Simply put: DRM sucks. It’s bad for consumers and it’s bad for CS at the companies that decide to use it. The only people who are harmed are the very people the companies claim to protect. This time, it wasn’t another Ubisoft snafu (they had their stint over the weekend). Instead, just as Ubisoft begins to rub the weekend hangover junk out of their eyes, EA figures it’s time to have a miniature catastrophe of their own. Yes, EA’s DRM servers crashed too…
One of the more popular and newest games affected by this outage is none other than Bad Company 2. A perfect way to install confidence and entice gamers isn’t it? Joke’s and criticism aside, at least EA was lighter on their feet and got their ducks back up and running in just over an hour or two — leaps and bounds better than Ubisoft’s multi-day outage.
We could nitpick about the various companies’ use of DRM and how they implement it, but it’s all the same. DRM needs to die. The more DRM becomes a factor, the more people will pirate, the more money will be lost (for companies employing DRM), and the more consumers will resent said companies. I certainly know I can sleep at night…
CrunchGear
That old saying “what kool aid are you drinking” couldn’t be any more perfect in the situation involving Ubisoft and their new “always on” DRM. We’ve already ranted about it several times before for it’s awful implementaion and methodology. Yesterday we found out just how much it sucks when a game that requires a live connection to a remote server has said server go down…for hours on end. Common sense would have the company admitting they screwed up and at the very least apologizing for shoddy maintenance and upkeep on their servers. Silly human.
Ubisoft instead has come out blindly swinging, stating that beacause of “extreme demand and popularity” their frail little servers just couldn’t dish out the 1′s and 0′s fast enough. *puke* I for one hope those of you out there who actually care about this stuff aren’t fooled by their blatent lies. The real reason for the Ubisoft outage — DOS attack from some not so happy gamers.
Is it the best solution to protesting DRM? No. But anything that hurts Ubisoft at this point is fine by me. Will they listen or are we going to have to boycott any and every piece of junk they lace with digital cancer?
CrunchGear > Destructoid
To many people, bitching about a video game’s DRM that resorts to requiring a constant internet connection seems stupid and like a waste of time. In the grander scheme of things — it is. But, if you focus on the core technological aspect of it, DRM is not a solution but a “fuel” to the piracy fire, only driving scores more towards paying less and less for products and services. Ubisoft as of late has found out just how much the tech crowd hates DRM with extremely vocal outcries thanks to the nonsense that encompasses Assassins Creed 2 and it’s “always on” requirement.
Ubisoft tries to hide this blatant misuse of technology as a help to consumers with cloud based game saves and backups. The real reality is that at any point, they can download, install, and run rouge apps in the background whenever they feel like they need to milk you for more money. The point….
Ubisoft’s grand DRM servers that power Assassins Creed 2 and other newer titles with always on restrictions have choked and died — hard. According to an Ubisoft rep:
…clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly as I’ve been told these servers are constantly monitored.” The representative added “I’ll do what I can to get more information on what the issue is here first thing tomorrow and push for a resolution and assurance this won’t happen in the future…
The only way we won’t see more of these happenings is to drop DRM altogether. It’s a simple, no-brainer decision. But sadly, it will never happen. Any Ubisoft gamers feeling a bit burned and murderous at the moment…?
Joystiq
- December 16, 2009 8:52 am
Energy efficient traffic lights seem like one of the best ways to save local governments significant amounts of money of the course of 5, 10, or more years. The lights which often use LED technology are much less demanding on the power grid which in turn means more money for other things. But there’s one side effect many have overlooked. Heat output.
Remember, the higher the heat output of a light, the more energy is being wasted. That’s all fie and dandy for indoor lighting or lighting or “non-critical outdoor lighting”. You see, the city of Chicago is discovering that the lack of heat output because of the new LED traffic lights’ increased efficiency is actually creating another problem — increased snow build up leading to a higher number of accidents.
It’s an easy concept to understand. Traditional traffic lights generate heat which in turn melts the snow off of the actual lights keeping them free and easily seen. LED’s with their much lower energy consumption and heat output allow snow to build up as temperatures aren’t getting high enough to melt the snow. It’s a sad side effect really as now numerous people are being injured and potential lives lost. Even still, it would be foolish and hasty for the city of Chicago to backtrack on their “green rollout” by replacing the more energy efficient traffic lights with the older style simply to melt snow for a few months out of the year. Though for an easy and quick fix, swapping the lights may be the only answer.
I’m not a civil engineer in Chicago so I don’t know how they went about the big switch to LED bulbs. Can they simply replace the bulbs with traditional lights or do they need to change the entire fixture? On the surface, such a switch seems like the best way to go as I don’t see any quick, easy, and cost effective way to “warm up” LED traffic lights. Future models of LED traffic signals could have an electric heating element of some sort built into the light housing as to melt the snow. But again, that doesn’t help the thousands of currently deployed lights on the streets. Not to mention, adding such a feature will no doubt add to the cost of energy efficient traffic lights — lights which are already a fair amount more than traditional lights.
Of course, cities employing LED traffic lights have another option — have city workers clean of the bulbs by hand. It’s not quick and it isn’t exactly a very good “fix”. For the time being however it is the only viable option to keep the LED’s and reduce traffic accidents.
To highlight the point further, many cities in Wisconsin have been migrating to LED lights for some time now. In fact, there are so many “modernized” traffic lights — numbering in the hundreds — that the state is saving over $750,000 per year in energy costs. It may not seem like it would make a huge dent in the state’s budget, but every little bit helps. Not to mention, I’m sure their are more than a few hundred traffic signals in Wisconsin. Just imagine the energy savings if all of them were converted to LED. Simple solution: Take a tad of that savings and hire an extra body or two during the winter months to aide in cleaning LED traffic lights off. Sound easy enough?
Some will never be pleased however as several are calling for the city to abandon the move to LED traffic lights until a new design emerges that can actually be self sufficient in cold, snowy weather. Such things are again short sighted. While a price tag can never be placed on a human life, removing technology — a very needed and important one at that — simply because of a minor problem is a bad decision.
Any Chi-town residents care to chime in? Have you personally witnessed any accidents due to LED lights being covered by ice and snow?
Chicago Tribune
In case you were wondering, even though I haven’t said much, ok, anything about the whole T-Mobile/Danger debacle, there are things people should see. T-Mobile’s official apology and offering of gifts is one of them. The word:
We are thankful for your continued patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on preserving platform stability and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers. We have made significant progress this past weekend, restoring services to virtually every customer. Microsoft/Danger has teams of experts in place who are working around-the-clock to ensure this stability is maintained.
Regarding those of you who have lost personal content, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger continue to do all we can to recover and return any lost information. Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible. We will continue to keep you updated on this front; we know how important this is to you.
In the event certain customers have experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content, T-Mobile will be sending these customers a $100 customer appreciation card. This will be in addition to the free month of data service that already went to Sidekick data customers. This card can be used towards T-Mobile products and services, or a customer’s T-Mobile bill. For those who fall into this category, details will be sent out in the next 14 days – there is no action needed on the part of these customers. We however remain hopeful that for the majority of our customers, personal content can be recovered.
Sidekick customers can continue to visit T-Mobile Sidekick Forums (http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick) on a regular basis to access the latest updates, as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption. The Forums also offers tips and suggestions for rebuilding content on your device.
Do you feel a little better now? Does the “hopefully” prefix on the data recovery sentence give you any chance for a reconciliation?
BGR
Image Source
