Poll: Internet Connection Required

[Treblaine]

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

Interesting... but consider what GOOD could be achieved, for the consumer, the developers and even the publishers (more revenue).

Having "Massively Singleplayer" could capitalise on how a single player may be a personal experience rather than collaborative like multiplayer or co-op, but it is also shared because of how important the game can be.

Consider Demon's Souls, a crude example of the full potential of online-singleplayer as all the people playing the single player can subtly interact, share tricks, secrets and insight, as if shadows from a parallel universe, with another adventurer much like you.

Single player can be competitive, though not combative or co-operative, consider the flourishing speed-run scene. People are playing single player games like a rally race against each others best time. At the moment it is quite awkward having to capture the screen and verifying that there has been no cheating or hacking leads to many pointless arguments. But what about arranged games, racing against the other person's ghost or something like that.

The verification server doesn't just have to be a dumb terminal sending back authorisation code every few ms, it has potential to record demos (recordings of "what happens" in the game), analyse them and verify their authenticity, share with an online community.

And this is something that right now console gaming CANNOT do, consoles cannot be as successful as they have been mandating an internet connection, the majority Xbox 360s have never connected online if I recall the last statistics correctly. Even then the advantage would be mute between console and PC.

 

[Kouen]

DRM seems to be like a dog collar to me and the whole must be connected at all times is really keeping the leach short. While I have a decent connection it craps out occasionally, id hate if that would occur to me and I wouldn't be able to play games because of it.

 

[Zing]

Annoying? It's just fucking stupidity. Annoying doesn't even come close. At one point during Conviction I got spam paused with "Re-establishing Connection etc".

Seriously if I owned a laptop and travelled I'd be breaking down Ubisoft's door right now. They're just idiots. Constant internet connection for a single player game? Fuck you Ubisoft.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

Interesting... but consider what GOOD could be achieved, for the consumer, the developers and even the publishers (more revenue).

Having "Massively Singleplayer" could capitalise on how a single player may be a personal experience rather than collaborative like multiplayer or co-op, but it is also shared because of how important the game can be.

Consider Demon's Souls, a crude example of the full potential of online-singleplayer as all the people playing the single player can subtly interact, share tricks, secrets and insight, as if shadows from a parallel universe, with another adventurer much like you.

Single player can be competitive, though not combative or co-operative, consider the flourishing speed-run scene. People are playing single player games like a rally race against each others best time. At the moment it is quite awkward having to capture the screen and verifying that there has been no cheating or hacking leads to many pointless arguments. But what about arranged games, racing against the other person's ghost or something like that.

The verification server doesn't just have to be a dumb terminal sending back authorisation code every few ms, it has potential to record demos (recordings of "what happens" in the game), analyse them and verify their authenticity, share with an online community.

And this is something that right now console gaming CANNOT do, consoles cannot be as successful as they have been mandating an internet connection, the majority Xbox 360s have never connected online if I recall the last statistics correctly. Even then the advantage would be mute between console and PC.

All good points, though personally none of those (bar perhaps the Demon Souls angle) are particularly compelling for me, nor am I convinced an always active or your game stops working during single player gameplay connection scenario would even be required for those features necessarily, but good points.

Of course Ubisoft did absolutely none of that and tried to sell "cloud save games!" as the 'feature' their always-on-or-else system supposedly granted us, so screw them sideways with a poleaxe. I'm not opposed to games requiring a net connection, I play a few now that do - but there needs to be a compelling reason to have that net connection. It'll be interesting to see if any publisher determined to go down that route will manage to hash out a system we end up thanking them for, even as it adds restrictions. Right now though they just get burned in effigy, and rightly so.

 

[Treblaine]

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

Interesting... but consider what GOOD could be achieved, for the consumer, the developers and even the publishers (more revenue).

Having "Massively Singleplayer" could capitalise on how a single player may be a personal experience rather than collaborative like multiplayer or co-op, but it is also shared because of how important the game can be.

Consider Demon's Souls, a crude example of the full potential of online-singleplayer as all the people playing the single player can subtly interact, share tricks, secrets and insight, as if shadows from a parallel universe, with another adventurer much like you.

Single player can be competitive, though not combative or co-operative, consider the flourishing speed-run scene. People are playing single player games like a rally race against each others best time. At the moment it is quite awkward having to capture the screen and verifying that there has been no cheating or hacking leads to many pointless arguments. But what about arranged games, racing against the other person's ghost or something like that.

The verification server doesn't just have to be a dumb terminal sending back authorisation code every few ms, it has potential to record demos (recordings of "what happens" in the game), analyse them and verify their authenticity, share with an online community.

And this is something that right now console gaming CANNOT do, consoles cannot be as successful as they have been mandating an internet connection, the majority Xbox 360s have never connected online if I recall the last statistics correctly. Even then the advantage would be mute between console and PC.

