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Ubisoft Testing PC Prince of Persia Without DRM

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-on-ya dept.

Ars Technica reports that the upcoming PC version of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia will not feature any sort of copy protection. (Not including Steam downloads, of course.) After the backlash in recent months over the DRM in games like Spore and GTA IV, Ubisoft is giving gamers the chance to demonstrate that DRM actually increases piracy. One of Ubisoft's community reps had this to say about their decision: "You`re right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games. A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP PC has no DRM we`ll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine. Console piracy is something else entirely and I`m sure we`ll see more steps in future to try to combat that."

4 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm buying a copy just to support the concept. by LtGordon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort.

    Hardly. The point is to release a game without DRM and then massage the numbers so they can turn around and say that the lack of DRM drove piracy up significantly. The point will be moot, because how do you gauge losses due to piracy? The same way Microsoft does: (Every single theoretical download) * (Retail price) = (OMGthehorror$$$)

  2. They already have their answer. by iYk6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These people already has their answer. DRM prevents piracy. Sure, we all know that it isn't true, but judging by what their rep says, they are only seeking to prove that there is something good about DRM, and this "trial" is only to prove that they are right, not to actually gather information. No matter what the results are, they will claim that they have confirmation of what they already believe.

    1. Re:They already have their answer. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Being someone who has spent a LOT of time in meetings like they had about this..

      it's not about what they say. It's about not paying for the royalties and licensing for a DRM solution. I'm betting that putting no DRM in it brings the cost of the game development down to 3/4 the price.

      That means higher profits per unit sold.

      it's ALL about money. dont be fooled by any of their PR talk.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Re:What if piracy levels remain the same? by stephanruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That would also show that DRM is moot as it has no effect on piracy.

    No, this won't show anything either way, or if it does show something, it will be opened to interpretation. This is not a study. This is not a test. There is no control group. The game may do well, or not well. This will depend largely on how good the game actually is. Also, a criterion of success cited by one side may be cited as a criterion of failure by the other. So for instance, if the absence of DRM increases the word-of-mouth referrals and sales, that might be counted as a success by one side, but if that same spurt in word-of-mouth referrals increases the number of downloads from p2p -- that same company may see this as a failure (since it would be seeing all those downloads as a sign that imaginary dollars are walking out of the door).

    So with no predefined criteria of success, and no control group of any kind, both sides are bound to repeat the same old arguments over again. It's just that all that rationalizing, framing/reframing, and arguing will be done with freshly acquired data, instead of historical data, and people from either side will probably just stick to their preconceived notions either way.