DRM a slightly different viewpoint
 

Ok, I know a lot of guy's don't like UBI's new digital rights management (DRM) and I can fully understand that. However after a lot of thought, I can also understand Ubi's point of view. SHV is the first game to use full DRM, consequently, it's a new thing and therefore represents change. We have all for a long time been used to the status-quo; you buy a game, you install it, you play it- as long as your PC is up to it, you require nothing further. Howvere, thanks to our old friend TPB and others, it would appear those days are gone.
Put yourself in UBI's shoes, you are solely responsible to your shareholders, you invest a million quid into a game and then some spotty skip rat pirates the same game and you lose potentially 20% of your income; which directly affects future game dev thereby ruining it for all of us......No SHVI (ok judging SHV most probably don't want one) but you see my point.
A few years ago, I bought an EVOIIX, my warranty depended on me buying 99 octane juice from BP, which believe me was a pain when I took a trip to the Scottish Highlands!!! but the point is, I knew about this when I spent nearly £40k on a car.
This isn't a new phenomonon, games for a long time, have at least required you to register on-line. Footy manager has required you to use Steam for a while, admittedly, you have the option not to register on the basis you have to permenantly have the disc in the disc-drive--maybe this is the way that UBI should have gone, given us the option.
In my opinion, DRM is here to stay......One part of me think's this is sad, the other part makes me think that because of this there will be a SHVI sometime 2013. A large proportion of the population now has broadband so from a developer perspective it makes sense and at least they have built in to the game a feature that saves your game if you become disconnected.




Please don't attack me guys, I know a lot of you feel very strongly about this and I don't want this to develop in to another DRM bashing thread. Personally, i'm not overly pleased about it but I would think the pragmatic amongst you may well see a kernel of truth in this???

/popcorn

I can see what you are saying, but to me it boils down to how it affects each individual. If you can not always be online then it would suck big time. If it simply does not work for you it would suck big time (ie connection to server issues). If you are always online and have no connection issues then one may be able to see how it is an evil but with a decent purpose.
However, I personally hope that the future of single player gaming does not require full time online access because I realize not everyone has it.

I can quite honestly say the DRM has not affected me at all with SH5. Still, I do not think it is a good way for them to go.

Whetyer the permantly online DRN is the future or not depends on buyers. If you buy it , you'll get it.

If you don't, you might be able to prevent customer abuse and to continue living like a free cusomer, able to play without fear of what the publisher may do or not do.

We already see a lot of fear by SH5 buyers, this is reflected in their attitudes in this forum. Yes, Ubi will not keep its servers going forever if they lose money on a game.

There are many thousands of gamers who live in the country area's of Australia alone that either don't have internet access or 56k modems that are not good enough, these people have no chance to play these games at all, it's ridiculous!! I am one of them, but even so, the whole idea of being online for a single player game is stupid, activation yes, but not permanent!:stare:
My only chance to play the game is if the game is patched or a damn crack!:down: I can see only an increase in piracy!!:nope:
There is one ray of light though, there are many who wont buy games that have this type of DRM, this will create a market for an alternate method of protection by other manufacturers! Money is money!:yep:

captainprid,

If you accept that piracy is what Ubi and others tell you it is then even then I could not agree. They have a vested interest to over inflate the affects as it can easily hides many business management/model failures and as with Ubi's new DRM takes away your right to resell or give away the game you paid for.

US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus

Lets look at the facts...

Do you know of any DRM that has stopped a game, movie or music from being pirated? I do not.

This is not a case of can you tell me a game that has not, because there are games that have not been pirated because no-one has a interest in it to be bothered. It is can you show me a DRM platform/version that has not.


I would say put yourself in Stardock's shoes, when everyone was ramping up their DRM and preaching how piracy was costing them 90% of their sales and boo f&cking who, companies like Stardock, Good Old Games, Matrix Games, AGEOD games and so on where releasing games with no DRM and are after all these years going from strength to strength.

There are too many success stories for me to believe Ubi and EA etc.


Lastly what has DRM done for the paying customer?

Has DRM has resulted in Ubi games being finished before being released? NO. But Stardock do.

Has DRM resulted in Ubi giving ongoing support past the cursory patches? NO. But Stardock do.

Has DRM resulted in Ubi delivering what is promised? NO. But Stardock do.

Has DRM resulted in Ubi providing additional free content? NO. But Stardock do.


DRM has not benefited the paying customer, it had caused only issues.


What of Ubi's DRM? BlueByte struggling with Settlers 7 DRM problem; Ubisoft remain silent

By Brenna Hillier - Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:54am

It's now been three DRM-plaguedThe Settlers 7. Two facts rear their unsightly heads from the public relations nightmare of the last twenty-one days: that some unhappy gamers are stillUbisoft have failed to make any statement on the problems.

The latest update on the situation comes from a single employee willing to engage with official-forum goers, who has been on unable to play the game they paid for, and that vacation.

According to a BlueByte spokesperson, the developer has been able to "unlock" accounts affected by the failure of Ubisoft's new "always-on" DRM, which left a staggering number of players unable to experience even the single-player campaign.

As the struggling spokesperson notes, the Ubisoft forums are not the official support channel for the game, but as the publisher have failed to make any official statement, press release or announcement, frustrated gamers don't know where else to turn to request assistance.

The "official" support channels are lodging a support ticket by email, or calling a paid hotline. In either case, users must await return contact, and some are reporting week-long delays to responses, or finding their support requests have been arbitrarily closed without action.