All good points, though personally none of those (bar perhaps the Demon Souls angle) are particularly compelling for me, nor am I convinced an always active or your game stops working during single player gameplay connection scenario would even be required for those features necessarily, but good points.

Of course Ubisoft did absolutely none of that and tried to sell "cloud save games!" as the 'feature' their always-on-or-else system supposedly granted us, so screw them sideways with a poleaxe. I'm not opposed to games requiring a net connection, I play a few now that do - but there needs to be a compelling reason to have that net connection. It'll be interesting to see if any publisher determined to go down that route will manage to hash out a system we end up thanking them for, even as it adds restrictions. Right now though they just get burned in effigy, and rightly so.

Thing is if I know anything about the internet, hate and burning effigies doesn't achieve anything... only ideas. It is easy to ignore negativism on the internet, but it is positive movements FORWARD not conservative rolling-back of measures that get traction. Internet is where you get things done, not stop things happening.

I don't think anything will be achieved by casting Ubisoft as a pariah publisher, it has never worked and usually the respond to any action in precisely the worst way. I.e. don't buy their games and they then conclude (even after DRM) that PC gaming must be completely dead.

I mean consider this... what if Ubisoft (and other publishers) REALLY DO consider every pirated download a lost sale? What if the only reason they are investing in PC gaming is to go after those "lost sales"?

That has profound implications as if after this DRM there is an unofficial boycott of Ubisoft and their sales don't rise they may just be crazy enough to think:
"Well, they won't pay for the game with a pirated copy around, and they won't pay (in the numbers we want) when there is only the legit version available... maybe this PC market isn't worth it?"

Trust me, I don't have any confidence in Ubisoft backing down over this online-DRM, remember they are a FRENCH company, they are not going to be cool about this, they are going to be out of touch and dogmatic.

I think we need to consider how conservative we are being about DRM, things change, PC gaming was never going to remain the same forever. I think we need to accept that DRM is here, I don't think PC games are like music that can easily move from heavily DRM'd to non-DRM, games are just too expensive to make, sell at such a high price and are so financially volatile.

yeah, Budget re-releases and indie games, no reason for DRM like this. But I can see publishers keeping major releases on a leash with Ubi-RM, and when that happens I think it is inevitable that the developers will start taking advantage of this.

And obviously it doesn't have to be there for ALL games (budget/indie titles wouldn't need it) and only very rarely should it require an always-on-or-else connection and it would not be a permanent thing, after a few months when the money had been earned and the risk of piracy lower (also servers can't be run forever) it would be scaled back.

For example it may only need an internet connection on loading the game, and Steam has a good system of sometimes online but good offline capability too. But the point is why switch Steam to offline mode? And of course the issue of breaks in internet connection must be dealt with in a much better manner than insta-crash, with some sort of pause/rewind mechanism.

Nonetheless, I will be buying Assassin's Creed 2 (when the price is right) and I don't plan on cracking it and I will forgive Ubisoft for their first clumsy steps. It is good to know that the developers did SOMETHING with cloud saving but I see it as manifest destiny that this will be exploited for further creativity from the developers, greater service for consumer and more lucrative business for the publishers.

 

[Eleima]

I've got a good internet connection (ADSL), but that's not the case for everyone. My parents spent 4 years in a third world country, and the internet connection was horrid, it brought me back to the days of dial up. And that's not too bad when all you want to do is retrieve your e-mail, but it does make playing games more difficult if those require an internet connection. So, no, don't force us to have an internet connection. Find another way to prevent piracy, and don't make honest fans shoulder the burden.
Tiny example: I bought Assassin's Creed 2, was playing it, and bam! the DSL died (happens, and the ISP isn't forthcoming about finding a solution). Of course, the game timed out... Grrr...

 

[Sebenko]

The DRM isn't that bad. Normally it's just registering the game, unless I don't really understand DRM.

Still, it's an assumption that everyone in the world has great internet. My internet on the other hand is about as stable as a bi-polar at the suicide hotline...

DRMs are different. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are CD keys, some are limited installs and some are well this. None of them have proven to actually be effective.

What do you mean? Ubi's DRM is really effective.

Being hated by every PC gamer and quite a few console ones was what they were aiming for, right?

 

[Delusibeta]

I can't help but think that Triblane has been thinking of Steamworks in his posts.

Steamworks: perhaps the only DRM that's reasonably popular with gamers in recent times.

 

[Loop Stricken]

My life comes with that disclaimer nowadays, so yeah.

 

[KwaggaDan]

The DRM isn't that bad. Normally it's just registering the game, unless I don't really understand DRM.

