Ubisoft Testing PC Prince of Persia Without DRM 254
Ars Technica reports that the upcoming PC version of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia will not feature any sort of copy protection. (Not including Steam downloads, of course.) After the backlash in recent months over the DRM in games like Spore and GTA IV, Ubisoft is giving gamers the chance to demonstrate that DRM actually increases piracy. One of Ubisoft's community reps had this to say about their decision: "You`re right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games. A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP PC has no DRM we`ll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine. Console piracy is something else entirely and I`m sure we`ll see more steps in future to try to combat that."
Virus free keygens (Score:3, Interesting)
I look forward to not having to download virus/trojan packed keygens.
Re:Virus free keygens (Score:5, Interesting)
Real nerds run them on a virtual machine, sandboxed in the copy of VMware they pirated years last week.
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Real nerds are aware that VMWare Server is free. ;)
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Wine is also a solution. Ran as a different user, of course. During the last few years once I had to run a small program, which I suspected to be carrying malware. I simply created another user on my machine and ran the program with Wine as that user.
The ~/.wine of the user immediately got filled with all kind of crap, the program what it was supposed to do correctly, while obviously filling the Windows system folders with all kind of malicious files. So I simply erased this folder and I had my job done.
Of
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One of the reasons I got those Windows DVDs from the pirate bay is mainly because of the older (hard to find) versions, e.g. pre-2k so I wasn't really pirating it
Yes you were. Stop deluding yourself.
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Quality (Score:2)
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I say fer-tile. So does everyone else here in the UK. You're being an insensitive clod :(
Seed plz! (Score:4, Funny)
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The sad part is people will probably still say this, conditioned that they are to the wrong meaning of "There's no such thing as a free lunch."
What if piracy levels remain the same? (Score:4, Insightful)
That would also show that DRM is moot as it has no effect on piracy. The fact is you will never lower piracy levels through DRM, as long as you can lock it up, there is someone who can unlock it. Copyright infringement is part of the cost of doing business in the gaming world.
Fact is people don't like to be treated like criminals, and if they well they might as well act like one to hold up their end of the bargain.
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Considering how it might affect their business model, wouldn't be surprised if some DRM-creators try to push the "piracy" totals up. Would be great if they got caught at it though.
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Considering how it might affect their business model, wouldn't be surprised if some DRM-creators try to push the "piracy" totals up
They already did by having some dick insult the public's honesty. Now I'm not stupid enough to fall for it, but I'm not going to buy the game anymore just to skew the numbers the other way like I initially was going to (despite not playing games on PC anymore). He's also convinced me not to buy any of the new Prince of Persia games for now (though I bought Prince of Persia Classic on PS3 for nostalgia's sake).
Re:What if piracy levels remain the same? (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternatively, if they can skew the numbers to say that Prince of Persia was pirated on a larger scale than any of their other games, it will be the poster boy for DRM-pushers.
On the other hand, since they aren't paying for the DRM, which I suspect is licensed per copy, not a one time purchase, there is actually a range, where its being pirated more, they sell less, and they actually make more money. It would be beyond funny if the actual results fell into this range.
That said, I figure the reality is that this game will be pirated exactly as much as any other. No more, no less.
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You can't do it "exactly". You can get a reasonable idea in this case by comparing sales figures and piracy figures to the figures for comparable games, from comparable franchises, with comparable review ratings, that were infected with DRM, and see whether this one had a better or a worse ratio of sales to illegal downloads.
Now, yes, of course that isn't what they're going to do: they're going to claim this is proof that DRM is necessa
Re:What if piracy levels remain the same? (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to have misunderstood him on both counts.
First, he's asking how you can tell how many people downloaded the game illegaly.
Secondly, he's not saying that piracy can only be done at sea, he's saying it can only be done with physical goods. I kind of agree, I think they should stick to calling it "copyright infringement" since that is what it is. It involves the same idea as piracy in that you end up with something that doesn't belong to you, but it isn't exactly the same thing as stealing, despite being a similar concept. Calling it copyright infringement doesn't make it less illegal, it just is the correct term. Saying copyright infringement is piracy to me is like saying assault is murder.
