Ubisoft Puts PC Piracy Rate at 93-95%

[McMullen]

When I was in college, I knew quite a few gamers. Perhaps one in twenty obtained their games through piracy. In my experience, this guy has his statistics backward.

I would suggest that they run an experiment before going F2P: Remove their copy protection for a bit and see if things improve.

 

[gigastar]

It seems to me that this conversation is pointless without context. 93-95% of what? Is the guy from Ubisoft suggesting that everyone who pirates a game would purchase it at full retail price if they couldn't pirate it? That's absurd. Even if it is true that 19 illegal copies of a game are used for every legitimate copy, it would be foolish for a game developer to believe that it's actual market is that large. No wonder they are losing money if they are spending giant amounts of cash thinking that their market is 2 or 3 or 4 times larger than it actually is.

On top of that, the 19:1 ratio of illegal to legal copies of a game seems quite high but not implausible. how about some explanation of how they reach that number?

I guess ill have a stab at it.

Firstly the guy is talking about Ubisoft PC games. Which is the first clue to where he gets his numbers.

Second, Ubisoft has the worst reputation for PC DRM systems. So bad that people would rather go out of thier way to get around it rather than deal with it.

Third, Ubisoft basically has no market in its PC games, between the DRM and the fact that most of them are console ports.

So a realatively small number of people wanting Ubisoft games on PC and utterly unreasonable DRM which the pirated versions dont have to deal with. Put the two together and this would lead to a high piracy rate in my mind.

 

[Poster1234]

It's funny, we've had the same thing in France a few years back, when our Home Office stated that illegal entry into our territory was going down, according to numbers which I guess they obtained by counting the illegal immigrants that entered unnoticed.
Seriously, though, where did that number come from ?
My hypothesis is one guy just said : dude, our games are AWESOME, which means everyone plays them, right ? So, obviously, the formula to the amount of pirates goes as such :

Number of living humans - Sold copies = Number of pirates !

Obviously.

 

[matrix3509]

I think I'll just quote good old Jimothy Sterling on this one,

"Guillemot makes this claim despite Ubisoft famously using gross DRM which it claims has never been cracked. So, either he's lying about the piracy, or the company's been lying about the effectiveness of its DRM. Of course, it's more than likely both claims are total bullshit, because Ubisoft has never been able to get its story straight on this stuff."

There you have it folks. Guillemot is a lying piece of shit.

A 95% piracy rate with software that has never been cracked. The mind fucking boggles.

 

[Vivi22]

Once, just once, I want to see a company release the data they use to come to these conclusions. Let us have an inside look at your methodology and data Ubisoft, because I absolutely do not buy into the idea that as many as 95% of PC gamers pirate the games they play. Now if you're saying your games only sell to 5-7% of all PC owners and reversing that to assume the other 93-95% pirate, that I could buy.

 

[Uber Waddles]

A pirated copy does not mean a lost sale. There are so many factors that go into piracy that its not even funny, ESPECIALLY with Ubisoft games.

First off, the DRM. I know PLENTY of people who bought UbiSoft games, to turn around and pirate them so they could install them on different machines or play the offline. The pirated copies are just better. You STILL got your money though.

Second off - Regions. There are plenty of regions that can play games, but the games aren't priced reasonably. Austrailia, I'm looking at you. But plenty of Asian and South American countries either don't get the games, or get them at a hyper inflated value. Thats YOUR fault UbiSoft.

Third - have you ever stopped to consider that some people pirate games to test them out before buying the actual copy if no demo is available? This is the most slippery of arguments, as you can Scumbag Steve this easily, in multiple ways. But I know plenty of people who keep to their standards and either buy the game or trash it.

If these numbers were true UbiSoft, you'd stop making PC games. There is NO way you could justify having a PC branch if you were at a 19:1 loss ratio when it came to piracy - to yourself, your development team, or your investors. If this was true, you'd shift all your resources over to consoles - the PS3 to be more precise, as piracy on the 360 is pretty damn rampant (although with the drawback of no Xbox Live, hence why people never bring the issue up).

