It seems that Ubisoft’s heavy-handed approach to digital rights management (DRM to you and I) has come under heavier fire than the publisher had initially expected, with the anti-piracy servers for two of the company’s latest titles being hacked.

No Assassin's Creed 2 on days when hackers get unruly...

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up, it emerged last week that Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed 2 for PC (as well as the submarine chasing Silent Hunter 5) would require users to have a connection not only when they initially register the game, nor when they launch it, but throughout their play of the titles. While this might not seem like too much of a headache, the fact that the game boots players if they lose their internet connection has raised hackles.

Indeed, many have pointed out that such aggressive approaches to videogame piracy eventually tend to encourage otherwise legitimate users to download titles in an effort to sidestep the DRM. Ubisoft had expressed the opinion in the run-up to the games’ releases that the solution might well seem extreme, but that it would be vindicated by the game being entirely unpiratable… unfortunately, less than 24 hours after the game’s release, reports emerged that illegal versions of the game were already doing the rounds.

Now, things have only worsened for Ubisoft with the news that the servers that Assassin’s Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 communicate with suffered a DDoS attack, leaving some of those customers who bought the game legitimately out in the cold. According to Ubisoft’s Twitter account, 95% of those users who’ve bought the game haven’t been effected, but to say that 1/20th of your legitimate users can’t play is still fairly poor form.

The latest word from Ubisoft comes via its official Twitter account, which simply reads, “Our servers are under attack again. Some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in. We’re working on it and will keep you posted.”

Nothing like anti-piracy solutions that push PC gamers firmly in the direction of picking up an Xbox 360 instead…