Ubisoft, piracy, and the death of reason

[Metathron]

Here are a couple of interesting reads on the topic of DRM and piracy:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opini ... of-reason/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/25/gabe- ... in-russia/

This wasn’t Valve’s approach, though – it offered the carrot instead of the crowbar. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work,” Newell said. “It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”

[maltz]

I live in Canada. Most places where used to be long shelves of PC games (like BestBuy, Futureshop, EBgames) have replaced them with console games. Perhaps the reduction of sales is not just UBsoft.

A big problem for PC game is that they are way too buggy. The constant patches are good if all they do is to fix bugs, but they tend to alter gameplay too frequently and drastically.

[boazmeg]

I'll pirate almost anything AT FIRST.........I'd rather do that than pay $60 for a game (even on Steam) that eventually dissapoints..................but once I find a game worthwhile, I'll buy it (wait a couple months until it goes on sale on Steam)

I own about 100 games on Steam, so the sight of a DVD/diskette/BluRay gives me chills now...........consoleros don't have that much of a choice except buying the disc (or wait until their online stores are perfected)

Hence, my two cents is: let the pirates do their thing, good games will always have buyers

PS: I live in Canada too

[qiox]

Ubisoft's anti-piracy efforts are a total failure. A working version of Heroes 6 was available on .. that peer-to-peer web site .. the same day it was released.

I bought the game anyway.

[Angelspit]

I live in Canada. Most places where used to be long shelves of PC games (like BestBuy, Futureshop, EBgames) have replaced them with console games.

Best Buy and Futureshop still have a decent collection of PC games, but I feel a little bit depressed whenever I enter an EBGames store. They should probably just get rid of their tiny rack of old, dusty PC game boxes instead of leaving it there like a tombstone. At least they still support the used console game market.

[ywhtptgtfo]

I live in Canada. Most places where used to be long shelves of PC games (like BestBuy, Futureshop, EBgames) have replaced them with console games.

Best Buy and Futureshop still have a decent collection of PC games, but I feel a little bit depressed whenever I enter an EBGames store. They should probably just get rid of their tiny rack of old, dusty PC game boxes instead of leaving it there like a tombstone. At least they still support the used console game market.

Guess I am not the only one not happy with this. I feel it's such a waste of space when you see 3 copies of a EA Sports game placed horizontally at a consecutive fashion and then a whole bunch of PC games bunched together unceremoniously like unwanted objects in a concentration camp.

I get most of my games from Steam these days but I will probably get Skyrim in physical copy.

[Macros the Black]

I get most of my games through Steam nowadays, or by buying a game on Xbox marketplace. Rarely do I still go to a store (I did for HoMM6 obviously). On one hand, it's convenient. On the other, it's kind of a shame. I miss the ritual of going to a store with my friends to pick up a new game and read the manual on the way home

[Mozared]

DRM is a failure in itself anyway, yeah. If you know where to look (and honestly, it's not that hard), you'll find that all of Ubisoft's games have been released in a cracked version, most even very close to the release date. It's not hard for a decent programmer to rewrite a couple of lines of code in the launcher, causing it to connect to a fake non-existant server and automatically give you green light to launch the game. The biggest problem with a game like H6 would be finding a way to reliably save campaign progress and more importantly, dynasty weapons. That said though, they'd probably just create a 'template' user account with every dynasty weapon unlocked and a max dynasty rank. Voila.

I can very much understand the 'outrage' in regards to piracy, but from my experiences people are still easily willing to pay money if the game's good.

[ThunderTitan]

"Ubisoft's anti-piracy efforts are a total failure. A working version of Heroes 6 was available on .. that peer-to-peer web site .. the same day it was released."

At least it wasn't available weeks before, like Gears of War 3 was, and the console version of Skyrim...

But piracy is a PC problem... right.