The facts of life: A heartfelt defense of Ubisoft and DRM

[Pilot37]

It appears that I paid for something that I cannot use at any time that I like. I am really furious! DONT BUY THIS UNTIL THEY FIX DRM. There can be no justification for upsetting paying customers by removing their right to use the software. I don't care what the reason is, IT SHOULDN'T BE MY PROBLEM.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Do you guys just whine and make smartalec comments? How about some empathy? How about some compassion and understanding in tough times? Sometimes in those tough times tough decisions need to be made, these people have responsibilities to their shareholders and employees that they need to fulfill. This isnt UNICEF, they dont make these games to please you. Oh yea, and they warned us in advance, and printed it in big black and white letters on the front of the box, and made a commitment to support this game years into the future (another benefit of episodic releases)

Do you people have any constructive suggestions? Or just complaints about whatever is in front of you.

I've been a supporter of submarine simulation games since Silent Service in the 1980s. When I didn't have a computer that would run SH3 I bought it anyway, just to support the franchise. Luckily I came up with the money to buy a new PC just a few weeks later.

When SH4 was released I was out of work and homeless. As soon as I had some money I bought a copy just to support the genre and the only company making the game I wanted to play. It was almost a year before I actually got to play it.

When SH5 was being touted I wasn't sure if I would be able to play it either, and, in spite of some of the bad impressions being garnered around the community, I came out and said I would buy it no matter what.

So now they've released it and I won't ever get to play it, because when I don't have enough money to spread around the first thing to go is the internet connection, which to me is a luxury. I can always go to the library to get online, which is where I am now.

So I haven't bought the game. Why? If I couldn't play it because my PC wouldn't run it, that's nobody's fault but mine, and I'd buy it anyway. But I can't play it because UBIsoft says I don't count. Nor does the customer who vacations in a remote place and likes to play sometimes. Nor can the customer who plays on his laptop to while away a long flight.

Constructive suggestions? Please stop treating good customers who have been faithful for years in such a dismissive manner. Why should I support this kind of disrespect?

And I'll ask the same question of you: HOW ABOUT SOME EMPATHY?

Originally Posted by The Enigma

That's a solution I could accept.


Wise words.

Disk authentication is pointless, and can be beaten with a simple virtual drive or nocd cracked EXE.

The only way for DRM to be effective is to intrude. If its not intrusive about weither your game is real or not, or you just register once and its over, its easy to defeat.

[Apache312]

Bravo Sailor Steve. I completely spaced out on the traveling deal. I travel for work, and I take my personal laptop so I can be entertained while away from home. Hotel WiFi is crappy at best. I guess im in your boat as well, as I wouldnt even be able to play SH5, even if I didnt disagree with this DRM.

Oh well, hopefully all the articles on the internet will help Ubi come to a better conclusion of what its customer base wants.

/S

Apache312

[blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by voidster

actually the DRM is working. If you take the time and go visit pirate boards you will see people jumping for joy over sh5's crack only to see them complain about not being able to even complete the first part of the career. It must update the servers or vice versa once you complete an objective, then UBI's servers sends the proper data to unlock other missions or whatever. At least thats the theory..

Well, up until yesterday i think. Recent (deleted) posts on the UBI forum by angry legitimate owners suggest there is no network traffic relating to missions whatsoever, it's all in your SH5 folder. Just edit a couple cfg files after you complete each mission and you're good to do.

The game is fully functional without an internet connection because, apparently, the developer team never intended it to be dependent on one and didn't design it this way. It was just an afterthought by UBI that was slapped on before release.

Originally Posted by Commie

Same old propaganda peddled by companies that do not want to support the PC but prefer the consoles. Console piracy is also strong, but you rarely see anyone whining about it.

XBOX/PS3/Wii : This is the reason that PC games are not being supported as much, it's a cheap standardised platform that maximises revenue and minimises cost of development.

The move to multiplayer gaming also means that games that are initially pirated end up being bought by the pirates for the multiplayer. Check out the high sales of Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the PC to kill off the old lie that piracy hurts sales.

So called piracy is EASILY combated. Look at games by Matrix Games or Stardock. Pirates tend to only pirate the very first versions of them and the games become like a demo, as extra features and fixes are released insubsequent patches which you can only get by registering your unique key! People that aren't really interested in the genre won't bother with the game, they wouldn't have bought it anyway but fans tend to buy the game even if they pirated it in order to get all the benefits.

THE ONLY REASON Ubi DOESN'T do this is because they are loathe to support their products besides the bare minimum, they don't want to keep adding to a game like Stardock has done with GalCiv II, supporting it for YEARS! Why not? If they really were worried about pirates taking all their profit, wouldn't it make more sense to fund after sales support to give free updates and improvements plus DLC for a year or two extra? It would also keep the game in the spotlight longer and generate more sales. The simple fact is piracy is a negligible problem and is just an excuse to cut development and quality control on the PC in order to concentrate on where the real money is.

This post hits the nail on the head. All these piracy and DRM issues are mainly an excuse to stop making quality PC games.

Even if there was no piracy, PC games are usually more complicated than console games, or at least the PC platform gives them the potential to be. That means they take longer for the developer to make, but they also take longer for the player to finish, they have some replayability and they can also be gifted, loaned or resold.

