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Ubisoft Claims PC Piracy Rate of 93-95%

Posted by Soulskill on from the pirata-ergo-sum dept.

silentbrad sends this quote from GamesIndustry: "Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has told GamesIndustry International that the percentage of paying players is the same for free to play as it is for PC boxed product: around five to seven per cent. ... 'On PC it's only around five to seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it's only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated. It's around a 93-95 per cent piracy rate, so it ends up at about the same percentage. The revenue we get from the people who play is more long term, so we can continue to bring content.' ... 'We must be careful because the consoles are coming. People are saying that the traditional market is declining and that F2P is everything — I'm not saying that. We're waiting for the new consoles — I think that the new consoles will give a huge boost to the industry, just like they do every time that they come. This time, they took too long so the market is waiting.'"

21 of 464 comments (clear)

  1. DRM worked out then.. by matthiasvegh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So remind us Ubisoft, why exactly did you create that horrible DRM?

    1. Re:DRM worked out then.. by fredprado · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because otherwise some people would want to buy their games. Oh, the horror!

    2. Re:DRM worked out then.. by brit74 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So remind us Ubisoft, why exactly did you create that horrible DRM?

      My guess is because:
      - They hope that the next DRM will work
      - They hope that, even if the DRM gets broken, that they'll still have a period of time when it's not broken. Having a few months of sales with zero pirates (even if the DRM gets broken on the third month) is actually useful.

    3. Re:DRM worked out then.. by mkraft · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's likely the DRM is driving people to piracy, even those who purchased the game, since the DRM frequently makes the game unplayable.

    4. Re:DRM worked out then.. by Creepy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think he's putting spin on this - he doesn't say 93-95% is pirated, he says 5-7% pay for free-to-play compared to BOXED SET, as in retail. He doesn't mention how much business is digital download, and TFA is reading into it to say he means the rest is pirated (but that is all due to the spin he wanted to put on it). It would not surprise me AT ALL if only 5-7% of game sales is retail these days (probably more on console than PC, however).

    5. Re:DRM worked out then.. by Mitreya · · Score: 5, Funny

      So remind us Ubisoft, why exactly did you create that horrible DRM?

      The DRM is the only thing keeping piracy rate under 100% and away from the natural 1000%-1300%!

    6. Re:DRM worked out then.. by djdanlib · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yup, their DRM makes their games unplayable on my computer. Standard Windows PC with the only optical drive being a DVD burner. You know, one of the standard choices available on most PCs. Their customer support people got angry that I kept pressing the issue and told me to read the box more carefully next time I buy a game... Guess what, I will do that: I will skip anything that says Ubisoft on the box. It didn't say anything about not working if a burner was present.

    7. Re:DRM worked out then.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      uh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubisoft_games I could go thru this list and pick probably 20 worth playing.

      However the original comment I would say stands. So you end up with 90% piracy rate and piss off those who REALLY do pay for it. How exactly was that DRM boondoggle good again?

      I personally have deliberately skipped a few games lately if they have ubisoft on them even if they have the steam DRM in them. I have 0 problem paying for my games. I have a big problem with games that eventually expire, flake out because of DRM, or require a DVD to be in the drive all the time. I am not going to give my money to a company that up front wants to treat me like I want to steal from them. I do not even pirate their games. I have too many to play that work just fine with no DRM in them at all.

      In spite of the DRM I still buy my games. Then crack them. I do not want a CD running all the time. Most are game CDs are poorly made and make most drives vibrate which is annoying on a laptop... Surprisingly most DVDs are better made and vibrate very little.

      I just will not be buying ubisoft games until they cut the crap of treating me like a thief. It only makes me say 'skip' every time no matter how good their games are.

    8. Re:DRM worked out then.. by djdanlib · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just wanted to play Raving Rabbids. Yeah, imagine my embarrassment when I had to tell my girlfriend's family, who gave not-financially-well-off me the gift card for Christmas, that I'd bought a game I couldn't play and basically their money was wasted. Telling her was bad enough. I couldn't even return the game since it was already open. Ubisoft wouldn't help, the store wouldn't help. So they don't get any more of my money and I'm happy to tell the story.

    9. Re:DRM worked out then.. by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Informative

      I haven't bought any Ubisucks since the always online DRM debacle but since Ubisuck can pull numbers out of their ass how about I pull a few of my own?

      I USED to see plenty of pirated games on the PCs that came through my doors, now I don't, why? Steam made it easy and cheap to buy, no different than how many of the music lovers go to iTunes and/or Amazon now instead of wasting time looking through badly labeled P2P files. Funny part is the only games I DO see more often pirated? Those with really nasty system breaking DRM like....drumroll...Ubisuck!

