Pave Low Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Disturbing short article on PCGamer Ghost Recon Online being free-to-play is a counter to piracy, says Ubisoft producer Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult says that free-to-play games are a response to piracy – and an alternative to the restrictive DRM that’s annoyed PC gamers in so many recent Ubisoft game While Ghost Recon Online is exclusive to PC, Ubisoft’s other Ghost Recon game, Future Soldier, uses a traditional payment model and will only be available on console. Not sure if to read too much into this.. should it just be [currently]? or does PCGamer know something for definite ? seems to suggest we are getting a Free-to-play GRO for PC instead of a FS for PC due to "Piracy issues" and "DRM concerns" with PC games ? The perceived value of PC games is heavily affected by piracy, Arnoult says – both for players and publishers. “When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind. Wow, I can remember a time when studios actually designed and build a whole game on PC and specifically for PC not just "ported" a console version and I know a hell of a lot of PC gamers who BUY all of their PC games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 The and will only be available on console. isn't a quote but what looks like an assumption from PC gamer...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkAuthority Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 (edited) Of course many of us is going to download any retail game. Scene releases these days are flawless. If Ubisoft or any other company wants to win the war with piracy, the only way is to release a perfect quality product (matched by a reasonable price). This is what CDProjekt did with Witcher 2. Pretty much everybody bought this game regardless of popular availability of DRM-free copies from gog.com. They game is so good one just wants to own it. GRFS can easily be a game like that if only Ubisoft will deliver what's been promised/shown so far. Make it work right, limit the number of bugs to minimum prior to the official release, get rid of DRM, and finally, make multiplayer legit game only. Score! Most of the gaming population can actually appreciate quality and buy a good no-###### game. Edited November 23, 2011 by DarkMagic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Some choice comments from the PCGamer page... This simply boggles the mind. To hear Ubisoft tell it, there is no money to be made in PC gaming. Apparently, 95% of game downloads are pirated and thus Pc gaming simply is not profitable. Which I guess explains why Valve and Steam are doing so poorly... In what Universe do Ubisoft execs reside, again? "because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game."95%...really? Where do these numbers come from? According the the first 10 week sales of AC: Brotherhood, they made 7.2 million dollars off the pc version alone. If that was only 5% of what they were supposed to make, they would have ended up with 143 million dollars. hy do you think these guys are avoiding the PC... use your ######ing brain... because the consoles are a gold mine in comparison. Not only is this guy stupid and holds some kind of power within Ubisoft, but he is also grossly misinformed. That's a scary combination. Seriously, where does he pull this absolutely ridiculous statistics? 95%? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petsfed Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Aw! Now my pointedly not playing this game won't have any financial effect on UBI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RileyFletcher_01 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Wow, not that I really care about it being cancelled, but why give all the brainwashed nerdy kiddies who sit around breaking their thumbs on an x-box controller a new game? PC gamers deserve it more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belvucker Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Dang that is disappointing for PC fans, good thing I got a PS3 for my birthday... still though .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeealex Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) I think it's stupid that once again, Ubi is punishing the legitimate customer, i don't know where they get that 95% percent from, that is complete and utter crap, pardon my language. i wasn't particularly fussed if GRFS didn't come to PC because we also have an Xbox but to find that instead they are completely disowning the PC market and giving us F2P online games is completely stupid! while GR online sounds good, what the hell are offline gamers gonna do? if ubi do anything with GR:online, i want it to at least have a campaign for a single offline player. either that or it is made compatable with linux either way it works. Well, there's always emulators and [GR] to keep us happy, just means that they get a slap in the face (figuratively) for their idiotic descision. or perhaps to compensate the legitimate customer, they could give us all the [GR] engine source code! Edited November 24, 2011 by Zeealex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnTC02 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 As there is no "official" statement from Ubi I'm not reading to much into this at the moment. The quote "and will only be available on console" is from PC Gamer and not Ubi so we aren't any closer to knowing if there will or won't be a GR:FS for the PC. If this is true I for one won't be going out and buying a console just to play GR:FS, my last console was a PS2 which I sold as it was gathering dust, I play all my games on the PC and that isn't going to change. If there isn't a PC version I think it will be a huge nail in Ubisoft's coffin, this is a flagship title for Ubi so they wouldn't be that stupid, would they!