A week's wait for a reply on a fault of this scale is simultaneously par for the course and utterly unacceptable; while the sheer numbers involved must be overwhelming, in the face of a major issue like this, most companies would give up on individual responses and post regular public updates.

The lack of response and support seems even more damning in the knowledge that during the absence of one employee, there was noUbisoft are taking the problem seriously; have they only assigned one guy to diffuse this situation...?

Thanks to Brian for flagging this; he says he's had very little luck with Ubisoft support. If you've got anything to share - positive or negative - let us know in the comments section. Did you experience a fault? Has it been rectified? Did you receive sufficient information?

A week's wait for a reply on a fault of this scale is simultaneously par for the course and utterly unacceptable; while the sheer numbers involved must be overwhelming, in the face of a major issue like this, most companies would give up on individual responses and post regular public updates.

The lack of response and support seems even more damning in the knowledge that during the absence of one employee, there was no communication from either developer or publisher. This hardly suggests Ubisoft are taking the problem seriously; have they only assigned one guy to diffuse this situation...?

Thanks to Brian for flagging this; he says he's had very little luck with Ubisoft support. If you've got anything to share - positive or negative - let us know in the comments section. Did you experience a fault? Has it been rectified? Did you receive sufficient information?

I am not saying every company who does not do DRM is legendary, Matrix games sometimes fit into the same grouping above as Ubi.

Also there is the issue where EA turned off support for games that were not 2 years old and only supporting the new game, and this is what will happen with Ubi.

All excellent points...I guess only time will tell how this particular DRM develops and if other developers write it into their games.

Don't get me wrong though, i'm not trying to defend Ubi and their DRM, not at all, it makes no difference to me one way or another and in an ideal World there would be no DRM at all. I'm just trying to see Ubi's justification for such draconian interference

Yeah this is a straight up cost-benefit thing.

The cost being the actual investment in dollars and resources to build, implement and maintain the DRM... which of course is passed along to the customer either as a price increase, or an equivalent slice of the project budget being redirected away from actual game development (features, QA, etc). Then there's the inevitable and entirely foreseeable bad press on review sites and boards like this all over the internet... which translates into lost sales.

On the other hand you have the benefit. The benefit being... what?

It didn't stop the pirates.

And although it may prevent 2nd hand re-sale, I don't believe that's a big market in the PC world at any rate.

Did I miss anything?

Does it still make sense?

JD

Seems the stupid keeps coming from Ubi:

http://www.vg247.com/2010/04/16/ubis...creative-lead/

I appreciate some of the points, but here are my problems.

But it also prevents a lot of people from being able to play the game, for a variety of reasons, resulting in lost sales. Enough to make a difference? Probably not.

You're talking to a guy who hasn't owned a car in five years, because I don't have $400 to spend on a junker. Also, would you have bought the car if they required you to ask their permission every time you started it, and had to stay in contact with them the whole time you were driving?

Not really. Every game I own gives the options:

1. Register now.
2. Register later.
3. Never register.

If I can get online at the time I register. If I can't I don't. No problems.

Wouldn't work for me. When I tried to download SH4 UBM from Steam, they said I didn't exist.

And a large proportion doesn't. When I couldn't play SH4 because my computer was in storage I bought it anyway, just to support the only subsim available. But I can't play SH5 for no other reason than that UBI says I can't. To me that's unfair and unreasonable, so I won't buy it until they let me play it. If I buy it and they never let me play it, what then?

I'm not a gamer, I'm a history buff. The few games I play are history oriented. So I buy sub sims and flight sims, because I like ships and planes. I'm the ultimate niche market, and I guess I have to suffer because companies are going to make games for people who just want to play games, and that's the way it should be. I guess I'll go back to working on my tabletop miniatures naval game and call it good.

What else can I say?

There is nothing else you can say....you pretty much said it all there. Like I said before, I am not trying to defend Ubisoft, just TRY to see their point of view.
Like all arguments there are at least 2 points of view and you have illustrated yours perfectly. Like you, I am not a game nut, I have bought SH since III through IV to V and I buy Football manager every year...thats it, apart from Fallout. I buy Silent Hunter beacuse I love submarines and ideally I would like to play it every where I WANT not where Ubisoft tell me I can and I figure that is the hub of most people's argument but what is the answer?? I would Guess and I did say Guess that a lot more developers will move this way over time unless sales are so bad as a direct result of the DRM that they have to find another way to protect their investment, so if nobody buys the game, they will have to find another way that doesn't involve the internet.
My gut feeling is that out of the hypothetical 100 people who want this particular game less than 10 people wouldn't buy this game out of principle rather than the fact they don't have broadband......(Don't all shout at once that I am wrong) and I figure that Ubisoft figured on around 10%, factored it in to their maths and decided it was still worth doing???

Nice counter-points Steve :yep:

Their point of view is to make as much money as possible, no matter what needs to be done (or not done).

Jesus, I wish I hadn't bothered:wah:

And the outcome will be of those provided with good connection...

It comes down to control and those still willing to buy with control implemented. If you still get your kicks out of the entertainment provided after what has been implemented, then there's your answer to this whole DRM stuff and whether it will stay. And again, that's based on ones connection in the end. ;)

heh...I feel for ya. There's not a whole lotta fence-sitting going on around this topic. :03:

I'm glad you did. I may disagree, but expressing your views should always be welcome.

On the other hand, there have been so many of every kind of DRM thread that it's pretty much all been said. I don't like the DRM-bashing thrown into other threads any more than the people who support the game as it is, and I don't like the mockery that comes from some of the supporters.

There wasn't really any of either one here, so it's all good.:sunny: