Penny Arcade!

[HundertzehnGustav]

Then you will pay for a whole lot of "other people".
I still dont need that cop right there.

Down with it.
The more i see talk about it, the more i feel like kicking the dead horse or some stupd beancounter donkey in th butt.

This is my PC. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

[Tonnage_Ace]

Haha nice FMJ ref

[NeonSamurai]

I think some of you missed the point of the comic, it is actually a statement against piracy.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/2/19/

Originally Posted by Penny Arcade

A Cyclical Argument With A Literal Strawman

Alright. So, Ubisoft's new DRM. Supports unlimited installs and Cloud-based save data. Requires absolutely unbroken access to their master servers, or the product ceases to function. I can boil it right down for you:
Nobody wins.
Well, except pirates. Pirates always win, on a long enough timeline. Honestly, the timeline doesn't even need to be that long.
Visit any thread regarding the topic, and I mean any thread, and it won't be three posts until someone raises the Goddamned Jolly Roger and says they'll pirate the game as a gesture consistent with some comprehensive ur-morality they've ginned up, one where stealing things is alright provided they were very angry when they did it. It's entirely possible that you don't like being spoken to in this way, but somebody has to get this done. What Ubisoft is doing here is Draconian - I don't mean those lizard dudes, I'm talking about laws which are characterized by their severity. Before they eventually dismantle it, and it will be dismantled, it will have achieved exactly the opposite of their intention. But what I won't tolerate from rational beings is the idea that you don't understand why they're doing it.
Every avenue of convenience for the user is also a vector of exploitation.
They have given up.
As fiery rhetoric goes, this sucks. It doesn't have that revolutionary quality that rallies the faithful. The trouble is that this dialogue between pirates and publishers, one which was always characterized by falsehood and ill-will, has ceased to exist in this case. A maneuver this extreme means that they're finished talking altogether: this mechanism is their response, the final word. Only it's impossible to get the final word here in The Cloud. Ever.
And no-one of any sense has ever bet against the scorn and resourcefulness of young men.
(CW)TB out.

Anyhow for all you would be pirates ready to 'stick it to the man' by pirating SH5, I wouldn't hold your breath. I don't expect this DRM to be broken any time soon, and SH5 would be the last game on the list to bother with (particularly when compared to AC2 and SC Conviction), if ever.

I will not be buying any further Ubisoft games due to this new form of DRM until the DRM is removed (which may happen if sales are actually worse with it). Being angry over the DRM does not give license to steal the work, the DRM is there largely because of stealing. Software piracy has become a huge problem due to the ease at which people can now commit it. Any drooling moron can do it now, as evidenced by the huge numbers of idiots who contact tech support over problems with their stolen game.

Piracy has gotten so far out of hand that it is not unusual for games to hit 4:1 or higher pirated:bought ratios. Some games have hit 90% piracy rates (that means out of 10 people who have the game 9 are pirates)! No matter how you slice it this is costing the companies a fortune, especially when compared to console piracy rates, which are considerably lower (well below 1:1) due to the added difficulty, and if it continues it will eventually wreck PC gaming.

Now I am not going to say that the game companies are all saints. They release plenty of garbage that is either just bad, buggy, and/or broken. I'm sure everyone of us can point to at least one game we bought where we got ripped off. Sometimes they fix the game, too often they don't, or just barely make the game work. A lot of this is their fault sure, but piracy doesn't help either. Number of copies sold helps determine if its economical to patch the game or not. I don't agree with game companies doing this, and I think when they do this, they are stealing from us. But this doesn't justify wholesale piracy back either, as its not the bad games that get pirated like crazy, its the top games; games that the game companies deserve to be paid for, for making a good game.

Anyhow all I am going to say on this issue.

[Hanomag]

Actually I think the cartoon is rather funny and probably quite realistic. Most will travel the path of least resistance.

Bottom line is some of the most "seasoned" subsimmers are.. shall we say "unhappy" with this whole DRM thing.

This whole piracy thing is hogwash... we all know that everything gets pirated or knocked off.. from Gucci bags to jeans to video games. So give it up.. DRM will not stop or slow down the wheels of "hacking" or whatever you want to call it. If I could tell you how many "pirated" movie dvds I have seized over the years, the number is staggering. I have friends who work for NYC sanitation that havent had to rent or go to the movies for years because of seizure "rewards". And in the face of thousands arrests nothing has stemmed the tide of the waves of pirated stuff.

So will it prevent or prevail?... or will be just another PITA kinda like childproof lighters, pill bottles, doors etc. Only time will tell.

I firmly stand on what I know.. SH3 GWX is the greatest subsim I have ever played. If it has to be the last one I ever play.. so be it.

Sorry in advance...

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Or not play it at all if you are travelling or unable to get a connection to the network.

So Right.

So fitting, flying to a SubSim meeting and can't play SH5 to while the flight away.

[Sailor Steve]

Oh wait. I just used those two together responding to another statement of yours.

But it's so true, and you are so right with that one.

Oh, wait again. I promised I wasn't going to talk about 'IT' anymore!

But this was so good!

[Task Force]

I look at it this way... Pirates sometimes DL a game they wouldnt have ever buyed... Ither way, the publisher would have got nothing,

If he would have found out about the DRM, and not bought the game... no money gained.

If he pirated the game The company dosent really loose anything, they didnt have to pay for the disc, or the publisher to print it... No money gained.

Im not saying piracy is right, but ither way, they lost a sell...

(why do I feel im gonna get blasted.)

[jazman]

Can someone point me to a place where a software company has presented their actual losses due to so-called "piracy"?

[tommyk]

Originally Posted by Task Force

I look at it this way... Pirates sometimes DL a game they wouldnt have ever buyed... Ither way, the publisher would have got nothing,

If he would have found out about the DRM, and not bought the game... no money gained.

If he pirated the game The company dosent really loose anything, they didnt have to pay for the disc, or the publisher to print it... No money gained.

Im not saying piracy is right, but ither way, they lost a sell...

well said!

I do not support piracy but I also do not want to support such crazy DRM. Currently I see no reason for me to go from SH3 GWX to SH5...

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by Task Force

I look at it this way... Pirates sometimes DL a game they wouldnt have ever buyed... Ither way, the publisher would have got nothing,

If he would have found out about the DRM, and not bought the game... no money gained.

If he pirated the game The company dosent really loose anything, they didnt have to pay for the disc, or the publisher to print it... No money gained.

Im not saying piracy is right, but ither way, they lost a sell...

(why do I feel im gonna get blasted.)

<loads cannons and comes about for a broadside>

Oh sure pirates steal lots of games that they never would have bought, but they also steal a lot of games they would have bought if they couldn't have pirated it, and that costs the publisher money. DRM becomes important during the first few months the game goes on sale; the longer the delay between the game going on the market and it showing up on the internet, the more copies they will sell as people give in to waiting and decide to buy it rather then steal it when it eventually gets cracked.

This is why a lot of cross platform games have long delays before the pc version gets released, not because the port isn't ready in time, but to delay the inevitable and hopefully get more sales out of the console games (studies have shown that console sales drop dramatically if a pirate version of the same game is available for pc at the same time). This is also shown by the sales of console games vs similar pc games (console game sales can be 10 times higher currently) even though theoretically there are way more pc's capable of playing the game then there are console owners.

Ultimately its human nature and greed, and this time its not publisher greed, it's consumer/gamer greed. Why pay for something when you can get it for free.

[HundertzehnGustav]

That question is a Good one.

Up to them to find an answer.
DRM makes SHV the most expensive game i have ever played, costing up to 600 euroes a year to play.

[Elder-Pirate]

Originally Posted by Task Force

I look at it this way... Pirates sometimes DL a game they wouldnt have ever buyed... Ither way, the publisher would have got nothing,

If he would have found out about the DRM, and not bought the game... no money gained.

If he pirated the game The company dosent really loose anything, they didnt have to pay for the disc, or the publisher to print it... No money gained.

I'm not saying piracy is right, but either way, they lost a sell...

(why do I feel I'm gonna get blasted.)

You should be Blasted for telling the Gods honest truth???

Not in my book you won't. More power to you.

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Possibly, but those who choose to let this sway them into piracy, do not have strong principles to begin with.

What if they purchase the game legitamately, yet find that they can't realistically play the game in its 'out of the box' configuration, so they go on line to get a 'fix' and use that instead. Piracy figures +1, but no loss of sale. Doesn't that just play into the hands of the DRM companies hands? Duuuuuuude look how many copies you COULD have sold, if it weren't for those evil pirates (legitimate consumers with crippleware).

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

(studies have shown that console sales drop dramatically if a pirate version of the same game is available for pc at the same time). This is also shown by the sales of console games vs similar pc games (console game sales can be 10 times higher currently) even though theoretically there are way more pc's capable of playing the game then there are console owners.

Hmmm, there was the one case of one particular game having a sales rate of ten to one consoles to PC, but that was a rarity. Can you post some links to one of the multiple studies that have shown console sales drop dramatically? I'm not trying to call you out or anything, I just would like to read up about it. The averaage piracy world rate of 38% doesn't seem that high, but if there are certain games that are pirated at a rate of 1000%, then that means that it's a minorty of games that are accounting for that 38% figure and the rest of the market really isn't at risk of piracy at all. Anyway, I'd be interested in those study reports.

[Nisgeis]

Alright, so let's try changing the name of DRM, as it's become a bit of a negative phrase and sometimes changing the name allows people to see things in a new way, so here goes... Let's instead refer to it as 'Fairy Dust' or perhaps 'Unicorn Tears'.

So, has there ever been a major (not niche) title published, that has been sprinkled with fairy dust that has not been pirated? Because I just don't believe sprinkling fairy dust on a game will protect it from pirates - it's like some sort of weird belief system. How much is fairy dust per pound and why are we, the legitimate purchaser, paying for fairy dust, if it doesn't work?

As for the fairy dust used on SH5, then if it's the dust from the same fairy that AC2 has, then the fairy dust won't be of any use to anyone and will again be a complete waste of money on the part of the publisher once the AC2 fans have blown the fairy dust off the game. Why do they keep wasting money and bumping up the cost of their game (or alternatively eating into their profits) by sprinkling things with fairy dust? It's like an old wives' tale. Fairy dust is paid for by the legitimate buyer and is completely useless.

[JScones]

Fairy dust