The gawd-almighty merged DRM in Silent Hunter V thread

[Sulikate]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Which countries?

Brazil, for example. That's where I live

[DaveR]

damn, what i disappointment. 'was' looking forward to this game. having to be connected to internet is garbage. so it is now off my 'buy' list. (does ubi soft ads say anything about internet connection?).

so now they have minimum piracy, also have minimum users; so where do they win?

[Skullcowboy]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

No, the piracy excuse is not bull, it's real. Study after study shows huge numbers of people playing games without buying them. There was one article by a small game developer, he said that when they released a patch for their game, it was downloaded 80,000 times in the first few weeks. But they had only sold something like 15,000 copies of the game. Piracy is wide-spread. I was on break between classes today, two of my classmates were watching Avatar

Get used to the idea that game developers will be moving to the Xbox and PS3 consoles, they are not going to invest millions into games and only a few people actually pay for them.

Small game developers like Michael Fitch are leaving the industry. Can't say I blame them.

I had read this with interest a couple of years ago. I am probably going to get flamed over this, but I am about done with this topic here anyway. I have aired my opinions so I'll move back to the SHIII page as that is why I came here in the first place.

As Mr Fitch states, making PC games is a tough business. And piracy was only one of the issues he touches on. Again, he seems to be pulling numbers out of the air, just like a lot of the industry does. But one thing I gotta say.

They REALLY shot themselves in the foot with the form of DRM they chose.

Tech support headaches and the word of mouth disaster can be directly linked to this. But it was the lousy pirates, not the DRM, you say. The DRM was there because they were SOOOOOOOOO worried about the pirates instead of their customers.

I could point to a number of indie game makers who are doing well (here is one:http://arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php) just as you can find a number who aren't. As can be done in ANY industry. The rant about piracy killing ALL of the content makers (books, film, music, games, etc) is just that. A rant. Is it a problem? Most assuredly. But it isn't the catch all they want us to think it is. Educate yourselves about it, and not just from one perspective.

Tata for now and have a GREAT day.

[gt500]

This overkill form of DRM is really disheartening. I so much love the Silent hunter series and was looking forward to buying SHV the day it was released. My heart bleeds that I will not be able to support the developers.

Sorry to say like many others I will not be purchasing a game I want to play due to the DRM they are implementing.


Sorry the cost for this game is TOO HIGH, and I am not referring to the financial cost.

[scrapser]

Originally Posted by Ragtag

Create an offline account, problem solved.

That doesn't work with Bioshock 2. You simply cannot save the game unless you are actively connected to the server. You can play offline after installing the game and setting up an account but you cannot save the game unless you are logged on to the server. This has a lot of people very upset.

I don't think SH5 has gone this far but they are getting close...like one step away from the looks of things.

[razark]

Originally Posted by scrapser

That doesn't work with Bioshock 2. You simply cannot save the game unless you are actively connected to the server. You can play offline after installing the game and setting up an account but you cannot save the game unless you are logged on to the server. This has a lot of people very upset.

I don't think SH5 has gone this far but they are getting close...like one step away from the looks of things.

No, SH5 goes further. You can't save unless you are logged in, because you can't play unless you are logged in.

[scrapser]

Originally Posted by razark

No, SH5 goes further. You can't save unless you are logged in, because you can't play unless you are logged in.

Well then SH5 and Bioshock 2 both have the same set up. I know it's only two titles being discussed here but it does look like this is where things are headed for all.

This whole thing is starting to remind me of the movie, "THX 1138".

[Wulfmann]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Oh come on, just click and read, that will take you a week? That's pretty scary.

I went to public schools in the 60's so that would translate to months for someone in public schools today.

You can beatch about me beatching as long as I can beatch.which is what I like about you Neal. I feel like I can be honest and you don't take it personal and vise verse.

Now for those that say anyone who complains about DRM is a Pirate you can KMA
Ships-R-us there may be a pirate problem but if I had a blood clot in my brain the fact a bullet to the head would cure it does not mean shooting myself in the head is the thing to do.

Your entire threads validates my point on having an offline dedicated game PC that has little to nothing running and no way to be attacked from outside and then you insist I am a pirate because I don't want to let UBI have control over my PC and at the same time proof I should have a PC that does not have the same crap you want me to have on it.

You may not be an idiot but you sound like one with your contradicting accusatory remarks.

You can't have it both ways SRus.

