I Am Alive Producer Dismisses "Bitching" PC Gamers

[The Wykydtron]

This is what I don't get about Ubisoft, they can be generally relied upon to create good games, but my god are they cunts sometimes.

Oh well if a game looks good, buy it. No amount of "lol don't our potential consumers suck?" From one guy who worked on said game should instantly put you off it.

 

[EvolutionKills]

It's Ubisoft, on PC. So that means draconian DRM and messy optimization. I'll put up with it (i.e. wait for a really good Steam sale) with the Assassin's Creed series, because I'm a history buff invested in the story. Would I put up with this crap for a new untested IP? In a word, 'no'.

And Ubisoft can blame themselves for that one. It's sad when the people who pirated the PC version of Assassin's Creed II had a better gaming experience than those who legitimately payed for it. Then how does Ubisoft reward those who put up with it's obnoxious PC bullshit? It's a bad case of circle logic and blaming the victim.

But who the hell am I, right? I mean, I'm just you're average 18-35 white male, I only sit at the very nadir of their target demographic. Funny how hard they're trying (and succeeding) to not get my money.

 

[shrekfan246]

... Yeah, that pretty much explains ubisoft right there.

Anyone checked piracy figures recently? Notice that some of the most pirated games are actually 360 & PS3 titles?

Eh. It's not even worth discussing anymore at this point. You put in crippling DRM then blame the poor sales on piracy, and insult your potential customers...

Nope, clearly though, it's the piracy that's killing you. >_<

Riddle me this, Ubi: How many people, because of your attitude towards PC gamers, will now not buy Revelations either, even if we intended to? If you added the revenue from PC gamers buying any of your games because they actually respect you, then would it be "worth it?"

Unless this is more PC gamer bitching. We're such a whiny bunch, wanting to pay you to play games you make, as is the exchange when marketing video games. A whiny bunch indeed.

The funny thing is that apparently Assassin's Creed: Revelations has already been leaked for the PC, even though it's not coming out for another week or so (and was only pushed back so that they could push console sales, as far as I know) (Though I'm not entirely sure if it's true or not. I just remember reading something about it earlier today). I'm waiting to see what Ubisoft says in response, but that combined with this news post makes me seriously believe Assassin's Creed III probably won't even get a PC version.

 

[Treblaine]

You realise Gears of War 3 was leaked to torrent sites - in full - a whole 2 months before it was released? And it has more seeds than Witcher 2. Yes, you can pirate 360 games now and have been able to for some time ever since the first modded console.

Music has been "pirated to hell" as well as film, you don't see musicians and movie studios refusing to release their productions on CD and DVD, as that would do a heck of a lot to stop piracy!

They won't "lose" any money releasing a game on PC. They will only lose money by NOT releasing a game on PC! It's a $200'000 investment for easy $1'000'000 return with the small chance of piracy.

Look, it is hard enough to get games to work with graphics drivers, patches and updates when they are legitimate, the added hassle of piracy is not worth it. Time is money and genuine copies save time. Music began biting back when it started selling music at greater convenience than pirate bay.

Where did you get those numbers? Besides straight out of your asshole. Like you have any accurate reports on the number of sales and things like that. As opposed to Ubi who has multiple staff members whose sole job is to analyze those numbers. It could very well be the case that this game gets pirated enough that it hurts Ubi's profits.

And how many people pirate for 360 as opposed to PC? And if the answer is anything other than a staggering difference then they're just lying.

Besides, it's Ubisoft's choice to make, if they don't think they can recoup their losses enough to justify a port then sucks to be you, but there's nothing you can do about it. They aren't obligated to accommodate you. Console players don't ***** when there are exclusives for opposing consoles, and let's be honest, most of those have PC ports so you guys come out ahead anyways. I'm sorry PC gamers don't get their port but stop giving companies reason to mistrust you as a collective... Simple as that. And stop bitching! Consoles miss out on exclusives all the time and don't whine about it.

Where did I get them from? I figured them out when Ubisoft said 12 programmers working for 3 months would do the port, and that the average wage for a lower level programmer (such as on porting duty) would earn a $75'000 annual salary (x12 divide by 4). I mentioned this in a previous post:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.325816.13315757

I can also make conservative estimates that Ubisoft would make one million dollars.

$30 price (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns)
30% Steam cut (VERY high estimate, towards lower returns) = $21 profit margin per sale
50'000 sales (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns) = $1'100'000 to ubisoft

"And how many people pirate for 360 as opposed to PC?"

There are no exact figures for either, but there ARE more seeds for Gears of War 3 than for Witcher 2. Draw from that what you will.

sucks to be you, but there's nothing you can do about it.

How very mature of you.[/sarc]
I could still get it on 360. It's not like PC gaming is a religion, as if I have to choose between Christmas or Hanukkah. I'd just rather buy it on PC.

stop giving companies reason to mistrust you as a collective

I'm sorry but do you mean piracy? but when did PC gamers become The Borg who act with one mind, with one purpose, no element doing anything without the approval of the rest? I most certainly am not pirating, just because I looked on Pirate bay's search results. I have never pirated a single game in my life, I don't even trade in consoles games!

Console players don't ***** when there are exclusives for opposing consoles

 

[Laxman9292]

You're forgetting the fact that the game was never coming out for PC simply because they didn't predict profits that would be quite as high as they anticipated. Fuck, they could charge £15 for it and still make a profit, if they release it via digital download on Steam then BOOM: massive potential customer base more likely to buy, more sales due to low cost, absolutely no production materials needed so it's 100% profit after valve takes their share for running the platform. Piracy figures will be reduced, because Steam works well, is convenient, and doesn't treat anyone who uses it as though they're just criminal game-theives waiting to happen.

Makes sense. Piracy is so rampant on PC, why bother making single player games on it? It's only worth making multiplayer games as they can't be pirated.

You fail forever at basic logic and knowledge of the issue at hand.

Thousands of PC gamers steal every single game they own, whine about invasive DRM, and playing games that are blatantly designed for console players, then ***** if a company acknowledges that it's not worth the effort to try and please them? Is this really happening? Ubisoft makes console games for console gamers, then makes a PC port if they think it will make a reasonable amount of money. PC gamers need to get over it, just as I eventually had to get over the fact that Valve (my favourite developer, despite the fact that I'm more or less a console gamer) makes PC games for PC gamers, then occasionally makes a broken console port. This is just how things work.

Bullshit also. Not to mention accepting a rum state of affairs as "just the way things work" logicallyl eads to accepting anything regardless of how terrible it might be, provided it is "just how things work".

1st Quote: You clearly don't know anything about porting a game to PC or how to read.

"It's hard because there's so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it," he continued. "Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it's not a massive cost but it's still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it's not worth it."

So boom, no hypothetical 100% profits and thus a legitimate fear that piracy could render the port into a money sink for the company.

2nd Quote: You're a douchebag who doesn't pay attention to the article in question and then lashes out at a fellow escapist for literally no reason (he didn't quote you or address you in any way). Especially because of...

3rd Quote: Nice straw man, AKA one of the most obvious and not to mention well known LOGICAL FALLACY ever. Congratulations, you insult a random guys logic and immediately follow up with a logical fallacy? Especially when he's right. Historically, PC gamers have gotten ports of console exclusive games (sorry PS3 you don't get Halo, sorry 360 you don't get DC Universe Online) and you don't see us bitching about being excluded.

Christ. Your first point? that isn't my issue.

Your second? I didn't quote you or address you in any way (not that you actually need any real reason to address someone or their argument on a public discussion forum). If you're following your own principles and chain of logic, then you have no reason to respond to me, let alone throw a personal insult at me. You say I shouldn't respond to a point someone made when they weren't addressing me and then you accuse me of making insulting assertions about someone when I wasn't doing anything more than making assertions about their arguments.

