Ubisoft Working On a New Anti-Piracy Tool

Ubisoft recently revealed that their game sales have seen a 50% drop over the past quarter, blaming the overall market slowdown and piracy (particularly on the DS) for the low numbers. They also announced that four of their games, including Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2, would be delayed until 2010. The company's CEO, Yves Guillemot, now says they are working on a new anti-piracy tool that should be ready by the end of 2009. He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.

Comments

Spend your money right

[dk90406]

Ubisoft: Your development budget is better spent on developing good games (I am not saying your current games are bad - I have no experience with them), than yet another copyright scheme that will be broken.

Re:Spend your money right

[tehSpork]

I am not saying your current games are bad - I have no experience with them

You've saved yourself some money and hours of crappy gameplay then. Assassin's Creed was almost enjoyable (if it hadn't been so buggy), other than that I haven't really enjoyed an Ubisoft title since Chaos Theory (released in 2005). I had been looking forward to Splinter Cell Conviction, however with the way they keep delaying it and changing things by the time we get it I doubt it will resemble the original franchise at all.

A note to game developers: Just because a franchise is successful doesn't mean that it will survive a substantial change in gameplay like we got with Double Agent. Furthermore, after a bomb like Double Agent it would be wise to return more towards the style that popularized your game in the first place before branching out in new directions. I'm not asking for EA Games Madden-esque repetition here and not saying that taking franchises in new creative directions is not good, but when you fail so badly take it back to base before you try again.

Also: If you notice game sales going down it probably has a correlation to your games sucking, regardless of the actual effects of piracy. Since the industry has pretty much stopped offering demos often times the only way to try a game is to download it first. If it sucks why would you bother purchasing it? "Better" DRM isn't going to help you on this front, however games that don't suck would. =)

Re:Spend your money right

[JohhnyTHM]

The parent is spot on. Most UbiSoft releases are utter dross.

The only title of theirs that I have been interested in recently was Far Cry 2, which I didn't buy (or copy) due to the SecuRom with limited installs. There was a thread on the UbiSoft website begging them not to use SecuRom, with some polite, thought out reasons why it was a bad idea. When the game was cracked five days before the official release date I pointed out that those downloading it didn't have to put up with SecuRom and limited installs like the paying customers did. My forum account was banned. For telling the truth. Apparently it was considered to be promoting piracy.

Way to fuck off those willing to buy your games Ubi!

Maybe this is the real reason sales are down?

Anti-privacy tool?

[Anonymous Coward]

At first I misread the title as Anti-privacy tool, on second reading i realized this might be close to the truth.

Re:Anti-privacy tool?

[moon3]

Anti-sales tool, that is the third reading here..

Anti-piracy tool

[mwvdlee]

they are working on a new anti-piracy tool that should be ready by the end of 2009

In other news, hackers are working on breaking Ubisoft's new anti-piracy tool. They expect it to be cracked by the end of 2009 plus one day.

Details

[Jurily]

He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.

Because he doesn't know, obviously. Oh, and there is no copy protection that won't be cracked on release day. Again, there is one and only one method I've seen so far that worked: make the server you control essential to gameplay, see WoW. (Oh, and Blizzard actually releases their client without copy protection whatsoever.)

You don't control my computer, and you deserve to go bankrupt for trying.

New anti-piracy tool, eh?

[Caboosian]

Here's your best anti-piracy tool: Drop the price on new PC games to $40, and ffs, stop treating your customers like thieves.

Re:New anti-piracy tool, eh?

[borizz]

Actually, no. At $1 I'd buy a shitload of games.

I'm just not ready to drop 50 euros on a game (which is what they ask where I live). For example, I waited until Left 4 Dead was on weekend special on Steam so I could get it for under 20 euros. That's a price I'm more than willing to pay.

Re:New anti-piracy tool, eh?

