Always-on DRM

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Always-on DRM or always-online DRM is a form of

copyright infringement of software. Like other DRM methods, always-on DRM has proven controversial, mainly because it has failed to stop pirates from illegally using the product, while causing severe inconvenience to people who bought the product legally due to the single point of failure
it inherently introduces.

Usage and criticism

Popular

Starcraft 2 employ always-on DRM by requiring players to connect to the internet to play, even in single-player mode. Reviews of Diablo III criticized its use of always-on DRM.[1][2] As with Diablo III, SimCity (2013) experienced bugs at its launch due to always-on DRM.[3] Its developer, Maxis, initially defended the practice as being a result of the game's reliance on cloud computing for in-game processing, but it was later confirmed that cloud computing was only necessary to support the inter-city and social media mechanisms.[4][5][6] Tim Willits at id Software has also defended the use of always-on DRM, arguing that it would make updates easier. This later received even more criticism, with users stating that these updates could potentially render the game unable to be played.[7]

A major disadvantage of always-on DRM is that whenever the DRM authentication server goes down or a region experiences an Internet outage, it effectively locks out people from playing the game, hence the criticism.

The Settlers 7.[10]

Ubisoft's first titles requiring an always-on connection were Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic and Assassin's Creed II, of which the former had reportedly been cracked as of the first day of the game's release.[11] Assassin's Creed II was later cracked on the day of its release in Japan. Ubisoft also used always-on DRM in Driver: San Francisco, which was also cracked.[12] However, the company announced in September 2012 that it would not employ always-on DRM in its future games,[12] although they decided to re-implement the DRM again for The Crew (despite having a story mode), The Division (although it was never meant for single-player gameplay) and For Honor. Assassin's Creed Odyssey also received backlash for being unavailable in offline mode in February 2019, to which Ubisoft has clarified that the always-online mode was a glitch that was to be fixed soon enough, although many other players did not face this issue and were able to play the game without an internet connection.

The Crew garnered criticism due to it being always-online in spite of having a campaign. Ubisoft later confirmed that the game would not be available offline, as they wanted to make the game a living world with multiplayer and single-player combined.

Electronic Arts was later criticized for making their game Need for Speed (2015) always online, even though it had both single player and multiplayer modes. EA later stated that this was because the game was an ever-expanding world that would be constantly updated and that it would be required for taking snapshots and posting them on Autolog, which would earn the player Experience points and other rewards if the snapshots are liked enough. This later garnered more criticism. In the end, it was later found out that the reason for drastic framerate drops in Need for Speed on all platforms was because of the always-online connection. Because of this, EA decided to make all their later games to be playable offline, with the next Need for Speed game, Payback, having an offline single-player campaign mode.

Sony Interactive Entertainment and Polyphony Digital were later criticized for making their latest title, Gran Turismo 7, require constant internet connection in order for players to be able to save their progress. The series creator Kazunori Yamauchi explains that this decision was made to prevent hacking and cheating, with only Arcade Mode being fully playable offline.[13] This was met with severe criticism by reviewers, who noted the game's overall grind to earn credits and the online requirement being used as a major push for the game's microtransactions, More than a week after release, the game had a maintenance period during which it was unplayable for more than a day before being patched.[14][15]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2,[18] and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.[19]

Hitman (2016) was later criticized to be always-online to be able to save in certain areas of levels in the game. Square Enix clarified that there would be no fix for it as the game was "a constantly, evolving, living world of assassination that will grow alongside the community with frequent content updates in between the launch of each location. This live content includes new contracts, escalation contracts, elusive targets, and even additional challenges", and while it is possible to play the game offline, two separate save states for both offline and online have been made. However, the game was later patched to make sure that all locations and levels could be fully played in offline mode, with the disadvantage being that leaderboards would not be accessible, regular updates would not be installed, live events would not be available for playing, and some areas could not be used as a starting point during missions.

Square Enix later received criticism for implementing always-on DRM on the remastered version of Final Fantasy X/X-2 in 2019, over two years after the game launched.[20] Square Enix later removed the update altogether for further modifications.[21]

Windows Store will make the game think that it has been pirated and make Jack wear the eye-patch, but warez group 3DM
managed to make a trainer for the game with an option to remove the eye-patch.

The 2016

Vulkan API recently implemented in the game in an update, although it can still run offline with the OpenGL
executable.

Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) was patched by Electronic Arts with an offline mode sometime in July 2016.

Xbox Play Anywhere games like ReCore, Gears of War 4, and Forza Horizon 3 have also been criticized of being required to be online to be launched and to be authenticated every 24 hours. Denuvo was also immensely criticized of using a similar method, and many tech reviewers had problems benchmarking Denuvo-implemented games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
.

As of October 2015, always-online games with single player modes that now have had dead servers for six months and longer are now exempt from

DMCA prohibitions on circumventing copyright protection.[22][non-primary source needed
]

During the month of October 2019 with the launch of Rockstar Games Launcher, the single player story mode for the game Grand Theft Auto V sold and distributed through Steam required activation via the internet every time during the game startup process, whereas previously the game required periodic activation every few days. Whether this was intentional or defective by design due to the effect of implementing Rockstar Games Launcher as an extra layer of DRM for the game is unclear, neither the game developer and publisher Rockstar Games, or the game distributor Valve has publicly acknowledged or commentated on the change in status of the DRM. On 5 November 2019 Rockstar Games rolled out an update to the Rockstar Games Launcher which reverted the DRM status of Grand Theft Auto V from Always-on DRM back to its previous periodic activation implementation.

