Ubisoft: DRM is Ineffective Against Piracy

[Under_your_bed]

Let me be poster #5800000000000000000000000000000000000000 to also say: no shit, Ubisuck. How the hell did you not figure this out before your miserable DRM bullshit?

On a more positive note, if they did actually remove udontplay, I might start buying Ubisoft games again.

 

[K12]

Who thinks this is going to be a precursor to Ubisoft announcing something like:

"In order to create a simple and easy service for our customers, all our games are now available exclusively on Uplay!"

 

[Atmos Duality]

So, Ubisoft has finally realized the fucking obvious at last.
I'm sure it took years of collecting data to figure this out.

Of course, there is a drawback to this "revelation" of theirs: going forward, eventually every game is going to be online-centric (MMOs and the like) because that's how you "defeat piracy".

And with online emphasis comes, you guessed it, implicit always-online DRM.
Better known as "The Blizzard Method".

If online multiplayer is all you want, great. It'll be heaven on earth.
But if you're just looking for something to chew through between workloads and the like without having to deal with the hassle of flaky internet and online assholes, well, sucks to be you chum.

 

[MCerberus]

So Ubisoft,

You keep holding the one game I want to see from you for ransom, then pulling back on promises when you're payed.

Your track record on the PC ranges from "another pointless layer on top" on the good end to "haha, you shouldn't have put in a new component, now you're screwed".

You're taken aback by pushback against lazy recycling and your concept of a default person being plopped straight into all your games, your games that are bleeding together into a generic haze. And you still don't get why.

And now you're going "Of course DRM doesn't work, but we're keeping it in anyway to support things like the least-liked part of a game we hyped that didn't deliver"

Oh speaking of that, there's a lot of junk to go through about that particular disappointment. Like the part where you lied about lying about lying about the graphics situation. Or the fact that there's very little game in the game. Or the, and this is seriously the vibe you're giving off, odd feeling that your writing staff has never been around a mother, or even woman before in their lives.


Fuck off,
The Gaming Community

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I guess even the thickest executive staff of a company must admit defeat after years and years of facts proving the opposite position pile up in their office.

 

[Oskuro]

It's been said before, but hey, I want to jump in:

This is just a rebranding exercise, moving away from the negative connotations of the word "DRM" and trying to sell us Uplay and similar schemes as "services".

Same thing about Origin or Steam, mind you.

Sad thing is, before, I might have been tempted to pirate a game to see if it was worth buying, or just until I could afford it. Now I'm not even tempted. All this crap just makes me lose interest in those games completely, and that is a lost sale.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Ubisoft are so late to the party, that most of the booze has already been drunk and all the cool people have already paired off and gone home.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I want to say "finally" and mutter about how they seem to have worked out the truth the rest of us knew all along, but I have this dreadful fear that this is going to manifest itself in stupid ways, like having to connect to Ubisoft servers or Uplay or whatever to download missions from the single player campaign in addition to having to connect for the MP aspects and Ubisoft's legendary mountains of pre-order and platform-specific bonuses that should ALL be in every game already. All they're saying here is that they're against the current format of the DRM they're using, and that's something they've said before.

 

[JET1971]

I havnt bought an Ubi game since FarCry 2 and it's limited number of install BS and it wouldn't let me revoke an install when I wanted to, consider an old install to be new because I did a motherboard and processor upgrade, and lost an install due to a hard drive failure. Oddly was out of installs and only actually used 2 of them. Since then as long as the ubi game has DRM I refuse to buy it and even play it. So not only does DRM not prevent piracy but it can and will turn potential customers away and even create piracy by forcing paying customers to pirate it just to play it... FC3 *cough* *cough*.

I highly doubt Ubi has realized that DRM hurts them more than it helps, I see this as a PR campaign to get players to stop talking about other Ubi BS that's giving them just as much of a bad reputation. "Stop talking about playable female characeters... Look over here, we think DRM doesn't help so talk about that instead."

 

[Strazdas]

So they are going to dump Uplay? of course they dont. they have the worst DRM out there (now that GFWL is dead) and dare to spout that. Oh and it keeps giving.

Early says that key to stopping piracy is to offer online services (such as multiplayer) that are simply unavailable for pirates to access.

What services would those be? because pirates so far has managed toa cess EVERYTHING. they madfe their own MMO servers. they tricked steam into thiking the copy is legit and played on official servers. they even outright stole the Ubisofts online database at one point (couple years back). unless you are going to invent something completely new, this is a false statement to begin with.