Still, it's an assumption that everyone in the world has great internet. My internet on the other hand is about as stable as a bi-polar at the suicide hotline...

DRMs are different. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are CD keys, some are limited installs and some are well this. None of them have proven to actually be effective.

You see, that's my point. If it's not working then why do it. They should have learnt their lesson with Ass Creed 2. Even Steam allows offline playing.

 

[KwaggaDan]

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

Interesting... but consider what GOOD could be achieved, for the consumer, the developers and even the publishers (more revenue).

Having "Massively Singleplayer" could capitalise on how a single player may be a personal experience rather than collaborative like multiplayer or co-op, but it is also shared because of how important the game can be.

Consider Demon's Souls, a crude example of the full potential of online-singleplayer as all the people playing the single player can subtly interact, share tricks, secrets and insight, as if shadows from a parallel universe, with another adventurer much like you.

Single player can be competitive, though not combative or co-operative, consider the flourishing speed-run scene. People are playing single player games like a rally race against each others best time. At the moment it is quite awkward having to capture the screen and verifying that there has been no cheating or hacking leads to many pointless arguments. But what about arranged games, racing against the other person's ghost or something like that.

The verification server doesn't just have to be a dumb terminal sending back authorisation code every few ms, it has potential to record demos (recordings of "what happens" in the game), analyse them and verify their authenticity, share with an online community.

And this is something that right now console gaming CANNOT do, consoles cannot be as successful as they have been mandating an internet connection, the majority Xbox 360s have never connected online if I recall the last statistics correctly. Even then the advantage would be mute between console and PC.

All good points, though personally none of those (bar perhaps the Demon Souls angle) are particularly compelling for me, nor am I convinced an always active or your game stops working during single player gameplay connection scenario would even be required for those features necessarily, but good points.

Of course Ubisoft did absolutely none of that and tried to sell "cloud save games!" as the 'feature' their always-on-or-else system supposedly granted us, so screw them sideways with a poleaxe. I'm not opposed to games requiring a net connection, I play a few now that do - but there needs to be a compelling reason to have that net connection. It'll be interesting to see if any publisher determined to go down that route will manage to hash out a system we end up thanking them for, even as it adds restrictions. Right now though they just get burned in effigy, and rightly so.

Thing is if I know anything about the internet, hate and burning effigies doesn't achieve anything... only ideas. It is easy to ignore negativism on the internet, but it is positive movements FORWARD not conservative rolling-back of measures that get traction. Internet is where you get things done, not stop things happening.

I don't think anything will be achieved by casting Ubisoft as a pariah publisher, it has never worked and usually the respond to any action in precisely the worst way. I.e. don't buy their games and they then conclude (even after DRM) that PC gaming must be completely dead.

I mean consider this... what if Ubisoft (and other publishers) REALLY DO consider every pirated download a lost sale? What if the only reason they are investing in PC gaming is to go after those "lost sales"?

That has profound implications as if after this DRM there is an unofficial boycott of Ubisoft and their sales don't rise they may just be crazy enough to think:
"Well, they won't pay for the game with a pirated copy around, and they won't pay (in the numbers we want) when there is only the legit version available... maybe this PC market isn't worth it?"

Trust me, I don't have any confidence in Ubisoft backing down over this online-DRM, remember they are a FRENCH company, they are not going to be cool about this, they are going to be out of touch and dogmatic.

I think we need to consider how conservative we are being about DRM, things change, PC gaming was never going to remain the same forever. I think we need to accept that DRM is here, I don't think PC games are like music that can easily move from heavily DRM'd to non-DRM, games are just too expensive to make, sell at such a high price and are so financially volatile.

yeah, Budget re-releases and indie games, no reason for DRM like this. But I can see publishers keeping major releases on a leash with Ubi-RM, and when that happens I think it is inevitable that the developers will start taking advantage of this.

And obviously it doesn't have to be there for ALL games (budget/indie titles wouldn't need it) and only very rarely should it require an always-on-or-else connection and it would not be a permanent thing, after a few months when the money had been earned and the risk of piracy lower (also servers can't be run forever) it would be scaled back.

For example it may only need an internet connection on loading the game, and Steam has a good system of sometimes online but good offline capability too. But the point is why switch Steam to offline mode? And of course the issue of breaks in internet connection must be dealt with in a much better manner than insta-crash, with some sort of pause/rewind mechanism.

Nonetheless, I will be buying Assassin's Creed 2 (when the price is right) and I don't plan on cracking it and I will forgive Ubisoft for their first clumsy steps. It is good to know that the developers did SOMETHING with cloud saving but I see it as manifest destiny that this will be exploited for further creativity from the developers, greater service for consumer and more lucrative business for the publishers.

But my problem is that the "constant online DRM" is killing me. I can't really play the game because it keeps disconnecting every 5 seconds, and pressing any key when it's in "reconnection mode" exits the game.

