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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."
All this means is that Ubisoft makes me proud to never have pirated or bought any of their games. Apparently they are of so low quality that they themselves does not belive in them.
DIE a SLOW and PAINFUL bleeding death ubisoft.
Ubisoft has gotten itself into such a complete knicker-twist over the PC games market via its groteseque DRM efforts that it wishes to give up on the whole affair as a bad job. But, like the classic stroppy teenager, it wishes to make clear to all and sundry that it's not being sent home in disgrace, it's making its own decision, for its own reasons, to take its ball and go home.
I am not an anti-DRM fundamentalist. I'm fine with the DRM requirements imposed by the base Steam DRM package, by Xbox Live, and with the exception of a few games (like Bionic Commando), by PSN. That's not to say I am in love with the idea of DRM or even accept it as inevitable. I like the concept behind GoG - particularly of extending it to newer games - and support them where I can. But I'm not going to boycott games over DRM on the basis of an abstract principle. I'm only going to do so where the DRM inconveniences me personally. And Ubisoft's always-on DRM system is the only one (leaving aside a few small EA experiments such as C&C4) to have passed that barrier. My connection tends to blip and reset itself every couple of days - losing 20 minutes of play-time because of it is not acceptable.
And because it's so offensive, I didn't limit the boycott to not just buying the games on the PC. I skipped the games across all platforms. No Assassin's Creed for me? It's a bit of a pity, but I'll live. I mean, really, I'm not the kind of gamer it's a fantastic idea to be upsetting. I buy 30+ games per year (as you can see from the end-of-year roundups I do in my journal). The last game I pirated was the original Crimson Skies, back in 2000 (and I went on to buy that a month or two later). I always buy new, not second hand, except on the odd occasion when I hear about an old game that I "missed" at release which really appeals to me, and which I can't find new). I'm not sat there moaning about the lack of Linux ports and boycotting anything that has even a sniff of a CD-key. I want to be reasonable.
The Mettra comments appear to be based on faulty data on PC game sales. They're going only on boxed-copy sales, which have been declining on PC for a decade or more now. What isn't declining are download sales, primarily through Steam but also through a variety of other sources. Even going off simultaneous players-online stats (which will substantially under-estimate actual copies sold), the PC version of Skyrim shifted some pretty epic numbers via Steam.
It's a slight pity in this case. I Am Alive looks fairly interesting and it's pitched at a price point that tends to fare reasonably well on the PC. But can I live without it? Sure...
Besides, as we drift to the end of this console cycle, the PC is not the only platform with a piracy problem. Ok, the PS3 has always remained difficult from a piracy perspective. And the 360, while easily hackable, does carry a very high risk of getting an XBL ban. But the Wii, DS, 3DS(?) and PSP are all pretty much wide open these days (and have been for a while in some cases).
PS. This story has been carried across multiple mainstream gaming media outlets over the last few days - Kotaku, Eurogamer, IGN, 1up etc. Could we try to get a link in TFA that is to a site that won't be blocked by most common workplace filters (ie. not TorrentFreak)?
Any chance for statistics backing the 95% number? How many of those pirates actually played the game for more than an hour?
Just be honest and say that the console players will put up with worse games and more expensive games.
For delaying the cracks for better games.
How's a guy supposed to pirate and play the latest GoodPCGame_X if all of the crackers and scene releases are busy spending their time mocking Ubisoft with pre-release cracks?
Easily the most terrifying and effective of anti-piracy measures: Flooding the pros with entertaining shit to do.
Yet somehow in this environment full of pirates, Call of Duty manages to make a billion dollars, Skyrim manages to make over 450 million dollars, etc. Ubisoft is full of shit and their games stopped being good a long time ago. Come to think of it no, SSI was good. But who the hell is Ubisoft? Ahh yes, they wanted to become another EA studio-devouring machine. Well the experiment has failed.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Maybe you could give people an incentive to actually buy a PC game? First step would be to stop releasing broken-ass console ports to the PC market, I bet that would help sales a lot. Also, get rid of any additional software to run, i.e., Steam and the other ridiculous spyware crap that is bundled with so many PC games today.
The real reason is that a game dumbed down for console players won't sell well on PC.
Um, no. This seems to be a common meme on slashdot, but it has very little to do with reality. While the increased number of possible graphics cards/hardware configs of PCs are a problem, the cost of supporting them is dwarfed by the license costs for consoles. Anyone can release a game on Windows/OS X and not pay Microsoft or Apple a dime, but you cannot release a game on a console without giving Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo a cut of your revenue. Long story short companies that don't release games for the PC aren't doing so because they simply don't think it will sell for whatever reasons. If companies thought they could sell as many copies of a game released only on the PC as they could console games you bet they would release more for the PC even if it requires spending a little bit more on doing QA.
Monstar L
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
so Ubi calls the vast majorty of us pc gamers THIEVES and then they expect us (the non pirate ones) to support them? wow! now that's the most weird customer loyalty tactic I have ever seen. reverse psychology perhaps?
I guess BF3 should have sold 100 million copies and MW should have sold 200 million copies? Oh, those are multiplayer games you say? Skyrim should have sold 68 million copies then?
( Note: these are launch day sales )
How about you make a great game, price is appropriately and it will sell itself.
Besides, looking at myself, I've stopped pirating when I grew older and started earning some real money. I still won't buy Skyrim for €50, but I've grown so old I don't care anymore that I don't get to play the latest and greatest. I'll buy it once it reaches the price I want to pay for it. You are complaining that your cash strapped audience isn't spending it's money on you, fine, having them spend it in smaller amounts might work it might not. It still doesn't disqualify the old (and my preferred) way of selling a game.
See ya Ubi, won't be missing you. Your games are really nothing special anymore and your insistence on requiring your own DRM service ON TOP OF STEAM is just ridiculous. I won't log in twice and maintain separate accounts for you anymore. Likewise, I won't have to lose access to my games when not online (something that Steam is frequently accused of, but MOST games can be played offline on Steam after the initial download and activation).
You look at a PC market where other companies are making millions in SALES and blame piracy for your woes. I haven't bought an Ubi game since the last Splinter Cell, I must be pirating your crap now right? Wrong, I'm just spending my money on games from other publishers. Take your ball and go home, I didn't even know you had a ball anymore.
Steam's been around since... what... 2004? Its DRM requirements have not gotten any more restrictive over that span. In fact, the "play offline" feature works much better and more consistently than it used to, so if anything it's become less restrictive.
Why do they need more than 2 years copyright, then?
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?