Always-on DRM is not restricted to computer games, as it was discovered early into the

backwards compatible games.[29][30] In September 2022, Microsoft issued a system update that allowed backwards compatibility to function offline.[31] These DRM measures can hinder video game preservation
should the online services that use them become discontinued at any point in the future.

Circumvention

Always-on DRM can be circumvented mainly by the use of custom servers made by the game's community

Maxis Emeryville’s Darkspore, which was sunset in early 2016[35]
and remains unplayable as of 2024.

See also

References

  1. Forbes
    . Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  2. PC Advisor. Archived from the original
    on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  3. ^ Usher, William (5 March 2013). "SimCity Now Available; Always-On DRM Causes Major Launch Day Issues". Cinema Blend. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  4. ^ Makuch, Eddie (21 December 2012). "Maxis: SimCity's always-on DRM for gamers' benefit". GameSpot. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  5. ^ Walker, John (16 March 2013). "SimCity Boss's "Straight Answers" Seem Pretty Wiggly". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  6. ^ Thier, Dave (18 March 2013). "One Simple Change Allows SimCity Offline Play". Forbes. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  7. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (10 August 2011). "Id Software on always-on internet debate". Eurogamer. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  8. ^ "Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down". Escape Magazine. 7 March 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  9. ^ Richard, Mark (6 March 2016). "Darkspore Servers Shut Down". techraptor.net. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  10. ^ "The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom on Mac will be discontinued on 06/10/2015". Ubisoft. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  11. ^ Geek.com. Ubisoft’s always-connected games DRM already cracked Archived 11 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2013-03-12.
  12. ^ a b Karmali, Luke (5 September 2012). "Ubisoft Officially Ditches Always-On PC DRM". IGN. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  13. ^ Square, Push (2 February 2022). "Gran Turismo 7 Will Require an Online Connection on PS5, PS4 to Prevent Cheating". Push Square. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  14. ^ "Gran Turismo 7, offline for more than 24 hours, shows its always-online problem". Polygon. 18 March 2022.
  15. ^ "The Always-Online Requirement for 'Gran Turismo 7' Jeopardizes a Great Game". 18 March 2022.
  16. ^ "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is always-online on the PC, even for its single-player campaign". 25 October 2019.
  17. ^ "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remaster Doesn't Have Multiplayer, but It's Always Online Anyway". 2 April 2020.
  18. ^ "Tony Hawk's™ Pro Skater™ 1 + 2 | Download and Buy Today". Archived from the original on 11 September 2020.
  19. ^ "Crash Bandicoot 4's PC Version Requires an Internet Connection". Screen Rant. 26 March 2021.
  20. ^ "Square Enix Adds Always-Online DRM Requirement to Final Fantasy X and X-2 3 Years After Launch". Game-Debate. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  21. ^ "Steam :: FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster :: March 27th Update". steamcommunity.com. 27 March 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  22. ^ "Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies" (PDF). www.copyright.gov. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  23. ^ Orland, Kyle (15 April 2021). "The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging PlayStation hardware". Ars Technica. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  24. ^ Koch, Cameron (16 July 2021). "Aging Batteries Could Turn PS3s & PS4s Into Paperweights". ScreenRant. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  25. ^ De Meo, Francesco (18 April 2021). "PlayStation 5 Runs Only Select Physical Games and No Digital Game Offline With Missing CMOS Battery". WCCFTech. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  26. ^ Oneto, Petey (24 September 2021). "PS4 Firmware Update Reportedly Keeps Consoles From Being Bricked". IGN. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  27. ^ Wen, Alan (22 September 2021). "PS4 CMOS battery issue reportedly fixed in firmware update". NME. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  28. ^ Jones, Ali (2 November 2021). "PS5 issue that might have locked players out of digital games appears to have been fixed". GamesRadar. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  29. ^ Billings, Kevin James (25 May 2021). "Xbox Series X DRM Makes Certain Games Completely Unplayable Offline". GameRant. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  30. ^ Alva, Brittany (25 May 2021). "THE INTERNET IS FUMING OVER XBOX MAKING THESE GAMES UNPLAYABLE". SVG. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  31. ^ Totilo, Stephen (22 September 2022). "Microsoft eases DRM restriction on many Xbox games". Axios. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  32. ^ "How To Set Up Genshin Impact Private Server To Unlock All Characters And Weapons". 29 October 2022. Archived from the original on 21 December 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  33. ^ "BattleForge News: Important: BattleForge is being retired". Archived from the original on 10 September 2013.
  34. ^ Dietrich, Mathias (14 July 2015). "BattleForge Reborn - Community will das Spiel wiederbeleben". Gamestar (in German). GameStar. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  35. ^ Chalk, Andy (24 February 2016). "Darkspore will close for good next week". PC Gamer. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
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