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

[The Enigma]

Originally Posted by Nordmann

Upon installation, you are given the option of using either disc or online authentication.

That's a solution I could accept.

Originally Posted by Nordmann

So you see, while software protection may be necessary, there are less intrusive options available. Ubi on the other hand, chose something which was always doomed to failure, and which only achieves the alienation of their paying customers.

Wise words.

[Commie]

For the OP:

"The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) unveiled its 2009 Horizons Report, an exclusive research study encompassing all aspects of the PC gaming industry worldwide. Among the key findings is that PC gaming software revenue was a $13.1 billion industry in 2009, up 3% from 2008." Source: worthplaying.com

So much for piracy devastating the PC gaming scene!

Originally Posted by The Enigma

That's a solution I could accept.


Wise words.

Disk authentication is pointless, and can be beaten with a simple virtual drive or nocd cracked EXE.

The only way for DRM to be effective is to intrude. If its not intrusive about weither your game is real or not, or you just register once and its over, its easy to defeat.

[blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by voidster

actually the DRM is working. If you take the time and go visit pirate boards you will see people jumping for joy over sh5's crack only to see them complain about not being able to even complete the first part of the career. It must update the servers or vice versa once you complete an objective, then UBI's servers sends the proper data to unlock other missions or whatever. At least thats the theory..

Well, up until yesterday i think. Recent (deleted) posts on the UBI forum by angry legitimate owners suggest there is no network traffic relating to missions whatsoever, it's all in your SH5 folder. Just edit a couple cfg files after you complete each mission and you're good to do.

The game is fully functional without an internet connection because, apparently, the developer team never intended it to be dependent on one and didn't design it this way. It was just an afterthought by UBI that was slapped on before release.

Originally Posted by Commie

Same old propaganda peddled by companies that do not want to support the PC but prefer the consoles. Console piracy is also strong, but you rarely see anyone whining about it.

XBOX/PS3/Wii : This is the reason that PC games are not being supported as much, it's a cheap standardised platform that maximises revenue and minimises cost of development.

The move to multiplayer gaming also means that games that are initially pirated end up being bought by the pirates for the multiplayer. Check out the high sales of Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the PC to kill off the old lie that piracy hurts sales.

So called piracy is EASILY combated. Look at games by Matrix Games or Stardock. Pirates tend to only pirate the very first versions of them and the games become like a demo, as extra features and fixes are released insubsequent patches which you can only get by registering your unique key! People that aren't really interested in the genre won't bother with the game, they wouldn't have bought it anyway but fans tend to buy the game even if they pirated it in order to get all the benefits.

THE ONLY REASON Ubi DOESN'T do this is because they are loathe to support their products besides the bare minimum, they don't want to keep adding to a game like Stardock has done with GalCiv II, supporting it for YEARS! Why not? If they really were worried about pirates taking all their profit, wouldn't it make more sense to fund after sales support to give free updates and improvements plus DLC for a year or two extra? It would also keep the game in the spotlight longer and generate more sales. The simple fact is piracy is a negligible problem and is just an excuse to cut development and quality control on the PC in order to concentrate on where the real money is.

This post hits the nail on the head. All these piracy and DRM issues are mainly an excuse to stop making quality PC games.

Even if there was no piracy, PC games are usually more complicated than console games, or at least the PC platform gives them the potential to be. That means they take longer for the developer to make, but they also take longer for the player to finish, they have some replayability and they can also be gifted, loaned or resold.

What does that mean? That in the time you paid $40, have finished a single SH5 campaign and are getting to ready start your second career, a console gamer might have gone through 3-4 separate titles of $40 each. That's the real deal here guys and i'm glad that people in the sim genre like Oleg Maddox understand it and openly state that for a simulator to succeed you need a good product and loyal fans (that means good support), instead of artificial fiery hoops tacked onto the release which legitimate buyers will have to jump through while fighting a bear with one hand tied behind their back before the game actually lets them play

It's sad to have developers that strive to advance this hobby and then have their efforts destroyed by the publisher's whims or delusions of grandeur. See for example Rise of Flight, same story. Limited content, online DRM (i think that even now with the offline SP patch you can't fly the campaign unless you're online, just the single missions), micro-payment model and all that because the team ran out of money and had to rely on some investors, who naturally want a fast return of their invested money.

In a perfect world our games would be distributed and published by companies with a sim-heavy background and i bet they'd do really well too. Imagine a handful of companies like the Maddox team or Aerosoft having the publishing rights for 90% of the simulator titles. They know how hard it is to make a good one, they are not afraid to delay the release if that means a more complete product but most of all, they know that the money with simulators is not the impulse buyer, but the long time fan. These are not your weekly distractions, they are games that keep being played for as much as a decade. Good support, nifty after-sales incentives to own an original version and a steady stream of improvements and you're going to make enough money to not only stay afloat as a company, but also fund your next project for some years (exactly what happened with IL2 funding the development of the next sim series starting with battle of Britain).

The question is who's going to bother. The answer is obviously companies that already have a simulation background and not the jack-of-all-trades megacorps who aim mostly at "firework" products (5-6 months of immense sales and gameplay, then the game gets totally forgotten).

[Silanda]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Disk authentication is pointless, and can be beaten with a simple virtual drive or nocd cracked EXE.

The only way for DRM to be effective is to intrude. If its not intrusive about weither your game is real or not, or you just register once and its over, its easy to defeat.

Firstly, running a game from a virtual drive usually requires a bit more faffing around than simply making an image of the game. The copy protection isn't that poor.

Secondly, intrusive copy protection is equally pointless. It can always be cracked in the end and only temporarily delays the inevitable. On the flip side, as has been stated a number of time, it makes life difficult for legitimate users and doesn't affect pirates one iota. How is that effective copy protection when it positively encourages people to pirate the game in order to get the best gameplaying experience?

Originally Posted by Silanda

How is that effective copy protection when it positively encourages people to pirate the game in order to get the best gameplaying experience?

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

[robbo180265]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

U MAD?

[Méo]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

So far its working perfectly for me

It's working perfectly for me too. (OSP, not bugs).

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

I know, some folks just need to vent their frustrations over something they did not experienced.

As I said, it's useless to argue, you're wasting your time!

[Skullcowboy]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Because in polite society we expect people not to commit crimes because its convenient. And nobody, ubi included, expects this DRM to be anything more than a temporary delaying action.

As stated above, now even when pirates get SH5 running, they run into trouble when they try to save, or start a new mission, or do something. So far its working perfectly for me, and perfectly as DRM. Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

So a company TELLS us that we want something and that is in our best interest to just accept it. We decide we DON'T want it and it isn't of value to us. When we don't just roll over, take the buggering and pony up our cash, then we, the CONSUMERS, are the problem?

Really.

Sell a lot of insurance with that attitude towards customers?

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money? Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective. This is before you even begin to get to the issue of piracy, which due to simple GUI programs and the fact that most of us dont have 14.4K modems anymore, is more rampant than it used to be.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money? Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective.

Then they should have raised the price. Although it is impossible to prove a win, I would bet all the liquid assets I have that they could have doubled the price, forgone any copy protection, and spent the money they wasted on OSP on actually making the game better and would have sold more copies than they will with this approach.

It is just business and they have made a terrible business decision based on emotion instead of profit.

At least we know they are not Ferengi!

Rip

[jwilliams]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money? Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective.

Game prices have risen for me..... About 20 years ago games used to cost 10 UK pounds (dont have pound sign on this US keyboard) and now silent hunter 5 will cost me NZ$100... which is about 35 UK pounds. or NZ$120 for collectors ed. about 45 UK pounds.
Also games now sell many more copies then they did.

So games cost about 3 1/2 times more than they did and they sell about 10 times more copies.

[Skullcowboy]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Pirates are the problem, customers become the problem only when they form an argument without knowing all the facts, and that misinformed argument becomes a movement.

Funny how when ever someone complains about DRM they are accused of being misinformed or just plain pirates. I am neither.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Customers are always right, and can never be pirates.

But that's not what you just said above, about them being right, anyway...

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Not all users of Silent hunter games are customers

I have never disputed this.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Even if piracy didnt exist, it still takes more time and money to make a game than it did 5 or 10 years ago, but we expect to pay the same amount. Or do you think the same effort went into Aces of the Deep as did Silent Hunter 5? If i'm wrong correct me, but didnt they cost roughly the same, despite you getting much less game for your money?Denying that bigger teams of people ($$Expen$ive$$) are needed to make these newer, more complex sims flies in the face of simple common sense, and i dont know how else i can convince you of this.

The price of the game is not the issue here. I WOULD pay more for the product if I felt it provided the value for that price.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

To not lose money due to expending more resources to make "bigger" games, they need to give you less product for the same money, or the same product for more money. More product for the same money means more money in the pockets of the consumers, which is not where it belongs from a business perspective. This is before you even begin to get to the issue of piracy, which due to simple GUI programs and the fact that most of us dont have 14.4K modems anymore, is more rampant than it used to be.

Again, I am not disputing this. Again, my point is and has always been (even after you called it ridiculous) that the focus of your business must be on the CUSTOMER. To be a tad blunt, the customer does not care about production, development, resources, distribution issues, payrolls, whether one of the employees has a place to live or pirates. It is not the customers responsibility to fix your business model. But when the focus of your business becomes any of the aforementioned issues to the detriment of the customer there is a serious problem and those customers will take their cash elsewhere.

And really, calling us uninformed, pirates, or comparing us to Fox News because we do this just confirms that you lost us because you either didn't care or just plain forgot about us, THE CUSTOMERS, to begin with.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Of course problems exist but this forum is no more a fair representation of the silent hunter community than Fox news is of american politics and journalism. Its a self-feeding machine of rage and peer gratification, the perfect example of preaching to the choir, any dissenting voices are shot down as interns and idiots. DRM DRM DRM! UBI UBI UBI! OUTRAGE AND BOYCOTT.

I'm not showing rage or preaching to anyone. And dissenting voices are usually argued with, not "shot down as interns and idiots". But you didn't just disagree, you started off this thread telling everyone they didn't know what they were talking about and needed you to explain it to us.

Do you think I don't have a right to not buy the game, nor a right to complain about the fact that I'm not allowed to play it because UBIsoft said so?

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

That kind of start is not an invitation to a discussion; it's a challenge, pure and simple. You can preach if you want, but when you do you know at the start what the reaction is going to be, and you can't hide behind crying about people shooting you down.

I'm beginning to agree with the guys who think you are Trenken, posting under a new name.

[OakGroove]

@ OP disagree on all points, except your first.

Re. More expensive niche products.

http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/0...-logorama.html

In other parts of the world you can produce several game titles with these assets. They allocate it to some Oskar winners for doing a 20 min advertisement for their "F-16 On Legs" shooter franchise. I can see Ubi catering the casual games/console markets - but let's leave it at that.