I tried REALLY hard to find a good way to contact ubi about silent hunter. I LOVE the silent hunter series, and I was ready and willing to buy it, but not with this DRM. I have every previous version of the game, all paid for. Silent Hunter 3 is the best, a brilliant, fun game that I've probably put several hundred hours into (a lot for me).
Anyway, I failed. The support email I found for them bounces. The people on the phone don't care. They are lost at sea. My last attempt was emailing jaime.cottini@ubisoft.com, apparently someone who does PR. I figure this is a PR issue, or would be, if they cared what we thought. The full message follows. It was sent on March 23rd, 2010, and as yet I've received no response.
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Hello Jaime, I hope this finds you well, Yes, this is misdirected, although I'd paint it as a "public relations" issue. The further I go here, the more I come to the conclusion that ubisoft is terribly out of touch with their long standing customers and will only become more so with this path. I've been trying to get this message through... a message from someone who sees a good enjoyable game that is being stuck behind a wall, for over a month now. I've emailed (and had the mail rejected, from addresses I found on ubi's various sites) repeatedly. This morning, I tried again, with the same results. So I'm appealing to you, as one of the only addresses I can find and hoping this one doesn't bounce, to read this, and see what I have to say.
If you scroll down, you can see the initial email and my initial thoughts, as of this morning. This isn't terribly different from the message I've been trying to send for the last month (or more). But in trying to do so, I've come across what I see as a deeper issue... a complete lack of attention to what the paying customer actually wants.
No customer wants to require an internet connection to play a game. No customer wants to spend many hours trying to figure out how to relay their desires. It seems clear to me that ubi has lost sight of the customer, and no longer really cares about what they want. There are not many publishers left who I can feel comfortable buying from with DRM restrictions and attitudes like this. Maybe ubi can turn around, and maybe ubi can even turn the tide and set an example, to their own benefit , of what is possible.
I will wait and see. While I do not expect a response, I nevertheless would appreciate one. --
Not likely, yet.
Game publishers still think no one wants linux games, despite that fact that me and my wife spent the weekend looking for good linux games for her, mumbling the whole time about how we would be happy to pay for such a thing...
Fail. I think part of the issue is it's very hard to target "linux" with any sort of reliable, always working game. Granted, games on windows aren't always reliable and always working either, but publishers have more experience with it, and limiting to "XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (or these days, just the latter 2) is a realistic move they can make and still sell games for windows. I don't know if this would be true for linux.
I'll never forget the time I was playing with dragon (the speech recognition software), and it seemed to pick up an obsession for the word "orange"... Mall was orange. Bus was orange. Elephant was Eggplant, but that's a pointless tale for another time...
Meanwhile, speech recognition still fails, and google voice is just the worlds best demonstration of why:)
I neither work for nor have any association with boingboing. It was just the link that was introduced to me, and it also happens to be the one everyone else is using all day long... which is perhaps because they got it from this summary, but either way, no bias intended.
My interest in the story is primarily because I am only a few miles away from this school. Perhaps you are upset because you work for the AP?:)
That's the cost of allowing something like this to happen. I have to imagine that a fair number of people knew it was possible and "think of the children" kept it going. This place is only about 4 miles from where I sit right now, so I have a vested interest in this issue... I have friends in this district!
The administrators need to be punished, criminally. The district needs to be punished by whatever means are appropriate, and perhaps this will mean bankruptcy and a state takeover. Whatever is necessary.
I read it as, they spent about $300 per subscriber on new equipment and such. There are other costs, like paying people to (mis)bill you, to give you the wrong answers when you call for assistance, and to mail your bill to the wrong address. These things are not free.
Re:Windows Mobile
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· Score: 2, Informative
My WM phone doesn't appear to have an issue. That's all 4 of us!
Re:idiocy? Incompetence?
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· Score: 3, Funny
For your second point, does it really matter? Programmers will rarely if ever get dates, no matter how hard they try....
Might be true in small companies. Big shops (even medium shops, that I've worked with) like to use a standard image. New machines are either wiped and rebuilt on arrival or come wiped in the first place.
it's not a pizza box at all, it is an actual blade server and requires a bladecenter... specifically a BladeCenter H, HT or S. With the H, you can get 14 of these babies in 9U of rack space, though. Make sure your cooling is up to the task!
I've just upgraded my T61 laptop today. Had no issues to speak of, everything went smoothly, and I'm up and running 9.10.
Now, also today I made some changes to my partitions, and now my win 7 partition doesn't quite work right (boots sort of but doesn't login) so there you are. Guess I'll be fixing that install, but Ubuntu 9.10 is here to stay... for now.
and here is why (from wikipedia)
English-language editions of Scrabble contain 100 letter tiles, in the following distribution:
* 2 blank tiles (scoring 0 points)
* 1 point: E ×12, A ×9, I ×9, O ×8, N ×6, R ×6, T ×6, L ×4, S ×4, U ×4
* 2 points: D ×4, G ×3
* 3 points: B ×2, C ×2, M ×2, P ×2
* 4 points: F ×2, H ×2, V ×2, W ×2, Y ×2
* 5 points: K ×1
* 8 points: J ×1, X ×1
* 10 points: Q ×1, Z ×1
scrabble tiles pulled out of a hat is a bad example:)
They are not evenly distributed, so you'll have a higher occurrence of certain letters (namely the vowels and other common letters like s.)
The people a construction worker works and speaks with are (probably) less likely to try to kill them. Not that I'm saying this excuses assholeish cops.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish you luck :) I've not given up all hope yet either.
