Ubisoft, publishers of the game Rainbow Six Vegas 2, recently embarrassed themselves when their support department provided a hacker made No-CD crack to customers. The patched EXE was offered up after a recent DRM laden update left their direct2drive (download) PC customers up the creek without a paddle, by requiring a physical disc for the game to function.
Detective gamers popped open the patched file with a hex editor and found a reference to "RELOADED". This refers to a well known game cracking group, who often releases No-CD patched games online.
Ubisoft explicitly does not allow the discussion or reference of No-CD cracks and patches on their own forums, but their support team was providing a hacker made patch to customers anyway. Nice hypocrisy!
A Ubisoft representative responded on their forums by stating "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."
Ubisoft could have spared themselves the support hassles, embarrassment and ridicule by avoiding the use of DRM altogether. We were happy to see Ubisoft dump Starforce two years ago, but apparently they still haven't learned that DRM only causes problems for legitimate customers, while doing nothing to stop piracy.
