Ubisoft Challenges Gamers With DRM-Free Prince Of Persia

[SavingPrincess]

What you said

... and what you said

It's a self-defeating argument.

Anton: If I could instantly duplicate anything in my house without cost, you are welcome to it. We're not talking about food, or my couch, we're talking about completely reproducible product here. The reasons the arguments of old do not work is that this has never been possible before now.

Harhol: We live in a class-based society with the off hand chance that you can move between classes if you're lucky. That being said, the internet is the great leveling-mechanism. Society will change in a big way over the years to come, whether or not it will be a good thing remains to be seen.

To both: Economic, social and capitalistic models will change, this is merely shades of things to come. Little will come in the way of general consensus and most will be fought for, as it has always been. All I can say is be thankful these battles are being waged with things like torrent sites and DRM and not with rifles and tanks as they have been in the past. The problem with this intellectual argument is that you are both right. Neither side can exist without a semblance of truth, otherwise it would already be decided. The central problem with our species is that our brains cannot accept to directly opposing ideas to be both true... we invented logic and we accept that a paradox cannot exist, even when it does on a daily basis.

Good show though, it's definitely nice to see these things thought out and spoken of intelligently...

-SP

 

[The Random One]

Yeah, obviously it will be pirated, but I hope it'll be less pirated than Assassin's Creed II. This should send out a warning that excessive DRM is counter-constructive. That's not too crazy. I remember the guys behind World of Goo said the Wii version, which has the normal console anti-piracy stuff, was pirated almost two weeks before the completely DRM free PC version.

At least, I salute them for actually putting their money where their mouth is, or rather, our mouth.

Then again, how exactly do they hope to measure this? How do they know how many pirated copies exist? I don't think The Pirate Bay would be willing to share their data (or, given how they store it, even have the date to begin with).

 

[BishopOfBattle]

I noticed several of you are commenting as though this is "about" to happen, but note this article is for the already released PoP and dated 2008. I missed this article the first time around though, and it seems relevent in being brought back up.

I did a short Google search, but was unable to find any information as a follow up to this article either showing that gamers did indead buy more than they pirated or (as I suspect) it was heavily pirated anyway. If nothing else, Ubisoft's recent DRM measures with AC2 likely indicate the latter. It sucks, but experiments like this really only justify their stance.

 

[Godhead]

I'm a pc gamer and i've never pirated. It's just the retards. And it's really easy to pirate on PC

 

[chronobreak]

So, they didn't think it would sell good, so they are gonna dare us to buy it, and then if it gets pirated, it somehow gets thrown back in the face of everyone, including the people who don't pirate it? Pirates don't care about DRM, it only hurts people with legit copies of the games. I'm not spending fifty dollars on a game I don't want to prove anything to Ubisoft. Do they even think the majority of people who pirate these games follow developer news, or do you think they just care about when it comes out so they can get it. Not to mention the people who are just going to pirate all of Ubi's titles after what they've done with AC2.

The parameters they are going to use to measure potential success of this experiment are not sufficient to make a informed judgement on the end result.

EDIT: Well, I didn't know how old this was. I hate when people necro articles in the News Room, it has been happening a lot lately.

 

[Tarrou]

It's not enough to simply buy this game if you want to REALLY take their challenge. You also have to pirate AC2. Do that, and the gauntlet can be considered redeemed.

 

[brunothepig]

The thing they don't seem to realise is that DRM only makes it difficult for the pirate to upload. Downloading the game can be as simple as torrenting a zipped folder and extracting it. Or, occasionally, it might be as complicated as running an installer you downloaded, then replacing the exe with a crack. Although, people do seem to pirate games with DRM more, (see Spore lol) probably to avoid it, though it could also be to get back at the bastard behind making you buy a $60 coaster. But, hopefully this won't be pirated so much. I think a lot of people will buy it, everyone loves the SoT trilogy.... Right? I do. But I don't have a PS3...

 

[Katana314]

Tarrou, don't be an idiot. Show you're genuinely uninterested by not getting AC2 either way.

But still, I really would have no words for them if this game still gets pirated. They could try to do what they can to be sure people KNOW the DRM has been removed, like put a sticker on the boxed set, and put out a few advertisements, I'm just still worried a lot of pirates won't ever know.

Either way, now that a ballsy move has been played and the stakes are high, there's only one fitting song to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew1Nr5rHQn0

 

[wadark]

I agree with Reggie.