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Who says the term "piracy" can't have two meanings? If the rest of the world is ok with calling this form of copyright infringement "piracy", even though no physical is stolen, then that is what it means.
Besides -and this is not addressed at somersault- it is beyond me why this type of topic always leads to semantic discussions. I, for one, whould not be shouting off the roofs that I am reaping the fruits of another's labor, against his will, whether this is called theft, piracy, copyright onfringement or
Re:What if piracy levels remain the same? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this won't show anything either way, or if it does show something, it will be opened to interpretation. This is not a study. This is not a test. There is no control group. The game may do well, or not well. This will depend largely on how good the game actually is. Also, a criterion of success cited by one side may be cited as a criterion of failure by the other. So for instance, if the absence of DRM increases the word-of-mouth referrals and sales, that might be counted as a success by one side, but if that same spurt in word-of-mouth referrals increases the number of downloads from p2p -- that same company may see this as a failure (since it would be seeing all those downloads as a sign that imaginary dollars are walking out of the door).
So with no predefined criteria of success, and no control group of any kind, both sides are bound to repeat the same old arguments over again. It's just that all that rationalizing, framing/reframing, and arguing will be done with freshly acquired data, instead of historical data, and people from either side will probably just stick to their preconceived notions either way.
Of Ubisoft and DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Ubisoft's actually bowed to customer pressure on DRM before. Consider Silent Hunter III and IV.
III shipped, if I recall, with StarForce---and Ubisoft eventually patched it out, and new bargain copies are completely DRM free.
IV, in response to the outcry over StarForce, shipped with SecuROM---which, of course, was patched out, and newly pressed CD's come without.
Basically, their habit seems to be to ship with DRM to try to preserve initial sales, and then bow to customer demand to keep bargain sales reasonable and keep old fans happy.
So, I suppose, the moral of the story is: don't buy Ubisoft games when they come out. Wait a year, until the game's down to fifteen bucks and they're stripped of DRM.
You cost Ubisoft most of the profit they might have earned from you had they released it DRM free, and then get the game DRM free at a dramatically reduced price.
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It makes sense when you think about it (and a few publishers admitted to that). The initial sales are the ones that matter. The big numbers, the fanboys raving, the little kids who need it NOW NOW NOW NOW... If you can stop piracy until the day -after- the game hit the stores, you catch all of the impulse buyers and OCDs, which is a s
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If you can stop piracy until the day -after- the game hit the stores, you catch all of the impulse buyers and OCDs, which is a seizable market.
Yeah, but what they don't seem to understand is that this doesn't work. Take Spore for example - DRM'ed up the ass, and what happened? Pirated BEFORE launch day (as usual). In fact, even the Mac version was pirated, and we normally get screwed as far as games go.
What they need to understand is that DRM doesn't stop piracy, but intrusive DRM does make customers avoid the product, or causes problems with people's computers and results in the game being returned. Pirates don't care because they crack the DRM w
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So, I suppose, the moral of the story is: don't buy Ubisoft games when they come out. Wait a year, until the game's down to fifteen bucks and they're stripped of DRM.
Wait, that's not standard procedure for games? I almost always wait for pricedrops.
Me too. I always wait to see if the bargain shelf version has no DRM. I'm till waiting to play Bioshock.
It doesn't reduce my gaming fun to wait, the steady stream of good games making it to SoldOut and other cheap game sellers is sufficient to keep me entertained.
I don't think it would help... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is the PROBLEM (Score:2)
This is not insightful, it pisses me off. What in HELL grants them entitlement to 8000 songs, whether or not they can afford it? Nothing, you say? I thought so. While I understand the gripes people have about paying good money for games that suck, I don't think piracy is justified. If companies are motivated enough, they will figure out a way to let prospective customers make educated buying decisions. But to suggest that people have entitlement to copyrighted works is utter nonsense.
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What the hell grants you entitlement stop people from using their electronics as they see fit? If Alice has an MP3, and Bob has a player, it is THEIR business what they do with their property. Not yours, and not the artists either.
