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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.
I spend much less on games now
I hope you succeed all the way to bankruptcy
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
While most software development companies (Microsoft as the biggest example) had long ago given up copy-protection for software, game development companies seemed to be a strange exception to the rule.
But it's no anomaly: As games have drifted more toward the category of movies and away from the category of software, it's only natural that they've begun to see things the MAFIAA way.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I know that I stopped buying Ubisoft games when they first added this feature. It hurts the customers more then the pirates.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Lost sales are just that: Nothing. They don't exist. There are unsold units, but just because you have unsold units doesn't mean you have lost sales.
Every pirated copy is a sale lost. therefore any apparent reduction means sales are up.
duh.
on a side note i've been boycotting Ubisoft since before Spore came out due to crap like this.
If they want to stop their nose bleed by putting a tourniquet around their neck, that's their business.
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?
Or an overall lack of interest? Ubisoft hasn't been putting much good out for a while now.
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.
>> a Ubisoft representative said the company has seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection,"
Notice how he was careful to avoid mentioning the corresponding reduction in actual sales.
Anyway I think his statement must be blowing smoke. I personally would never buy any product with such restrictive DRM, but say I had bought the game, I for one would have also immediately downloaded a hacked version just so I could play it offline, and so I could play after they turn off their DRM server when the product is no longer making them money. It seems to me, overly restrictive DRM would necessarily cause more piracy not less.
Ubisoft would probably want other developers to get on board with this scheme so that it makes it feel like what they're doing is not wrong. To that end, it's conceivable that they would lie about their success or failure in order to sell it.
Maybe it's time we took a harder stance against companies like this; in essence they're reducing games into short-term playable, non-ownable rentals. That 'always-online' game won't work after Ubisoft takes down the servers or goes out of business. And they hold ultimate power in whether you can or cannot play, despite your purchase. You'd better not say anything bad about them in forums.
So, we need to fight back against this. Make it an issue; single them out for criticism. Make sure people know the issues.
And don't kid yourself, you're never offline, you fucking nerds.
Everything else you said was simply stating the obvious, but for this one I have to call bullshit.
I would warrant they are seeing a reduction in piracy because no one wants the game, not because your DRM is scaring them off.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Unless people like you care a whole awful lot
and instead of buying DRM'd games they do not
nothing is going to get better. It's not.
Based on the history of fan rage vs. fan action, I think Ubisoft will do just fine.
Seems to me it is impossible to measure the lost sales caused by their insane always-on DRM system. PC gamers are a fairly savvy crowd, so I doubt its insignificant. Just seeing your games less torrented doesn't say shit about potential lost sales.
Everyone flocked to Steam to get HL2, when it was doing the same thing.
You have no clue what you're talking about. Steam allowed you to easily switch to offline mode from the online mode, ensuring you could use your games if you went on a trip or something like that. There's the downside of not being able to play if your internet goes does unexpectedly, but that's way different than the game shutting you off if your internet connection ever misses a beat no with no possibility of offline mode.
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
And don't kid yourself, you're never offline, you fucking nerds.
I'm guessing you don't travel, busy hotels often times don't have internet between the hours of 7pm and 11pm (2-4 second ping and 5-25KBps).
I doubt it would be stable enough to work with this, and yes, when working away from home, I do like to play on my laptop for a stretch.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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
...take that crack and blow it out their authentication?
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.
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
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.
What an incredible stretch in denial you've made. I assume you are someone who buys these games.
Let me inform you:
The gamers buying games with restrictive DRM (e.g. you) are the ones hurting gamers, because they're actually monetarily supporting the studios putting this bullshit out.
It's time to rethink your actions. Get Ubisoft and co. out of your ass, stand up straight, and pull up your pants.
... is: never admit failure. Just talk about what a wonderful success whatever you're being asked about has been. If the product really is a failure, keep talking about its success until the people who make the decisions get around to canceling it. After that, if you're asked about it, dismiss it as yesterday's news and change the subject to what wonderful successes your other products are.
The Mac Cube, for instance, was a major stinkburger. Did Apple ever say anything to that effect publicly? Nope. They were always bright and sunny about how well the Cube was doing, until the day they killed it. At which point inquiries about the failure of the Cube were answered with glittering stories of how well their other Macs were selling.
In other words -- what a company's spokesperson says about the success or failure of something like a DRM system is meaningless. They will always say it is a great success. The only way to learn the truth is to watch whether the company puts more effort and money behind it, or less.
Read my blog.