[SanityInAnarchy]

When I was employed, I had plenty of money to afford games, and I was willing and ready to spend it. I wrote this journal entry describing that situation:

If Mirror's Edge comes, say, as a Steam game -- not like Bioshock, but actually just a Steam game, with no additional protection -- I'd buy it in a heartbeat. On opening day. Make it DRM-free, and I'll consider preordering.
If it comes with anywhere near the level of DRM you're currently requiring for Spore, even this "relaxed" version, I will head over to the nearest torrent site and download a copy. I have plenty of money to spend, yes, but not plenty of time to waste proving that I own something.

Now, understand, I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I was pretty much their ideal customer -- young, male, computer enthusiast, I love games, and I had money to spend on them. If they're losing me as a customer, it raises the question: Just where do they think they're going to get customers?

As it is, I'm unemployed, so I don't have that money -- nor do I really have much time to game, when it could be spent looking for a job. As you say:

You can live without a game.

You also made a good point without realizing it:

Piracy is the competition

Any company that actually realizes that piracy is their competition has taken the first step towards fighting it. If you treat piracy as this evil, criminal act, and try to stop it with force, you will get nowhere. Instead, you can stop it by making the legitimate copy a better product than the pirated one.

Now, to address your other points:

They could be selling it for $1.00 and still they would pirate it. Probably coming up with some excuse that it is so cheap that it should be free anyways.

If this were true, don't you think the same would happen to Amazon MP3 and the iTunes store? Yes, people pirate, but those stores are still wildly successful.

In fact, that's probably the point.

High piracy rates show that there is demand for the game

They show that there's demand for the game at zero dollars. They don't show that any single person who pirated the game would've been willing to pay for it, if piracy wasn't an option.

As I said, I'm currently unemployed. My choice now is to either not play games, or to pirate games. I mostly choose to not play games, but the effect on the developer is the same -- they don't get my money.

And I'd think they would rather have me pirate the game than not play at all.

When will they learn

[raymansean]

When will they learn that lack of sales != piracy? Lack of sales implies that people are not willing to pay the price you want for what you have to offer. This may be a direct cause of a tanked economy or your product sucks. There are plenty of reasons why your product will not sell piracy is not one of them.

Let's see what ubisoft's successful games are...

[freedom_india]

...FarCry, Unreal, heroes of might & magic, & Prince of Persia.
All these had their day and now are as dead as Duke Nukem. The Rest of Ubisoft's vaunted arsenal of games are either unplayable or so bad that using them as coffee coasters seem an insult to the coffee.
Ubisoft's CEO seems to have his head so far up his a$$ that he gets high on his own "perfume".
Instead of blaming his company's utter failure to produce good, replayable games with deep themes and good graphics, he blames an outside factor that his beyond his ability to control.
What makes him think he will succeed where the Evil Empire Sony's SecuROM and other hundreds of copy-protection have failed?
His Capitalism 2 doesn't play on Windows 7 64-bit. When asked, his company's cold reply was that i switch back to Windows XP.
Uru was a rockin' failure and a complete insult to Myst.
As usual, corporate CEOs are so far removed from reality that they can continue to fool stockholders every single day with more fairy tales of their own.
I would start shorting Ubisoft's stock from today, if i can.

anti-piracy tool

[Krneki]

Repeat with me, there is no such thing as an anti-piracy tool for offline gaming.

After 30 years of gaming, I was hopping that maybe they will get it.

Best Antipiracy Tool

[whisper_jeff]

The best antipiracy tool is to make something that is good enough that people are willing to spend money on it. Quality. That's your best antipiracy tool.

Entertainment sales and recession

[VGPowerlord]

Entertainment sales dropping during a continued recession isn't exactly a surprise. People have less money, so they buy less.

That's why I thought Time Magazine's conclusions last year were just ludicrous, as they predicted that entertainment sales would go up.

Re:Handhelds can't play MMORPGs

[Darkness404]

Ended up cracked -years- later. After the SNES had ended its production run for the most part. Plus, back then to "pirate" a game you bought the game from some shady guy for $5, today that wouldn't fly, we want our games for free if we are going to pirate them. Today what people do is simply place them on a flash cart and go. The DS is unique in the fact that its going to be hard to truly emulate the experience of having a real DS on a computer. So all they need to do is release a chip with the games and stop most casual piracy. Will it be cracked? Of course, will it happen after the game is profitable, yes.