What does that mean? That in the time you paid $40, have finished a single SH5 campaign and are getting to ready start your second career, a console gamer might have gone through 3-4 separate titles of $40 each. That's the real deal here guys and i'm glad that people in the sim genre like Oleg Maddox understand it and openly state that for a simulator to succeed you need a good product and loyal fans (that means good support), instead of artificial fiery hoops tacked onto the release which legitimate buyers will have to jump through while fighting a bear with one hand tied behind their back before the game actually lets them play

It's sad to have developers that strive to advance this hobby and then have their efforts destroyed by the publisher's whims or delusions of grandeur. See for example Rise of Flight, same story. Limited content, online DRM (i think that even now with the offline SP patch you can't fly the campaign unless you're online, just the single missions), micro-payment model and all that because the team ran out of money and had to rely on some investors, who naturally want a fast return of their invested money.

In a perfect world our games would be distributed and published by companies with a sim-heavy background and i bet they'd do really well too. Imagine a handful of companies like the Maddox team or Aerosoft having the publishing rights for 90% of the simulator titles. They know how hard it is to make a good one, they are not afraid to delay the release if that means a more complete product but most of all, they know that the money with simulators is not the impulse buyer, but the long time fan. These are not your weekly distractions, they are games that keep being played for as much as a decade. Good support, nifty after-sales incentives to own an original version and a steady stream of improvements and you're going to make enough money to not only stay afloat as a company, but also fund your next project for some years (exactly what happened with IL2 funding the development of the next sim series starting with battle of Britain).

The question is who's going to bother. The answer is obviously companies that already have a simulation background and not the jack-of-all-trades megacorps who aim mostly at "firework" products (5-6 months of immense sales and gameplay, then the game gets totally forgotten).

[robbo180265]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've been a supporter of submarine simulation games since Silent Service in the 1980s. When I didn't have a computer that would run SH3 I bought it anyway, just to support the franchise. Luckily I came up with the money to buy a new PC just a few weeks later.

When SH4 was released I was out of work and homeless. As soon as I had some money I bought a copy just to support the genre and the only company making the game I wanted to play. It was almost a year before I actually got to play it.

When SH5 was being touted I wasn't sure if I would be able to play it either, and, in spite of some of the bad impressions being garnered around the community, I came out and said I would buy it no matter what.

So now they've released it and I won't ever get to play it, because when I don't have enough money to spread around the first thing to go is the internet connection, which to me is a luxury. I can always go to the library to get online, which is where I am now.

So I haven't bought the game. Why? If I couldn't play it because my PC wouldn't run it, that's nobody's fault but mine, and I'd buy it anyway. But I can't play it because UBIsoft says I don't count. Nor does the customer who vacations in a remote place and likes to play sometimes. Nor can the customer who plays on his laptop to while away a long flight.

Constructive suggestions? Please stop treating good customers who have been faithful for years in such a dismissive manner. Why should I support this kind of disrespect?

And I'll ask the same question of you: HOW ABOUT SOME EMPATHY?

Thanks for the post Steve-kinda feel a little better about myself after reading your post. I have no-doubt that I will cave in and buy this game at some point, but for the time being the only thing stopping me is the bleeding DRM. It treats us all as pirates and that's just not on.

[Silanda]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Disk authentication is pointless, and can be beaten with a simple virtual drive or nocd cracked EXE.

The only way for DRM to be effective is to intrude. If its not intrusive about weither your game is real or not, or you just register once and its over, its easy to defeat.

Firstly, running a game from a virtual drive usually requires a bit more faffing around than simply making an image of the game. The copy protection isn't that poor.

Secondly, intrusive copy protection is equally pointless. It can always be cracked in the end and only temporarily delays the inevitable. On the flip side, as has been stated a number of time, it makes life difficult for legitimate users and doesn't affect pirates one iota. How is that effective copy protection when it positively encourages people to pirate the game in order to get the best gameplaying experience?

Originally Posted by Silanda

How is that effective copy protection when it positively encourages people to pirate the game in order to get the best gameplaying experience?

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

[robbo180265]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

U MAD?

[Méo]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

So far its working perfectly for me

It's working perfectly for me too. (OSP, not bugs).

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

I know, some folks just need to vent their frustrations over something they did not experienced.

As I said, it's useless to argue, you're wasting your time!

[OakGroove]

@ OP disagree on all points, except your first.

Re. More expensive niche products.

http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/0...-logorama.html

In other parts of the world you can produce several game titles with these assets. They allocate it to some Oskar winners for doing a 20 min advertisement for their "F-16 On Legs" shooter franchise. I can see Ubi catering the casual games/console markets - but let's leave it at that.

[Steiger]

I thought this picture would be very relevant to our conversation. Yeah it's about movies, but the point stands. Enjoy.

[Skullcowboy]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

So a company TELLS us that we want something and that is in our best interest to just accept it. We decide we DON'T want it and it isn't of value to us. When we don't just roll over, take the buggering and pony up our cash, then we, the CONSUMERS, are the problem?

Really.

Sell a lot of insurance with that attitude towards customers?

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money? Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective. This is before you even begin to get to the issue of piracy, which due to simple GUI programs and the fact that most of us dont have 14.4K modems anymore, is more rampant than it used to be.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money? Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective.

Then they should have raised the price. Although it is impossible to prove a win, I would bet all the liquid assets I have that they could have doubled the price, forgone any copy protection, and spent the money they wasted on OSP on actually making the game better and would have sold more copies than they will with this approach.

It is just business and they have made a terrible business decision based on emotion instead of profit.

At least we know they are not Ferengi!

Rip