People don't pirate games because of some damn idealistic crap, standing up to the man, and all the BS. They do it because they're greedy and cheap, and they like to have a flimsy justification for breaking copyright law.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the more stringent DRM procedures, a lot of them give the impression of going at the problem like a caveman with a club. We'll see how this plays out, but it'll more than likely just end up proving that the industry was right all along, and honest gamers everywhere will suffer the consequences of our less-honest kin.

 

[ObsessiveSketch]

it really is a shame it's a game i'm not interested in, otherwise i would happily go out and buy it right now.

this is one of the points I've seen in this thread that really interests me. I wonder if anybody's going to consider that this is more a marketing scheme than an offer of compromise.

It's my own opinion, but perhaps they should've tried this with a more highly-anticipated game that was predicted to sell very well, in order to record more data. While there is no difference between pirating a good game and pirating a mediocre game, I can see why the second option would be more appealing: why pay for a game you only somewhat enjoy?

This seems to be more of a "GO BUY PoP" ploy than a step in the right direction.

 

[Rack]

it really is a shame it's a game i'm not interested in, otherwise i would happily go out and buy it right now.

this is one of the points I've seen in this thread that really interests me. I wonder if anybody's going to consider that this is more a marketing scheme than an offer of compromise.

It's my own opinion, but perhaps they should've tried this with a more highly-anticipated game that was predicted to sell very well, in order to record more data. While there is no difference between pirating a good game and pirating a mediocre game, I can see why the second option would be more appealing: why pay for a game you only somewhat enjoy?

This seems to be more of a "GO BUY PoP" ploy than a step in the right direction.

Sadly this is exactly right, if they'd tried this with Assassins Creed II I'd most certainly have bought a copy that I otherwise haven't. But PoP? Really? If you've heard of DRM surely you'll have heard how far the series has gone downhill.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I already bought it via Steam a long time ago. Eff you EA/Ubi, If I want a game I'll buy it; if I'm not sure, I'm going to try it out; if I tried it out and didn't buy it, that doesn't mean I would have bought it in the first place.

Umm....this thread is from 2008.

So...of course you bought it a long time ago.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

This is a scam:

It will work this way, they will release the game without DRM then they will point to some bullshit numbers as reasons why their games will have worse then DRM in the future. The lack of DRM won't stop breaches of licences (piracy) but they will cry to the sky and any media ear that might be listening that it has had an effect... an negative one. They will belay that the rate of revenue loss is tied to the absence of DRM and claim they need to return to anti-piracy ways. That is what they had in mind, given how many people rightfully claim that DRM is hurting the paying client base they need some excuse to keep using it. Why not some bullshit numbers after such a 'test' that shows the lack of DRM didn't magically improve their revenue numbers?

Where in reality... there is no real difference with or without DRM. After all it is what the crackers are removing! All you have done is given them six or so hours of their life they won't spend looking over your shitty anti-copy code and laughing at all the exploits they find. Without that invitation these crackers will look elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that future breaches of licence will suddenly stop.

 

[Aesthetical Quietus]

At least it's a move in the right direction. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What you need to do is offer the better product to the customer. If you are offering a DRM-ridden game that breaks half the time because of said DRM for $120.00 [NZD, price of a new game], compared to a game that works perfectly for nothing then the only thing making people buy your version is because of their morals.
[Or putting it another way, as a rough comparision:
Say your favourite hamburger joint just created a new burger and it's retailing for $14.00 [USD] a hamburger. Then suddenly another hamburger joint starts selling the same burger, but it's not under the same franchise, for $3.00 [USD], then which are you going to go to? The one who invented it, but are charging extradinary prices for no benefit, or the one who stole the idea, but have it dirt cheap]?
If you can offer to the customer a good reason to buy your game, then they will do as such. If you continue to charge them a moon for product that only works once in a blue moon, compared to a product that works perfectly for free then quite simply they won't buy it. Or will only do it so they don't feel guilty about it.
Case in point:
My friend buys DVD/Games's, but then pirates them so he can actually use the media as he wants to be able to use them. When you have stuff like this happening, you know something is wrong. It's only a matter of time before he stops seeing the point in actually buying the product first.

Anyways, skipping past the wall of text and my rant and rumble and back onto topic. I'm tempted to buy this game, just to try and curb the rampant DRM, but eh.... PoP has never interested me.

 

[savandicus]

I for one will definately be buying this game, not because it has no DRM (I've never pirated a game in my life) but because i LOVE the prince of persia games. I've played every single one and found them all extremely enjoyable, who doesnt love running around giving gravity the rude gestures as you ignore it.

 

[wonkify]

Aaaand I finally also see the date while re-reading some of the references. Why are people sending out article zombies? Is there this little news?