Meanwhile, you respond to what I said even though I never addressed you - something you criticise ME for doing. And then you outright call me a douchebag even though you just tried to call me out because you thought I was insulting other users.

Sorry, but how'd you end up posting this without spotting this particular contradiction?

Your third? Are you referring to my piss-take of a pair of public figures, or my statement that justifying an acceptance of something with "that's just how it is" is inherently flawed can logically lead to accepting any old shit provided it is the traditional method of doing something? because it is. And that doesn't fall under the definition of a straw man fallacy there, mate.

I don't... I don't care? So what?

DRM/Piracy Chicken/Egg issue aside.

They're running a business their market research shows that it wouldn't be a sound investment so they're not doing it.

Yeah, he doesn't need to use such coarse language but how many people here have fired back their own barbs?

This.

Most PC gamers acting so butthurt have used much fouler language. All Ubi is doing is following sound business practices. If you think that because you have a PC you need to be catered to then let me speak for Ubisoft and say you can fuck right off and stop being so entitled you twats.

Look, here we go - you've just used the same kind of coarse language and generalised statements I used. What am I doing wrong that you're not doing?

Because you were insulting his capacity for logic for no reason. If someone is being a prick when they aren't justified in acting that way is where I would say there's a distinction. And you weren't responding to his point in any critical way. It was a straight up ad hominem attack (another logical fallacy). I mean Jesus man, at least try to treat him courteously until there's cause to do otherwise. Maybe help illustrate exactly why he is wrong in a helpful manner?

"Generally, the straw man is a highly exaggerated or over-simplified version of the opponent's original statement, which has been distorted to the point of absurdity." Basically the definition of a straw man. Just because you accept an ATM fee because it's "the way things are" is a different beast from accepting the violation of basic human rights in 3rd world countries because it's "the way things are" over there. Hence, a straw man fallacy. Hence, poor logical reasoning.

And the first quote is the exact point of the thread. Is it right for Ubisoft to justify not porting to PC with piracy?

 

[Cousin_IT]

It's an interesting type of marketing where the first I hear about a game is me indirectly being called a ***** & told I don't get to play it by the developer/publisher.

 

[infohippie]

Well, I wouldn't have bought this game anyway since it's being published Ubisoft. Stanislas Mettra's comments just go to confirm my belief that Ubisoft are scum and I hope they go bankrupt.

 

[Treblaine]

... Yeah, that pretty much explains ubisoft right there.

Anyone checked piracy figures recently? Notice that some of the most pirated games are actually 360 & PS3 titles?

Eh. It's not even worth discussing anymore at this point. You put in crippling DRM then blame the poor sales on piracy, and insult your potential customers...

Nope, clearly though, it's the piracy that's killing you. >_<

Riddle me this, Ubi: How many people, because of your attitude towards PC gamers, will now not buy Revelations either, even if we intended to? If you added the revenue from PC gamers buying any of your games because they actually respect you, then would it be "worth it?"

Unless this is more PC gamer bitching. We're such a whiny bunch, wanting to pay you to play games you make, as is the exchange when marketing video games. A whiny bunch indeed.

The funny thing is that apparently Assassin's Creed: Revelations has already been leaked for the PC, even though it's not coming out for another week or so (and was only pushed back so that they could push console sales, as far as I know). I'm waiting to see what Ubisoft says in response, but that combined with this news post makes me seriously believe Assassin's Creed III probably won't even get a PC version.

You know what I also heard. Transformers 3 was leaked on pirate bay!

I guess it's only a matter of time before the movie studios go back to the good old days before DVD and home video and you can only watch movies in the cinema.[/sarc]

Except that isn't going to happen. Piracy is a problem for Ubisoft in the same way air-resistance contributed to the sinking of the titanic.

 

[deckai]

To be honest that's the kind of reaction I expected from Ubisoft... they are maybe the biggest douchbags in the game-industry(close-call between ubisoft and Kotick). I just don't care what happens to them, but I'm sorry for all the poor developers that have to work under them...

But I guess, don't porting a game to the Pc is better than running in circles.

Developing draconic DRM -> more people pirating the game -> ubisoft complaining about pirates -> developing a even more draconic DRM -> even more people pirating the game ->... and so on.

This way we don't have any pirated Pc games and no need to develop a new DRM. It's a win-win situation, right? Ubisoft doesn't lose money with pirated pc games and we don't need to use their DRM....right, right? ...

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

I don't even have one pirated PC game, I have friends with a shitton of pirated xbox games. I guess my point is he can stick the game up his ass lubed with icy hot.

 

[Laxman9292]

Where did I get them from? I figured them out when Ubisoft said 12 programmers working for 3 months would do the port, and that the average wage for a lower level programmer (such as on porting duty) would earn a $75'000 annual salary (x12 divide by 4). I mentioned this in a previous post:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.325816.13315757

I can also make conservative estimates that Ubisoft would make one million dollars.

$30 price (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns)
30% Steam cut (VERY high estimate, towards lower returns) = $21 profit margin per sale
50'000 sales (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns) = $1'100'000 to ubisoft

"And how many people pirate for 360 as opposed to PC?"

There are no exact figures for either, but there ARE more seeds for Gears of War 3 than for Witcher 2. Draw from that what you will.

sucks to be you, but there's nothing you can do about it.

How very mature of you.[/sarc]
I could still get it on 360. It's not like PC gaming is a religion, as if I have to choose between Christmas or Hanukkah. I'd just rather buy it on PC.

stop giving companies reason to mistrust you as a collective

I'm sorry but do you mean piracy? but when did PC gamers become The Borg who act with one mind, with one purpose, no element doing anything without the approval of the rest? I most certainly am not pirating, just because I looked on Pirate bay's search results. I have never pirated a single game in my life, I don't even trade in consoles games!

Console players don't ***** when there are exclusives for opposing consoles

Sorry I didn't read that post about where those numbers came from. I was wrong and I apologize.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_6.html
I don't claim to be an expert by any means but I do know it is significantly harder, or at least more of a hassle to pirate for the consoles, and you often face much harsher punishments for doing so.

I mean it isn't the most eloquent way to put it but if you wanted it then it does suck to be you, but there isn't anything you can do about it. If anyone was offended by that then I'm sorry, not my intention.

I'm not saying that PC gamers are a collective or that they all pirate. But companies (or at least Ubisoft) are treating you as such and obviously view the pirates as a majority. Again, I don't think yall are but that is the image that many people draw.

And consoles have been getting shafted with exclusives for decades and many of those exclusive from both consoles have had ports on PC, therefore making exclusives not as big an issue. Now PC gamers are seeing the other side of the coin.

EDIT: snipped for size

 

[shrekfan246]

You know what I also heard. Transformers 3 was leaked on pirate bay!

I guess it's only a matter of time before the movie studios go back to the good old days before DVD and home video and you can only watch movies in the cinema.[/sarc]

Except that isn't going to happen. Piracy is a problem for Ubisoft in the same way air-resistance contributed to the sinking of the titanic.

I assume your point is that Ubisoft won't abandon the PC because "they're all bloody pirates" exactly like Epic Games did somewhere back in 2007? I'm not of the opinion that piracy is going to kill every game publisher in existence, but the game has supposedly been leaked a week or so before its release which, combined with their apparent attitude toward PC gamers shown in this article, definitely paints a picture of Ubisoft not caring about developing or publishing for the PC anymore.

I don't know how reputable the source is, but this is where I found it from:
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-revelations-pc-leaked-a-week-before-official-release/#more-12045

 

[boyvirgo666]

Wow, what a douche. I'm not even a PC gamer and that guy pisses me off. You couldn't have just politely said no? Instead, he says "I hear you whining, but you are all pirates or cheapskates anyway."

Its a fairly common thing with developers these days. Iv been playing almost everything on PC this year but i have my xbox. Problem is that i dont usually pirate games unless there is no demo and i need to make sure its not a bug ridden mess.

i don't pirate games, and frankly i believe developers pump out all these small pc games
( seriously go cheack ubi's website.. 20+ pages of game titles )
and expect them to all be a hit, and then presume that everyone pirated it instead

they live in a dream world, hell i doubt my savings stretches far enough to buy every single one of ubi's games right now.

I only do it on occasion then i will just delete it or go and buy the game. i enjoy patches and showing off too much heh

 

[Branches]

let's not act like Consoles don't have a gigantic shadow economy. I can hop on craigslist right now and find 3 guys/gals/backrooms of game sellers who are willing to both sell me games for 5 bucks and modchip my 360 or my PS3 for just over 70 bucks.

It's a crock of shit. Ubisoft will complain, but until they start making the same quality standard that the AC series has had for EVERY game (fucking Tom Clancy games included), then PC gamers will continue to pirate their games.

So every customer may not have paid for it. But how many of those people are telling their friends "hey man, Driver San Francisco's kinda spiffy if you're into driving games. I'd wait until the price drop though, grab it on steam". Because in the end, you're spending all this cash on stupid ad campaigns when word of the mouth is how Super Meat Boy and fucking Minecraft became popular.

My attitude is simple. Look at how easy it is to make money in the industry with a Steam sale, or a Origin or Amazon sale. Here's an idea for AC3. Sell it for $25 dollars. Guaranteed revenue return by volume sold. Granted, you will not be able to do this for your new Intellectual Properties, but look at Portal 2. It's been out for only 6-10 months and the price has gone from 49.99 to 29 during the most recent sale.

How are you going to tell me that if you establish a franchise and use the profits from previous games just to then use your advertising arm to get fucking Adrian Peterson and all these athletes to put a hood on, that you can't then sell something for below market price and still make money from it?

You can't because no studio is willing to do that because they're overworking their staff to release on time. You can't because no publisher is willing to lose the obscene amount of profit that a 70 dollar game pushes. No one is willing to attempt a price drop because if it bombs on a new IP then the whole model is broken, but if you do it for a continuing franchise (CoD, Portal, AC, Bioshock), then the possibility of a full-blown failure decreases to very low. People want to play these games, so you open the market to all the unemployed and disenfranchised who got a hold of a 360 last Christmas. Huge market.

 

[w00tage]

Well, that's the problem with the gaming industry right there, it's not about making a profit, it's wanting to make monster profits. A "mere" $700k isn't worth their time and that's why people like me are up in their face. I understand te logic but it's what's destroying gaming, especially seeing as it's just about ports of games, but even whether games are made. A few million dollars in profits is something that the industry is increasingly willing to turn it's nose up at because they realize they can make more money by churning out games for the casual crowd as opposed to ones for serious gamers or that advance the medium.

True, and it's nothing new. EA and SOE have both neglected or shut down games in order to put those resources into a project that they thought would make more money. EA with Earth and Beyond and SOE with Planetside are two instances where I saw this happen as a player.

That's the problem with letting the middlemen take over the process. They are neither the creators nor the consumers, so the instant they get in charge, the entire productive process is subverted to serve their interests.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

To play devils voila player here, would you buy it if you complained about not getting it? I mean I can see what he is talking about, if PC gamers didn't get it they would whine and moan just because they didn't get it (Same with console gamers). I mean I've heard that argument before where a console/PC gamer would say "Oh well how come that console/PC gets it but we the better group doesn't". Seeing how both sides like to act better then the other and act like a stupid children, I wouldn't take the "How come we are not getting it" complaint to heart at all if I was a company. I mean even on THIS forum flame wars between the two groups kick up and get really stupid. And to be honest, it's just a bunch a noise from children. It was never cute when people argued about it (growing up out of the stupider age I realized this, and how dumb I sounded then). From how people fight, whine, and complain it doesn't sound like they play games just have them to show off there electronic penis.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Where did I get them from? I figured them out when Ubisoft said 12 programmers working for 3 months would do the port, and that the average wage for a lower level programmer (such as on porting duty) would earn a $75'000 annual salary (x12 divide by 4). I mentioned this in a previous post:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.325816.13315757

I can also make conservative estimates that Ubisoft would make one million dollars.

$30 price (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns)
30% Steam cut (VERY high estimate, towards lower returns) = $21 profit margin per sale
50'000 sales (VERY low estimate, towards lower returns) = $1'100'000 to ubisoft

"And how many people pirate for 360 as opposed to PC?"

There are no exact figures for either, but there ARE more seeds for Gears of War 3 than for Witcher 2. Draw from that what you will.

sucks to be you, but there's nothing you can do about it.

How very mature of you.[/sarc]
I could still get it on 360. It's not like PC gaming is a religion, as if I have to choose between Christmas or Hanukkah. I'd just rather buy it on PC.

stop giving companies reason to mistrust you as a collective

I'm sorry but do you mean piracy? but when did PC gamers become The Borg who act with one mind, with one purpose, no element doing anything without the approval of the rest? I most certainly am not pirating, just because I looked on Pirate bay's search results. I have never pirated a single game in my life, I don't even trade in consoles games!

Console players don't ***** when there are exclusives for opposing consoles

Sorry I didn't read that post about where those numbers came from. I was wrong and I apologize.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_6.html
I don't claim to be an expert by any means but I do know it is significantly harder, or at least more of a hassle to pirate for the consoles, and you often face much harsher punishments for doing so.

I mean it isn't the most eloquent way to put it but if you wanted it then it does suck to be you, but there isn't anything you can do about it. If anyone was offended by that then I'm sorry, not my intention.

I'm not saying that PC gamers are a collective or that they all pirate. But companies (or at least Ubisoft) are treating you as such and obviously view the pirates as a majority. Again, I don't think yall are but that is the image that many people draw.

And consoles have been getting shafted with exclusives for decades and many of those exclusive from both consoles have had ports on PC, therefore making exclusives not as big an issue. Now PC gamers are seeing the other side of the coin.

EDIT: snipped for size

May I interject on the ease of console pirates? Well this is the internet so you can't answer and we are on a forum so I kinda have to try promote discussion. I do know people who have pirated on console and not a single one of them did it themselves what they all do is go to some guy/gal and get them to chip their console for what like ?10 or something like that. They then buy the pirated games off this person. No console pirate I have ever known has done anything themselves they pay money for other people to pirate for them.

Now I haven't known anyone to pirate PC games but then again my small sample is not a good enough to be considered a good sample but anyone who I have heard of has you know done it themselves which does show why PC torrents tend to be higher than console ones.

Also given that it is common speculation that most people who pirate on console are smart enough to have 2 consoles and there were 1mil banned a couple of years ago of Xbox Live for pirating it does show that console pirating is much more wide spread than some people like to think with some "hidden" figures.

Yes 1 torrent can reach millions of people but those millions on PC aren't or only in small cases sell that on to others or even give it on to others while in the case of consoles those millions reached tend to then sell that onto to thousands. So yes since we can only talk speculation here as there is no hard evidence console pirating is not really as hard as it seems just people are a bit lazy on consoles. Well not too lazy to pay someone else to do it.

Although your last point I don't really get. What constant stream of exclusives has PC gotten that hasn't been given to other consoles? It is really only Microsoft games like Halo and Gears. Also just because this has been a problem on consoles means PC gamers just have to live with it when it is our turn? That is just bad logic. If there was ever some petition or some way to support real server lists and dedicated servers on consoles I would definitely support that as I am sick of seeing console gamers shafted with sub par multiplayer experiences in games like CoD because they use a lazy P2P system for games. PC gamers have had to see consoles get exclusives for years so this is not new neither is good for other gamers to be at each others necks in fact that is what Devs like this fucking love to see as it tends to mean more $$$/£££/??? for them.