I tried REALLY hard to find a good way to contact ubi about silent hunter. I LOVE the silent hunter series, and I was ready and willing to buy it, but not with this DRM. I have every previous version of the game, all paid for. Silent Hunter 3 is the best, a brilliant, fun game that I've probably put several hundred hours into (a lot for me).
Anyway, I failed. The support email I found for them bounces. The people on the phone don't care. They are lost at sea.
My last attempt was emailing jaime.cottini@ubisoft.com, apparently someone who does PR. I figure this is a PR issue, or would be, if they cared what we thought. The full message follows. It was sent on March 23rd, 2010, and as yet I've received no response.
--
Hello Jaime, I hope this finds you well,
Yes, this is misdirected, although I'd paint it as a "public relations" issue. The further I go here, the more I come to the conclusion that ubisoft is terribly out of touch with their long standing customers and will only become more so with this path. I've been trying to get this message through... a message from someone who sees a good enjoyable game that is being stuck behind a wall, for over a month now. I've emailed (and had the mail rejected, from addresses I found on ubi's various sites) repeatedly. This morning, I tried again, with the same results. So I'm appealing to you, as one of the only addresses I can find and hoping this one doesn't bounce, to read this, and see what I have to say.
If you scroll down, you can see the initial email and my initial thoughts, as of this morning. This isn't terribly different from the message I've been trying to send for the last month (or more). But in trying to do so, I've come across what I see as a deeper issue... a complete lack of attention to what the paying customer actually wants.
No customer wants to require an internet connection to play a game. No customer wants to spend many hours trying to figure out how to relay their desires. It seems clear to me that ubi has lost sight of the customer, and no longer really cares about what they want. There are not many publishers left who I can feel comfortable buying from with DRM restrictions and attitudes like this. Maybe ubi can turn around, and maybe ubi can even turn the tide and set an example, to their own benefit , of what is possible.
I will wait and see. While I do not expect a response, I nevertheless would appreciate one.
--
That's amazing :) I wish you luck and strong pain meds.
Also, RIT? Come to fosscon!
Not likely, yet.
Game publishers still think no one wants linux games, despite that fact that me and my wife spent the weekend looking for good linux games for her, mumbling the whole time about how we would be happy to pay for such a thing...
Fail. I think part of the issue is it's very hard to target "linux" with any sort of reliable, always working game. Granted, games on windows aren't always reliable and always working either, but publishers have more experience with it, and limiting to "XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (or these days, just the latter 2) is a realistic move they can make and still sell games for windows. I don't know if this would be true for linux.
I'll never forget the time I was playing with dragon (the speech recognition software), and it seemed to pick up an obsession for the word "orange"... Mall was orange. Bus was orange. Elephant was Eggplant, but that's a pointless tale for another time... :)
Meanwhile, speech recognition still fails, and google voice is just the worlds best demonstration of why
http://www.archive.org/details/lowermerionlaptops This might provide a little more trust?
My interest in the story is primarily because I am only a few miles away from this school. Perhaps you are upset because you work for the AP? :)
The administrators need to be punished, criminally. The district needs to be punished by whatever means are appropriate, and perhaps this will mean bankruptcy and a state takeover. Whatever is necessary.
I don't know about works, not having used it in years... But no one in my office has admin privs, and everyone uses office (2007) just fine.
http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/07/24/193721.aspx I've used this for years. It launches a command prompt (after requesting passwords) that is still you, but with admin privs. Makes all the stuff that doesn't work under runas work just fine.
I read it as, they spent about $300 per subscriber on new equipment and such. There are other costs, like paying people to (mis)bill you, to give you the wrong answers when you call for assistance, and to mail your bill to the wrong address. These things are not free.
My WM phone doesn't appear to have an issue. That's all 4 of us!
For your second point, does it really matter? Programmers will rarely if ever get dates, no matter how hard they try....
Take it a step further and require an annual renewal. Why wait 25 years if some fool can't make good use of their copyright?
Might be true in small companies. Big shops (even medium shops, that I've worked with) like to use a standard image. New machines are either wiped and rebuilt on arrival or come wiped in the first place.
-100%. Bandwidth wants to be free!
it's not a pizza box at all, it is an actual blade server and requires a bladecenter... specifically a BladeCenter H, HT or S. With the H, you can get 14 of these babies in 9U of rack space, though. Make sure your cooling is up to the task!
It's furries in reverse!
"Account has been suspended"
I've just upgraded my T61 laptop today. Had no issues to speak of, everything went smoothly, and I'm up and running 9.10. Now, also today I made some changes to my partitions, and now my win 7 partition doesn't quite work right (boots sort of but doesn't login) so there you are. Guess I'll be fixing that install, but Ubuntu 9.10 is here to stay... for now.
and here is why (from wikipedia) English-language editions of Scrabble contain 100 letter tiles, in the following distribution: * 2 blank tiles (scoring 0 points)
* 1 point: E ×12, A ×9, I ×9, O ×8, N ×6, R ×6, T ×6, L ×4, S ×4, U ×4
* 2 points: D ×4, G ×3
* 3 points: B ×2, C ×2, M ×2, P ×2
* 4 points: F ×2, H ×2, V ×2, W ×2, Y ×2
* 5 points: K ×1
* 8 points: J ×1, X ×1
* 10 points: Q ×1, Z ×1
scrabble tiles pulled out of a hat is a bad example :)
They are not evenly distributed, so you'll have a higher occurrence of certain letters (namely the vowels and other common letters like s.)
The anorexic ones don't reproduce.
The people a construction worker works and speaks with are (probably) less likely to try to kill them. Not that I'm saying this excuses assholeish cops.
Until the teleporter is invented. Then we'll all be jobless.