Now, I don't know what they can do, and even if the average Ubisoft game is still Beta versions, I still like the games they make. But this has seriously affected my gaming. And when I pay R400 for a game, I'd really like to play the game...

 

[mikecoulter]

It's all about controlling your audience. Hence why I avoid such games at all cost.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Spoiler: Spoilered to conserve fast depleting page resources - do your part everyone!

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishers attempting to treat single player games like MMOs, in the misguided belief that this will do anything other than annoy would-be customers.

At least Splinter Cell actually has multiplayer modes, it's even stupider when it was a game like Assassin's Creed 2.

Interesting... but consider what GOOD could be achieved, for the consumer, the developers and even the publishers (more revenue).

Having "Massively Singleplayer" could capitalise on how a single player may be a personal experience rather than collaborative like multiplayer or co-op, but it is also shared because of how important the game can be.

Consider Demon's Souls, a crude example of the full potential of online-singleplayer as all the people playing the single player can subtly interact, share tricks, secrets and insight, as if shadows from a parallel universe, with another adventurer much like you.

Single player can be competitive, though not combative or co-operative, consider the flourishing speed-run scene. People are playing single player games like a rally race against each others best time. At the moment it is quite awkward having to capture the screen and verifying that there has been no cheating or hacking leads to many pointless arguments. But what about arranged games, racing against the other person's ghost or something like that.

The verification server doesn't just have to be a dumb terminal sending back authorisation code every few ms, it has potential to record demos (recordings of "what happens" in the game), analyse them and verify their authenticity, share with an online community.

And this is something that right now console gaming CANNOT do, consoles cannot be as successful as they have been mandating an internet connection, the majority Xbox 360s have never connected online if I recall the last statistics correctly. Even then the advantage would be mute between console and PC.

All good points, though personally none of those (bar perhaps the Demon Souls angle) are particularly compelling for me, nor am I convinced an always active or your game stops working during single player gameplay connection scenario would even be required for those features necessarily, but good points.

Of course Ubisoft did absolutely none of that and tried to sell "cloud save games!" as the 'feature' their always-on-or-else system supposedly granted us, so screw them sideways with a poleaxe. I'm not opposed to games requiring a net connection, I play a few now that do - but there needs to be a compelling reason to have that net connection. It'll be interesting to see if any publisher determined to go down that route will manage to hash out a system we end up thanking them for, even as it adds restrictions. Right now though they just get burned in effigy, and rightly so.

Thing is if I know anything about the internet, hate and burning effigies doesn't achieve anything... only ideas. It is easy to ignore negativism on the internet, but it is positive movements FORWARD not conservative rolling-back of measures that get traction. Internet is where you get things done, not stop things happening.

I don't think anything will be achieved by casting Ubisoft as a pariah publisher, it has never worked and usually the respond to any action in precisely the worst way. I.e. don't buy their games and they then conclude (even after DRM) that PC gaming must be completely dead.

I mean consider this... what if Ubisoft (and other publishers) REALLY DO consider every pirated download a lost sale? What if the only reason they are investing in PC gaming is to go after those "lost sales"?

That has profound implications as if after this DRM there is an unofficial boycott of Ubisoft and their sales don't rise they may just be crazy enough to think:
"Well, they won't pay for the game with a pirated copy around, and they won't pay (in the numbers we want) when there is only the legit version available... maybe this PC market isn't worth it?"

Trust me, I don't have any confidence in Ubisoft backing down over this online-DRM, remember they are a FRENCH company, they are not going to be cool about this, they are going to be out of touch and dogmatic.

I think we need to consider how conservative we are being about DRM, things change, PC gaming was never going to remain the same forever. I think we need to accept that DRM is here, I don't think PC games are like music that can easily move from heavily DRM'd to non-DRM, games are just too expensive to make, sell at such a high price and are so financially volatile.

yeah, Budget re-releases and indie games, no reason for DRM like this. But I can see publishers keeping major releases on a leash with Ubi-RM, and when that happens I think it is inevitable that the developers will start taking advantage of this.

And obviously it doesn't have to be there for ALL games (budget/indie titles wouldn't need it) and only very rarely should it require an always-on-or-else connection and it would not be a permanent thing, after a few months when the money had been earned and the risk of piracy lower (also servers can't be run forever) it would be scaled back.

For example it may only need an internet connection on loading the game, and Steam has a good system of sometimes online but good offline capability too. But the point is why switch Steam to offline mode? And of course the issue of breaks in internet connection must be dealt with in a much better manner than insta-crash, with some sort of pause/rewind mechanism.

Nonetheless, I will be buying Assassin's Creed 2 (when the price is right) and I don't plan on cracking it and I will forgive Ubisoft for their first clumsy steps. It is good to know that the developers did SOMETHING with cloud saving but I see it as manifest destiny that this will be exploited for further creativity from the developers, greater service for consumer and more lucrative business for the publishers.

The fundamental reason I can't support or forgive moves like this is that they're the nuclear option to fix a problem that doesn't exist - piracy isn't on a one to one basis with "lost sales", and you would think somebody at a publishing company would have caught on to that by this point. The points you make about smaller budget and indie titles not needing this sort of DRM are spot on, but that's because nothing needs this sort of DRM.

The thing about human nature is you can't make people honest via better locks and surveillance systems - you might discourage would be thieves from actually going through with it, but there's a difference between stopping them from swiping your stuff and turning them into model customers. In the conventional retail market, reasonable security measures make sense, because shrinkage reduces available inventory and therefore directly impacts the bottom line.

Software piracy though is making a perfect digital copy of a set of data - there are no physical units being removed, and thus the act of copying itself does not directly imply a loss has been occurred. In the meatspace environ, when you stop a thief from taking your inventory, you benefit because that's money you didn't just lose; in the digital environ, you stopped a would be pirate, and you have exactly as much money as you would have had if you hadn't - there's not even a tenuous basis to suggest that thwarting a pirate, somebody who was willing to stiff you completely, suddenly makes them turn around and purchase the product they were just trying to take without paying.

So it doesn't save you any money, because selling 100 units with 0 copies pirated and selling 100 units with 1,000,000 copies pirated both net you the same revenue stream, and the security measures you're putting in place are the virtual equivalent to mandatory strip searches and polygraph tests at the entrance of a grocery store. And of course designing and maintaining this DRM system (or hiring a 3rd party to do it for you ala SecuROM) itself costs money, so publishers are paying for the privelege of alienating the only customers that matter (their customers) while chasing the vain hope that these unnecessary hoops will effect a miraculous transformation and change scoundrels into saints.

This is why DRM is stupid and offensive: Piracy is irrelevant. The solution to video game piracy is to ignore it, and put the time, money, and effort you waste right now futilely trying to alter human nature to better use. Just think - if publishers weren't spending so much money on DRM, they could probably cut prices across the board and actually increase sales! Or spend it on better quality control, marketing, basically anything that might help to make that key segment of the population, the part that actually wants to pay for stuff, decide to spend their money on your stuff.

I really don't expect any of them to do that though, because that would make far too much sense.

 

[squid5580]

The DRM isn't that bad. Normally it's just registering the game, unless I don't really understand DRM.

Still, it's an assumption that everyone in the world has great internet. My internet on the other hand is about as stable as a bi-polar at the suicide hotline...

DRMs are different. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are CD keys, some are limited installs and some are well this. None of them have proven to actually be effective.

You see, that's my point. If it's not working then why do it. They should have learnt their lesson with Ass Creed 2. Even Steam allows offline playing.

Honestly at this point I think they are on some kind of powertrip. We will allow you to play our game but only under our conditions. It either that or the companies making these DRMs have one hell of a sales pitch.

 

[Treblaine]

The fundamental reason I can't support or forgive moves like this is that they're the nuclear option to fix a problem that doesn't exist - piracy isn't on a one to one basis with "lost sales", and you would think somebody at a publishing company would have caught on to that by this point. The points you make about smaller budget and indie titles not needing this sort of DRM are spot on, but that's because nothing needs this sort of DRM.

The thing about human nature is you can't make people honest via better locks and surveillance systems - you might discourage would be thieves from actually going through with it, but there's a difference between stopping them from swiping your stuff and turning them into model customers. In the conventional retail market, reasonable security measures make sense, because shrinkage reduces available inventory and therefore directly impacts the bottom line.

Software piracy though is making a perfect digital copy of a set of data - there are no physical units being removed, and thus the act of copying itself does not directly imply a loss has been occurred. In the meatspace environ, when you stop a thief from taking your inventory, you benefit because that's money you didn't just lose; in the digital environ, you stopped a would be pirate, and you have exactly as much money as you would have had if you hadn't - there's not even a tenuous basis to suggest that thwarting a pirate, somebody who was willing to stiff you completely, suddenly makes them turn around and purchase the product they were just trying to take without paying.

So it doesn't save you any money, because selling 100 units with 0 copies pirated and selling 100 units with 1,000,000 copies pirated both net you the same revenue stream, and the security measures you're putting in place are the virtual equivalent to mandatory strip searches and polygraph tests at the entrance of a grocery store. And of course designing and maintaining this DRM system (or hiring a 3rd party to do it for you ala SecuROM) itself costs money, so publishers are paying for the privelege of alienating the only customers that matter (their customers) while chasing the vain hope that these unnecessary hoops will effect a miraculous transformation and change scoundrels into saints.

This is why DRM is stupid and offensive: Piracy is irrelevant. The solution to video game piracy is to ignore it, and put the time, money, and effort you waste right now futilely trying to alter human nature to better use. Just think - if publishers weren't spending so much money on DRM, they could probably cut prices across the board and actually increase sales! Or spend it on better quality control, marketing, basically anything that might help to make that key segment of the population, the part that actually wants to pay for stuff, decide to spend their money on your stuff.

I really don't expect any of them to do that though, because that would make far too much sense.

The thing is I am going to have to have to disagree with you that Piracy is irrelevant because it so clearly is extremely relevant to the overall health of PC gaming.

And just because the statement "every pirated copy is a lost sale" is false, that does NOT mean the inverse (no pirated copies caused lost sales) is somehow true.

There are more gaming PCs out there than total number of Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2 consoles combined yet PC game sales have been falling at a faster rate than online wholesale and digital distribution can account for. PC game sales make up a smaller revenue than consoles (even adjusting for hardware, licensing and price differences) which means developers can easily release a game for PS3 or 360 and make a profit yet will find it an incredible struggle with a PC-only release (especially with a AAA, high budget $20+ million game).

I think it is undeniable that a significant number of sales ARE lost to piracy, there is no way the presence of free copies of a product cannot be a negative factor and the rise of mass bit-torrent of these expensive games and previous PC-only developers move into console as well shows that the affect is non trivial. Things have changed from the old days of piracy of trading data on a use-net, now anyone is a google search away from a 5-finger discount.

Don't cling to the logical fallacy that because the publishers resort to hyperbole (every pirate is a lost sale) that the piracy issue itself can be dismissed. Games are not selling as well on PC as they should.

The thing is the publishers HAVE to do something about Piracy! They can't just ignore it and hope the problem will resolve itself, it won't, it's simple market forces.

But one thing the publishers have to realise is piracy will ALWAYS exist! Their games will ALWAYS get cracked and they WILL find their way online and readily available to anybody who searches for them. Publishers of PC games have to look to other successful business models on PC which succeed by offering more than just and infinitely copyable product. They need to slow, inconvenience and sabotage the cracking process as much as possible and at the same time ensure that the DRM means the legitimate version will ALWAYS be the better quality for the consumer and a better environment for the developer.

Carrot and stick; stick for those who pirate (buggy crack, lack online support features), carrot for those who buy legit.

You say DRM is better spent on anything else to do with the game design, but for a Product that retails at $45-£30 that is not something that cannot just be released into the wild, the very fact that they are so expensive makes them so risky to piracy.

Never mind about the philosophical debate of "is piracy the same as theft?" the point is if your game is replicating uncontrollably online, how can you possibly sell your product to someone who already owns the pirated version? they just won't be interested. It they download a pirated copy, they clearly are interested in the game, a significant proportion of those would likely have bought the game (eventually, maybe after enough price cuts) if no pirated copy had been available.

"the security measures you're putting in place are the virtual equivalent to mandatory strip searches and polygraph tests at the entrance of a grocery store"

You don't seem to understand this DRM that's in use here, it is not a root-kit, it does not have administrator privileges to snoop around your Hard drive to "strip search" you. using the qualification "virtually" does not give you licence to hyperbole. It works by the game calling the authentication server for VITAL GAME DATA after proving it is a legitimate copy it then gets the vital game data in order for the game to continue to play.

The better analogy is every time you try to buy good in an airport shop you have to display your passport and ticket to get service. Many other online connected devices work exactly the same way from mobile phones to OS customer support. Extending the airport analogy I'd say that the low-cost budget/re-release/indie games would be the grocery store (low financial risk) where this measure is NOT planned to be used while the big high graphics AAA titles are the airport security (high financial risk).

I don't think anyone is trying to "turn scoundrels into saints", I hate the term pirate because it is so loaded, people who pirate PC games are just like all of us, they are looking for the best deal and for the longest time the best deal has been just to pirate games because it was easy, cheap, and you go the whole game.

But I would like to leave you with this thought:

The future of PC gaming is in achieving the aim of inexorably tying DRM and VALUABLE services together in a game, so that even if a game can be cracked (to be copied/downloaded endlessly) it won't be the best deal, as even if free they will be missing out on so much content that is not just on the install file, but on the developers' servers.

And the best thing about this is the non-pirating customer still wins as I see such great new potential in PC gaming when online-connected services and integration is implemented, bringing all the advantages that multiplayer can bring beyond the obvious multiplayer interaction.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Spoiler: Further snippety.

The fundamental reason I can't support or forgive moves like this is that they're the nuclear option to fix a problem that doesn't exist - piracy isn't on a one to one basis with "lost sales", and you would think somebody at a publishing company would have caught on to that by this point. The points you make about smaller budget and indie titles not needing this sort of DRM are spot on, but that's because nothing needs this sort of DRM.

The thing about human nature is you can't make people honest via better locks and surveillance systems - you might discourage would be thieves from actually going through with it, but there's a difference between stopping them from swiping your stuff and turning them into model customers. In the conventional retail market, reasonable security measures make sense, because shrinkage reduces available inventory and therefore directly impacts the bottom line.

Software piracy though is making a perfect digital copy of a set of data - there are no physical units being removed, and thus the act of copying itself does not directly imply a loss has been occurred. In the meatspace environ, when you stop a thief from taking your inventory, you benefit because that's money you didn't just lose; in the digital environ, you stopped a would be pirate, and you have exactly as much money as you would have had if you hadn't - there's not even a tenuous basis to suggest that thwarting a pirate, somebody who was willing to stiff you completely, suddenly makes them turn around and purchase the product they were just trying to take without paying.

So it doesn't save you any money, because selling 100 units with 0 copies pirated and selling 100 units with 1,000,000 copies pirated both net you the same revenue stream, and the security measures you're putting in place are the virtual equivalent to mandatory strip searches and polygraph tests at the entrance of a grocery store. And of course designing and maintaining this DRM system (or hiring a 3rd party to do it for you ala SecuROM) itself costs money, so publishers are paying for the privelege of alienating the only customers that matter (their customers) while chasing the vain hope that these unnecessary hoops will effect a miraculous transformation and change scoundrels into saints.

This is why DRM is stupid and offensive: Piracy is irrelevant. The solution to video game piracy is to ignore it, and put the time, money, and effort you waste right now futilely trying to alter human nature to better use. Just think - if publishers weren't spending so much money on DRM, they could probably cut prices across the board and actually increase sales! Or spend it on better quality control, marketing, basically anything that might help to make that key segment of the population, the part that actually wants to pay for stuff, decide to spend their money on your stuff.

I really don't expect any of them to do that though, because that would make far too much sense.

The thing is I am going to have to have to disagree with you that Piracy is irrelevant because it so clearly is extremely relevant to the overall health of PC gaming.

And just because the statement "every pirated copy is a lost sale" is false, that does NOT mean the inverse (no pirated copies caused lost sales) is somehow true.

There are more gaming PCs out there than total number of Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2 consoles combined yet PC game sales have been falling at a faster rate than online wholesale and digital distribution can account for. PC game sales make up a smaller revenue than consoles (even adjusting for hardware, licensing and price differences) which means developers can easily release a game for PS3 or 360 and make a profit yet will find it an incredible struggle with a PC-only release (especially with a AAA, high budget $20+ million game).

I think it is undeniable that a significant number of sales ARE lost to piracy, there is no way the presence of free copies of a product cannot be a negative factor and the rise of mass bit-torrent of these expensive games and previous PC-only developers move into console as well shows that the affect is non trivial. Things have changed from the old days of piracy of trading data on a use-net, now anyone is a google search away from a 5-finger discount.

Don't cling to the logical fallacy that because the publishers resort to hyperbole (every pirate is a lost sale) that the piracy issue itself can be dismissed. Games are not selling as well on PC as they should.

The thing is the publishers HAVE to do something about Piracy! They can't just ignore it and hope the problem will resolve itself, it won't, it's simple market forces.

But one thing the publishers have to realise is piracy will ALWAYS exist! Their games will ALWAYS get cracked and they WILL find their way online and readily available to anybody who searches for them. Publishers of PC games have to look to other successful business models on PC which succeed by offering more than just and infinitely copyable product. They need to slow, inconvenience and sabotage the cracking process as much as possible and at the same time ensure that the DRM means the legitimate version will ALWAYS be the better quality for the consumer and a better environment for the developer.

Carrot and stick; stick for those who pirate (buggy crack, lack online support features), carrot for those who buy legit.

You say DRM is better spent on anything else to do with the game design, but for a Product that retails at $45-£30 that is not something that cannot just be released into the wild, the very fact that they are so expensive makes them so risky to piracy.

Never mind about the philosophical debate of "is piracy the same as theft?" the point is if your game is replicating uncontrollably online, how can you possibly sell your product to someone who already owns the pirated version? they just won't be interested. It they download a pirated copy, they clearly are interested in the game, a significant proportion of those would likely have bought the game (eventually, maybe after enough price cuts) if no pirated copy had been available.

"the security measures you're putting in place are the virtual equivalent to mandatory strip searches and polygraph tests at the entrance of a grocery store"

You don't seem to understand this DRM that's in use here, it is not a root-kit, it does not have administrator privileges to snoop around your Hard drive to "strip search" you. using the qualification "virtually" does not give you licence to hyperbole. It works by the game calling the authentication server for VITAL GAME DATA after proving it is a legitimate copy it then gets the vital game data in order for the game to continue to play.

