[Rockin Robbins]

Unfortunately your words and actions have no effect comparable to the effect of your money. You are whispering that you want needed changes and your money is shouting "I approve of the DRM. I don't expect to be able to sell copyrighted material on the used market. I accept and endorse unreasonable restrictions as to where and when this piece of (fill in the blank) can be used."

Guess what is the only thing Ubi hears? Once the money is spent your input is over.

As it is, Silent Hunter 5 is nothing more than a trojan horse, containing nasty malware. The more we by our actions, modding, making tutorials, posting videos, enhance the attractiveness of the trojan horse, the more Ubi will sell. They will say "it's working! Thanks Subsim! Our DRM is wonderful!"

Even worse, there is a published mod which makes it possible to play the game offline without interfering in any way with Ubi's DRM. If this gets widespread use, it will also encourage sales of SH5 as is. Ubi will merely look at the increased sales and say, "It's working! Lets do more of that." Even a partial solution makes the problem worse.

The only remedy for this situation is for our money to remain in our pocket. I had money put aside to purchase and was ready to purchase without reservations as to the completeness of the game. I wasn't worried about only one kind of U-Boat or the cutoff time or imperfections bound to happen in a cutting edge game. I was ready to jump in and do the same kinds of things I've done with and for Silent Hunter 4. I believe I've done a small part of enhancing the value of that product, teaching at least a dozen or two that manual targeting is fun and possible.

I won't be doing any of that for SH5 and I recommend that everyone examine the options and realize that my course is the only course that can result in change. Either Ubi will relent and we will have a product that respects our status as paying customers, fans and supporters or Ubi will die with its trojan horse and another company more focused on customer needs will emerge to take its place. It's tough love time and unless we act responsibly, we're just enabling this drunk. Yeah, he says he's going to use the money we give him to buy food, but we really know all that's happening is the sorry wino is headed to 7-Eleven for another quart of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Game over Ubi. Change or die.