[Rocky]

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Choice cuts.... my comments in [ ... ]

Developers at Driver: San Francisco studio Ubisoft Reflections and Just Cause studio Avalanche have offered up starkly different takes on Ubisoft's controversial efforts to protect some PC titles with stringent DRM schemes.

piracy on the PC is utterly unbelievable," Ubisoft Reflections studio founder Martin Edmonson

Ubisoft originally said Reflections' upcoming Driver: San Francisco would include DRM that required a persistent internet connection ... since amended that statement to say the game will require a single online check only the first time the game is played.

Avalanche Studios, ... Sundberg pointed out that piracy will always be present on the PC, and argued the best way to fight it was by engaging the community. [######, honestly, that is so misguided, I am shocked]

If you continuously tell the player that you care about their opinions, and appreciate their investment, you will lower the amount of bootleg copies [OMG, ALL IS LOST ABANDON YEA ALL HOPE]

Ubisoft's recent PC release of From Dust included a DRM scheme that required an internet check every time the game was launched, but the company recently announced it was working on a patch to remove this requirement.

And a reader comment from that article...

"Ubisoft, on the other hand, magically delays every single one of their games for PC at the last minute, riddles them with the worst DRM in the industry, and makes them usually shoddy ports at that. They honestly expect their releases to sell well on the PC after they treat PC gamers like dirt?" [ WORD ]




MEANWHILE IN RELATED NEWS

Printing error means online to be free after all

Driver San Francisco was supposed to be the first Ubisoft title to ship with the new Ubisoft Uplay Passport code that was required for online play. Those who purchased a used copy that wanted access to the online play would be forced to spend 800 Microsoft Points, or $9.99 for PlayStation 3 owners.

Please see this thread by Tinker for more Driver 3 DRM removal chat!

[Bota:16]

"a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection."

I have no doubts, but did it increase revenue/sales? I doubt it. I would say that people pirate games because they don't want to pay for something that they can get for free (obvious), BUT what I don't think they understand is that if these people can't get it for free they simply won't play the game. It DOES NOT mean that since they can't get it for free they will magically want to BUY your game.


Don't get me wrong I am 110% behind publishers/developers getting paid for their work. I hate what piracy has done to the PC platform, but there's better ways of doing it.