The better analogy is every time you try to buy good in an airport shop you have to display your passport and ticket to get service. Many other online connected devices work exactly the same way from mobile phones to OS customer support. Extending the airport analogy I'd say that the low-cost budget/re-release/indie games would be the grocery store (low financial risk) where this measure is NOT planned to be used while the big high graphics AAA titles are the airport security (high financial risk).

I don't think anyone is trying to "turn scoundrels into saints", I hate the term pirate because it is so loaded, people who pirate PC games are just like all of us, they are looking for the best deal and for the longest time the best deal has been just to pirate games because it was easy, cheap, and you go the whole game.

But I would like to leave you with this thought:

The future of PC gaming is in achieving the aim of inexorably tying DRM and VALUABLE services together in a game, so that even if a game can be cracked (to be copied/downloaded endlessly) it won't be the best deal, as even if free they will be missing out on so much content that is not just on the install file, but on the developers' servers.

And the best thing about this is the non-pirating customer still wins as I see such great new potential in PC gaming when online-connected services and integration is implemented, bringing all the advantages that multiplayer can bring beyond the obvious multiplayer interaction.

It's pretty clear we have diametric viewpoints on this issue, so I'll just focus on a few points and call it a day:

• 1. PC games are not selling as well as they should. This statement is impossible to prove, because the existence of software piracy expands the market for PC games to include non-customers. While I hardly claim the inverse of the "every copy pirated is a sale lost!", ie, no copies pirated would have represented sales lost, the thing about it is I'm pretty sure you would have lost those sales anyways. If you steal something, you are a thief, are you not? Well if people who might have been inclined to buy a product decide to steal it because fully-functional pirated copies are available for free, that doesn't make them "savvy consumers", it makes them thieves.
  
  Piracy is a damn near omnipresent factor on the platform - release a game without DRM, it will be pirated. Release a game with DRM, it will be pirated. Maybe the game without any DRM gets pirated more - does that actually mean it would have done better if it had DRM? Nobody knows! But probably not, given we've established that DRM doesn't stop pirates, as the pirated copies invariably strip that out.
  
  All that we know for certain is that pirates are people who did not want to pay for the game, but did want to play it. It's entirely debatable how large a segment of those thieving douchebags would have shelled out for something if they couldn't just torrent it instead, but I'm willing to bet it's not going to be enough to offset the loss of customers intrusive DRM causes.
  
  2. Hyperbole on my part in describing how annoying DRM is. This is true, I was using hyperbole, but your rebuttal completely misses the point. Always-on DRM is not simply a quick verification to ensure you are an authorized user and away you go, it's a burly security guard following you around constantly while you shop and periodically warning you "better not steal anything". It's technology that presumes the paying customers might suddenly "turn into pirates" at the drop of a hat.
  
  The system Ubisoft designed in particular places unnecessary constraints on the player, requiring an active internet connection at all times for a game that has no multiplayer. It precludes entire segments of the would-be consumer base (people with metered internet, spotty connections, people wanting to play the game on mobile computers without full-time dedicated internet connections), and provides no benefit worth the hassle it generated. But the worst part is that it ties the game's core functionality to the non-existent promise that the game servers will A) Never go down (we've already seen that's a pipedream) and B) Never get turned off. If I want to install and play an older title that used a disc check as it's DRM, I can bloody well install and play that older title. If this becomes ubiquitous you can kiss that idea goodbye, as the cost of 100% uptime forever is infinity dollars - the servers are going to be shut off and the "license to use" we have now (since we don't 'own' what we buy) will be relegated to "license to rent" (for an indeterminate period of time we don't know up front).

See, as much as piracy is bandied about I don't really think that's the driving force behind ideas like this, so much as the scapegoat they blame because it's way better PR than telling the truth - they are instituting expiration dates for products that ordinarily would not have them. Imagine if books you bought spontaneously burst into flame after X amount of years, so you'd have to upgrade to the new improved book 2.0 if you wanted to read it years later. Publishers would love that, because everyone would have to keep buying new copies of books they already bought once (or other newer books), but customers would cry bloody murder. Well tethering single-player titles like Assassin's Creed 2 to the operation of a DRM server to "fight pirates" has already done that. This is why I'm never ever going to support similar DRM, as it grossly erodes any lingering perception of ownership one has over the the software one has paid for.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I'd really like to play the game...

And that's where the filthy scum crackers come to your rescue.

There's already a crack out for this game and will probably be a few more over the next week or two so various cracking groups can have a pissing contest over who's crack is the best.