      What Ubisuck needs to do is take a lesson from Valve, make it easy, make it simple, make it cheap. I bet if someone at /. would get a hold of Valve and ask them (without naming names) to compare the sales of the bundles with nasty DRM VS those that only used Steam you'd find shock! Gasp! That people don't want to mess with all that hoop jumping, online pass, always on broken down bullshit and so simply walk away or go talk to Mr Pirate that has a functional copy. I know I had my CC in my hand to buy the AC and Splinter Cell bundles...until I saw the always on DRM crap, then I just went down the line and bought other bundles instead.

      But this guy says it better than I ever could (warning: Language NSFW but who can blame 'em?) and gives a perfect example of how nasty DRM doesn't do anything but bite the consumer in the ass. Watch as he has to crack his brand new retail boxed game just to get the damned thing to run.

      So please Ubisoft, feel free to make console only (which just FYI but CL is full of cracked X360s for as little as $100 with games preloaded) if all you are gonna do is take a steaming dump on your games with always online shit. I USED to buy a lot of your games Ubisoft, hell I'm looking at the Far Cry box sitting on the shelf in front of me where I broke it out to run it during slow periods in the shop, but no more. I don't pirate your games either, I just give my money to companies like Valve that give me working games in return. No Sale.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Riiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The catch is they were measuring the number of people who pirate Ubisoft games to get away from their shitty DRM. Somehow, I feel over 90% of people willing to do that is accurate.

  3. Didn't they sell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    over a million copies of Ass Creed 2 on the pc? Are they straight faced saying that almost a hundred million people played Ass Creed 2 on pc?

  4. Re:DRM by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A better argument is you're wasting huge amounts of programming effort, support costs, and bad PR on something that fails far more often than 19 out of 20 times, so you'd have a higher profit margin if you didn't waste money on it. Sort of a "once you find yourself stuck in a hole, rule one is stop digging"

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  5. Not nearly as impressive by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Funny

    This isn't nearly as impressive as their shit game rate, which last I checked was holding steady at 100%.

  6. Price inflation? by FictionPimp · · Score: 5, Funny

    So if we had 0% piracy, should their games cost $3.00?

  7. How the Major Publishers calculate piracy by Eldragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1 - ((Number of sales title actually got) / (Number of sales title the studio wanted to get)) = Piracy Rate.

  8. There is NO WAY this is correct. MATH INSIDE by Foo2rama · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lets do some math....

    The last ghost recon has sold 1.03 million units so far world wide. Which assuming the 95% piracy rate means 20.6 million units would have been sold or 14.7million units at the 93% piracy rate.

    The original Bioshock on xbox360 only moved 2.53 million units worldwide, and we can assume a very low piracy rate as it was on Xbox 360 only. That game was a huge hit, the Last Ghost Recon did well not amazing.... So you are saying that between 5-9 time more people played Ghost recon vs Bioshock? Yes the lat Ghost recon has cross platform but even if you take that into account...

    Anyone else see the math issue?

    Data pulled from here. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/43311/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-future-soldier/

    --


    ---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
  9. Lesson heard loud and clear by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So I'm pretty sure what Ubisoft is telling me is that if I buy one of their titles, I'll not only be paying for the game, but the price reflects that they believe I'm also paying for up to 19 other people who play it but don't buy it! No wonder the price is so high for just a piece of game software! I don't want to pay for up to 20 users of the software (myself included), and I don't like having to deal with DRM that those other 19 player apparently can avoid. Thanks for the info Ubisoft, it will affect my decision next time that I want to play a game.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  10. Re:Only for Ubisoft by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, a piracy rate of around 95% sounds about right for PC gaming going all the way back to the 5150, and the 8-bit home computers that came before it. PC gaming has survived for 30 years with piracy rates of 90% or more, it should survive for another 30.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  11. Contrast to Valve by The+Raven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Valve has indicated, in their public statements on the issue, that piracy has has a negligible impact on their bottom line in any market they make their product available in. Notably, they indicated that when they made their products available on day 1 in the Russian market, Russian piracy dried up.

    Any bets on whether Ubisoft checks the IPs and ignores 'piracy' in areas they are not making the game available in? No takers? Didn't think so.

    --
    "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  12. Incorrect assumption? by InvisiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    As I said in my other comment, he specifically mentions "countries" where their games were "played but not bought" before stating the 93-95% piracy rate. Assuming he's talking about those developing countries with rampant bootlegs and counterfeits, that would fall under the 0.10m "Rest of the World" sales. Using that number, you're talking about 1.4-2.0m pirated copies. That's still a huge number compared to only 1.03m actual sales, but it's much more reasonable than 15-20m. That would result in a total of about 3m copies, which is more in line with your Bioshock number (which was released nearly 5 years ago, so there should be more consoles worldwide now).