Ubisoft Puts PC Piracy Rate at 93-95%

[Kajin]

How'd they come to this figure? I'd have a hard time believing that piracy rates are as high as 30-35%. 95% seems like an incredible ass pull of a guestimate to me.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Still playing fickle with your market Ubisoft?

"We don't want to support PC! (*mutters* Because it isn't a console)" (2009)
"We sunk a bunch of scratch into making bullshit DRM for our PC games! Nobody has beaten it!" (2010)
"We're sorry to report that mayyyybe our DRM was beaten..." (2011)
"We don't want to support PC because of the high piracy rate!" (2012)

Yeah, those PC gamers. Those greedy fucksticks. Always piratin' and lootin'.
Obviously if it isn't F2P, nobody can turn a profit on PC anymore so why bother, right?

*rolls eyes*

 

[viranimus]

Relax guys... This is completely accurate. 95% of ubisoft products with their asinine DRM are pirated. Every other company as well as the few Ubi products released without are instantly knocked back to the accurate amount of 8% or less.


Really, the only reason people pirate ubisoft products nowadays is out of spite.

 

[synobal]

You know what screw you ubisoft, I've got a copy of The Prince of Persia two thrones, that I bought after enjoying the first two (yes even the angsty one) and after beating it once I uninstalled it, you want to know why? It uses a terrible DRM scheme called Starforce that caused system instability in my freaking computer and half the time it still wouldn't let me play my game!

Since then I've bought exactly 0 of your games and I've pirated exactly 0, your lack of sales is your own damn fault.

 

[legendp]

95%, yeah right, What does that mean that if they sell 250,000 copies than 5million people are pirating there games, Ubisoft you are not that popular. the released data for crysis 2 wasn't even that high (and I'd bet that a few of the people did that to test there systems), on top of the fact that many people who already own ubisoft games pirate them just so they don't have to deal with DRM

 

[Ishigami]

Sales figures say they would need both FY2011 and FY2012 (pre-orders in 2011) almost entirely, and at a 35? average pricing of a AC:R copy, to come to a number of 7.5 million units. It seems like they're constantly pulling numbers out of their collective asses.

I beg your pardon?
I used the numbers from VGChartz. While I doubt that they provide pin point accuracy, I think they are accurate enough to make my point that using cross platform numbers is wrong when he talks about the PC only.

And, even if you take out the console market, you end up with a ridiculous number.

I was not arguing that he could be right. In fact I said he is talking rubbish a page earlier. However trying to prove that he is full of shit with a naïve fallacy as outrages as some people here made is not very convincing.

Lets get something at least bit more convincing: Pirate charts: http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/

In 2011 the most pirated PC game was apparently Crysis 2 with ~3.9M downloads.

Believing his 93% pirate rate using Assassin's Creed Revelations PC figures would mean that AC:R beat the most pirated game of 2011 by roughly 1,3M downloads which is an increase of one third. That is, as you already said, rather unlikely.
However Crysis 2 sold according to VGChartz about 600k units. Considering this leads me to believe that while this guy is obviously exaggerating the pirating rate on the PC it still is staggering high.

 

[CarlMin]

I really hope they aren't correct about this percentage. Maybe their new Steam-like online store Uplay can provide a suitable DRM-shield and a convenient distribution method for developers and gamers alike.

This should lower piracy.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

How dense can their management be? This is insanity!

I told you, bro.
IT KEEPS HAPPENING
OP: I'm not even surprised anymore.

 

[kurokenshi]

So we're back to this again Ubisoft.

I got an idea you might want to try! Here it goes...

Step 1. Stop calling me a pirate.

Step 2. Drop the stupid-ass DRM.

Step 3. Release your PC Games on the same day as the console versions.

I know it's crazy. Try treating us with some respect.

 

[The Lunatic]

Christ, it's an insanely ridiculous statistic that seems to be pulled from some manager's arse, but, I hope it's true for how much of a douche these people are.

 

[Dirzzit]

Skyrim by Razor1911 40,000 downloads.

That aint even 20 percent of the market.

 

[RC1138]

And this is why I have refused to buy UBIsoft games for the past two years. The attitude towards PC gamers by them is atrocious. And I never pirate, anything, much less their cruddy games. I'm not gona feed their egos by doing that.

 

[Rariow]

So, the most pirated title of 2011 was Crysis 2. According to TorrentFreak, (I'm getting this info from an article on this very website) 3,920,000 copies were torrented. I'll assume torrents make up 75% of the total pirated copies, bringing it up to about 5,230,000 copies total. I'm having trouble finding stats about the number of copies sold, but the number that seems to be popping up most often is 3 million (Someone correct me if I'm wrong).

5,230,000 + 3,000,000= 8,230,000. Some quick calculation, and it brings us to the conclusion that of the most pirated game of 2011, about 63% of copies were pirated. But if the MOST PIRATED GAME of 2011 only had 63% (4 out of 10 legally bought, as opposed to, y'know 1 out of 20), somehow I doubt the figures Guillemot was throwing around were very accurate.

Somewhat offtopic: Wow, I certainly didn't expect that figure to be that high. I thought 30% for the most pirated game, definitely not over 50%. That is REALLY worrying.

 

[SoulSalmon]

Skyrim by Razor1911 40,000 downloads.

That aint even 20 percent of the market.

And that's not even taking into account people (like myself and at least 10 other people I know) who HAD to pirate it for a period of time cos some of the patches made parts unplayable, or because it automatically patched and they needed to go back a version to fiddle with mods so they didn't lose a bunch of stuff.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

So, according to Ubisoft The Witcher was pirated 72 million times. Seem Legit.

 

[Darren716]

I think that people who work at Ubiisoft should stop making statements about anything because everytime they do there is a 93-95% that the statement will make them look like a complete dumbass.

 

[WeAreJimbo]

Really? 19 out of every 20 PC gamers are pirates? Only if DRM makes the games unplayable, perhaps....

I never buy Ubi games on PC due to the DRM. However, it is my understanding (from reading blogs and posts on the Interwebs) that a large number of people who actually buy the game from Ubi (i.e. NOT pirates) are being counted a pirates because they also download and use a crack to make the game playable offline.

 

[Jfswift]

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