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Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

tomc1985

I think this is unprecendented with Steam. I have heard of games being delisted but I can't recall Valve ever removing them from peoples' libraries.

If I owned a copy of this game on Steam I'd be requesting a refund immediately; they have been known to make exceptions to the standard 2-hours rule under special circumstances.

Also, Steam has a game files backup feature, it might be a good idea to use that and wait for someone to figure out how to disable Steam DRM

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It's not Steam's DRM -- the game relies on a server system hosted by Ubisoft, which is being shut down on September 1st. You'll still technically be able to download and execute the game binary on Steam but it won't connect and won't let you in to actually play.

This is almost definitely because Ubisoft shipped this with some SecuROM-alike DRM and doesn’t want to keep paying pennies for activation servers. If we’re lucky, they probably even opted out of offline machine keys (because “piracy”) so that the game will stop running because reactivation will fail.

Hmm, I have AC: Black Flag and I thought it worked fine offline. I will have to check now, because that game isn't much newer than this.

They don't even need to keep paying for those activation services if they don't want to. Not when other nice people have already created a version of the game that does not rely on those services which Ubisoft could simply distribute https://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/ubisoft-uses-reloaded-c...

Some devs eventually patch games to (intentionally) remove DRM, like removing Denuvo ~6 months after release because they intended to just curb release day piracy.

But now I wonder if devs would breach copyright/contract by distributing a cracked version, i.e. one that still "has" the DRM but also contains a logical workaround or something, essentially disclosing how to bypass it. (Even if the crack was already available on pirate sites)

its not steam, its ubisoft DRM servers

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