Slashdot Mirror
Ubisoft Blames Piracy For Non-Release of PC Game
New submitter Azmodan sends this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"Ubisoft is known for laying the blame for many problems on the unauthorized downloading of its games. Stanislas Mettra, creative director of the upcoming game I Am Alive, confirms this once again by saying that the decision not to release a PC version is a direct result of widespread game piracy. However, those who look beyond the propaganda will see that there appears to be more to the story than that."
Another Ubisoft employee made similar comments about upcoming Ghost Recon games. Regarding Ghost Recon Online being free-to-play: "We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, 'Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.'" Regarding Future Soldier having no PC version: "When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind."
They should take a leaf out of the Valve Software marketing handbook.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/25/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-success-in-russia/
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I had to crack almost every Splinter Cell game because their DRM measures essentially "locked" my disc drives entirely when installed, regardless of whether the game was running or not. On my PCs and laptops.
And this was AN INTENDED EFFECT.
These guys are off their rockers. They make Capcom's business decisions look wise.
If you think Bethesda honestly created a great game that is worth what they charge and you buy it, they deserve and have earned the money they made.
Yes I do. Skyrim is fun. It's not without its problems, but it's fun and it's beautiful and it's a great pass-time. I bought Silent Hunter 3 from Ubisoft and it was a buggy piece of shit. I bought Silent Hunter 4 hoping for improvement. They made it worse. I tried Silent Hunter 5 without buying it and was convinced I would never give Ubisoft another penny.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Those numbers you posted do not include digital sales. I have yet to find a sales stats site that did not exclude digital sales. The 3.4 million number is ONLY retail sales.
The big one is something another posted pointed out: Those are retail only sales. A lot of people on PC buy their games via digital download these days. Just ask Gabe Newell about that, he has gotten exceedingly rich off of that, and Steam isn't the only DD service. In particular, Skyrim probably sold a ton digital since it is a Steamworks game (meaning it needs Steam to play). Might as well get it on Steam, since that's what the retail copy uses anyhow. Skyrim peaked at more than 300,000 people playing it AT ONE TIME on Steam, so I'm going to guess more than 500k copies for the PC sold.
The other is that total numbers don't matter, it only matters that you make enough to justify the cost. After all if we went by your metric of "total numbers after 1 week of sales" then there should be no Skyrim for PS3. The 260 sold twice as many copies, so that should be the only platform right?
Nope, all that matters is you make enough to make it worth your while. So, presume PCs only did sell 500k copies. A standard retail markup is about 100%. It might be less for software, I don't know, but we'll assume 100% markup. That means Bethesda made $15 million on Skyrim for the PC so far. So long as their porting costs were a non-trivial amount below that amount, it was worth doing. If they spent $5 million on the PC version (which is unlikely it was most likely much less) then that is $10 million they walked away with already.
Then there's the fact that, no, PC are NOT more expensive to develop for. One big reason is licensing fees. Consoles take a cut, a non-trivial one, of every game you sell for licensing fees. It is how the companies make money. So $5-10 of every single copy sold goes to MS or Sony for the console versions. No such issue on the PC. You keep 100% of the profits.
Also porting from the PC to the 360 is quite easy. MS has seen to that. It isn't quite as simple as clicking "cross compile" but close. MS wants games on both platforms, and they make the tools to do it. The tools are also the same (Visual Studio) in both cases.
A more minor fact, but still one that matters too, is that digital distributors charge less than retail stores. Their markup is more like 25-30%. So for all the copies you sell there, you get even more money per sale.
This idea that the PC just isn't worth it is silly, and not backed up by reality. If it weren't, the why the hell are there so many PC games? Go to Metacritic and ask it for a list of releases for the PC. Have a look at the massive list in recent months. You think companies would keep doing it if there was no profit in it?
This is Ubisoft whining. Even they still do not just PC releases, but PC exclusives. They just released Anno 2070, a PC only strategy game. There is no console version, nor is there one planned (not the kind of game that would play well with a controller). Again, you think they'd do that if there was no money?