in Early Access for a few years so people had plenty of independent experiences to base their opinion on. The release content was more, true, but there were a lot of known factors.
Yeah but it's an assassin's screed game it was crap before denuvo.
Hope people demand refunds over it.
Half the people don't know what denuvo is.
Well I know what game I'm not buying. This should just fuel the pirate ships I'd think.
That's a brand new way to fuck users' ass. Very impressed.
ELI5?
Denuvo is a very complex anti piracy system for games that is pretty controversial. There's a lot of evidence that it affects performance and it forces games that wouldn't otherwise need Internet to be activated online regularly.
It's the kind of thing that a reviewer would mention and that some people would use in their buying decisions. Sneaking it in after launch is going to make some people pretty mad and I'd feel used as a reviewer.
Denuvo is like having to call your helicopter mom every other minute to make sure you still have the right to play.
If the call fails, or she doesn't pickup, or if you can't call for any reason (maybe your in the woods and have no service) you're instantly teleported into a dark room and all your toys are gone because everyone assumes you're a criminal now.
All great explanations, thanks everyone! But this is my favorite so far, thanks!
Denuvo is always online DRM software, that usually results in performance issues (reduced frame rate, increased latency, stuttering, etc.).
In this case it appears Ubisoft
avoidedtried to skirt the potential bad press from performance issues by delaying the inclusion of denuvo until after people had bought the game/early reviews came out.Are there any publishers that aren't actively trying to sabotage their own userbase? Activision? Ubisoft? Blizzard? EA? Even Valve now going to town on shitty microtransactions and deleting CS:GO?
CD Projekt Red..?
I guess they did it since Denuvo is generally known to cause performance issues in games.
So, reviewers gave scores on the denuvo-less game, which would have better performance, thus better scores, then they patched denuvo into it, so that they will get their drm and any performance drops will not play a role in any low scores.
But I can't understand why reviewers can't update their review... maybe it's expensive for major reviewers?
I'm sure some will, the result will still be as intended though: a higher Metacritic score
Denuvo bad.
In the (vain) quest to make people stop pirating, it goes so far (admittedly also comes the closest to "working") that it starts causing significant side effects. It's also apparently always online, which is a historical pet peeve for a lot of people: it doesn't add any value to the game, but it does add a buttload of possible extra ways for the game to crash or become unavailable. With no benefit to you, the player, and not much you can do about it, other than playing the games of someone who's not quite as much of a dick.
Early adopters pay more for less anyway and they will remove Denuvo after a few months, because it's a subscription service. Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.
You serious?
Obviously the sooner they crack it the sooner they can sell to impatient pirates. The market is only going to decrease over time, and if you're beaten to the punch you lose out on loads of customers.
Lol pirates by definition don't pay for software, there's no profit in developing cracks beyond cred.
Paying for a pirated game? If I wanted to pay for it, I wouldn't be looking into pirating it in the first place.
I also would not pirate anything at all because it's illegal and I'm only speaking hypothetically.
Lol, no, pirates dont pay for anything. The cracking community is almost entirely clout based, its just for the bragging rights of being the smartest programmer out there.
Empress is an anomaly, and I dont actually think shes ever been paid her obnoxious "fee." And even she is only claiming a fee for the clout, as a way to say "no one else can do what I do so its pay up or fuck off"
It was the same with lies of P.. I think it's becoming a trend and someone needs to stop it, it's false advertising. None of the reviews are credible, they're not reviewing the same game
I think Valve has the power to end this nonsense...
Ah shit... Removed it from my wishlist. At least I didn't already buy it.
Nah, they don't need to stop this at all. This basically lets people pirate games all they want so long as the devs don't intentionally throw in a game breaking bug on the review version.
Yeah I will never not dislike Ubisoft games on principle
Wouldn't buy from there crap launcher anyway.
Last I checked, you had to download and launch from Uplay even if you buy game from other stores. I haven't buyed any of their games after they pull a stunt on Brotherhood anyway.
Man I uninstalled Steep from my PC yesterday. I had to download an update to their shitty launcher and then login just to remove a game from my PC. I also have ghost recon on Epic games which requires you to use the launcher to launch another launcher to launch the game.
Buying the games is genuinely a worse experience than pirating them. Fuck Ubisoft but also EA and other publishers that do this bullshit.
Yes very true Ubisoft games take much longer to launch than others. I believe because of this. And by longer I mean like an easy minute longer.
I… but… that… that isn’t how this works…
You’re putting the cat outside after it already ate the canary.
Fuck Ubisoft
It’s Ubisoft, who would be surprised? Pirates get a better experience than paying customers and it’s been that way for over a decade
Hardly anyone is streaming it. It's the same cringy dialogue with the same boring game as its predecessors. I haven't seen anything in any of the streams that would change my mind.
That ahould be a DLC.
Ubisoft is pretty much the most evil gaming company so this is not surprising at all.
EA, Konami and Blizzard give good competition, I wouldn’t be so sure.
OOTL, Konami?
So even if they had sold it on Steam, this was likely not going to work on Steam Deck? Doesn't this denuvo kind of stuff cause issues?
Denuvo doesn't prevent games working on Steam Deck, but depending on how it's implemented it can cause other problems like preventing a game from launching if it hasn't been able to connect online in a while, or weird performance issues. It varies from game to game.
Denuvo works perfectly fine on the Steam Deck/Linux. IDK why people keep repeating this.
Good to know. I haven't run into any issues, but I dunno if any games I've played had it. I had considered getting Mirage for Steam Deck, but I really don't want to own it on ubisofts app.
And people wonder why pirates still exist
What is the point of that, do they have a contract with denuvo stating that they must apply it or are they just stupid or something?
Somebody ELI5 this for me
I'm not following closely and haven't gamed on PC in a while but:
Denovo is a technology that is supposed to prevent copying games (DRM). Not sure what it's current state is or might be mixing it up with other DRM, but DRM is known for causing headaches for paying customers. Using excessive system resources, refusal to launch for legitimate paying customers, spyware/excessive data collected and sent to a corporation, etc. In some games, volunteers will patch bugs out of a game, and this will cause the game to think it's cracked and refuse to launch.
Some DRM is "phone home" and can't be played offline, so people in remote areas can't play. And sometimes the company doesn't want to keep servers online when the game has been out for 10 years, so people that purchased the game can no longer play.
In this case, the company let reviewers rate the game and got the initial scores and sales, then pushed the unpopular DRM update. It's scummy. If you're using it, then use it. Don't bait and switch.
We're still playing Tower Climbing simulators?
Which, the older, the modern, or the far ones?