Hey Ubi, consider this...

[wetwarev7]

(I know, this isn't Ubisofts website, but they have very good ears here)
You know, when stores lose lots of money due to shoplifting, they usually bump the prices up on everything else a bit so the paying customers make up the difference. Not so great for the customer, but it is an established and accepted practice.

Considering that I've always thought any of the Silent Hunter games were worth more than I paid for them (once they were patched that is), why not have a less intrusive protection validation system and just charge a bit more based on how much you guesstimate your loss to be?

Let's do some math. I don't know the actual figures, so lets get a nice range. Lets start by saying the game cost $40. You sell 10,000 copies. That's $400,000. Let's say 1% get stolen, which would be 100 copies or $4000.

1% of 10,000 = 100 copies (at $40) = $4000 loss
10,000 - 100 = 9900 copies = $396,000 sales

Ok? I didn't misplace a decimal or anything did I? Good. Let's spread that $4000 loss over the other 9900 copies that got paid for.

$4000 / 9900 = $2.475

So what if the thefts were higher, such as 10%?
10% of 10,000 = 1000 copies (at $40) = $40,000 loss
10,000 - 1000 = 9000 copies (at $40) = $360,000 sales
$40,000 / 9000 copies = $4.44

What about 1,000,000 copies and 20% theft rate?
20% of 1,000,000 = 200,000 copies (at $40) = $8,000,000 loss
1,000,000 - 200,000 = 800,000 copies (at $40) = $32,000,000 sales
$8,000,000 / 800,000 copies = $10

So, you could have charged from $2.47 to $10 extra instead of having an always online requirement.

I would have paid more for SH5 than you currently charged to avoid the always online requirement. I'd have grumbled a bit, and maybe been a bit more vocal about the bugs, but I'd have paid it and would still be willing to buy your next product. And it just seems to make more sense to charge a bit more than to commit to the financial liability of running servers 24/7.



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