Wait what? I only use Old Reddit and Infinity on mobile so idk what they are doing

Assassin's Creed Shadows Will Feature Denuvo & Account Linking + EULA also requires you to allow Ubisoft to "monitor" your RAM

The game's EULA also requires you to allow Ubisoft to "monitor" your RAM.

As Ubisoft prepares for the 2025 launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows – a game some view as the developer's last chance to break free from a year marked by financial setbacks and controversies – the game's Steam page has finally gone live, revealing two major caveats about the Steam version of AC Shadows that will, unfortunately for Ubisoft, likely drive away some gamers.

If you're in any way familiar with the PC gaming industry (or have read the title of this article), then you've most likely already guessed one of the caveats, and yes, the PC version of Assassin's Creed Shadows will feature Denuvo, a controversial DRM software detested by the community for negatively affecting loading times and framerate in games, something Denuvo's creator Irdeto categorically denies, blaming its low reputation on pirates and gamers.

While Denuvo's presence in Shadows isn't much of a surprise – considering it's been used in Ubisoft's previous games like Assassin's Creed Mirage, Star Wars Outlaws, the Far Cry series, and others – the decision to keep the DRM could be seen as questionable given the growing trend of developers ditching Denuvo or choosing not to include it in the first place, as well as Ubisoft's apparent need to steer clear of further controversies and reputational damage.

The second caveat relates to another requirement the community generally dislikes: the mandatory account linking to the studio's Ubisoft Connect platform when buying Assassin's Creed Shadows on Steam. Even though, much like Denuvo, this isn't anything new for Ubisoft fans, it could still negatively impact the game financially and reputationally considering what happened with Helldivers 2 earlier this year when Sony's now-retracted mandate to link Steam accounts to PSN caused an uproar, buried the game in negative reviews, and, as some believe, tanked the game's player numbers, with many blaming this backlash as the sole reason we've heard so little about Helldivers 2 in the second half of 2024, despite it being universally acclaimed and considered a strong contender for Game of the Year when it first launched.

To top it all off, Shadows' EULA also includes a provision that allows the game to monitor your PC's RAM to ensure you're not running any unauthorized programs like macros, cheats, or hacks, a well-intentioned clause that nonetheless feels a touch out of place in a single-player game and could potentially scare off some of the more suspicious players who aren't comfortable with their hardware being monitored.

And what's your take on those requirements? Would it be beneficial for Ubisoft to get rid of Denuvo and account linking while there's still time?

Ubisoft sued for shutting down The Crew

The issue is, once again, about the difference between buying and licensing games

Two Californian gamers are suing Ubisoft in a proposed class action lawsuit over the developer and publisher’s recent shutdown of racing game The Crew. Ubisoft released The Crew in December 2014 and shut down its servers after a decade due to “server infrastructure and licensing constraints.” After the servers shut down, the game became totally unplayable due to its lack of a single-player, offline mode. When the shutdown was announced on Dec. 14, 2023, Ubisoft did offer refunds to people who “recently” purchased The Crew, but given the age of the game, a lot of players were unable to participate in the offer.

“Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed,” lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 4 in a California court and reviewed by Polygon. “Turns out the pinball manufacturer decided to come into your home, gut the insides of the pinball machine, and remove your ability to play the game that you bought and thought you owned.”

The lawsuit alleges this is “exactly” what happened when Ubisoft shut down its servers for The Crew in 2024 — suddenly leaving consumers unable to access something they purchased and assumed they owned. The lawsuit says players were duped in two ways: First, by allegedly misleading players into thinking they were buying a game when they were merely licensing it — even if a player bought a physical disk. Second, that Ubisoft “falsely represented” that The Crew’s files were on its physical disks to access freely, and that the disks weren’t simply a key for the game. Ubisoft is violating California consumer protection laws, the lawsuit alleges.

Both plaintiffs purchased the game well into its lifespan, in 2018 and 2020, respectively, on physical discs. The lawsuit says neither would have purchased the game “on the same terms,” i.e., price, knowing the game’s servers could be taken down, rendering The Crew totally unplayable even in an offline mode. The lawsuit also covers the backlash to Ubisoft’s decision to shutdown the servers and not include an offline version of the game; it cites several games that turned servers off but patched in an offline option, like Knockout City and two of Ubisoft’s own games, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed 3. Ubisoft responded to the criticism and vowed to include offline versions of its existing games in The Crew franchise, like The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest — but the lawsuit says this does nothing to amend the problem of The Crew’s server shutdown.

The plaintiffs are looking for the court to approve the lawsuit as a class action, meaning other The Crew players may get involved. They’re looking for monetary relief and damages for those impacted by the server shutdown. The lawsuit follows a campaign from YouTube creator Ross Scott to urge companies to “stop killing games,” a movement that kicked off after The Crew announcement was made. The Stop Killing Games movement is petitioning the European Union to force game companies to keep games in playable states. It currently has more than 379,000 signatures.

As media continues to go more and more digital, the issue of owning vs. licensing — especially in video games — becomes more of a problem. While some people are taking games into their own hands (like with the player-created The Crew Unlimited), the onus is largely on companies and what they do to preserve their games and servers. But in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill into law that requires companies to tell consumers they’re buying licenses, not games themselves, in online storefronts. The law itself, introduced by California assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin, is actually partly inspired by Ubisoft’s shutdown of The Crew. The law, however, doesn’t do anything about the fact that games are licensed and not purchased outright, nor does it stop a company from rendering a game unplayable, but it does, in theory, offer transparency on the issue.

Ubisoft declined to comment.

It literally takes 20% of the CPU of my i5-10400 randomly, and even 40%

The app

"It'S bEtTeR iN ThE aPp"

Should I make a community for Pixar AI generated movie posters?

Fake.

Duolingo kills your family and forces you to beg for mercy in spanish

My opinion:

I think this community should ban political memes, and instead have another community for only political memes. I'm from Costa Rica and I don't care about the USA politics or stuff

Any argument from /r/BanVideoGames is fun lol. People don't realize it's satire and it becomes the funniest part of that subreddit 😂

I'll drop this and then leave

You forgot this

Ah, sorry. Here you go