Hey Ubi, consider this...

[Phantom Mark]

The crazy thing is that I bet at least 10-20% of the pirated downloads of SH5 are actually for people who have bought and paid for the game.........someone like myself who is considering it who has no internet connection during the working week because I work away from home.....thats when things start to get crazy.

[mikeydredd]

Entirely agree with the overall tone of the last posts.

It surely is self-evident to any business that you provide your customers with a service/product that

A: is what they want, and

B: is good value for money.

Can we just remind ourselves that this game, including the first patch, was cracked on DAY ONE.

This version of DRM is responsible for a lot of things but it stopped the "pirates" for NOT ONE MINUTE.

Are UbiSoft really that stupid?

Draw your own conclusions. . .

Dredd

[daft]

Originally Posted by mikeydredd

Entirely agree with the overall tone of the last posts.

It surely is self-evident to any business that you provide your customers with a service/product that

A: is what they want, and

B: is good value for money.

Can we just remind ourselves that this game, including the first patch, was cracked on DAY ONE.

This version of DRM is responsible for a lot of things but it stopped the "pirates" for NOT ONE MINUTE.

Are UbiSoft really that stupid?

Draw your own conclusions. . .

Dredd

Was the game leaked and cracked before the retail date?

[kylania]

Originally Posted by daft

Was the game leaked and cracked before the retail date?

Yup, a few days before. It was just the game though, not the campaign missions. It only took a few weeks before they had a fully playable campaign as well.

[Fincuan]

Originally Posted by daft

Was the game leaked and cracked before the retail date?

IIRC it took about 48 hours before the cracked version appeared, which is pretty well by today's standards(normally the cracked versions are out before the game itself), but not quite enough to warrant calling the protection system succesful.

[IanC]

Originally Posted by Fincuan

but not quite enough to warrant calling the protection system succesful.

[daft]

Originally Posted by Fincuan

IIRC it took about 48 hours before the cracked version appeared, which is pretty well by today's standards(normally the cracked versions are out before the game itself), but not quite enough to warrant calling the protection system succesful.

That is in fact much, much better than I thought. Whaddayaknow, the DRM actually did its job then (technically at least).

[mikeydredd]

I remember buying the original Gunship by MicroProse for my Atari ST in, I think, 1989 for 20 quid.

I began to read the manual in the car as my girlfriend had to go off and do girlie stuff. When she came back after about an hour she asked me what my new "game" was like.

I said the manual alone was worth the asking price, let alone the game!

Imagine being able to say the same about SH5 . . .

Dredd

[Powerthighs]

I remember buying the original Gunship by MicroProse for my Atari ST in, I think, 1989 for 20 quid.

That's awesome, I got it for Commodore 64 and the manual was beautiful. I would spend hours reading it from cover to cover (including the tech specs of all the enemy equipment) before popping it in to play. The anticipation of playing it was almost better than the game itself.

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by Phantom Mark

The crazy thing is that I bet at least 10-20% of the pirated downloads of SH5 are actually for people who have bought and paid for the game.........someone like myself who is considering it who has no internet connection during the working week because I work away from home.....thats when things start to get crazy.

Or from people getting tired of getting screwed by the game companies releasing crap products riddled with bugs.

I have ALWAYS been against Piracy, and ALWAYS pay for my games....

But I did download a....umm...Trial copy of a rather famous football coach game to see if it was as screwed up as the forum posters were saying before plunking down $50 on it. And it was.... (example: for no reason at all the QB would turn around and throw the football the wrong way) so I didnt buy it.

I have ALWAYS bought SH series (even after getting burned with SH3).... then burned with SH4...you think I would have learned. But I bought SH5 to support the franchise... Im regretting that now.

My copy of SH5 is legit, but due to DRM dropout issues (and I have cable for crying out loud) my game is DRM free. Only happened at peak hours, but annoying as hell when ya get a friggin notice every 5min and the game freezes up.

DRM has got to be killing sales for UBI.