Ubisoft Considers Always-Connected DRM "A Success"

Ubisoft made headlines a couple days ago for bringing back their restrictive DRM for an upcoming racing game. Speaking with PCGamer in response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback to this news, a Ubisoft representative said the company has seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection," adding, "from that point of view the requirement is a success." One wonders how they measured this, and how they compare it to sales lost due to the bad press it's generated.

Comments

Pirating hurts Gamers.

[andy9o]

When will people realize, when you decline to purchase a game due to restrictive DRM, opting instead to pirate it, you are hurting other gamers. Your decision to pirate the game, rather than not play it at all, contributes to the justification for these companies to come up with even more intrusive DRM, to combat the "rampant" piracy of their titles. As long as piracy occurs on any title, those studios will blame sales shortfalls on piracy. Not the ever decreasing length, or quality, of the their games. Not the decision to kill dedicated servers, cap player limits, or release slapped together console-ports. Not the required third-party multiplayer platforms (GFWL, Gamespy, etc.). They see things in one context: If there be pirates, there be demand, we just need more DRM.