The gawd-almighty merged DRM in Silent Hunter V thread

[KeithMoonsLiver]

It won't stop people from pirating it, the most it will do is delay it a few days before it's out there. DRM like this just makes it even more attractive to pirate the game, since you will be able to play it offline. It's like gun control- it hurts the people who follow the law in the first place, but has little affect on the people that break the law in the first place. I've bought SH2, 3 and 4 but there's no way I'll buy this one.

[Onkel Neal]

Refuted.

Finally, on the contentious topic of DRM, aside from Spore whose audience may well have fallen victim to DRM-induced hysteria, the presence of intrusive DRM appears not to increase piracy of a game. For example Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed and Crysis all have no intrusive DRM whatsoever: they all use basic SafeDisc copy protection with no install limits, no online activation, and no major reports of protection-related issues. Yet all were pirated heavily enough to have the dubious distinction of being in the Top 10 downloaded games list. But strangely absent from the list are several popular games which do use more intrusive DRM: BioShock, Crysis Warhead, and Mass Effect. This indicates quite clearly that intrusive DRM is not the main reason why some games are pirated more heavily than others. We examine this issue in more detail in the Copy Protection & DRM section.

This is the most insightful, factful, and well-researched article about PC games and piracy around, by noted tech author Koroush Ghazi:

PC Game Piracy Examined

Hopefully there are some here who have long enough attention spans to read this all the way through without resorting to a session of HALO. It covers Steam, Starforce, the disparity between PC and console sales, and more. You can learn a lot from it. Hopefully you can learn to stop parroting the same stuff you heard from everyone else.

[Letum]

From Neal's Link:

Interestingly enough, there's very little in the way of actual evidence that StarForce does anything harmful [...]
By 2006 it was too late. [etc.]

That's plain wrong.

Starforce admired in an interview at: http://reclaimyourgame.com/
that a starforce version was a likely cause of windows failing to
recognise optical drives.

The class action case over IDE drives been put into a slower mode
was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. That would not have
happened with out some good evidence. Very slow speeds have
caused ophysical errors in some, but not all, CD drives.

The enforced reboots without chance to save your work is also
admitted by starforce (although not present in current SF versions).

[Sheppard]

My internet connection has been quite spotty the last two weeks, which coincidentally matches up nicely with the SNOWPOCALYPSE I and II that Washington DC just got hit with (30~ inches of snow!!) and I get a lot of LOST CONNECTION to internet, and then five seconds later, the intertubes work again.

I assume this is due to all the snow causing line outages, not all of comcasts network is IIRC underground.

So I would keep getting that "MAIN MENU" screen A LOT.

This removes SH5 from a "buy in six months" game (due to Type VII only and lack of modding to go past '43) to none at all.

I'm willing to put up with one time only internet activication each time you install the game -- but to have a 100% reliable intertube connection for every single moment of gameplay???

[Steeltrap]

Originally Posted by Méo

Correct me if I'm wrong, but DRM had already been used in other games before.

Did the average customer accepted it?

I can't speak for ALL titles that might have a DRM equivalent.

What I meant was the specifics of this system when applied to an off line, single player game.

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that a lot of single player devotees are not inclined to accept this system when there seems little to recommend it from potential customers' perspectives. That's why I suggested the business model, applied to this particular title, seemed potentially to be problematic at best.

An alternative is using Steam for verification, with a monthly requirement for re-verification, otherwise allowing off line play between those times. I suspect most players would not have anywhere near as many objections to such a scheme vs. the current proposed OSP.

That's before we consider the issue of consumers being forced to have a different account etc. for each publisher, which again flies in the face of customer-friendly thinking.

Cheers

[horden]

Neal what do you know about people playing High end games with no connection ?


I' have bought all versions of Silent Hunter (beging with Microprose Silent service in 1985 on Atary) but I think that for me it's now the end of the story because I use much of the time SH4 on my laptop in my countryside's house during week-ends and doesn't have an internet connection in this rest house.

The idea to buy an other internet connection in this place, only for SH5 simply means nothing for me unless Ubi pay me this connection.

I really can't understand Ubi. If piracy make them lost so much money, why doing Silent hunter III, and after Silent Hunter IV and now SH5 ?

Do they lost so much money or do they want to make much more money ?

In the counterpart, are they now able to sell a finish product ? or as usual expect on somebodyelse's party to finish the work like the user's community do for free and for a long time now.

More money, less job, more limited use, it's a policy... but until when ?

I would like to thanks all the people, the third parties how upgrade SH4, make it so playable and interesting. It's you and not Ubi how made me so confident to buy the next Ubi's sub product. Thanks to you folks ! I can tell you that yer work 'll stand on my computer, after March 2010 and that for a long life now !


The bottle of champagne will fail to break on the hull of the SH5 for its bathème. I'll Don't go on board !

[jokerl90]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Refuted.



This is the most insightful, factful, and well-researched article about PC games and piracy around, by noted tech author Koroush Ghazi:

PC Game Piracy Examined

Hopefully there are some here who have long enough attention spans to read this all the way through without resorting to a session of HALO. It covers Steam, Starforce, the disparity between PC and console sales, and more. You can learn a lot from it. Hopefully you can learn to stop parroting the same stuff you heard from everyone else.

Koroush Ghazi is the one person on the internet in who I trust absolutely. If he says it, I believe it. If he gives advise on something, I take it. I look in on his site every day. I remember when he wrote this, I never really read it because I'm not at all interested the issue of piracy, until now.
While I don't agree with the way ubisoft is going with this, I just got a reminder that there are two sides to any issue.

[Seafireliv]

I like the way Stalker Call of Pripyat did it. No Activation except a code, but those who so love Steam can have a Steam version- everyone`s happy. Stalker just got my £30... SHV just got thin air. You can`t beat Options.

What the? My Avatar turned into Popeye? o....k...

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by jokerl90

While I don't agree with the way ubisoft is going with this, I just got a reminder that there are two sides to any issue.

I think there are many more than 3 sides to this issue and I can think of four off the top of my head. Most of them with conflicting priorities and aims.

But that's life in general.

[Seafireliv]

The only side we should be concerned with is the CUSTOMER side. Let UBI business men and women be concerned with THEIR greedy side and bonuses. Do you guys think they`re considering our side? All they`re thinking about is lining their pockets. they`ll only consider the customer side if the customer doesn`t buy. Get with reality.

It`s a battle. If UBI win, we`re all worse off. If the customer wins, everyone benefits.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

That's possible, but it would be very unethical, imo. I asked and they tell me yes, exact same DRM. I am following up on that with another source.

I asked a high ranking Ubisoft manager (not the dev team) about the DRM, I said I wanted to relay some more information to the community, and here is our exchange.

<snip>

<snip>

The bold part says to me, Neal, that you do not have a "full" DRM/OSP copy of SH5.

[Gatt]

From gamegurumania news:

Ubisoft's New PC DRM Really Requires Net Access -

As reported on the UK PC Gamer, they have found that while testing review copies of the PC port of Assassin's Creed 2 they got kicked out of playing the game whenever they happen to lose their internet connection. Which simply means your game quits and you lose progress!

[THE_MASK]

The comment posted on that site is the reason Ubi have the THING . Have i preordered SH5 though , no . Stuck between a rock and a hard place .

[Darkreaver1980]

I preordered it. im connected 24/7 anyway, so im fully supporting the new DRM. Hope the pirates will have a hard time on it.

If Ubisoft enables some kind of chat (youre online anyway) than i will even buy 2 copies

[GREY WOLF 3]

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