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Ubisoft Considers Always-Connected DRM "A Success"

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

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.

10 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. just a thought... by MichaelusWF · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but perhaps they should spend more time and energy on making games that are worth paying for, and less time and energy on making people regret paying for their games?

  2. Reduction in piracy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or an overall lack of interest? Ubisoft hasn't been putting much good out for a while now.

  3. It works! by Leslie43 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ubisoft has created the perfect DRM system.
    Combine horrible DRM with horrible gameplay and no one will pirate it. Of course no one will play it either, but hey, it's the perfect DRM system.

    I almost feel as though I should be thanking them for all the time and money they are saving me.

  4. They measure cost of bad press by lost sales by LordZardoz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most game companies (Ubisoft and EA for certain, Activision and the rest highly likely) have API's that have the app phone home and send metrics / telemetry data back about the usage stats. This is even done in games that have no multi-player component. Some of this is done for determining how much ad revenue is generated from ingame advertisements. Some of it is just marketing and research data. (ie: If only 2% of users actually use the mode that took 15% of the development resources to create, chances are that the mode will be dropped or at least not developed any further. If 90% of users die in the room with 13 snipers, they may patch the game to remove some snipers). I suspect that some portion of this data includes unique user id / cd keys.

    I would expect that titles with a great deal of piracy are somehow detected by this. If they know that they have actually sold X units through retail, and they have X+Y connections, then the number of pirated instances is Y.

    Lets say a game without this DRM has 150 000 users, and that 75000 users are legit. If they are taking a beating in the press, but the number of legit users has increased, the system is a success. Ubisoft is happier to have 80 000 legit users in a pool of 90 000 total users, even if they drove off 46% of the total user base to do it.

    Losing a user means nothing except in subscription based games. Losing a sale means a whole lot more.

    END COMMUNICATION

    1. Re:They measure cost of bad press by lost sales by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given that I am not aware of a single DRM system that hasn't been cracked, online requirement or no, I somehow doubt that the DRM is what is reducing piracy. I'm more inclined to think it's the shitty quality of their games making people not even want to pirate it. Just a thought.

      Or maybe it just looks like they have reduced piracy, since the new cracks stop the game from even phoning home (they'd have to to crack it), while the old ones didn't. Just a thought.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  5. Re:Sales lost? by VGPowerlord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can play HL2 (or any other Steam game) for the PC for up to a month offline after initially activating it.

    I can't play Assassin's Creed 2 or Driver: San Francisco for the PC offline for even 1 second.

    --
    GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
  6. Making Piracy Preferable by farbles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When Ubisoft makes it so a pirated version of their game provides better functionality and convenience than their own product, it is safe to say that they are NOT GETTING IT.

    Gee, Ubisoft, I can give you money and be stuck with crippling and inconvenient DRM, or for free I can download a nice clean cracked copy that will play at once conveniently whenever and wherever I want it to. Decisions, decisions.

    I blame MBAs. There is something in their sense of entitlement and smug assurance they know the best no matter what the facts may dictate that leads them to live out The Peter Principle and rise to levels of authority where they have no competence. I'll betcha there's some MBA or group of MBAs telling Ubisoft to stand firm on the DRM.

    In the meantime, Valve will take my money without the crazy bullshit DRM and I can play my games even if the Internet is down. If I want to try an Ubisoft game, I'll know where to go.

  7. Decreased piracy, but what about SALES ? by Superken7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Note how NOTHING is said about sales, only that piracy has decreased. Less piracy does not equal more sales, in fact it could have been less piracy AND less sales (or just average sales).

    The most important data was missing :P

  8. Re:Game developer == Hollywood studio by zlogic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WGA is not as bad (just a serial number check for installation of optional software). Windows Activation is much, much worse. If your PC dies then have fun calling support and proving that you're replacing a PC and not installing the same copy everywhere. Too many reinstalls? Suspicious activity. This is almost as bad as buying virtual stuff in online games.

  9. Re:It is a sucess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I guess I'll just play the pirated versions that hack around the always connected code. Good going Ubi! Smart!