This Week in GEEk:

Since PC gaming’s inception, developers have been trying to figure out ways to make sure consumers purchase their games instead of pirating them.

In the early ‘80s, text-adventure gaming developers Infocom included “feelies” with their games. These were collectible novelties like maps, history books, glasses, and other things. Basically, just junk that was not only awesome to collect, but sometimes necessary to complete the game.

Often their games would reference the “feelies” and the player couldn’t continue in the game without being able to examine them. It was clever and gave their games added value.

These days, developers have been relying more and more on intrusive, obnoxious, and sometimes dangerous Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes.

The most popular of these lately has been SecuROM, which not only does a disc check to make sure you have a physical copy of the game, but makes consumers activate the game with a unique generated key on a master server, and limits the number of activations possible. When Electronic Arts announced this DRM would be present on their highly anticipated game “Spore,” their fans revolted. “Spore” was spammed on Amazon.com with thousands of one-star ratings.

Worse, its intended effect was rendered completely moot when “Spore” was made available, completely cracked with all DRM removed, on software-pirating sites days before it was released at retail.

And now Ubisoft is taking things up a notch in terms of draconian lunacy. Ubisoft has developed a new DRM scheme that not only forces you to activate its products online, but keeps asking Ubisoft if it’s OK to play their game the entire time you’re playing.

According to PC Gamer UK, who received an advanced copy of “Assassin’s Creed 2” for PC, if the player’s Internet connection is disrupted at any point during the game, then the player is booted to the main menu and all progress from the last save point is simply lost.

Keep in mind, “Assassin’s Creed 2” is a single-player game. There is absolutely no inherent reason to be connected to the Internet.

This bizarre and misguided new DRM scheme cuts out a huge player base, guaranteeing low sales and a tidal wave of customer complaints. Consumers will be completely unable to play their SINGLE PLAYER games on laptops while traveling, let alone those with spotty Internet connections. And what happens when Ubisoft has server issues, which will inevitably happen?

Ars Technica recently ran an article about a soldier stationed in Iraq who constantly battles with DRM issues.

“Net connectivity on some of the larger [Forward Operating Bases] – I’m on Victory Base, it’s HUGE and very built-up – is not terrible. However, we all have severe bandwidth caps with the ‘government-sponsored Internet,’ drops in connectivity, or we have to pay a high price for ‘civilian’ Internet,” he said to Ars Technica.

This soldier pays $150 a month for a 192k Internet connection. To put that into perspective, I have a 6 Megabit connection from Comcast for $50. That’s 31 times the speed, for one-third the price.

I’m not in Iraq, but even my Internet connection sporadically drops for no apparent reason.

It’s not difficult to understand why a developer would want to protect their games from piracy, but time and again strict DRM schemes have been proven completely ineffective and serve only to punish legitimate consumers.

Ubisoft tries to play off its new scheme as added value, by offering players “cloud-saving,” which basically means your save-games are stored remotely on Ubisoft servers, which is a useless and never-asked-for service, thank you very much.

So, consumers must bear the punishment of software pirates, while the pirates will inevitably reap the benefit. This DRM, as with all previous DRM schemes, will be cracked.

While legitimate paying consumers struggle with the insane hassle of Ubisoft’s DRM, pirates will undoubtedly be enjoying the flawless experience of a DRM-free product. Ubisoft has confirmed that this DRM will be present in the upcoming PC version of “Assassins Creed 2,” “Silent Hunter 5,” “Splinter Cell: Conviction,” “Settlers 7,” and all future Ubisoft games.

That is, until they go out of business when their offices are torched and their executives drawn and quartered by furious consumers.