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As along as you're not doing with property that belongs to me (or any other artist), has value to you, and yet you've refused to pay for (because you think you're entitled for some strange reason), then you're absolutely right - it is none of anyone's business.
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Actually, what real reason is there why people SHOULDN'T have 8000 songs? Let me answer that for you: there isn't any.
Let me get this straight - you're suggesting that people are entitled to anything they can take merely because it exists? I write a song, and suddenly I've created an entitlement that will benefit anyone who thinks they ought to have it? What moral imperative do I have for involuntarily contributing to anyone else's well-being? ...But songs? Why not?
Because you derive value from them, just a
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Because it's very likely that the person you are replying to has never been responsible for their own well being. Everything they have is been given to them. They have developed a belief that anything they want they get without having to put any personal effort into it.
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I have about three and a half thousand songs, all either ripped from CDs, bought from iTunes or actually legitimately free to download. I estimate it must have cost me about £2100 over the past five years. I'm probably just insane.
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When people have over 8,000 songs, they're either wanna-be DJs and/or they're hoarding. Do they really listen to all those songs (at least more than once)? I seriously doubt it. This move is not designed to quell those hoarders/downloaders (at least, I hope not), it's designed to quell those customers who are on the fence.
Also, a large .exe file is not the same as many .mp3 non-executable files. Normally, people would be naturally afraid to download an executable from p2p, so the disincentive is somewhat t
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Wow, you are a pedantic little fuckwad aren't you?
I'm buying a copy just to support the concept. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've refused to buy games with intrusive DRM. Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort. Even if the boxed game just gets chucked in the back of my car and forgotten about.
Its not much of a carrot, but if it got around that people actually went out of their way to buy games without DRM, software publishers may just loosen their stance.
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I'll do the same, a game without DRM (that I wanted anyway, but was going to get for console) is worth it. That said... I see that quote splashed all over... "They treat their customers like if they were criminals!"...though, they pretty much are :) Thats just human nature... people would be robbing banks, killing and murdering left and right if it wasn't for the fear of getting caught.. The 6 of us that wouldn't are just flukes.
Re:I'm buying a copy just to support the concept. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort.
Hardly. The point is to release a game without DRM and then massage the numbers so they can turn around and say that the lack of DRM drove piracy up significantly. The point will be moot, because how do you gauge losses due to piracy? The same way Microsoft does: (Every single theoretical download) * (Retail price) = (OMGthehorror$$$)
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No worries, they already thought of it.
They went and region restricted it (at least on Steam) to ensure a large amount of people will still find it more convenient to pirate.
Some will always pirate, of course. Those are not the target audience. It's those that are on the fence about buying or not they need to provide the game to in an as easy and convenient fashion as possible. In that area... major fail.
Re:I'm buying a copy just to support the concept. (Score:4, Insightful)
$30 right now on GoGamer.com (Score:4, Informative)
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Anyone (other than the government, who have guns) wanting my money had better be prepared to offer me value in exchange.
Removing DRM will certainly remove one factor that lowers the perceived value of this Ubisoft title. Whether it will be enough or not, I don't know, I haven't really looked at this game. But buying it even if it gets chucked in the back of my car? Hell no. I demand a lot more for my dollar than a pretty box with no DRM inside.
Vote with your dollars by spending them wisely, not by throwing
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World of Goo [2dboy.com]: The demo is the first 1/4 of the game. It's a blast. Silly building/puzzle game. Well worth the $20 they're charging. Made by 2 guys.
Sins of a Solar Empire [sinsofasolarempire.com]: A Fantastic RTS game, based on building orbital structures around planets, and massing fleets of spaceships, some with unique abilities and leveling increases. It's got great music, but the controls are the pinnacle of what I've seen in any RTS game, E
Money anyways (Score:2)
I'll spend my money on this one, just so I don't have to spend money on buying a legit Digitally Restricted game later.
Wait, what?
DRM is only one of many factors (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM is only one of many factors.
Another is the game itself....the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and stability.
