Jimquisition: Ubisoft
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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I'm buying into Jim's ideas less and less. One of the more annoying things to me is people cultivating this image that CEOs sit in high-backed leather chairs in front of massive windows, steepling their fingers and yelling, "JUST AS PLANNED!" Corporations have popularly been painted as evil, except the concept in itself is just stupid.
For starters, all companies strive to make money. It's called a business model, most of you already knew that. Some base a successful model around service, placing the customer first. This is a fair model, but you're prone to the whims of a mob who may just flat out reject you for no reason. Some (usually incompetent people) aim for a model that looks for ways to guarantee revenue, or at least tries for the route that predicts the fewest losses. This model is centered more around the product than the customer, and also is not a terrible model, albeit one that might give the mob a REASON to reject you.
I'm talking about the DRM gripes in another thread, but I just can't buy into the image of Ubisoft managers prancing around a giant dartboard where each piece has a way to screw over customers pinned to it. Not one of those managers ever walks into their office on any given day and thinks, "Gee, how can we screw over our customer even more?" Why? Because that would be a shitty way to do business. Actively trying to fuck people over is the stupidest way to run a business (see Umbrella Corp.)
Incompetent? Absolutely, Ubisoft needs to review its practices. But evil? I haven't seen them start drawing pentagrams everywhere and killing Roman Polanski's family.
For starters, all companies strive to make money. It's called a business model, most of you already knew that. Some base a successful model around service, placing the customer first. This is a fair model, but you're prone to the whims of a mob who may just flat out reject you for no reason. Some (usually incompetent people) aim for a model that looks for ways to guarantee revenue, or at least tries for the route that predicts the fewest losses. This model is centered more around the product than the customer, and also is not a terrible model, albeit one that might give the mob a REASON to reject you.
I'm talking about the DRM gripes in another thread, but I just can't buy into the image of Ubisoft managers prancing around a giant dartboard where each piece has a way to screw over customers pinned to it. Not one of those managers ever walks into their office on any given day and thinks, "Gee, how can we screw over our customer even more?" Why? Because that would be a shitty way to do business. Actively trying to fuck people over is the stupidest way to run a business (see Umbrella Corp.)
Incompetent? Absolutely, Ubisoft needs to review its practices. But evil? I haven't seen them start drawing pentagrams everywhere and killing Roman Polanski's family.
Um, didn't they only mess up really bad with a few games right around Ass Creed II? I mean you didn't have to be permanently online in Brotherhood and Revelations, you know. Those games had just your average, run of the mill, one time online activation DRM. You did have to log in before playing, though... that still might pose an issue.
I really have to give props to Ubisoft. You'd think that with all their bullshit, people would stop buying their games, but that doesn't happen. They can do anything they want and not care because they will still have millions of customers. They live in a system where their slip-ups, errors, and bad decisions have little effect on their sales, creating a safety net for their incompetence.
I wish I had it that good
I wish I had it that good
Ya Assassin's Creed 2 was pretty good, up until the point when I realized the stupid thing wasn't even finished... They bloody mention DLC in the damn game! What the hell!, at least finish your game, or make the DLC free...
Worship Jim? I'll get right on it.
I saw that ending coming from a mile away but it still made me fall of my chair laughing
I saw that ending coming from a mile away but it still made me fall of my chair laughing
Don't ever compare Steam to any of these... you can run it in offline mode and run games that you already downloaded... Steam gives indie publishers majority of their sales sir so kindly take back your comment.wooty said:
I am never buying another EA game for as long as I live simply because of the fact that I had to go through so much red tape just to play a game I payed for years ago... namely Dragon Age: Origins... and when I got on? ALL MY ****ING DLC's were gone and not even so much as a refund in bioware points... yeah **** EA games and DRM measures.
I avoid those companies too. Same with Capcom (not too hard) & Sony (a little harder since those are the only games that are decent on the ps3).Eomega123 said:
However, I stand by my bile: I have not yet consciously bought a game that has online pass. I didn't realize Saints Row 3 had one but after seeing it did and seeing how they carved away half the content for dlc (it has both Season Pass AND Online Pass), I'm sworn off THQ.
To tell you the truth, I don't buy very many games anymore. But that's because most of them suck. The ones that I want to try but refuse to buy out of spite for online pass, day 1 dlc, & drm, I just rent. Then, if I want to buy it, I get to buy it used AND I get the online pass code sent to me.
I've also been avoiding Skyrim but that's more because in my experience those Bethesda games just don't work on the ps3.
But I think you're right: gamers for the most part will complain about a practice on internet forums but they will still buy the game. Then there are some gamers who will actually make excuses for the companies that keep squeezing money from them: mostly I think because they don't want to look like fools for continuing to patronize them. So there really is no reason for these companies to stop trying to take advantage of their consumers. I'm sure the next Bethesda port for the ps3 will be a complete disaster; because Skyrim sold so well.
The video game industry seems to have become a cutting corners kind of industry and the inconvenience of all of these cut corners has fallen directly to the consumer.
I sense we're not going to see many Ubisoft funded ads framing the Escapist videos for a while.
Suits me fine, there's more than enough people out there willing to pay for ad space, no need to hold back on calling a bag of dicks a bag of dicks
He has a great point that the ONLY reason Ubisoft and companies like them get to treat us like crap is that so many of us climb into their toilet bowl, waiting to hand over another $60 for them to wipe with.
Every time you buy a game with crappy DRM or other stupidity programmed into its core, you're handing over your money and saying 'Thanks for making the stuff I love worse! Do keep it up!'
As for what looked like a flash game, sure it was selective reporting there, the game being on sale for the iPhone, but it's still going to be about five bucks retail, and it's cheeky as all hell to release it as a full price title for the Vita, just because you know there's no games out and, hey, maybe people will buy any old crap just to have something to play.
Just as an example, Popcap brought out Plants vs Zombies on disc for the 360.
Except they charge about $30, and it was part of a set of 4 of their range of games, making it not much more than buying the 4 games as downloads from their site. They COULD have released it for $60, and then we could have called them lots of names and not bought it.
Suits me fine, there's more than enough people out there willing to pay for ad space, no need to hold back on calling a bag of dicks a bag of dicks
He has a great point that the ONLY reason Ubisoft and companies like them get to treat us like crap is that so many of us climb into their toilet bowl, waiting to hand over another $60 for them to wipe with.
Every time you buy a game with crappy DRM or other stupidity programmed into its core, you're handing over your money and saying 'Thanks for making the stuff I love worse! Do keep it up!'
As for what looked like a flash game, sure it was selective reporting there, the game being on sale for the iPhone, but it's still going to be about five bucks retail, and it's cheeky as all hell to release it as a full price title for the Vita, just because you know there's no games out and, hey, maybe people will buy any old crap just to have something to play.
Just as an example, Popcap brought out Plants vs Zombies on disc for the 360.
Except they charge about $30, and it was part of a set of 4 of their range of games, making it not much more than buying the 4 games as downloads from their site. They COULD have released it for $60, and then we could have called them lots of names and not bought it.
Ok, I get that Ubisoft's DRM is annoying and stuff, but honestly I didn't have so many problems with it. Also, Uplay (Ubisoft's DRM) has an offline mode now, so I don't see why everyone is complaining.
I'd suggest I'm acting like that because I'm not sure I should let them screw me just because they're offering to go halves on the lube.
Fair enough if it doesn't personally bug you, but I was replying to the concept and the video, not an individual.
I don't believe any company should be messing with their honest customers to try ( and fail ) to punish a mythical group of maybe thieves.
Fair enough if it doesn't personally bug you, but I was replying to the concept and the video, not an individual.
I don't believe any company should be messing with their honest customers to try ( and fail ) to punish a mythical group of maybe thieves.