Just received this

[John W. Hamm]

Apparently Dude is an offensive word in Romania, but that is neither here nor there. For the sake of privacy I will not release which Dev it is, I have have also omitted some parts that may help to identify them. I am just actually shocked he took the time to write me back.

First of all, sir, there's nothing in this world that gives you the right to call me "Dude". You don't know me at all, so as with all the people, show me that initial respect.

Just so you know, I perfectly understand everyone's frustration about this "always-online thing" with the privacy concerns and technical possibility that the Internet may be down (even that it only happened only once to me last year, and let's not forget that I live in a God forgotten country like Romania).

BUT, I also understand that for all the Ubisoft's PC games, the piracy rate is over 90%. That means that for every 100k copies sold, there are another 900k copies being played by people that are getting what they want by stealing it. And I see it happening all around me, even for the best of games, including Assassins' Creed, Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2 etc. People that say "what a fabulous game, I will buy this one because is a masterpiece". But they never actually do it. And I'm stating it again, I see all the time with people I come in contact, to the fact that I'm getting sick and tired of it.

The decision that had to be made by the business guys was "do we cancel ALL PC games FOREVER and concentrate on everything else (consoles, casual, social)? No, let's be fair to the people and give them a chance to support the games that entertain them every day".

In the beginning, the dev team had the same feelings as you about the whole DRM design and implementation.

In the end, my personal opinion is that it had to be done. This is the world we're living in and these are the rules that we must obey.

Just to make things perfectly clear, I've been working on the Silent Hunter games since 2006. That's 4 years with so many weekends (both Saturdays and Sundays) spent at work that it affected my health, my family life and social life.

All the above are the facts.

My message to you and everyone on subsim would be as simple as this: "It's your choice whether you adapt to the chances in the gaming industry. But remember that the gaming industry will adapt to the behavior of people as a whole (because this is what pays for the food we eat)".

Please note that this is my personal opinion and in no way it reflects the official opinion of my employer.

Now, judging by that staggering 83% figure, that's me signing off and starting to learn ActionScript (Flash) for all the casual games I'll be working on from now on.

Personally after reading this my feelings have not changed, maybe they should go ahead and go with consoles...after all if they continue to do this with all of their games they will alienate the p.c. market anyway....and they will go out of business

My message to you and everyone on subsim would be as simple as this: "It's your choice whether you adapt to the chances in the gaming industry. But remember that the gaming industry will adapt to the behavior of people as a whole (because this is what pays for the food we eat)".

I know I'm not taking this as he meant it...but my feeling is; The game publishers will in fact adapt if you don't buy games that use DRM.