welcome Shamus. you connected the dots. enjoy the enlightened information that Ubisoft are a bunch of fucking french morons. this is what happens when console companies try to understand how PC works. ADOYYY? WHAT IS THIS KEYBOARD MA THINGY?
Ubisoft vs. Ubisoft's Customers
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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rarely do PC games get cracked before release. that is almost entirely a console problem. i see nowadays EVERY console game gets cracked into torrents a week beore it comes out. ALL OF THEM.BeerTent said:
Yes well, this is exactly the kind of thing that has me all over the gaming industry, and Ubisoft has been one of the worst, most unrepentant culprits within the gaming industry, and to be honest what they have gotten away with has just made things worse as it's encouraged more and more companies to follow suit.
In Ubisoft's case I look at the horrible "always online DRM" that was started with "Assasin's Creed 2". Given that Ubisoft continued to make money, and has seen two sequels to that game series since then, has ultimatly shown that gamers will complain, but won't actually take their money elsewhere, and unless we do, nothing is accomplished. People are willing to complain about the DRM, activation limits, and other assorted things but won't actually go so far as to go without the newest "Assasin's Creed" game. The industry as a whole has doubtlessly noticed that.
As far as oblivious and incompetant goes, that's not really an issue with just Ubisoft. Right now I've got a serious gripe with EA (which hardly makes me unique) over their handling of "The Old Republic" and "Origin". What they did was send the wrong codes out to Gamestop so when I bought a Collector's Edition they gave me a code for a standard edition. I eventually got an appropriate code, but the EA/Origin system won't let you redeem more than one code for the same product. Tech support told me the only way to deal with this was to start a new account and put my code in there, and then later they would set up some way I could combine my accounts. I basically wound up with two accounts, one for ToR, and one having my other EA games. I more or less forgot about this until recently when I picked up "Kingdoms Of Amalur" and installed it, and found out it was installed under my ToR account, which is seperate from my other EA games, Bioware Social, etc... which of course raises some interesting questions if I decide to play ME3 despite my misgivings and want all the promotions I'm entitled to since my games are now scattered between two accounts... and yes, after months there is STILL no way to condense all my EA registrations into one account.
The point here is that the industry doesn't do the fixes to the infrastructure they promise, or own up to their mistakes, unless somehow forced into it... by say a popular website with a lot of community influance like just happened with Ubisoft, even if they never actually said they screwed up.
The bottom line here is that we need to see laws granting more protection and rights to customers by limiting what hoops a company can make someone jump through, and also clearly stating that if someone pays for something they own it, and have control of it, not the people who manufactured it... which includes the right to re-sell it. That would deep six a lot of this garbage right then and there.
In Ubisoft's case I look at the horrible "always online DRM" that was started with "Assasin's Creed 2". Given that Ubisoft continued to make money, and has seen two sequels to that game series since then, has ultimatly shown that gamers will complain, but won't actually take their money elsewhere, and unless we do, nothing is accomplished. People are willing to complain about the DRM, activation limits, and other assorted things but won't actually go so far as to go without the newest "Assasin's Creed" game. The industry as a whole has doubtlessly noticed that.
As far as oblivious and incompetant goes, that's not really an issue with just Ubisoft. Right now I've got a serious gripe with EA (which hardly makes me unique) over their handling of "The Old Republic" and "Origin". What they did was send the wrong codes out to Gamestop so when I bought a Collector's Edition they gave me a code for a standard edition. I eventually got an appropriate code, but the EA/Origin system won't let you redeem more than one code for the same product. Tech support told me the only way to deal with this was to start a new account and put my code in there, and then later they would set up some way I could combine my accounts. I basically wound up with two accounts, one for ToR, and one having my other EA games. I more or less forgot about this until recently when I picked up "Kingdoms Of Amalur" and installed it, and found out it was installed under my ToR account, which is seperate from my other EA games, Bioware Social, etc... which of course raises some interesting questions if I decide to play ME3 despite my misgivings and want all the promotions I'm entitled to since my games are now scattered between two accounts... and yes, after months there is STILL no way to condense all my EA registrations into one account.
The point here is that the industry doesn't do the fixes to the infrastructure they promise, or own up to their mistakes, unless somehow forced into it... by say a popular website with a lot of community influance like just happened with Ubisoft, even if they never actually said they screwed up.
The bottom line here is that we need to see laws granting more protection and rights to customers by limiting what hoops a company can make someone jump through, and also clearly stating that if someone pays for something they own it, and have control of it, not the people who manufactured it... which includes the right to re-sell it. That would deep six a lot of this garbage right then and there.
i think ubisoft has reached the sort of mindset of a pet left alone in the house for a weekend with 4 bowls of food. they see the food in the bowl and eat it...then they see the next bowl, and this process continues until the pet is in a dangerous food coma and there will be no food later.
so i dont think of it as completely brain dead twitching causing ubi these problems, its uninformed instinct
this kind of thinking/instinct by ubi seems brilliant because they think you will be back in three hours to give them more food (buy their games) it doesnt cross their minds that you left and wont be back for three days (forever) and wont feed them
when they clean up their act i might go back and feed them but somebody else is gonna have to clean the poop
so i dont think of it as completely brain dead twitching causing ubi these problems, its uninformed instinct
this kind of thinking/instinct by ubi seems brilliant because they think you will be back in three hours to give them more food (buy their games) it doesnt cross their minds that you left and wont be back for three days (forever) and wont feed them
when they clean up their act i might go back and feed them but somebody else is gonna have to clean the poop
Your first point is one I've been harpin to friends lately. People keep throwin money at them so they take it as some sort of confirmation from the players that they're doin the right thing with their DRM. Until they stop makin money, they wont stop usin the DRM. I remember when the always on DRM was announced and how many people used this line "Well I guess I'm getting the 360 version. Ubisoft can suck it." Like buyin the 360 version was somehow a snub to Ubisoft.Therumancer said:
As for the rest, that...sounds awful. You seriously couldn't activate two different product keys for the same game twice on the same account? Like...what the hell is the point of that?
I bet if you didn't buy their game, they'd attribute all the losses to piracy anyway, so no matter what, unless you get a mass letter writing campaign or something to tell them THIS IS WHY IM NOT BUYING YOUR GAME, it's pretty much a lose-lose situation.shintakie10 said:
Ubisoft has to answer the ultimate question of the universe
Btw if you haven't watched it see this video, the movie looks like its going to be awesomesauce http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P0LmU4EwRM
UbiShit has several studios in Quebec, that's true. But, the company itself it French, as in France French. Major decisions like DRM are not made by the studio. It's the publisher's branch of UbiShit that makes that decision.Wolfram01 said:
AFA UbiShit and their games, I've boycotted them right after Assassin's Creed I. At the point where they announced their stupid and draconian "always online" scheme I jumped off their boat. It made me a tiny bit sad because, let's face it, some of their games were promising to be fun and entertaining, but this is not something I can adhere to.
Last... UbiShit is doing things like EA. They are control freak companies that care about one and only one thing, money. Nothing else. If making 2$ more at the expense of their customers is what's needed, they'll do it. Despite all their PR stating they listen to their customers, which is a blatant lie, all they really do is damage control. But the irony is, they never learn. They're perpetrating the same mistakes at each and every release. They also know 99% of their decision will get a backlash of outcry, but it's been decided (I'm certain) in advance that when it happens, or when they get caught, they'll relax their stance and be seen in a better light.
But only fools ever believed them. And gawd knows there are many, many fools...
basically this is exactly what I've done. I wrote a long email expressing all of my concerns about the direction and attitudes expressed by the talking heads at Ubisoft and worte that I will no longer be buying any of their games until they clean up their act and start treating their legitimate, paying customers with an ounce of respect.lotr rocks 0 said:
I got a machine-written "We are sorry that you are unhappy with our product... yadda yadda" from a noreply customer service rep, and a week later that artica=le came out about them calling out PC Gamers for their "Bitching."
Long story short, I've gone out of my way to avoid Ubisoft titles ever since... Actually, that's not true, I bought Assassin's Creed, the original for 360 from Gamestop, used.
I have to say, Ubisoft makes me wonder. I wish I could see what their actual in-house figures are for their PC games... are sales up? Down? Flat? If it's decreasing because of these insane DRM issues, do they see a rise in console as a migration of their consumers? Or do they not even consider the two groups as compatible, a possibility that seems more likely given their past comments?
What I would give to sit in on an executive meeting just to listen and learn what the actual top-level logic has been in these regards. As it stands, from what we know, their actions seem legitimately insane.
What I would give to sit in on an executive meeting just to listen and learn what the actual top-level logic has been in these regards. As it stands, from what we know, their actions seem legitimately insane.
Ubisoft have said that they don't like P.C gaming, maybe they are purposefully generating all this bad publicity as an excuse to stop making P.C titles.
It's not a good plan, but then again, this is Ubisoft we are talking about.
It's not a good plan, but then again, this is Ubisoft we are talking about.
I would go so far to call the excessive "activation, registration & pray for service" routine that publishers force on their customers malware.
DRM is a simple check weither or not you own a license for a piece of software.
The industry has been trying for years to find a way to make this pipedream work out somehow, but the only thing they really managed is to make pirated versions even more desirable then the retail.
Somehow, the deciding intelectuals in those companies figure out how to shoot down new IPs for beeing not feasible if they fail to rake in the insane profits of carbon copied sequels, but can't pull the plug on project "Alienate our customers" years after it became abundandly clear it simply isn't working.
You have to provide a better service then the pirates. Loading even more BS onto your games that customers should accept in order to use your product that no pirate will ever bother about is just as pointless as trying to get that message into the head of an executive who hasn't got the foggiest clue about how his own market interacts with their competitors.
DRM is a simple check weither or not you own a license for a piece of software.
The industry has been trying for years to find a way to make this pipedream work out somehow, but the only thing they really managed is to make pirated versions even more desirable then the retail.
Somehow, the deciding intelectuals in those companies figure out how to shoot down new IPs for beeing not feasible if they fail to rake in the insane profits of carbon copied sequels, but can't pull the plug on project "Alienate our customers" years after it became abundandly clear it simply isn't working.
You have to provide a better service then the pirates. Loading even more BS onto your games that customers should accept in order to use your product that no pirate will ever bother about is just as pointless as trying to get that message into the head of an executive who hasn't got the foggiest clue about how his own market interacts with their competitors.
All they have to do is release their games on Steam with some Team Fortress 2 items. That's all it fuckin' takes Ubisoft!
You and your edits. No company can control every aspect of the people it employs. If it was up to the employer, then yes. It would hire only people they can trust. And they try, but after signing an NDA about, say, a certain line of products, what would stop you from saying "Oh, the new toys from Zeph-Tek have this, and that!" To your new friends? It's not like work would ever find out. Perhaps these material objects are small, and easy to sneak out, or digital, and easy to upload? You just want to be a good friend and give your buddies a slice of the cake beforehand.ph0b0s123 said:
DRM does help in this case. Because, what's the point of getting that shiny new toy to your buddies if it falls apart when connected to another computer? Or if you need a key to open it that are closely managed, and kept away from the general group of employees. You can't watch every single computer running at the same time, the monitoring team would be twice the size of your programming team. While it's a nice bonus to have your game protected after it's released, I have a very difficult time believing that even ubisoft believes that their DRM actually prevents piracy forever. It's just a nicer bonus to have your game protected and un-pirateable for a bit longer out of the gate. Again, obvious comparison time... Do you want your game un-pirateable for 3 days? or 2 weeks after release? Go on, think on this for a while.
draythefingerless said:
And these two, one answered the other's question but I'll answer the other and recap anyway.Xeorm said:
CD's are ungodly easy to steal. We use counterfeit discs in the cybercafe I worked in once, but kept the licenses and game discs in a safe out back so we knew that if the game got stolen, we'd still have the original copy. This was actually my idea, because I couldn't convince the store owner that as long as you had the license, you were OK. That, and having a source to copy from was nice. People would wait until the only clerk in the store was occupied selling coffee or smokes and quickly pocket the discs, regardless wither or not the game's art was on it, or "Shooter" was sharpie'd on it.
That was a long recap...
As for why it's not so bad to see Xbox360 games on the torrent sites? You actually need some skills to play them. Piracy groups out there make it as easy as "Install, use this key, copy this here, and run that bat." to pirate a PC game. But on an X-box? Shit, even the original Xbox required you to hot-swap a harddrive to really get some modifications on the go, other consoles require you to solder a fucking chip in there. And if you fuck up? $200, maybe $300 gone, plus the cost of the chip you tried to install. Have a manufacturer's defect soon? Too bad, your warranty died the second you cracked open that shell. Piracy on the consoles is restricted to a select few of dedicated people with money to burn and a diploma or degree in Information Technology.
I wonder how much money they'd make with an "official removal of DRM" kickstarter.The_root_of_all_evil said: