Ubisoft Blames Piracy For Non-Release of PC Game 424
New submitter Azmodan sends this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"Ubisoft is known for laying the blame for many problems on the unauthorized downloading of its games. Stanislas Mettra, creative director of the upcoming game I Am Alive, confirms this once again by saying that the decision not to release a PC version is a direct result of widespread game piracy. However, those who look beyond the propaganda will see that there appears to be more to the story than that."
Another Ubisoft employee made similar comments about upcoming Ghost Recon games. Regarding Ghost Recon Online being free-to-play: "We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, 'Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.'" Regarding Future Soldier having no PC version: "When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind."
What do you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that so? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess BF3 should have sold 100 million copies and MW should have sold 200 million copies? Oh, those are multiplayer games you say? Skyrim should have sold 68 million copies then?
( Note: these are launch day sales )
How about you make a great game, price is appropriately and it will sell itself.
Besides, looking at myself, I've stopped pirating when I grew older and started earning some real money. I still won't buy Skyrim for €50, but I've grown so old I don't care anymore that I don't get to play the latest and greatest. I'll buy it once it reaches the price I want to pay for it. You are complaining that your cash strapped audience isn't spending it's money on you, fine, having them spend it in smaller amounts might work it might not. It still doesn't disqualify the old (and my preferred) way of selling a game.
Re:My interpretation... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Ubisoft has gotten itself into such a complete knicker-twist over the PC games market via its groteseque DRM efforts that it wishes to give up on the whole affair as a bad job. But, like the classic stroppy teenager, it wishes to make clear to all and sundry that it's not being sent home in disgrace, it's making its own decision, for its own reasons, to take its ball and go home."
and that's the reason I don't purchase Ubisoft games. Period.
Their DRM has more than once caused my computer to freak out and force me to reinstall everything over again. I did purchase one years ago and I traced it back to their DRM solution. I gave up and today won't purchase any of their games. If one is a gift I go back to the store and with an unopened product replace it with something else (or just get the refund or credit).
Too much of a pain and not worth my time troubleshooting their crap.
Re:My interpretation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, with android's face recognition, it won't be long before you're the only one who can read the article in the magazines/newspapers you subscribe to and if you hand it to someone else the screen will go blank.
Damn right. I read an article a year or so ago (that I can't seem to find now, unfortunately) about patents for ways to use face tracking to ensure you were actually watching the ads being served on your device; if you weren't giving it your full attention, the ad paused until you did. It's not bad enough we have to sit through ads anywhere and everywhere anymore, now we'l have no choice but to watch the things...
Re:My interpretation... (Score:0, Interesting)
You know, most people won't consider playing a game that's more than a year old. It's ridiculous to consider anyone playing the same game in 10 or 20 years. Only a small selection of games have been good enough to warrant that kind of long-term fanbase, and those types of games aren't made anymore -- they were designed for hardcore PC gamers. Counterstrike, UT2004, Tribes, OFP, and BG2 for example. It's rare to find non-simplified games these days.
Re:Frog boiling (Score:5, Interesting)
Steam's been around since... what... 2004? Its DRM requirements have not gotten any more restrictive over that span. In fact, the "play offline" feature works much better and more consistently than it used to, so if anything it's become less restrictive.
Let's assume it's true... (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone who can do all that is a very advanced computer users (don't laugh, I'm talking about the aggregate whole of all users). Assuming that Ubisoft's figures are correct, the only people left playing PC games are highly advanced users. If we assume this is true, then I want to ask why. Two possibilities are:
1. The technical barrier to entry for PC gaming is too high. If we assume that to play PC games you need to install a new graphics card (not an unreasonable assumption: most games come with an Intel Graphics adapter that can barely run WoW) then this could be true.
2. All non-Technical PC gamers have jumped ship to consoles or MMORPGs (the WoW effect).
Regarding # 1, there are still millions of PCs being sold with entry level ATI & nVidia graphics, which is more than enough to play games. That wasn't true 10 years ago, but the state of PC graphics has been stalled by console porting. Regarding # 2, well, there's something to that. But I would argue it's the job of Ubisoft's PC marketing team to make these people want to play games, and they're not doing a very good job. Note that I'm not talking about the game studios themselves, but the marketers. The key to marketing is to make people want to do something they didn't want to do before. Not necessarily something they'd never do, but something they would be disposed to doing given the proper message / incentives.
I guess what it sounds like to me is this: Ubisoft is just throwing up their hands and giving up.
Re:I bet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:An eventual negative return on investment (Score:3, Interesting)
I for one welcome the death of the retail software industry, long live the digital age.
Re:They can keep them (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile at Valve...
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/05/how-steam-stopped-me-from-pirating-games-and-enjoy-the-sweet-drm-kool-aid/ [techcrunch.com]