This is simple really.
UBI has the right to make a game that requires whatever it wants to make it run.
I have the right not to buy it and the right to say why.
That does not make me a pirate and anyone using that excuse is an idiot and proves they have no valid argument
I have met some serious hackers who now work for companies preventing hacking and everyone of them tells me no matter how good a pirated copy the only way to have a good clean game is to buy it. It is one thing to give it a try but not worth the trouble if you like it and want to play it. Being on dial up, yeah, I am looking to DL 10GB of a game. I am beginning to think idiot is too much of a compliment

Wulfmann

[Brag]

Gentlemen!

Tempers are rising as DTD Day approaches. We are beginning to see too many personal squables and the hurling of insults. This is happening even among people with equal viewpoints.

The proDRMies, as few as they are, are entitled to their opinions.
The Anti DRM Freedom Fighters should remain calm and softly and privately chuckle at the ProDRMies heroic efforts of swimming against the flood of legitimate outrage.

DTD Day = Death to DRM Day.

[scrapser]

As a side note, I remember chatting with Jez San, the author of the Amiga game "StarGlider" by Rainbird Software back in 1987 on Compuserve. He told me at the time the average shelf life of a game before it was hacked was 45 days. I wonder what it is now? I bet it's probably much shorter.

[Nisgeis]

Hacking is very different to cracking. Hacking = cretaing POKEs for infinite lives and ammo. The protection systems were designed to stop the competition from looking at the game code, not to stop copying. Back in those days, all you had to do to copy a game was to put it in a tape to tape dubber and anyone could do that. The copy protection relied on having info requested from pages on a manual (a printed one!) or other objects supplied with the game. When disks arrived though, they started to get a bit more devious and started putting electronic copy protection in.

[scrapser]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Hacking is very different to cracking. Hacking = cretaing POKEs for infinite lives and ammo. The protection systems were designed to stop the competition from looking at the game code, not to stop copying. Back in those days, all you had to do to copy a game was to put it in a tape to tape dubber and anyone could do that. The copy protection relied on having info requested from pages on a manual (a printed one!) or other objects supplied with the game. When disks arrived though, they started to get a bit more devious and started putting electronic copy protection in.

Yes I remember the old system of being asked for a specific word on a certain line on a certain page in the game manual. I also remember the day I was selling my Commodore 128 to buy an Amiga 500 and having a guy come to my door asking if I wanted to join the pirate club he belonged to. He had a box full of floppy disks with many of the games that were current at the time and photo copies of the game manuals.

I told him to get lost.

[Nordmann]

Originally Posted by Méo

...and what about developers producing games for PC?

you're gonna tell me they had an incredible success last year?

Did I say that? No I didn't, please don't read between lines that do not exist. The games industry as a whole is suffering, we have seen quite a few developers go under, or bought out by larger companies. The fact is, unless you can provide a product people want to buy, and can afford to buy, you are not going to succeed in this line of business.

What I was referring to, if you re-read my post, is the statement that the console industry is in a better position than that of PCs, which clearly is not the case at all. Thus, abandoning the PC market in favour of the "play and throw away" market is a damned fool idea. There are no more opportunities to be had with consoles, as that of the PC, in fact for games such as this, there are even less. Coupled with the fact that the next generation of consoles are already in development, it will always be an area of limited lifespan, unlike PCs.

Ubi will not abandon PC games, simply because their sales of one game in particular happen to drop off. What they will do, or should do in any case, is go back to the board room and discuss the DRM issue at length. Obviously this has stuck a bad note with their customers, which is exactly what you want to avoid during this troubled economic period. Customers vote with their wallets, for wont of a better description, and that vote determines your company's success or failure.

[Heckler]

Grand Theft Auto IV is anther one... to play properly you must have a rockstar account & a MS games for windows account. To play the same game you started.. you must be logged into GRW at the very least.

You can play offline once activated... but it starts a 'new' game for you and won't let you continue the one you may have spent hours working your way through.

Another game where the DRM wasn't advertised and another game I got caught out by and felt cheated.

Needless to say it got put up on a shelf and hasn't been touched more than once or twice in the last 12 months.

Been caught out to many times in the past... so I now have a zero tolerance policy on games with restrictive DRM... If they want my money, let me play my property how I want to. Same goes for the music and film industries... Piracy is a problem they helped to create and their refusal to take sensible precautions that do not punish the legitimate consumers is only making it worse.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by scrapser

As a side note, I remember chatting with Jez San, the author of the Amiga game "StarGlider" by Rainbird Software back in 1987 on Compuserve. He told me at the time the average shelf life of a game before it was hacked was 45 days. I wonder what it is now? I bet it's probably much shorter.

Many are already cracked before the street release date.