This is either a lie, hyper inflated, or simply misunderstood. Piracy is not a lost sale - especially when you consider the DRM of these games. UbiSoft is the only company I can think of that people will actually purchase a game, then pirate it to make it better. If you fixed your business model, or took more indepth statistics than "Lets check how many people downloaded this off of [insert piracy website here]", I figure you'd have more people backing you.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

Yves, Darling ? Can I see your work on that ?
Because while I do believe that the number of games you WANTED to sell is about 20 times the number you actually DID sell, I really don´t think that´s because 19 out of 20 guys pirated it.
I think it´s much more likely that horrible management decisions resulted in sub-par fiscal performance overall.
Maybe you should talk to the CEO about that.

What a coincidence! According to my figures, 93-95% of statistics Yves Guillemot states is entirely made up on the spot!

A wise man said "Statistics are like a ventriloquists puppet. Stick your hand far enough up their arse and you can make them say anything."

 

[Neonsilver]

I always wondered how companies get their pirate statistics.
95% is to high, it isn't believable.

Even if it's true, it doesn't show the real loss in sales.

 

[cidbahamut]

That percentage sounds like a total ass-pull.

 

[Oktanas]

How did they calculated that percentage???

 

[nodlimax]

UbiSoft......

This is the same company that made a statement a while back that they know when one of their games gets cracked because the activation numbers rise quickly in their online systems....

The management in that company consists of morons.

 

[Mothhive]

What the actual fuck? lol I'd love to know how they actually came to that figure. There is no way in hell that figure is anywhere near correct. Did they get the figures the wrong way around (so PC piracy rate is actually 5-7%), or are they literally just pulling numbers out of their arses?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Well, free-to-play is certainly better than the pay-to-DRM they've been offering thus far, although I would say that the nature of the game you're trying to sell is the most important factor in determining whether F2P is the best model for it.

Pretty much this. Ubisoft has been making a lot of stupid decisions lately. Going purely F2P based only on the "fact" that too many PC gamers just pirate the game anyway is completely asinine. Explain to me how, without destroying the game, you can run a game like Assassin's Creed or Splinter Cell on a F2P model?

 

[Metalrocks]

well, at least he is not accusing ever pc gamer to be a pirate. thats at least a plus. otherwise *face palm*. yes, we know ubi, you are still proud with your DRM. we get it.

 

[Bob_F_It]

Well, I can say I don't pay for their games on PC...

because I'm not interested in them anymore. I won't pirate games, but neither will I be forced to jump through hoops to pay money to enjoy something.

You can put the increase in proportion of piracy down to the fact that PC gamers are fed up. And that's if the 93% mark is even real. Seriously, where do they pull such a number from?

 

[Tohuvabohu]

"On PC it's only around five to seven percent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it's only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated."

And how did they arrive to this conclusion, and based on what information hmmm?

Actually nevermind. Fuck off, Ubisoft.

 

[m72_ar]

Wow, after the firestorm of dumbfuck comments from Ubisoft on the I am Alive debacle now they reignite the fire by saying this?

Thank you Ubisoft, I'm warming up to actually break my boycott of all Ubisoft product and buy Asscreed 3, but after this statement even if I play it I'll be joining the 95%. After all that's what all PC Gamers are right Ubi?

 

[Something Amyss]

On top of that, the 19:1 ratio of illegal to legal copies of a game seems quite high but not implausible. how about some explanation of how they reach that number?

While not impossible, I would certainly call it implausible.

If you look at those numbers for Assassin's Creed: Revelations, you would assume that the PC copy would have had to have been downloaded more than both the console versions (which are closed system) were purchased. Almost more than both combined. That's not too far fetched, but let's apply this elsewhere.

Modern Warfare 3 should have seen nearly 30 million instances of piracy, roughly 8 times the figure usually given. Crysis 2 about 11 million, or around four times the estimate. Also, more than 5 times the global sales for Crysis on all platforms. Battlefield 3? nearly 40 million pirated copies, or nearly 12 times. None of these numbers count legitimate sales through DD platforms like Steam which do not release sales figures, so if those piracy statistics are accurate, the pirated numbers should actually be much higher.