None too surprising if I'm not mistaken Watch Dogs was leaked like a week before it was released. I'm not gonna say why bother but they've gone to great lengths to penalize honest customers.

the leaked version was a beta and was quite buggy from what i hear. of course, the day of release there was a correct version on pirate sites and they played it without having to even install Uplay, while legitimate costumers could not play it because Uplay kept crashing on them, so pirates did play it earlier, but not a week earlier. Steam pre-loading is where most early pirated reseleases used to come from, but steam seems ot have fixed that by not allowing you to actually fully download the game.

So, what if I don't like mutiplayer, Ubisoft?

Lies! gamers that dont like multiplayer dont exist! they are all filthy pirates that should be jailed for life!

 

[Rtoip]

While I agree with the no DRM thing, I really don't with the make everything multiplayer.
They are actually doing it already in Unity. With the random people in your SP missions, that I'm sure are "integral for the experience" and the game cannot be played without it because "it was designed with that in mind" or some bullshit.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

"Crap, people are really pissed about that 'female characters are too much work' thing. How are we going to smooth this one over?"

"Well, we could always cave and admit that DRM doesn't actually do anything. That's always a hot topic, right?"

 

[Zipa]

While I agree with the no DRM thing, I really don't with the make everything multiplayer.
They are actually doing it already in Unity. With the random people in your SP missions, that I'm sure are "integral for the experience" and the game cannot be played without it because "it was designed with that in mind" or some bullshit.

Its not just Ubi doing this either, Dark Souls II invasions took it to the next level, staying hollow doesn't opt you out unlike the first game.

 

[Nazulu]

How the hell in this advanced age of communication can they still be so fucking slow!? Maybe they're just fuckin' with us, but then again, Microsoft proved big publishers can be real retards.

I haven't bought any of their games in a long time because of all the negative reviews, mostly about Uplay. I would like to try some you know. It's never going to happen, isn't it?

 

[BeerTent]

I really hope more people realize why UBI had stated this.

Think this through for a few moments, UBI has been hit with a lot of internet backlash for a while. The FarCry racism deal, the WatchDogs graphics deal, along with it;s mod witch is a PR Shitstorm. And then you have Unity as well.

Pretty much every thing they've done recently has drawn Ire. So, what do they do? Divert attention away from it.

"Well, it's not so bad now, they're considering removing their DRM."

They just said it doesn't work. We need to continue pressing the issues of Diversity in AAA as well as the lies on graphics. We need to show them that we're not stupid [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy-CBs0XNlM].

 

[Something Amyss]

Ubisoft has certainly come a long way from those Assassin's Creed II days...

Hell, it was just bit under two years ago they were making the 90% piracy claims and the like. They've come a long way just in that time period.

Whether or not they live up to it, though, I guess we'll see.

 

[FalloutJack]

Can't source you on this, but I remember reading research a while ago that showed having a Demo for your game actually DECREASED overall sales, due to people trying the game, disliking it, and not buying it.

Well, if your was worth buying. then your demo would show that. I had a few demo discs back in the day, stuff to entice me to play the games in question. Some of them worked, others did not. If you can't live with the results of your work, you shouldn't even publish.

 

[Something Amyss]

I really hope more people realize why UBI had stated this.

Think this through for a few moments, UBI has been hit with a lot of internet backlash for a while. The FarCry racism deal, the WatchDogs graphics deal, along with it;s mod witch is a PR Shitstorm. And then you have Unity as well.

Pretty much every thing they've done recently has drawn Ire. So, what do they do? Divert attention away from it.

"Well, it's not so bad now, they're considering removing their DRM."

They just said it doesn't work. We need to continue pressing the issues of Diversity in AAA as well as the lies on graphics. We need to show them that we're not stupid [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy-CBs0XNlM].

I honestly don't see why we can't think this is a good thing and simultaneously think they're full of shit for bullshots at wimmzinz and black peoples being two hard four dem.

Granted, talk and action are different, and I'll be waiting to see if they work on this, but I can be hopeful for that and still chastise them for doing other stupid things.

 

[Something Amyss]

Can't source you on this, but I remember reading research a while ago that showed having a Demo for your game actually DECREASED overall sales, due to people trying the game, disliking it, and not buying it.

If that's true as a general trend (And I'd personally bet it is), what does that say about us as consumer?

 

[paketep]

No shit, Sherlock.

However, DRM is VERY effective against sales. I haven't bought a single Ubi title since they started requiring Uplay.