I recall Ubisoft talking big about copy-protection a decade ago, in particular when they acquired Blue Byte and Thomas Hertzler went on several rants about how strong copy-protections (DRM in today-speak) were the difference between good sales versus poor sales. What a horrible way to assume the behaviour of your customers. I tried to fire up a few of those games recently and the copy-protections made the compatibility issues even more problematic. As a customer, they sold me less of a product and as of today, I'm less happy with Ubisoft than I would be with other publishers.
Now I'm not the boycotting type, so what happens in this scenario is I'm less happy with them, so I want to spend less. Instead of purchasing their games upon release, I wait for the discounts. I save my premium purchases for publishers who either use no DRM, or DRM that is less restrictive. I'm really thrilled with publishers that enable their games to still work years down the road. Valve for instance.
What they've managed to do with this persistent love of intrusive and restrictive DRM, is successfully make my purchases less about the quality of the game and more about the DRM. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
It's been successful in keeping me from buying their games. I think the last Ubisoft game I bought was FarCry 2 and that was at Christmas when it was on sale on Steam.
Still boycotting you from the first time.
Only a month? I've seen computers go for ~9 months w/o an internet connection still able to play steam games offline. Technically, I think you can go as long as you want, Steam just has a minor issue where it deauthenticates for some reason (incidentally, I believe you can backup the user authorization files and reload them if this happens.)
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Fuck you, Ubisoft. Your DRM is 'working' because your games suck balls. Nobody's downloading them because they suck. You've succeeded only in alienating your customers. How can you call this success? Bullet, meet foot.
Only a month? I've seen computers go for ~9 months w/o an internet connection still able to play steam games offline. Technically, I think you can go as long as you want, Steam just has a minor issue where it deauthenticates for some reason (incidentally, I believe you can backup the user authorization files and reload them if this happens.)
I've never tried it, I was just going by what other people have said in the past.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
So... what exactly are the publishers losing to those digital packrats? The ones that wouldn't have it if it wasn't free?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I don't think you're far from the truth. The part you're missing is where to spend one's gaming dollar in lieu of the games with restrictive DRM. In simple terms, instead of spending time playing pirated games, gamers should be spending their time playing purchased DRM-free games. Carrot AND stick at the same time. The carrot that promises a market (read: cash) for games that meet demand, and the stick that punishes for not meeting that demand.
As long as companies think that the demand is merely for "good games" regardless of inconvenience, they will continue to market that way. It's only by putting your money toward companies that produce what matters to you (DRM-free) that you'll encourage proper behaviour.
Putting these companies on one's shitlist is a good start, but it's only half of the equation.
But there's no sense crying
over every lost sale.
You just keep on trying
'till the company fails.
Software engineers are pissed
Target release date's been missed
Are there people who still buy our games?
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Yes but that's you. Most of us aren't anal chucklefucks, and will use things like Steam because the DRM simply isn't invasive at all. Ubi's shit is different though.
sadly, except if you "patch" AC2/Driver:SF
the irony is that the legit users have to resort to the pirated version to actually be able to play with less headaches or to be able to play at all.
that's when you know DRM has epically failed
The lose absolutely nothing from digital packrats. They only use the it from the paying customer that don't want to deal with crap like it. DRM is acceptable to me if it doesn't treat me like a pirate if I'm the one buying it. If it's going to treat like a pirate then I might as well pirate it and save the money.
I should have clarified, but I just don't play restrictive DRM titles.
a Ubisoft representative said the company has seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection... What they FAIL to tell you is that "we've also seen a clear reduction in sales of said software with a persistent online connection LOL
And don't kid yourself, you're never offline, you fucking nerds.
That's a lie. My ISP is AT&T.
If less people are interested in a game due to this DRM, or due to the game just not being very good, that will also translate to less people interested in pirating it...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Moreover I can buy a game and install it on my desktop and my laptop, and play it on either machine so long as I don't try to play both at once. Makes sense to me. Companies that feel they are entitled to a "per cpu" license can just go screw themselves.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1) No, we're not. There's been loads of times where I couldn't do this or that because of limited access to the Internet. Especially out at the Horse Farm I'm trying to get started.
2) You're on /. Pot. Kettle. Black.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
So.. since this game *must* be played online, who is going to pay for the bandwidth just to keep it active?
Lets say I have a 250GB/month cap (DSL from AT&T) and I'm getting close to that limit for whatever reason. Just so I can play this game, I have to stay connected which means they are checking for that connection, and then checking their server to see if I can play. That uses up my allotment. Who is going to pay for that? I didn't ASK for it. It is their DRM that is causing it. I don't want the DRM, I just want to play the game on my machine without having to eat up my monthly allotment.
