101459 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 (edited) In this Blue's News article about this Eurogamer Interview it at least sounds like Ubisoft is mulling the issue over, but is still asking the wrong questions... Remarks like: "Is it fair for someone to enjoy our content without us receiving some value for that? I think at the core of that is, no." suggest there's a ways to go before Ubisoft 'gets it' with respect to the reality and DRM... Piracy as an issue is not a matter of 'fairness', just as any aspect of life is not going to be fair (like Ubisoft being fair to its paying Customers) -- short of capital punishment for even suspected piracy, games will be pirated; and no DRM solution can stop it, as piracy is a feature/consequence of technology rather like the Windows XP software Firewall only protects you from people that would respect your property anyway to make a simple analogy. But if Ubisoft is really thinking about and understands the 'value added' point industry Pundits have been making for over a decade, and that a compelling and well developed multi-player component of a game puts the Developer\Publisher back in top-down control as they manage the master server, and with it the largest most compelling multi-player venue there might be hope. Then they might look at the sales of the original Ghost Recon at over eleven million units, and weigh in on the fact that the game was pirated/cracked before it was officially released and put their priorities back on track from worrying about 'fairness' to just making great games and a lot of money -- and having a lot more to invest in doing both by avoiding a lot of wheel-spin that accomplishes absolutely nothing but p*ssing off paying Customers... Or, at least I can hope... Edited March 23, 2012 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Looks promising but I'm not holding my breath given Ubi's track record making us guinea pigs of various failed DRM schemes. I too am hoping to be pleasantly surprised if Ubi does the right thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) Whether it's common sense prevailing or just fiduciary pressure and Ubisoft just can't afford to screw up and risk loosing sales, now is probably the best time for Fans to complain about how onerous and discouraging Ubisoft's DRM has been historically. There have been oodles of humorous anecdotes about Ubisoft's DRM mission over the years, and I feel humor is one of the best ways to get a message across... I could draw or was good at compositing photographs I'd depict the box of an Ubisoft 'AAA' title in a welded cage, captioned 'Now let them try and pirate that!'... One of the better ones was an April first mock announcement that sadly hasn't wavered to far from fact along the lines of: 'In our battle to confront PC piracy head on we've decided to cancel the PC release of our new 'AAA' title... That will show to go those Pirates!... I've long wondered if there isn't an element of ass covering at some level at Ubisoft with the whole DRM thing -- so if the game doesn't sell well, poor sales can be blamed on piracy rather then taking heat for a rushed and shoddy title... Big corporate culture is often the opposite of Meritocracy... Edited March 24, 2012 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krise madsen Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) Well, there have been a few funny ones, like the time Ubi released a well-known crack to fix a D2D DRM issue, but failed to erase all traces of it's origin. My personal favourite though is when the new must-always-be-online DRM scheme went down for days, because most of the staff was on Easter holidays. I mean who would have thought that gamers wanted to play games in the holidays? Seriously though, I'm at the point where I'll make sure there's a fix if when DRM issues appear before I buy a game. The amount of crap (DRM and otherwise) being flung at gamers is incredible, especially considering how many benign solutions are available if only common sense would prevail. Like Bohemia patching out DRM when it has served its purpose. Edited March 24, 2012 by krise madsen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) Yes even Epic has patched out all it's CD check DRM only months after the games were released or had met sell-through... The thing I find most objectionable is Ubisoft through sloth, paranoia, or just general disregard for its paying Customers, has on more then one occasion put them in a position of not being able to play the games they paid for or choosing to break the law. Granted it's not like any paying Customer is likely to get in trouble for using a NoCD crack to play a game they paid for; but Ubisoft definitely on moral low ground and thin ice if they stay on this onerous track; the ire of paying Customers that would other wise be adoring Fans, and constant negative press is a very real black eye and has already hurt their sales substantially -- they can't be completely oblivious to that fact; can they? Edited March 25, 2012 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Share Posted March 26, 2012 RPS also has a nice retrospective and take on the latest Ubisoft DRM interview here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
=warcloud= Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) "Is it fair for someone to enjoy our content without us receiving some value for that? I think at the core of that is, no." Pircay on the PC platform is a major issue and allways will be, there will allways be freeloaders what can anyone do about it?. All computer software developers/publishers have the right to protect their software in some way and anyway they choose to, imho. The only way to combat piracy is to shut down sites like megaupload.com, cut out the big players like kim dotcom, the biggest thieves of them all. Edited March 28, 2012 by =warcloud= Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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