In that same way...if Microsoft were to release a DRM-free operating system but it was sluggish (even more than Vista) or blue-screened often (more than Windows 9x)...I doubt people will buy it or use it even if it was free.
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Microsoft is a special case. They've got a monopoly and there are so many people who think that there is no other choice.
And then there are plenty of people, such as myself, who are perfectly aware of the other choices and have chosen Windows (XP in my case, but there are some poor misguided fools who like Vista, too).
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DRM is only one of many factors.
Another is the game itself....the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and stability.
I think there is also a question of how widely known it is that the game doesn't include copy restrictions. I mean, who'd assume that it was anything but in need of a crack?
Could it be, just could it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Could it be that UbiSoft was a bit pissed at their former supplyer of DRM, because they themselves couldn't get rid of it from Rainbow Six when it caused too much trouble without stealing a crack from Reloaded? And when you couldn't find a new supplyer of DRM in time for the next release, hey, let's make a PR stunt out of it!
When God gives you lemons... well, I'd find a better God, but some just squeeze really hard.
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Could it be that UbiSoft was a bit pissed at their former supplyer of DRM, because they themselves couldn't get rid of it from Rainbow Six when it caused too much trouble without stealing a crack from Reloaded? And when you couldn't find a new supplyer of DRM in time for the next release, hey, let's make a PR stunt out of it!
Alternatively I'd suggest that it's fear over people giving negative reviews on Amazon about inclusion of DRM like they did for Spore. It'd be nice if I was right, the customers won one.
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Unfortunately that's not who I get mad at. I tend to go to the source for the target. Without DRM, I wouldn't care at all whether someone pirates your game, and I don't want to have to care whether he does. Your game doesn't work, so I'm mad at you.
Good idea, Wrong game (Score:2)
Quite honestly, Prince of Persia isn't as highly anticipated as Spore, GTA IV or a whole bunch of other games. Regardless of critical reception, it's a sequel, of a sequel, of a sequel that's gone on long enough they're re-using the original-original name. =P
Ubisoft may have put in a AAA effort (well, AA, since it's the Assassin's Creed engine already developed, right?), but it doesn't come across to me as an AAA title.
Now if they'd go DRM free on all their games for an entire quarter, or even a full year,
You'd have to be stupid to buy this bs (Score:2)
Congratulations to Ubisoft on coming up with their publicity
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Who in their right mind thinks that DRM increases piracy.
Just about anybody in their right mind, actually. Requiring the disc to play the game is annoying, especially on PCs. Not being able to back up said disc is offensively annoying.
The amount of people who would deliberately download a game because it has DRM is so minor it's silly.
Only if you don't think it through. Back in the olden days the easiest thing to acquire was a NoCD patch for any given game. Over time, connections got faster, and games started requiring more and more patches that would, intentionally or not, break the NoCD patch. So in order to play that game without the disc, you are best of
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For you, perhaps. I don't really notice it. I'm generally only playing one game at any one time, and games are the only thing my drive gets used for these days, so the disc just stays in there until I want to play something else.
If you want "annoying", go back to the days when games were played from 5.25" floppies, and you'd have like 8 discs for each game, and every 10 minutes or so everything would come to a halt and a little box would p
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Who in their right mind thinks that DRM increases piracy.
Well, actually, everyone.
* If I need to put the disc in every time I play the game.. I'm going to download a pirated version which will run without the disc. That's purely because it's a headfuck to find the disc, put it in, wait for the disc to spin up at critical times when it checks it's still there and freezes while my DVD drive powers back on (takes a few seconds to spin up; old drive).
* If the DRM makes it incompatible with some drives people who paid for it will probably go and download the pirate v
stupid (Score:2)
How are companies buying into the DRM thing when every single DRM scheme has been cracked within days of release? Prince of Persia will probably be pirated at exactly the same rate as any other game, since every other game is on the torrent sites, DRM or not.