You're wrong, piracy is only a justification, the real goal is to kill the second hand market. You need to wake up and realize this.
Assuming, of course that none of the pirate strategies involved short-circuiting the phone-home feature altogether, or communicating with a dummy server. Otherwise they can't see the pirate instances at all. Which would render their estimates on the optimistic side, at best.
The thing to remember is that some people at Ubisoft has spent a hell of a lot of Ubi's money on this strategy. These guys are seriously invested in DRM being successful. Or at least appearing to be successful. It stands to reason they're going to try and spin it as a success.
The interesting thing to note however is that they're telling us how piracy rates have dropped due to DRM, rather than how sales have risen for DRM'd titles. If sales had so risen, they'd be fools not to shout it from the rooftops.
Since they're not doing that, I find myself wondering if some poor sod has been given one last chance to salvage his or her career by showing that always-on DRM isn't just the expensive, ineffective sales killer it appears to be.
Well, except that when you pollute your brand identity enough, all lost users are lost sales. Because if people start to think "Ubisoft" == "can't play my game because the servers are always down" == "waste of money", then they don't buy any more Ubisoft games, and it's not just one lost sale, but all the future sales they might have made to that user. Apply that across a significant percentage of the brand's userbase, and the bottom line starts to hurt.
But nevertheless, I take your point. And yet what I'm not hearing from Ubi is "sales are rising despite DRM".
Interesting.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
After the recent announcement by Ubisoft I wanted to remind you all that since the inception of invasive or irrational DRM systems I have maintained my stance to not play anything you make if you engage in such practices. You turned a once avid game purchaser to other pursuits rather than give you a single dollar of my money. My life is probably better for it; how's yours?
I can buy a game and install it on my desktop and my laptop, and play it on either machine so long as I don't try to play both at once. Makes sense to me.
I agree with respect to single-player. But many console games let two to four players play on one console. PC games, on the other hand, tend to require a separate PC per player, and Cracked columnist David Wong cynically claims that this is to sell multiple copies of the game per household.
My PS3 hasn't even been physically connected to the internet since the incident. Screw their Trophies, I can get most PSN games on the 360 or PC anyway.
I also haven't bought anything from Ubisoft since the incident with Silent Hunter. I can wait with the hopes they'll eventually come around and patch all this crap out. I have to confess though: I did buy Assassins Creed 2 for the 360. I did, however, go out of my way to grab a used copy.
And don't kid yourself, you're never offline
Once PC video game publishers include a subscription to cellular Internet access with their products, I'll let them claim that. Until then, I'm not willing to spend $50 per month on Virgin Mobile broadband just to be able to play a [expletive] video game on my bus commute to and from work.
I will NEVER buy a game that requires me to be online the whole time to play a single player game and will consistently advise friends and family to do the same. Congratulations to the guy who starts a replay about World of Warcrack, I don't play that either! I wouldn't bother pirating a game with this level of DRM, either. I'd just go buy something else from a different production house that didn't treat legitimate buyers like criminals, or even an indie game.
Copyright infringement is not a criminal offense.
It is where I live. Where do you live, and what's the best way for an American to legally immigrate?
And don't kid yourself, you're never offline, you fucking nerds.
My Internet access at home was down for two weeks straight this month while I tried to convince my ISP that their dhcp server wasn't working ("we haven't heard any other complaints") then magically it was working again. If I would have been stupid enough to buy any DRM laden malware then I'd be without said games every time this happens (3 times a year, but not usually longer than 3 days for resolution).
for this one I have to call bullshit.
I laughed out loud. One out of 4 ain't bad, especially from an AC. It was the stereotype down to a T (and, er, I personally fit most of the stereotypes. Being a nerd is one of very few things I sit at the top of the bell curve in). AC should register a /. account.
Free Martian Whores!
I've never tried it, I was just going by what other people have said in the past.
Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.
Free Martian Whores!
If by "clear reduction in piracy" they mean "Skidrow released our connection-required titles days earlier than retail with the online requirement patched right out," then I wholeheartedly agree. That did happen.
LOL sounds like my cell phone, AT&T too
If you considered a Video Game a Distribution Channel, that you pay a one time fee or subscription for, it would be like any other sub-premium pay to view TV programming. I think the interaction involved in a video game is often better than television. That's not to say that all distribution channels should be only electronic. I prefer physical media. Something that still has some true value that can be lent, borrowed and sold or traded at will. Give me that ability with my secure electronic property and then I would have a better opinion about it.
I'm still not buying any of them.
Every Ubisoft DRM enabled title has been broke within the week and up on Demonoid.me at least. I know back when people were bragging Assassin's Creed 2 would not be broken people claimed it wasn't broken even up to 2 weeks after it's release. But that was false. As the drm was cracked within 4 days the first copy showing up on demonoid worked all but 1 of the last missions which was fixed within 24 hours so I'd say total 5 days to break that drm at least from seeing it appear on demonoid.me
There has been no DRM that I have seen that has worked. I myself could be called a pirate, heck even hardcore pirate since mid 90's on newsgroups. But my plan is I usually download to try it out, if the controls are wonky or I just don't care for it, I don't buy it and I uninstall it to make room for something else.
If on other hand I do enjoy it, then I'll buy a legit copy so I get the support/online play if it has it/extras, etc.
Then there are the times where I will pirate just out of spite, and that has now why many try before you buy "pirates" are now making it a point to pirate ubisoft and not buy out of protest of their not working draconian attempts at drm. And no drm will ever work, even drm's requiring dongles have been broken and are up on demonoid.
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.
Quit towing the company line.
Piracy doesn't hurt shit.
Piracy of video games have been around since video games have been around. You don't believe me? My first video games, for the TRS-80, no one paid for, we shared them amounst ourselves.
My C64, same.
etc.
Guess what? Most of the same publishers are still around, making their profits over the years, like they have been.
Studies show that pirates tend to buy more media then non pirates, but those keep getting repressed because it goes against what the companies want you to believe.
It isn't about piracy, it's about the companies feel that they should be getting money from everything. It's called greed. It's what is the current style of companies that dont' want to inovate, they just want to make money.
For example, I pirate. I pirate a lot of stuff. New movies, music, games. Guess what? None of that stuff i download, I would ever pay money for. None of it. The stuff I do, i go and buy. You'll find EA games that i paid for, why? Because I enjoy the Need For Speed games (well, some of them) and I support EA by purchasing the games I like.
I downloaded Need For Speed Shift. While it was an okay game, it's not my style. So I'm not buying it. Did my download of the game rob EA from a sale? No. Because I will never buy with out trying, and if they didn't put a demo out, then i would never get to try it, and would never buy it.
If you can't understand this is just corporate greed, let me bust a recent example. Second Hand games. See, the industry doesn't like them, because they get no money from them. Which is how it's been for a long time (cars, music, houses, etc.) once you sell something you own, you aren't entitled to any money from future sales. yet the game industry wants all money, from any sales of games, to go to their pocket, even which they already got paid the first time.
It's called greed, and it's big in the music, movies and game industry currently.
It's also one of the big sins, if your one of those religious freaks.
Be seeing you...
*snerk*
I just drop-kicked my AT&T DSL for Comcast cable. Sort of like leaving Lucifer to deal with Beelzebub, but at least I don't get 30-second delays on every web page and 4+ disconnections every night.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Now if only uBISOFT made any decent games lately I would pirate it just on principle. In absence of those, shoo ubisoft. Shoo. With capcom, activision and ea you have become yet another name not to said in my house.
This post is provided without warranty as to reliability, accuracy or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose.
..but I wouldn't bother, now.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Presumably we're not talking about maths nerds here?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So reduced piracy.
Does that translate into more sales? Because piracy doesn't matter, sales do. Piracy is only important in so far as it reduces sales. We point that out all the time when they make the foolish equation of "x illegal copies == x lost sales", which isn't true.
Likewise "x less illegal copies" does not equal "x more sales".
In fact, if they would release both of these numbers, we would finally see some actual hints on what the correlation is. So if they found a 50% reduction in piracy, but only 5% additional sales, we'd have a first data point for an equation.
Funny how they don't seem to be interested in that... I wonder why...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
heh, that wasnt DRM that was almost a joke so they could claim it protected against minors playing the game. Supposedly you would have to be at least 18 at the time it was produced to know the answers.
Of course, all it really accomplished was teaching some rascal minors some silly trivia who then could play the game just fine.
And even that didn't work too well. I was 20 or 21 at the time I purchased Leisure Suit Larry for the Apple IIGS, and I still frequently got most of the questions wrong.
This space unintentionally left blank.
They have succeeded in making me not want to buy one of their products ever again. I guess they have gone with the "new" definition of "WINNING"
I'm on the left side of the "math nerd" curve, and on the right of the "normal people" curve.
Free Martian Whores!
Well at least you've learned the difference between "across" and "up"...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hmmm, the median is usually at the top of the bell while the mean may be to the left or right (further down), correct? Take income, for example; I make just about the median income, so I sit at the top of the curve, while the rich and poor are on the right and left (with the left sloping upwards and right sloping downwards).
Free Martian Whores!