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) As there is no "official" statement from Ubi I'm not reading to much into this at the moment. Sure, but-but... This is about ten too many 'zingers' to leave dangling... For a company that's struggling to pay the bills, one would think Ubisoft would be paying more attention to how their PR is coming across, not less... If there isn't a PC version I think it will be a huge nail in Ubisoft's coffin, this is a flagship title for Ubi so they wouldn't be that stupid, would they!! I don't know... Ghost Recon 2? I wonder if all of this isn't distraction based marketing hype; while GR:FS may be an 'AAA' title as far as budget and production standards, it certainly doesn't have leave me gob smacked the way Ghost Recon did (and still does). In fact both GR:FS and GR:O like Modern Warfare games look fat on art, and production pork, but pretty lean and even anemic in the actual 'game design' department for depth, features, and execution. But then Ubisoft doesn't strike me as the kind of company to have the panache to swing Hill and Knowlton type marketing gymnastics... From any angle it looks like a collision course with more red ink for Ubisoft... Edited November 24, 2011 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blame Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 In my opinion GRIN and RedStorm have never cared that much about PC gamers while developing GR series, Graw2 on xbox and ps were great but on PC it was all buggy and glitchy with horrible lagg and obviously GR:O is going to be a pointless one, its free and the game looks just ridiculos so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KRP 56 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 That just goes to show us that UBI is full of stupid clowns and we should never get any hope up that they will ever create another PC Ghost Recon worth buying. 95% piracy on PC games. What UBI Einstein came up with data like that. If that was the case no company would create PC games for sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blame Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Making the storyline for almost a year, coming up with a new idea and deleting the 1st storyline was one of the reasons the game probably got delayed + Treyarch and Infinity ward came out with MW2 , BO and MW3 they wanted to update their game aswel which cost more money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeealex Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) In my opinion GRIN and RedStorm have never cared that much about PC gamers while developing GR series, Graw2 on xbox and ps were great but on PC it was all buggy and glitchy with horrible lagg and obviously GR:O is going to be a pointless one, its free and the game looks just ridiculos so far. it's not GRIN and Redstorm's fault, GRIN's work on GRAW and GRAW2 was absolutely fantastic, the graphics were stunning, and Redstorm didn't half do bad making a game for PC that is still played 10 years later! it's Ubi's problem so i would do your research before you spill if i were you considering that all of the PC versions of the GR games rocked the consoles socks off. and be aware, that there are former GRIN members on this forum... What i don't understand, is they will happily waste time and money giving people a F2P game, yet they won't bother spending some good time and Good money releasing the actual game and getting the money back for it. so what if people pirate the game? you don't see other developers doing the same. Ubi is going to see some serious down in money if it is confirmed that no PC GRFS is coming. Edited November 24, 2011 by Zeealex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krise madsen Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 ...GRIN's work on GRAW and GRAW2 was absolutely fantastic... No it wasn't (hey, you have your opinion, I have mine, and that's fine) What GRIN did do right was listen, interact with the fans (i.e. us here at GR.net) and take the comments, suggestions and criticisms to heart. And by that I don't mean that they implemented every suggestion wholesale. They actually listened, thought it over, analysed it and implemented what could conceivably be implemented. And that's why there were considerable improvements in small but important elements from GRAW to GRAW2 (such as the weapoms selection and the squad command system). That kind of community interaction is exceptionally rare these days and the guys at GRIN deserves huge kudos for that. I guess we GR.net users deserve a little accolade too because our suggestions and criticisms were generally sensible and thought through. I can't speak about the mutiplayer part (didn't play it) but arguably there wasn't much there that couldn't be fixed by throwing more tweaking at it, be it map design, team setup or network code. Where the game really faltered was in the linear gameplay. The whole game (maybe the game engine too? I wouldn't know about the software side of the business) simply wasn't geared towards the Ghost Recon play style of go-anywhere-do-things-how-and-in-what-order-you-want. In fairness, no one else seem to have cracked this either and these days it seems developers have simply given up and are just throwing more COD-style playable cutscenes at us gamers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Operative Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 At least for the XBOX 360, the same statement remains true: most people buy pirate versions. So why don't abandon this console altogether: well, they can keep pretty similar games in both consoles with little effort (keeping in mind I suppose PS3 is the main platform), so it won't be much a loss. PC customers are too demanding, but in the other hand PC offers better graphics. The ease of pirating on PC is what turn off developers, but this doesn't imply they can't make money from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RileyFletcher_01 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) Let me sum it up: Game devs suck these days. I was going to buy MW3, but I felt disgusted at myself for even considering it. I decided I'll give my MW3 money to Rocky's site: I'd rather support him than some crummy game dev. Edited November 24, 2011 by rileyfletcher_01 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pave Low Posted November 24, 2011 Author Share Posted November 24, 2011 Article has been picked up by bluesnews and other websites Though plans for a PC edition of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was previously confirmed by Ubisoft, PC Gamer has word that the next installment in the Ghost Recon series is for consoles only, and that PC gamers will get Ghost Recon Online instead, which is apparently Ubisoft's new approach to PC piracy following their almost universally despised always-on DRM. Source: No PC Ghost Recon: Future Soldier *and in related news, an Ubi creative director puts his foot in his mouth over a title that wont be coming to PC Despite the 'bitching', piracy means I Am Alive is not likely on PC Ubisoft: I Am Alive skipping PC because “it’s not worth it” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeealex Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 ...GRIN's work on GRAW and GRAW2 was absolutely fantastic... No it wasn't (hey, you have your opinion, I have mine, and that's fine) i understand what you are saying, but graphically it was ahead of it's time, so i'm told. i wasn't playing it when it was released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sart Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game This is so stupid it's funny. That explains why the original Ghost Recon sold so poorly. Oh wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 I know Ghost Recon was a lot smaller than GRAW in file size, but would you download it on a 56k modem? For what it is worth, I think PC Gamer made an assumption there, and Ubisoft has still yet to make a definitive statement about GRFS for the PC. I've e-mailed PC gamer anyway, to clarify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 I also think that the original statment about 95% of gamers pirating games has been "lost in translation somewere. I think it may have been ment as 95% of games are pirated Which would make more sence. I dont think even UBI could make a statement like that Not that it matters we still aint getting FS for PC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) At least for the XBOX 360, the same statement remains true: most people buy pirate versions Huh? Most buy pirated versions? That sounds a little far fetched; though I'm not saying your wrong. What slays me however is after the PSN debacle, and the PS3 in essence being rooted, combined with the general perception that the PS3 is an inferior console; PS3 title piracy now apparently eclipses PC and 360 piracy combined. If any of this article is a general reflection of the actual thinking going on at Ubisoft corporate -- it wouldn't surprise me as much as disappoint, as I've been employed by a larger company moribund by being out of touch with market reality and sound business practice... Edited November 24, 2011 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCΛRECROW Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 What a way to start my day! Although I kind of saw this one coming, it's still disappointing. I understand they're running a business, but using piracy as an excuse is poor, if you make a good game, then gamers will buy it. Gamers don't want to deal with DRM, they just want to play the game. I really hope that R6 Patriots will be on PC, and not some half-baked console port at that. EDIT: Seems like EuroGamer has confirmation from Ubisoft. Oh well...this sucks. The publisher told Eurogamer this afternoon that "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has not been announced on PC", and that "Ghost Recon Online is the PC equivalent". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeealex Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) Ubisoft are over-exaggerating a little here, way more than 50,000 people will buy Ghost Recon Future Soldier on PC! and they said that ghost recon online wasn't the PC future soldier, i am getting mixed views and completely confused here! Edit: sorry, random thumbsup there. but honestly someone needs to contact Ubi and demand the original GR source code, if they can't be arsed with PC gamers then there's no point in keeping hold of it is there? Edited November 24, 2011 by Zeealex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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