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I've never even heard of X3:Reunion or X3:Terran Conflict. If their DRM was so great, how did their sales go? Once they removed the DRM, you say it became piracy galore - there's a good argument that those pirates weren't going to buy the game to begin with, since they had ample opportunity to do so, and it was inconvenient/impossible for them to get the pirated version in the first place. Another quest is that since many more pirates played the first game once the DRM was gone, how did it affect sales of t
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A semi-truth (Score:2)
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Where's the Demo? (Score:3, Insightful)
I honestly can't figure out why anyone would complain about piracy when there's isn't a visible demo for this game. The honest people are being forced to pirate this game so they can make an informed purchasing decision. This alone will skew any erroneous figures that they will ultimately make... When will these companies learn?
I'll buy that (Score:2)
Joking aside, I'll actually buy this twice at full price. One for me, one as a gift.
Someone please post account number of Ubisoft. (Score:2)
Gonna download the game from Torrent as soon as it comes up, then make a bank transfer of their fair share of the price of the game.
Your customers need to prove themselves????(!) (Score:2)
So this dipshit is saying that his customers need to prove themselves? But people pirating games are not his customers. And DRM is something that doesn't affect 99.9% of pirates, but affects ALL customers.
And it is the people implementing DRM that are making the allegation that DRM forces me to buy the game. So the the game pirating community proved them wrong, and the people who wanted to buy the game but wouldn't because of the draconian rules imposed on them to deter the pirates--who, remember, are un
Correction (Score:2)
and the people who wanted to buy the game but wouldn't because of the draconian rules imposed on them to deter the pirates--who, remember, are unaffacted by DRM--and now they are telling their customers that the onus of proof is on THEM?!
Should read
and the people who wanted to buy the game but wouldn't because of the draconian rules imposed on them to deter the pirates--who, remember, are unaffacted by DRM--now have the onus of responsibility ON THEM?
How is 'pirated' (arrrr!!) copy count measured? (Score:2)
Well, thank you (Score:2)
Your Community Rep is a total dipshit and this stinks of 'publicity stunt', but it does take balls to go against the current industry trend in such a way. I, for one, will buy a boxed copy of this as soon as I get the chance, more than one if it's cheap, and the older games too if there's one still being sold.
Again, thanks for removing the utter shit that is DRM.
Re:How to make enemies and alienate people (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm going to be buying the PS3 version, since I believe it to be a console game at heart. But after seeing this act of good faith, I seriously want a copy for PC.
Actions speak louder than words, and even if this asshat thinks we are all out to get him, the action is still beautiful. If you want this game for PC, please buy it.
I know already though, that what will happen is that the game will probably see (according to their stats), around an 80% piracy rate. I'm sure a good chunk of people in that stat will be people who are legitimately pirating the game. But I'm sure that there will also be the usual crew of people who download the game to demo it. Demos often don't give you the full sense of a game, and you need the full version to get a feel for whether you really want the game or not. Prince of Persia won't be everyone's cup of tea. And since there's no console demo (or PC demo, so far as I know), then even people who want the game for a console might be inclined to download it.
Nevertheless, I think it's pretty much flat out guaranteed that it will be pirated less than Spore. =)
Re:How to make enemies and alienate people (Score:5, Insightful)
legitimately pirating the game.
The word of the day is 'Oxymoron'.
Demos often don't give you the full sense of a game, and you need the full version to get a feel for whether you really want the game or not.
You seriously believe what you just wrote? It looks like a flimsy rationalization for pirating. These days, it's often simpler to download a torrent than going to a website, registering, signing in, downloading the demo, installing crapware (not always), etc. That would have been a 'better' rationalization, I think.
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Um hello?
You cant pirate that which you already own..
That's like saying "I'm going to the fridge to pirate me some Leftover Meatloaf Yarrrr!"
It's a divide by 0.
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Not so much. Think of tearing a piece of paper... Dividing by two means tearing it into two pieces. The same with dividing by three, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, or any number really. Can you tear a piece of paper into zero pieces? No matter how many times you divide it, even down to the molecular, atomic, or quantum level, those pieces were, at one time, part of the original piece of paper. You can never get down to zero pieces... Not in this universe.
Hence, divide by zero is undefined. Not an
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Demos often don't give you the full sense of a game, and you need the full version to get a feel for whether you really want the game or not.
You seriously believe what you just wrote? It looks like a flimsy rationalization for pirating.
I absolutely believe that. I downloaded the demo of Medieval: Total War back when that came out, and thought it was pretty lackluster. All it was was a single siege battle. You had no choice of troops, no broader strategic decisions, none of the things that made the actual game good. I didn't buy it.
A couple months later, I got a pirated version from a friend, played it, loved it, bought it, and have bought every title in the series to have been released since then.
Sure, that sort of scenario may be the
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Sure, that sort of scenario may be the exception more than the rule. But then, you could say the same of scenarios where someone would have pirated the game, but bought it due to DRM.
Any evidence of this? Any instance of a game where there was not a 0-day crack due to DRM?
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I disagree with your comments on demos.
Demos are often extremely polished little snippets of the game, and they can really mislead you about the quality of the game, and the mid-end points of a game.
A prime example is Age of Conan (AoC). Just about everyone that played the open beta (read: demo) found the game to be pretty good, with a great little story line, and fun quests. Sadly, that was the highlight of the entire game.
I tried the demo of HellGate: London, and the game seemed pretty good. Sadly, the
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legitimately pirating the game.
The word of the day is 'Oxymoron'.
I think it's clear that he means the statistic is legitimately classifying them as pirates, not that the piracy is legitimate.
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I was thinking that I might buy the game even though I don't play PC games anymore, just to make a statement. That was up until the part about the guy insulting the consumers' honesty. I've never played any of the series beyond the original Prince of Persia, but this has just made me even more averse to trying it out (I had been considering it after playing Prince of Persia Classic on PS3 and enjoying the new fluid movements and slow-mo stuff).
The whole point for me isn't that DRM increases piracy (though I
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The whole point for me isn't that DRM increases piracy
...
it's that it inconveniences normal users and doesn't hinder the proper pirates who have experience bypassing copy protection schemes.
Exactly. And thanks to games like CoD2, and Forged Alliance, along with Steam, I no longer purchase any game that a)Requires a CD be in the drive to play. b)Ties itself to a particular machine. c)Installs what amounts to malware on my computer.
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Don't forget that there may be an aspect of CYA involved. If they knew that PoP sales were unlikely to live up to the pre-launch hype for some reason or another, they've just bought themselves a handy excuse.
Sadly, the majority of good games fail to set the market on fire. That's just how it works. So statistically this experiment is likely to end in an unsatisfactory state for all involved.
I'm probably going to buy the PC version of this game in order to support the experiment. But hopefully this doesn
They already have their answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people already has their answer. DRM prevents piracy. Sure, we all know that it isn't true, but judging by what their rep says, they are only seeking to prove that there is something good about DRM, and this "trial" is only to prove that they are right, not to actually gather information. No matter what the results are, they will claim that they have confirmation of what they already believe.
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Here's a hint to Ubisoft wannabes:
If you make a really crap game, piracy will go down, but sales would go down too.
If you make a good game, both piracy and sales will go up.
If you make an online game (one where most of the fun bits are online, not just the DRM bits), you can reduce piracy to near zero
Re:They already have their answer. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you make a really crap game, piracy will go down, but sales would go down too.
If you make a good game, both piracy and sales will go up.
I don't know what the warez scene is like these days, but a couple decades ago folks would copy software for the sake of having the software. It didn't matter if the tittle was a useful / good or bad / useless. If it was another piece to add to the collection, the warez packrats would squirrel it away. It was kind of an illicit data version of Pokemon; gotta collect them all. I wouldn't imagine it's much different today.
That would mean that a bad game would get copied indifferently to the quality of the game. In fact, bad games may even appear to be copied more as the percentage of illicit to legitimate copies skews to the warez packrats.
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What is different today is that most piracy is not in "the warez scene", whatever that is exactly, beyond the cracking and initial release, but in peer-to-peer networks composed mostly of people who do not have infinite storage and bandwidth, and so more rarely will download games, and even more rarely seed them, if they do not expect to like them.
Re:They already have their answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, the denial on this thread is amazing. The test hasn't even started yet, and people are already writing it off on the grounds that it can't be a "real" test, or that they're doing it wrong, or whatever.
I think it's safe to assume it won't make much difference, because modern PC DRM doesn't seem very strong, but to make blanket statements about DRM is pretty absurd - it clearly does work in other implementations, like the consoles.
Let's wait and see what the numbers say. I know most Slashdotters made up their mind a long time ago, but at least Ubisoft is open to other ideas.
Re:They already have their answer. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know most Slashdotters made up their mind a long time ago, but at least Ubisoft is open to other ideas.
The reason "Slashdotters made up their mind" is due to the tone coming from Ubisoft.
"A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP PC has no DRM we'll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine."
It sounds like Ubisoft already has their minds made up. That's what "Slashdot" is picking up on.
Yeah - it'll be interesting to see what happens with this. It makes for a very interesting experiment and discussion. But I'll have to practice my "surprise face" just in case Ubisoft announces that their experiment has proven the need for DRM.
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Re:They already have their answer. (Score:5, Interesting)
Being someone who has spent a LOT of time in meetings like they had about this..
it's not about what they say. It's about not paying for the royalties and licensing for a DRM solution. I'm betting that putting no DRM in it brings the cost of the game development down to 3/4 the price.
That means higher profits per unit sold.
it's ALL about money. dont be fooled by any of their PR talk.
Re:How to make enemies and alienate people (Score:5, Insightful)
Treating people like criminals will make them lose respect for you and that's a really bad way to make a sale. And yes, that includes snippy little remarks about "how honest" they are. I, personally, will never buy another game from this company so long as this dipshit is at the helm.
I think it would be really easy to become very jaded about DRM and piracy when you're the one being pirated from. I DON'T think it's fair to heap abuse on someone from that background who is making a compromise.
The guy is making a game, and is likely annoyed at least with people who pirate it. Some are people who bought the game, but download the cracked version because of the DRM, probably. It's of course impossible to test whether that's most people or whether most pirated copies are downloaded by people who never paid a dime for it. This is one of the only ways I can see to actually test the idea that DRM encourages piracy.
Don't buy the games if you don't want to, but acting offended because the guy isn't giving away his product with a smile is, well, absurd.
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No, this is science, and I like it.
Ubisoft is saying "We don't believe that DRM reduces our sales, but we're going to test it by releasing an a-list title without DRM."
I'm going to buy it just to reward the company for doing something intelligent.
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Why? To a pirate EVERY game is a game without DRM.
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why is it that you can't test drive games anymore? i bought doom way back in the day because of the free demo. same reason i bought quake. you don't want me to test out your game because you think i might not like it? too bad. i'll download it from the pirate bay, play through an hour or three to decide if i like it, and either buy it or be bored and uninstall it. and all of this is unaffected by your drm. the only thing that's doing is pissing me off once i've actually purchased your game. good thi
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You're kidding, right? With Fileplanet [slashdot.org], high-speed internet access, downloadable demos on Xbox live and PSN, we're living in a world of unprescedented access to demos. This version of Prince of Persia will probably have a demo out about a month after the game, downloadable for your console or PC at your convienience over a fat pipe.
BTW, Doom was paid shareware, not a demo. You bought some of it (that 5 dollar retail floppy), and if you liked it you bought the rest. The mainstream game developers of the
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And where exactly was the theft here? Theft involves physical transfer of goods. Downloading involves making a copy. Until replicators are common place, comparing the two is comparing apples and oranges.
Besides, with a car, you can test drive it before you decide to buy. It's become increasingly difficult to do that with games. What's our only recourse of actions then? To blindly get ripped off? I don't call that being a smart consumer.
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Maybe something else than cars? (Score:2)
Can we change from cars to something else this time? Maybe dogs? I took your dog for a walk and then i decided i will buy a dog from SOMEONE ELSE!
Or, i had a dog, but it was hit by a car someone else was testdriving, so now i have to get a new dog.