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

[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.

Did you remember to adjust for inflation?

Also, do you really think good games generally sell better than bad games? Honestly? Seriously?

[jwilliams]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Did you remember to adjust for inflation?

Also, do you really think good games generally sell better than bad games? Honestly? Seriously?

No i didnt take inflation into account. But thought it obvious that the average income hasnt increased by 3 1/2 times.

The price of PC games has increased by approx 300% (compared to 20 years ago) Income has not increased by anywhere near that amount.





Game companies ARE making alot more money than they used too.



And wether a good game sells better than bad games is not part of the argument.
Sure it cost more to make games.... but companies are also making more money.

[Armistead]

The economy is hard all right, so you do everything possible to make your customers happy because many are hanging on to their money. It's not my job to worry about a designer sitting at home, he wouldn't be if common sense practices were put in place.

Many of us didn't buy SH5 because of DRM..Let's see, couple hundred post of people that couldn't play their game Sunday because Ubi's servers were down.. Doesn't matter how or why, they were down. They went down once and they will again. It will be a problem that will continue until it's dropped. I can see it now. Have the day to yourself. Get your drink ready, sit and ready for some game time...cannot connect...not me.
If I operated my business by delivering a half finished product that could only be used when I said so...I would rightfully be out of business.

That tells me it was the right decision not to buy and wait until I can get it in a bargain bin...Many customers not buying equals DRM is the problem. If they think they can make more money by stopping pirates a few days over thousands not buying until it's in a bargain bin...the pirates have a double win. Not to mention they've created a new generation of pirates.

Originally Posted by jwilliams

Sure it cost more to make games.... but companies are also making more money.

But i am saying that the cost of making a game skyrockets in line with the ridiculous increase in computing power over time, what used to take a team of 5 or 10 a few months may take 100 people years to make. If they are making 3 times more money and the game takes 15 times more money to make, well you do the math.

Tell me this, do you think a company has a responsibility to deliver a quality product, even if this might hurt the amount of money that they make? (yes or no would be great) Remember that the money you spend on a game is putting food on someones table, and if it wasnt for the assult charges that would follow i would personally kick every pirate i could find squarely in the nuts. I'm not talking about big whigs in suits, im talking about someone they hire to sweep the floors or someone to keep all the windows vista computers from crapping out, someone who takes phone calls or arranges travel for employees.

Stealing is a crime, and it has its victims. Screw the word "Piracy", that makes it sound cool, its theft. No different from slipping a shirt into your coat at the mall. Just imagine how that would go down on this forum... "Lol stupid ubiclothes and their anti-theft shirt alarms, I AM NOT A THIEF, why do i have to wait for the store clerk to undo this alarm thing from the merchandise? Thats time from my life i will never get back, im boycotting this store! You know if they made a better quality shirt they would make more money, its simple!".

[Chromius]

Its called pointing the finger at the easiest thing you will believe. Its the same thing your Governments do when they dont want you to notice all the f-ed up things they are doing.

Pointing the finger at piracy is easier than pointing the finger at corporate greed.

Lets all consume ourselves into an early grave and forget that quality over quantity does matter.

DRM as it has been implemented is unacceptable, coming home and looking forward to playing and not being able to is BS, find some other form of NON-intrusive measures.

I also agree on games with no intrusive measures like Gal Civ 2 and DCS and Steelbeasts Pro, Paradox titles, Fallout 3 even still do fine.
And on the timeline and amount of sales, back when I gamed just about no one had computers and now there is an international audience and every 3rd world country has internet and computers? So yes piracy would be rampant but there would be a larger overall audience even in the niche sim area? Just as has been claimed its all about higher profits margins and delivering less. Just because our graphics were blocky we still had the best available given the hardware. Stop feeding into "Piracy is why you are getting unfinished/unrealized products for top dollar."

And do you realize in a bad economy, that people are laid off and people go out of business , because the shareholders who make the big bucks pull out because they arent makeing enough PROFITS from there investments, and not because the company is doing badly. God so many brainwashed people, if you knew the truth of Governments , banks , insurnace you would all get guns and start a revolution, oh wait American Idol is on I better go watch that, lol. Tools

(Im a legitimate buyer/owner of many Ubisoft titles, All Il-2 products, Assassins Creed 1 , all SH products, F1 racing sim, Far Cry, Heroes of M&M5, Lock on Modern air Combat, A bunch of Rainbow 6 and Ghost recon, Warlord Battlecry II, World in Conflict, and probably a few more.)

