Vonotto, glad you're not having problems. But be careful, S-F can and maybe will bite you in the future when you least expect it. As it did to me after 8 months with my dvd burner.

Search and you'll find more about it.... here in this section and in the General Topics section.

I wouldn't read too much in what Starforce says in it's forums, they're only blowing their own horn to make themselves look good. Believe me, they're not good at all.

Don't get me wrong... I love SHIII. It's just the "malware" that UBI used to protect it that makes most of us mad as all h*ll.

The above link by the thread starter is coming from a company that is obvious biased and trying to take credit for a game just because they provided copy protection for it.

Silent Hunter III although a great game in some peoples minds did not fair that well.
Take a look at this article: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.gam...bargain.games/

As far as the copy protection is concerned, the game was cracked shortly after it's release. Although not many cared about that as we purchased the game.
You may ask yourself if the game would have sold better if not for all the problems people experienced with it.

All this is speculation of course, and I would not be that proud of the units sold if I was the publisher.

LucasArts, for example, says a hit computer game sells between 200,000 and 350,000 units, Silent Hunter III did not sell that many only 26,600. So you be the judge.

U-4053 wrote $40 bucks is the same as £20 UK for once we are paying a price as low as you! Although if you want a bargain I beleve Amazon UK now has it for £10 if you fancy a second copy be sure to use Neal's Amazon UK link in the Subsim Store so he makes a little commission off it.


Soulcommander wrote:
The world is bigger than the USA! I believe that figure only pertains to the USA, in Germany Silent Hunter III was top of the charts for quite some time and also was number 3 in the UK charts, unheard of for a subsim. Now we hear from kiwi_2005 it is a top game in New Zealand and even in Russia. It seems that the Americans are the ones letting the side down go immediately to the Subsim store and buy more copies!!!

I agree with your point but that article is 8 months old. I would like to see an up to date listing that takes into account the profits/units sold after the price drop. A large volume of units, all be it at a lower price, still make profits. As Sonarman pointed out, the CNN figures are likely to be US based but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise!. The overall picture can't be too bad if SH4 has been given the green light...

Wozza wrote
Yes, exactly there is no way Ubi would make SH4 based only on 26600 units sold of SH3 look at the math:

outlay
20 man devteam at £15000 each (conservative estimate)
x 2 years dev time = £405000

income
26600 units sold at an average of £25 each =£650000
- retailers cut about 45% (probably more)= -£292000

That's a loss of £47000 before we even start talking about marketing advertising and thats without giving the project managers and lead designers any extra cash etc.

Hardly an inspiration to start work on SH4 or label the game as one of the brands" which have contributed to our success this year and will continue to do so in years to come" as Ubi said in their 2005 annual report.

Thats what is sad about the June date. The game wasn't out but just a few months and went into the bargan bin that fast.

As you well know games that are emerging are normally bought up straight away and sales sky rocket. Not so with SHIII.

Sad indeed. It hit the bargain bin very quickly.

Yes Soulcommander I'd blame UBi's marketing machine for that, not much advertising anywhere. Also it may have been a better business decison to do a Pacific Theater sim first, then the Atlantic theatre in SH4 as a lot more people in the US purchased the original Pacific set SH rather than it's sequels.

There is also a big opportunity for UBI if they do a Japanese localised version of SH4 or include Japanese playable vessels. - Japan's population is equivalent to 43% of the US population! and to my knowledge there has never been a true subsim released in the Japanese language which could equate to a huge number of sales.

Absolute nonsense.

I didn't get my copy until June and, trust me, I paid the full price.

It is still available, on shelves, at EB and a number of other outlets for full price. The other thing I noted was when I finally got around to purchasing Dangerous Waters the clerk at the store recommended me to Silent hunter 3, and he was very knowledgeable on it.

As well, for the first few months UbiSoft was hard pressed to keep up with the demand. The UbiSoft store sold out of their stock the first week, and there was a three week delay getting new product into the stores and available online. Given the lead time for getting articles published that puts you pretty close to the date this article was written.

This stupid article has been circulating for almost a year now, and is a perfect example on irresponsible and inaccurate reporting.

Several months ago a Ubisoft representative stated that they were very happy with the sales of Silent Hunter, but somehow that never gets repeated. Just that same stupid article over and over and over.

The absolute bottom line is that, if UbiSoft was not happy with the results there would be no SH4.

JCC

After reading some of the problems caused by StarForce to PCs' i am very happy i bought mine through direct2drive. No StarForce and i havent had a single issue with the game, ever.

The D2D version also comes with Starforce.

I thought i had read someplace that it didnt. Oh well, i havent had any issues with my game or my PC since getting it.

Problems can pop up later on Winters. Hold your breath and pray they don't. ;)

I've had the game installed for over a year now but i will keep an eye on things.

Just to let you guys know....I copy all of my movie DVD's with my burner and make copies of music cd's with burner and copy program (all legal and only things I own and have paid for) and have never had a problem with starforce messing anything up.

This topic has gone off track but whatever.

As far as your knowledge Mr. Channing I can't argue with you. But here in my city Best Buy did not sell that many copies and I happen to know the manager and he stated to me that there were copies on the shelf months after it came out and that the game did not sell well at all.

So as far as the story goes that I posted with link, I guess take it up with the journalist. Thats what I do. I go to the source.

If you don't like what is published let the journalsit know and tell him to back it up with proof.

I can assure you that any credible journalist does that.

Here is an example of how your own moderator posted something without checking out the facts on the article:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopi...=47535&start=0

CDfreaks article is an example of poor journalism, Mark never spoke to any online Magazine. If you need further proof I can post Marks response to me about this.

I also wrote to CDFREAKS...but they never responded.
So yes, I do practice what I preach in case you were wondering.

Since some people in this thread did go off topic and have had no issues with Starforce and are likely watching this post, I would like to post the following here.

Hello all, I know alot of you are wondering what has been going on?
Well yours truly and 13thhour have been getting info to you as best we can. Now Cyber Shack brings you some info from:
Dennis Zhidkov (StarForce Technologies)
Steven Levy (Newsweek magazine)
Dan Mattia (Game-Overdrive.com)
Larry Freese (Consumer Rights Activist)

I also want to add that alot of the interview with myself was deleted for length requirements I'm sure. I want to add that I do NOT use nor have I ever used Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% and yet I still had a CDRW drive fail!

Listen closely and replay it many times. Absorb what is being said.
Again this is real. And just becasue it hasn't hit you doesn't mean it never will.

Don't come down on the consumer. We are all consumers. We are here because we care and how it may affect you, the unknowing, like it affected us, myself included.

Thanks to places like Subsim and the Cyber shack for the medium to make the public aware.


The actual web page:
http://cybershack.com/comments.asp?id=453

Direct feed click here

There was nothing to absorb, unfortunately nothing new was being said.

Thanks for the comment I couldnt wait till you chimed in. You obviously don't have ears nor are you a caring person. Just here to make rebuttles and more.

Ok, then be so kind and tell those people who don´t have time to replay it many times and to absorb all the informations correctly which important things were being said that we didn´t read before somewhere.

What is sad here and in EVERY forum everywhere is how some people have had troubles with a product and then continue to bad mouth it to others who have never had a problems and may never have one. What I would like to see is ....make your point once, there is no need to continue to bash things and attempt to sway others into what has become your "fight". All you do is make others feel that you have nothing productive to say, just the same old pitch.

This has been only my opinion.

To SoulCommander, this is NOT directed at you it is just my venting on something I see everyday here and on other forums. This topic just pushed me to the point I wanted to speak out.