Ubisoft caught cracking own game?
Steals crack from pirate group
BIZZARELY, UBISOFT seems to have been caught distributing a 'no-CD' crack produced by a pirate group for one of its own games.
A user named Twingo on the site Fileforums.com pointed users in the direction of a crack made available by Ubisoft for the PC game Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
This was meant to help users around problems experienced by the copy protection problems caused by the Direct2drive download service.
The file has since been removed, but not before many users confirmed that the download was in fact a no-CD crack distributed by pirate group 'Reloaded'.
The 'UK Community Manager' of Ubisoft attempted to address the issue by stating: "We're looking into this further as this was not the UK Support team that posted this, however if it is an executable that does not need the disc I doubt it has come from an external source."
Yet various users posted proof it was from an external source, using a standard hex viewer.
Threads on the Ubisoft forums are now being closed on the matter, and the same community manager posted the following statement:
"The file was removed from the site over a week ago now and the matter is being thoroughly investigated by senior tech support managers here at Ubisoft.
Needless to say we do not support or condone copy protection circumvention methods like this and this particular incident is in direct conflict with Ubisoft's policies."
Some users have now resorted to calling the company 'Noobiesoft'. µ
Comments
priceless
hahahahaha, nice one ubiReloaded
Reloaded is well known for their quick releases and virus laden cracks which many believe comes from them working with game companies to unravel trust in game cracks.I have
zero problem with anything that bypasses copy protection if you are the legitimate purchaser of the software. Copy protection is an anathema, not to mention a royal pain, for legitimate users. I wish more developers would look at what Ironclad did, and wrote, about copy protection.Irony... it's whats for breakfast!
Let's all just file this under the "Do as I say, not as I do." category.the whole media must be in the drive or the game wont play idea is bonkers. Hell I can;t stand media period anymore. I buy from Steam or Direct2Drive whenever possible. And if I can't get it there, you bet I'm using Slysoft tools to rip that CD or DVD to a .iso and mounting that.
Wake up developers... the people who pay your paycheck want it easy.
P.S. for you Dev's. You can dump the DRM too please. It's only inconveniencing your paying customers.
careful
I would be wary of putting too much store by this as of yet. The Vegas 2 forums are well known for being home to a host of trolls who are intent on ripping into Ubi simply because the Vegas series wasn't Ravens Shield all over again. The chances that the "proof" was a disgruntled member are high.Simple.
As I see it Ubisoft did nothing wrong. They just didnt do it right.this game is their own code and they own the copywright for it, Now as I believe, this means that any mods, cracks, hack and so on belong to them too, as they use code that is already their own.
they didnt do it right cause they could have written it themselves, Or atleast had a look through the code and removed the signatures of the group that made it.
You cant be sued, as some people on that forum suggest, For ripping off an illegal hacking group. do you REALLY think they opperate from a registerd adress and have a lawyer. Plus Ubi own the code anyway, They can do what ever they please with it regardless who it was reproduced and edited by.
@Simple
That doesn't hold water. The merits of this case aside (as Reloaded's crack is illegal to begin with, though I use noCDs all the time as I don't like to swap stuff around... and my business generates tens of thousands in revenue for game makers; I'd NEVER rip them off), modified content doesn't necessarily belong to the game co.That would suggest that any mod or addition belongs to the game co - which would mean that counterstrike belonged to Valve from the beginning, for instance. I don't think this is the case. If it is, it shouldn't be.
Note.
One note: ubisoft doesn't 'own' the copy-protection, they buy a license from an annoying 3rd party who probably also develop 'gator toolbars' and other such wonderful contributions to the IT world, and I would not be surprised also work for spam-mobsters.DRM Scoreboard:
Pirates: infinity + 1Big Media: -247,392,192,836 - 1
When will people get it through their heads that the best way to prevent piracy is to give people the courtesy of not assuming them to be pirates from the get-go.
Some people will pirate anything, no matter what. And DRM can't stop them; it's only a toy or a rite of passage at best.
But how many otherwise honest people get driven to piracy (and then to get good at it) only because their legitimate stuff locked them out on a whim and they need back in? I see cases like that all the time in college.
The best part is that usually the Big Content people are actually breaking far more laws than the pirates, not even counting the currently acceptable things that groups like the Music And Film Industry Associations of America, are always lobbying to criminalize. They just have the resources to grease the legal wheels better so that no one brings it up.
Quit Lying
Reloaded releases are quite good and never carry viruses. Some smacktards repack them for some reasons and it gets infected in the process.Cracks are not illegal. Applying or distributing cracks for a copyrighted products may be illegal in some countries. The world isn't only dollars and euros.
DRM is meant to please some antiquated stockholders. Usually the developers and even publishers would like to get rid of DRM altogether. End-user support costs more than piracy.
Reloaded? nice
Well Reloaded its one of the best in the "game" of pirate game releases and cracking...so ubisoft using one of their cracks must be a point of pride for em, hehe.Scratch another one off
Well that's one more company I'll be wary of buying from.I buy my games. All of them. I have over 360 games in my library - all for PC and all in their original boxing/wrapping/jewel case. Yes, I still have games on 720k single-sided 3.5", for Pete's sake.
I buy all my games and, as soon as I get home, I find the crack for it and install game + crack. Ever since my BF1942 disk flew apart from 8 months straight of heavy use I avoid leaving the disc in the reader any more.
As for downloading games, Steam is one of the 2 platforms I trust at this time. EA Games has royally screwed me over BF2142, so I do not buy from them any more, and now I learn that Ubisoft is distributing pirate cracks to correct its problems. Well, there goes Ubisoft off my list.
Decidedly, it is still better to have a proper disc - at least you can install when you need, crack as you like and play as God intended, freely.
Steam and Stardock are the only services that are worthy of the name. They don't nag you, they don't monitor your PC configuration, nor do they freak out if you so much as change a jumper on the motherboard, and they just work whatever happens.
EA Download is a far cry from providing that service, and from what I read now, Ubisoft is not much better.