You know you didnt respond to anything i said, right? Keep that bitching fluff filler on the other 20+ DRM threads on this forum currently going.

[BlueJ]

Yo, Matt/Trenken, brother!
I need money! Where do I sign up and get paid for posting on forums spreading corporate agenda and propaganda?
Job sure looks like fun!

[robbo180265]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

You know you didnt respond to anything i said, right? Keep that bitching fluff filler on the other 20+ DRM threads on this forum currently going.

I haven't made my mind up as to whether you are trolling or not yet.

Ok to answer your "good business sense" argument. SH5 has now dropped to £22 on Amazon. This is mainly because of the terrible reviews it's getting from players who have not been able to log on to the server and actually play the game that they paid for. Obviously the bugs have had an impact on the reviews too.

There are many reports in the media about the server outage, I would imagine that this is putting people off buying the game too.

The Ubi forums are not raving about the DRM or the game (as it is now) In fact Ubi are being crucified there right now.

So exactly how was using the DRM good business sense again?

[maurader]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

But i am saying that the cost of making a game skyrockets in line with the ridiculous increase in computing power over time, what used to take a team of 5 or 10 a few months may take 100 people years to make. If they are making 3 times more money and the game takes 15 times more money to make, well you do the math.

Actually making a game (the actual game programming) actually takes less time today than it did in the past.
The reason is two fold:
1. There are much more programming tools that streamlines the programming and debugging process. Complete engines are avaliable right off the shelf to accomodate getting the program out there faster. People dont program in machine code any more, they can use higher level languages.
2. The faster computers allow much faster compile times. I recall in the past with very large programs setting it to compile overnight and then coming in the next day to test the executable.

The biggest cost now is in the artists and not the programmers. Every big company is trying to make their games "prettier" than the competition.

[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.

[NefariousKoel]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Keep that bitching fluff filler on the other 20+ DRM threads on this forum currently going.

No.

We like poking the corporate goose-stepping stooge. It's amusing how much of a D-bag you prove to be.

[jwilliams]

My no reply was due to me seeing your point.

Increase in revenue does not = increase in profit. fair enough.

But there is no need to be rude.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

You know you didnt respond to anything i said, right? Keep that bitching fluff filler on the other 20+ DRM threads on this forum currently going.

And where is this increase in cost mostly going. IMO graphics.

Is the gameplay better.... from 20 years ago.. the answer is yes.
But from 5-10 years ago.. the answer is NO.

Sure i like to have nice graphics, but not at the expense of gameplay.

Releasing a game that is only half finished and is full of bugs is not going to win you sales.

Sure companies have the right to stop people pirating their software. But at the expense of losing their customers? Is that good business sence?
This new DRM system combined with a half finished, full of bugs SH5 isnt going to make them more profit.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by jwilliams

Game companies ARE making alot more money than they used too.

Ubisoft profits have been going down for a few years and they are forecasting a loss this year, but don't take my word for it. Their financial statements are online and if they lie in those, company excutives and the auditors are going to jail.

Mattdrizzle, I don't know why you are wasting your time in this thread. If you really want to know how the so called "sub sim community" feels, look right here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164177

60% of "the community" say SH5 is GOOD.

and even more important is this "poll":

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...s-1918550.html

The rest is just meaningless background noise.

[Skullcowboy]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

Tell me this, do you think a company has a responsibility to deliver a quality product, even if this might hurt the amount of money that they make?

Yes. If you can't run your business in a manner that allows you to do this you need to go out of business.

Originally Posted by MattDizzle
Stealing is a crime, and it has its victims. Screw the word "Piracy", that makes it sound cool, its theft. No different from slipping a shirt into your coat at the mall. Just imagine how that would go down on this forum... [B

"Lol stupid ubiclothes and their anti-theft shirt alarms, I AM NOT A THIEF, why do i have to wait for the store clerk to undo this alarm thing from the merchandise? Thats time from my life i will never get back, im boycotting this store! You know if they made a better quality shirt they would make more money, its simple!".[/B]

I wondered when you would jump on that bandwagon. Piracy is not theft. It is copyright infringement. There are bookloads of law specifically devoted to it and if you are caught doing it that is what you are prosecuted for. Not theft. If I steal a shirt, a tangible good, the owner of the shirt has lost the ability to sell that shirt. If I make a copy of a program, the owner of the program can still sell more copies. I condone neither copyright infringement nor theft, but if you are going to blather, at least get it right.