Ubisoft DRM ‘Always On’. Their games – less so.

Ubisoft DRM ‘Always On’. Their games – less so.

Ubisoft’s ‘Always-On’ DRM has been a contentious subject since its first introduction. But in a recent stroke of genius picked up by Eurogamer, Ubisoft have announced that next week a number of their titles which require an always-on internet connection will be completely unavailable to their paying customers.

“Starting February 7, Ubisoft will be transitioning the hosting of many of its online services from a third-party data center to a new facility. During the transition, some Ubisoft services and online games will not be available. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

Ubisoft have been quick to point out that their newer and popular titles, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco will be unaffected by the movement. Casualties of the move however include Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7, which will become completely unplayable for all legitimate Ubisoft customers throughout the duration of the server transition. What separates the former category from the latter, aside from their overwhelming popularity, remains unclear.

Games which require only a one-time activation will remain available, as long as you’ve already activated them. If you haven’t got around to that yet, you’ll just have to hang on until Ubisoft decide it’s time to let you play the games you’ve paid for.

But don’t worry, as Ubisoft points out, “this move ultimately will help us improve the maintenance of our infrastructure and deliver better uptime and greatly improved services for our customers.” So that’s alright then, isn’t it?

The server move is set to begin on February 7th. Ubisoft have however given absolutely no indication when their unplayable titles will be back up again.

A list of affected titles and services is currently available here.

 

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