90% piracy is a grossly exagerated figure.

We know piracy is a major problem. However, Ubi is using the piracy problem to ramrod their OSP down our throats. Using a one time online authentication is acceptable.

What we are beginning to see now, is that our protest is having effect.

Like several people said on this thread, the best way of keeping customers is with honey, not draconian OSP junk. Loyalty is earned. By trying to force their buggy ODP, Ubi has lost loyalty BIG time.

Mystery Dev has done Ubi a great service by showing their concerns.
Where are the marketing & PR people who should be dialoging with us?Writing another diktat?

Just to remind them. Full time online is unacceptable!

If what our developer X says is true (i.e. 900000 copies pirated against 100000 sold), and the proposed antidotes (i.e. various DRM implementations) will continue to stay as intrusive as they are, then what we'll see in the not-too-distant future is the death of commercial PC game development. And you can thank pirates for this, _not_ UBI or game companies in general!

I mean, take our beloved writer Brag (and his publishers) for example. What would the said fine gentleman do, if I went out and sold unlicensed copies of his books for $1 apiece? UBI's position is in no way different, so they'll of course try and stop a bunch of a**holes copying their games as well - a standpoint I can personally understand completely.

But what will happen in general if no-one invents better DRM methods? Well then we PC gamers are just f**ked plain and simple, because our (per se rightful) refusal of buying games with intrusive and / or plain bad copy protection and / or copyright enforcement mechanisms will just force the companies to abandon PC games altogether, and concentrate on console development instead. So the future's not looking very bright at all I'm afraid, regardless of whether you guys decide to buy SH5 or not :-?

But hey, at least DftD is still being developed... :03:

yep.... go open source...

I disagree
 

MMmmm Yes and no, had I disclosed who it was I could see your point, but I don't think (unless he lives with his head in the sand) he would really think it wouldn't be posted...Maybe I'm just nuts for thinking this but like he said "You don't know me" and I don't know him...So anything he is saying to me he can be saying to anyone...because he has no idea who he is talking to. I'm just some guy who got a hold of his address and it isn't like he said anything in confidence to me...again how do you say something in confidence when you have never even talked to this person before online or otherwise...I do not and will not even come close to feeling guilty for posting this...there is no way that he could consider a reasonable expectation of privacy in this situation....period. There is no question that he knew it would be put out.

Never mind trying to second-guess his expectations, what about your consideration for his privacy? that is what Im not seeing here.

Anyway Mate -The bottom line is this, the devs will almost certainly stop responding to PMs if we go around posting them publicly. :dead:
hell even I will stop responding to PM's if there is no respect for system.

You might think that 90% is exagerated figure... but it is not.

It might be astonishing if you look from London, Boston or Hamburg... but in "less organised" countries it is not surprising...

But the point is - only small portion of these "players" would buy original game anyway... Most of them try all the games for day or two, as it costs nothing...
With DRM you can loose 70-80% of present market... and gain some 20% new players...
:yep:

@mikhayl, so why's my local 'game' store pc section getting smaller and smaller then? or is 'steam' and similar platforms stealing their trade?

i guess the dev's won't send pm's anyone just incase they get posted on here.

there you shot yerself in the foot.

You HAVE to respect the privacy. Just like you expect them to respect yours DRM and all.

Are console games the future?
First: Console games are also being 'modded' by pirates.
Second: More and more console games need an internet connection too.:cry:

Umm no I disagree there too. If you do something in plain public view you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. And I will not use DRM, if I did I would not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

I rarely see this mentioned, and it's something to remember. People seem to forget that a computer is a general purpose tool, and we can create content for it ourselves.

Yes, DftD is a huge undertaking. But look at the modding community here, and the huge undertaking it's been to create some of the super mods. Get enough people together with enough interest and talent, and they might just be able to pull DftD off.

Look at the state of Linux & Windows, for example. Building an O/S is complex, but it's been done and freely distributed.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: If Ubisoft persists with OSP and I find it onerous, I will not purchase SH5. I will not spend my time with SH3 (I hate that fatigue model, I really do...). I will spend my time working on DftD, doing all that I can do to make it better. Seein' as it's GPL/CC licensed and freely distributed, I'd love to see what Ubisoft will do to compete with it in the future. I can only see it chasing them out of the subsim market, or force them to concentrate on quality and content.

It's a bit like 'off the record'. Unless you get permission in the PM to include all or part of the PM in a public forum, it should remain private.

I don't know, it's been ages since I went to an actual game store, I make all my purchases from Amazon, Ebay (used) or Game.co.uk, so yep it's a possibility.

-----

Unrelated, but I'm curious about the sales figure for the SH 4 U-boat add-on. I bought it together with SH4, first week of release, and there was no copy protection.

Thats because one of the patches for SH4 removed the copy protection

For the last time you should quit assuming where it came from...What the hell? one person say's "OHITHINKTHISCAMEFROMAPM!!!" and suddenly this is gospel??? LAY OFF!

The developer is right. Seriously, how many times has your internet been out in the past 12 months? For me, 0. What's the problem?

:rotfl2:

OH COME ON NOW!:damn:

PRIVATE message.
For your eyes only.
No matter whats inside keep it to yer fekkin self!, thats what it means.

Are you a thrustworthy person or WHAT?

Publishers of PC games don't have it easy in a number of ways. Piracy isn't the only problem:

Sufficiently complex games often reach their peak a long time after they hit the shelves.
Many require patching for a long time (and this isn't always a bad sign - with enough complexity and a playerbase willing to get into fine nuances many issues will crop up that you can't predict with a reasonable amount of playtesting).
Others will be impoved by the players themselves - sub sims are a typical example.

Provided you have something to amuse yourself with in the meantime - and I do because there are plenty of classics with so much replay value that they'll last me for decades, as well as creative freeware titles - it usually makes sense to wait until you can pick up a game from the discount bin anyway.

:rotfl2: