The facts of life: A heartfelt defense of Ubisoft and DRM

Ok guys i'll make this as simple as i can.

Piracy is having a massive impact on getting PC games funded and green-lit (approved for production), more and more people are gaining acess to always-on broadband and the software required to pirate any game, software or movie they wish. Due to the unique way in which the internet is decentralized and tends to treat censorship or intrusion in any way like a body treats an infection (Contain and replace), i dont see this stopping any time in the future, or at least the next 10 years.

At the same time the costs associated with making a video game have skyrocketed, gamers demand bigger worlds, more accurate animations, gone are the days when it was a 2d bar with buttons and text speech. So the income has simultaneously been cut, while the costs continue to skyrocket.

So, now ubisoft ( lets just say, for example) has 5 options:

1. Stop making niche games, Il2 and Silent hunter are not popular, they are made in europe and sent over here to what i am sure is a pitiful audience, maybe a tenth the size of the latest assasins creed game. They have chosen not to do this. Somewhere deep down they covet that EA money, but have chosen not to do this.

2. Charge $250 for silent hunter 5- 1939-1945 edition. Its simple math people, they need to get more money from less people to even have a hope of staying afloat, or expanding. They have chosen not to do this, kind of. (see 4)

3. Make piracy a pain in the ass. This is the dreaded DRM, if they can delay the first pirate a week before a copy hits bittorrent, thats money in the payroll account. You'd be stupid not to try. In the olden days of 2005 they used invasive and ridiculous software to do this (Starforce), today they use something no more invasive than a steam account. I support the online option 100% and have had no problems with it after more than a week of gameplay. Not a single disconnect or CTD. Releasing a "buggy" game from the box and already having a patch ready to go is also a great method. Offline pirates cant fix their game until they spend yet another week figuring out how the hell to get the patch working. Ubi has done this

4. Copy GabeN: (episodic gaming) Remember how i said they need to make more money from fewer customers? This is simply financially unavoidable, so to make it more realistic to your budget they break a massive ridiculous game into several smaller, but still substantial games. If they keep delivering a quality product than spending 200+ on a game, albiet over a period of a few years and several titles, makes sence. I'll be buying whatever they come out with for SH5 in the future. So far it looks like this is the direction UBI is going in.


PS: Bitching about DRM and every issue like this is a joe everyman vs evil corporate overlord just makes us look like a market not worth pandering to, and they will never bother to make sims anymore at all. They could go all EA and just release Joe Xtreem's Pro ATV 2011. it would sell like a storm and they would bank, but those games are horrible. I cant promise anything but this appears to be something called "Ethics" and "pride" that i've never seen a corporation exhibit before.

[Galanti]

Is that you, Trenken?

[AVGWarhawk]

Watch for the can of worms coming! Yep, piracy sucks. We pay. Stealing/shoplifting sucks. We pay extra to cover for those that shoplift. Insurance fraud sucks. Somehow we pay for that. However, not much is said about those issues. Bring up DRM and all of a sudden the fart in the space suit has just been discovered.

I'm ok with DRM. I'm not ok with having to connect every time I play. I should connect once upon installation and verify my CD code. Thats it. And, if I'm forced to connect all the time make sure the servers work all the time.

[pythos]

Stated sometime in the 60s
"We needed to destroy the village to save the village"

Stated by a Ubi suit March 2010

"we needed to kill the franchise to save the franchise"

I am sorry. This DRM was a disaster in the making. It is over the top, and badly implemented. A validation of the game for each session is fine. Having to be online all of the time you are playing.

Stupid. Pure and simple.

I hope the one that came up with this stupid scheme never has a good night's rest again.

[Ziggy]

Facts of life: A businesses only concern is providing value to the customer. If it fails in that then it fails in everything.

[IanC]

Originally Posted by pythos

I hope the one that came up with this stupid scheme never has a good night's rest again.

Thinking about maybe putting a horse head in his bed?

I know i really come off as someone with an axe to grind or some kind of employee of ubi, but im not.

My names matt, i work at a florida insurance company (not ubi), and i simply love military simulation PC games, and hope to see them made in the future.

[mookiemookie]

Gabe Newell of Valve destroys your argument in one short interview on piracy, and how DRM only creates more pirates:

[emtguf]

The thing is there is already a crack for the DRM, and there is already a work around for the missions not updating when bypassing the DRM.

So the pirates are able to play the game with no problems, and the legal paying customers are stuck trying to play.

Hurting your paying customers by using a protection scheme that does not stop piracy is not the way to do it.

Codemasters had it right with their protection of the original operation flashpoint game.


If you used a crack the game made actually hitting a target impossible by degrading the program over time.
This did not punish the paying customer, and punished the pirates.

This is how it should be. Punishing customers punish the people who pay you money. That is a bad business decision.

[ETR3(SS)]

Originally Posted by Galanti

Is that you, Trenken?

I wondered when his name would be brought up again. Seems he's been pretty quiet lately too.

To the OP, Pirates had the game...ahem..."adapted" within 24 hours of release with the 1.1 patch. Say Ubi decides to make a 1.2 patch. That takes time to develop, so the honest gamer has to wait for that patch just like the pirate. I really don't think the pirates out there are going to die if the pirate patch takes another week. In your scenario I fail to see how the pirates lose.

Piracy is having a massive impact on getting PC games funded and green-lit (approved for production)

Also if this statement is fact, where's the proof?

[ParaB]

I absolutely disagree with you.

Especially niche games in the past have actually shown that they can sell very well without ANY kind of the draconion DRM we now see from Ubisoft. The critically acclaimed Galactic Civilization 2 from Stardock comes to mind, as well as the excellent helicopter sim Black Shark, just to name games I've recently played.

Another approach could certainly be to charge more for detailed simulations. I actually am willing to do that. I've bought Steel Beasts Pro PE which cost 125$. It uses a dongle copy protection which is a bit of a hassle, but to this day it never prevented me from actually playing the game. Unlike SH5...

Also, DRM doesn't automatically need to be implemented in a way that slaps the honest customer in the face. I am more than willing to use one-time online authentication via serial keys or other IMO less intrusive methods. STEAM works fine in that regard. I can play all my STEAM games without being connected to the internet.

And considering the unfinished state SH5 was delivered, Ubisoft would be well advised to invest more into quality control than DRM mechanisms. Maybe they would sell more games if the customer wouldn't feel like paying for beta software... beta software he can't actually play when he wants....

[Irichanu]

The real GabeN method is to make good games, with good support.

How many times you haven't been able to play Valve's games because of Valve's servers falling? Their games are always cracked in under 24 hours, and they still don't whine about it. They see selling used games as a problem, and I think most publishers use piracy as a cover to use DRM that blocks that. Not that I have anything against DRM if it works properly and doesn't mess your PC(ie. Starforce).

There are few times that DRM has been successful in stopping piracy, and the most recent is Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory that used Starforce 3.0. It was cracked after 422 days. But it also stopped some legimate users from playing and gave bluescreens etc.

As i said there is no real way to prevent piracy, DRM is simply a delaying action, like sending a squad to die to buy a platoon 20 more minutes of quality retreating time. If i had a solution to internet piracy, i wouldnt be wasting my time talking on a forum, i'd be counting my ferrari collection

Oh and screw gaben, he games 2 games in 15 years that everyone and their dad buys and they think he's some kind of gaming messiah. He has good ideas but that doesnt mean i agree with all of them. He now keeps his food habit going licencing his engine to smaller, more talented game companies, with the clause that he gets to take credit for it the minute it looks promising and hire the entire development team into his ever-expending valve organization. He didnt make portal, and i dont think he made left for dead either. (could be wrong)

You guys do know that somewhere out there a game developer probibly is losing his house right now because his company couldnt afford to keep him on, right? Or do you guys not care about hypothetical people?

[Galanti]

Facts of life: A businesses only concern is providing value to the customer. If it fails in that then it fails in everything.

FY.

Matt, you have some valid points, but I think it's pretty clear that regardless of whether it's DOS hacking or godless bears, if the customer cannot play the product he/she paid for, then DRM fails.

Personally, I like your #4 option, and I'd have no problem with it.

I think you touched on something when you mentioned your love of military sims, and it struck that perhaps there needs to be a separate business model when it comes to sims. Maybe publishers need to realize that we, as a niche market, perhaps need a niche business model.

[Schunken]

Its not the point that Ubi is fail with SH5, everybody fail everyday with anything....

The point is that thew show NO SIGN of support loyal customers and NO SIGN of apology to loyal customers.

They even denie that they make a mistake by setting up the DRM Servers....

No single german company like BMW, Mercedes or Lufthansa will go down on a simple DDOS Attack....

And when a Software-Developer go down by a DDOS attack....sorry, I must lough my ass off... Its like a sub-captain dives with a open hatch....


Andreas