I think the online requirement will be patched out before that 8 year mark. :)

Once the sale of new copies drops to a handfull of units per year, keeping it tied to a server would only cost them money. It only makes sense from a business perspective to release that patch.

The alternative is shutting down the servers, which would cause a substantially more severe backlash than this harebrained DRM scheme.

If the community shows some solidarity against it after release, as I'm
sure we will, it may be a lot sooner than that.

One sure fact is it will create piracy. Lots of legit users of SH3 and SH4 won't buy SH5 due to its DRM ad will chose a cracked version. It's a pitty, because once you have lost a customer, it's lost for good; but that's what Ubisoft deserves.
I rather install an offline cracked version from a "bad guy", than a steam DRM legit version that want to send my details all the time to the big brother Ubisoft. DRM is trojan, I know how it works and it's just a proof of company's impotence of creating a really efficient piracy protection system.
Customer have to suffer because guys on Ubisoft are not able to create an decent anti-piracy system.

You got a point but there is one problem with this.
This is not Steam. This is Ubisoft's own copy protection. The game is still going to be sold at Gamestop/Best Buy/Frys/Etc. So the millions of "new" Steam customers that you say will see it, actually wont see it. I havent actually heard about them selling this thru Steam (yet). From what I understand, they are selling it thru the regular channels. The only thing that has changed is the DRM method. This wont get them many new customers.

Is it confirmed that this DRM applies to SH5?

Yes

I will not buy a game controlled by DRM! :nope:

I don't accept the principle of I pay, you keep--the logic is untenable.

Ubi, you go DRM, you have lost me.

Ubi, if you have studied the French revolutionm you know what happens when you try to shove unwanted stuff down people's throats.

And, YES, all you are achieving is promoting the spread of piracy.

Ubi, I am in the publishing business too. every day I see my used books sold without getting a penny. My Kindle version is also being pirated. I understand your problem. Find a better solution than DRM!

Such as more quality and content. Make something that's worth the money and maybe people will be more inclined to buy your shovelw... ehr, products.

Software piracy is something that companies must learn to live together. Unable to remove beggars, prohibiting begging. Much less, discriminating customers by where they live, because the quality of Internet varies according to where they live.

In short, Ubisoft kicked me as a customer, because even though I buy my Silent Hunter V, I'll always be for them a thief for not having a stable internet connection. This disgusts me. :x:damn:

I also want to play Silent Hunter 5, but I can not. Not because I have no money, not because I have no PC requeriments, but because where I live, I do not get enough internet signal to play.

What you think I supposed to do? Sell my house and move my wife and son to another location with internet enough to UBI? :down:

Everything has a limit. And this is the limit, Ubisoft

I understand a large percentage of North American and European gamers are on Internet conenctions 24/7. But aside from guys who travel like me, there are also a lot of subsimmers in countries like Topo65 above where satellite Internet connectivity gets spotty and goes down at times including a lot of the third world and even many developed countries. I have seen occassional service outages when traveling to several places in the Middle East and Asia. If you are US military or a contractor in Iraq or Afghanistan, service availability also gets dicey at times too.

PC Gamers in the US and Europe take good infrastructure for granted.

I used to be a fan of the Total War series. The latest total war game, Empire, uses Steam. Even with Steam, I can occassioanlly be online to authenticate the game and then play offline when I travel. But Steam authentication pops up so frequently that I don't even really play that game any more. Last year I got stuck in a hotel in Dubai for 24-hours due to a missed plane conenction and was unable to get an Internet conenction. (Dubai mind you, not exactly some third world country!) Steam was at a point where it would not let me play offline. I decided that was it. F''' Steam! I played SH3. I uninstalled Empire and haven't loaded it back on since.

UBI needs to very seriously rethink this one.

Wolfpacks, ending in 1943, and all that other stuff I can contend with. I'd still buy the game, hoping that the Modding community can improve it and get it where we want it. But any requirement for active internet conenctivity is a DEAL BREAKER.:down:

Well, I guess this was the inspiration I needed to get back to work on my mod. I was working the past year on a highly improved Med Campaign for GWX 3 (a number of new harbors, improved shipping, scripting of a number of aditional battles, etc.). I got up to late 1943 and lost steam on it about three months ago. Maybe I'll start spending some of my hotel time working on that again and milk a few more years out of SH3 until SH6 comes along or maybe someone creates a crack.

So much for supporting the manufacturer to ensure more games when they pull this garbage.

Bye bye ubi.

Then I'm out. This will be one of those rare occasions where I rather download a "fixed" version + total boycott of UBI from now on. Either that or I skip SH5 altogether. I have enough on my hands as it is anyway.

No Mercy.

Clearly the devs better look for another publisher then UBI if they want to survive this business. Just like with BIS (Bohemia Interactive) They successfully broke with their fascist publisher (Codemasters) and kept the hard core fansbase. The FP/ARMA community is stronger then ever.

If not, then SH6 prob will never see the light of day.

I'm actually really surprised at the amount of people who've posted not that they won't buy, but that they can't.
The way some pro-Ubi DRM posters talk about this "minority" you'd expect maybe a handful of people out of the hundreds posting. I've lost count of the number of times (in this thread alone) I've read explanations as to why people are not on perma-connection.

The idea that a tiny percentage of gamers are not perma-connected might be true for the FPS/MMO crowd, but for sim gamers I think the numbers are more than some people expect.

Who cares, still a minority, right? :roll:

(obvious sarcasm, in case I need to point it out :D)

All I can say at this point is...

GO GO GO FlakMonkey, DivingDuck, Lucagaeta, and Tomi! Give us our sub for SH3!!!

(Man, this sucks! I was really looking forward to SH5 in spite of its apparent shortfalls!)