The gawd-almighty merged DRM in Silent Hunter V thread

[Brag]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

You may be right, but again the question becomes how solid can we make a boycott. If only 5% of potential players boycott the game, will Ubi notice?

If 95% boycott the game, will Ubi say its because of DRM or because there is no market for sub sims?

The way I see it, Ubi is committed to this new scheme for all their games and will implement it no matter how much we rant and rave. I think the "scheme" will work or fail on its own merits. Either it will work as advertised and we will all heave a sigh of relief or it will turn out to be more trouble than its worth and it will not be in SH6.

Look what happened with SH3. It came with Starforce, which everyone complained about and which turned out to be a major headache for Ubi. By the time SH4 came out, it just had a simple activation code.

From what we can tell from surveys, about 85%of members of this site are firmly opposed to DRM. Assuming 10% caves in, we have 75% of hard core buyers not buying. That's one hell of a hit.

One must remember that less than 10% of the lurker traffic is represented by our membership..

All indications are that Ubi will have to back off DRM.

It is very stupid of Ubi not to have backed off already.

They might be testing the waters. A dangerous game when you are in shark infested waters.

I can assure everyone, I'm not buying the DRM crap. My wallet will stay shut until DRM is removed.

[ETR3(SS)]

And Neal comes outta right filed with the thread merge instead of the lock. Anyways the new thread title rocks!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by razark

And my point is that we shouldn't even give them the chance to do it. If they get away with this, and it gets cracked (I have no doubts it will be), what's their next step going to be?

I can tell you exactly what the next step will be: stop making games for the PC. They can sell more on consoles anyway. If they cannot make money developing PC games, they will stop.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

FYI: Guys, we have way too many topics about the same subject, I'm merging them here. No comments were censored (or sensored), no comments were lost. Just compiled into one thread.

Carry on with the SH5 death sentence.

I think that in early March, you need to just set up a filter on the forum, and drop any post that has "DRM" in the title, and leave the filter there for a month. Should take a lot of work off of you and the moderators.

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I can tell you exactly what the next step will be: stop making games for the PC. They can sell more on consoles anyway. If they cannot make money developing PC games, they will stop.

That is something I would hate to see. How well would a real simulator do on a console? How well did Silent Service do on the NES?

Yikes!

[Brag]

Originally Posted by razark

I think that in early March, you need to just set up a filter on the forum, and drop any post that has "DRM" in the title, and leave the filter there for a month. Should take a lot of work off of you and the moderators.


That is something I would hate to see. How well would a real simulator do on a console? How well did Silent Service do on the NES?

Yikes!

Don't go suggesting Stalinist censorship. It is bad enough getting chucked into the back pages. But that makes impressive numbers

[razark]

Originally Posted by Brag

Don't go suggesting Stalinist censorship. It is bad enough getting chucked into the back pages. But that makes impressive numbers

How about an automatic merge? Or a DRM only board?

Edit: Nevermind, not as bad as I thought. This thread only accounts for 4% of the SH5 board.

[guynoir]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I can tell you exactly what the next step will be: stop making games for the PC. They can sell more on consoles anyway. If they cannot make money developing PC games, they will stop.

Well, then... talk about a rock and a hard place!

With this new online-only DRM, they anger their fans and literally exclude a portion of their potential customers from even playing the game... Meanwhile, pirates will still probably crack the game and download it anyway, so the DRM only succeeds in angering buying customers, and many pirates wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

I do know that one of those two groups of people want to buy and play Silent Hunter V, and it doesn't seem like Ubisoft should be so adversarial against them...

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I can tell you exactly what the next step will be:

With respect Neal, you can't; no one can, but as consumers we all play a
small part in carving our own future.

In the end, there is always someone who will make money by giving
paying customers what they want, however much piracy or games
people refuse to buy, a paying customer's wallet is still worth chasing.

[Nordmann]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I can tell you exactly what the next step will be: stop making games for the PC. They can sell more on consoles anyway. If they cannot make money developing PC games, they will stop.

That's funny, just last year, developers producing games for consoles were making a big, big loss. Insofar as sales are concerned, people simply cannot afford £44.99 for a single game, and yes, this is the average price of most console games.

If Ubi, or any other company stop making games for PC, then they may as well sell up and go into retirement, because without the PC market, they will not last long at all.

All I hear about is how awesome consoles are, how they beat PCs, yet I used to be a console gamer myself and I can tell you, they are no damned comparison to the power of the PC. Sim games are virtually non-existent, and the few that have tried, do not work well.

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Letum

With respect Neal, you can't; no one can

If he cannot speculate on this, why can you speculate on SH5 with DRM..

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Nordmann

That's funny, just last year, developers producing games for consoles were making a big, big loss.

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

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

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Méo

If he cannot speculate on this, why can you speculate on SH5 with DRM..

He wasn't speculating, he was 'telling us exactly'.

Besides, online DRM isn't speculation, it's been confirmed long ago.

[Brag]

Ubi lost money last year. They still expect negative chash flow this year. It's going to be worse as SH5 fails like crazy due to DRM. Then this will cause a domino effect on othe Ubi games. DRM is a big self-impossed disaster for UBI.

[MasterCaine]

I have to completely disagree that the main reason for the switch to DRM and pay-as-you-play is due to piracy. That's ridiculous.

Yes, I'll admit that piracy is taking away some sales from the publishers. But I think it's obvious the main reason for the switch is to kill off the resale of used games- period. That is the biggest profit-killer for the publishers. And the other main reason is there is just too much replay value and lifespan in the older gaming style. Publishers are looking at this from a financial perspective only. This is not for the benefit of the gamers, no matter what the publishers or shills here may claim. They are always looking for new ways to milk the gamers for more money. Vote with your wallet. Enough is enough. I say we boycott the greedy bastard companies that take this approach, and let them die.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Brag

Ubi lost money last year. They still expect negative chash flow this year. It's going to be worse as SH5 fails like crazy due to DRM. Then this will cause a domino effect on othe Ubi games. DRM is a big self-impossed disaster for UBI.

I am not so certain that Ubi expects SH5 to be a cash cow in the same vein as, say, Assasins Creed and Prince of Persia.