Ubisoft games - poster children for piracy?

[Razgovory]

People obviously value the game or they wouldn't pirate it in the first place.  If they want a game and they can't figure out how to get the piracy stuff to work, what else are they going to do satisfy that desire?  There is a threshold here.  People who don't value a game enough to shell out the money to buy it, but still pirate the game are not going to buy it.  But you'll find people who value the game enough to buy it but won't because they can easily get it for free.  It's those people you are targeting with DRM.

Indignation about DRM came long before the Starforce thing.  I can understand not wanting to be treating like a thief, but the truth is most PC gamers are scoff laws.  You'll be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't pirated something.  Even if it's just watching music on Youtube with out the creators consent.  Hell, I don't think it's actually legal for Tim to post all those articles here on Languish, yet nobody really cares.

[Grey Fox]

That's because IP rights & laws are retarded.

Tim's posting does, if not should, fall under fair use.

[Razgovory]

That's because IP rights & laws are retarded.

Tim's posting does, if not should, fall under fair use.

You don't IP should be protected?

[Grey Fox]

Quickly, I would say Yes, I don't think it should exist but then that's unworkable in the modern world.

I, atleast believe that there has to be better the way then the current system Disney got us.

[sbr]

Gog.com isn't producing games.

It's parent company does tho.

Yeah they released The Witcher 2 DRM-free on Gog.com.

It was released with some DRM, which was patched out a few weeks/months later, IIRC. 

[Grey Fox]

Gog.com isn't producing games.

It's parent company does tho.

Yeah they released The Witcher 2 DRM-free on Gog.com.

It was released with some DRM, which was patched out a few weeks/months later, IIRC.

IIRC as well, the Gog version was always DRM free, they removed the DRM from all other versions with the 2nd patch.

[sbr]

Gog.com isn't producing games.

It's parent company does tho.

Yeah they released The Witcher 2 DRM-free on Gog.com.

It was released with some DRM, which was patched out a few weeks/months later, IIRC.

IIRC as well, the Gog version was always DRM free, they removed the DRM from all other versions with the 2nd patch.

Ah.

[Grey Fox]

I still need to finish that game. Hell, I need to start it properly.

[Razgovory]

Quickly, I would say Yes, I don't think it should exist but then that's unworkable in the modern world.

I, atleast believe that there has to be better the way then the current system Disney got us.

Ah, I see we have a fundamental disagreement with it.  I do agree that Copywrite has been abused, in particular by Disney, but I think that someone should have exclusive control over their own intellectual property.  At least for a short period.  Thus I see piracy is something wrong, and my support for DRM programs stem from this.  I suppose you believe the opposite so that informs your opinion of DRM programs.  I do not think we have much more to talk about.

[Grey Fox]

Quickly, I would say Yes, I don't think it should exist but then that's unworkable in the modern world.

I, atleast believe that there has to be better the way then the current system Disney got us.

Ah, I see we have a fundamental disagreement with it.  I do agree that Copywrite has been abused, in particular by Disney, but I think that someone should have exclusive control over their own intellectual property.  At least for a short period.  Thus I see piracy is something wrong, and my support for DRM programs stem from this.  I suppose you believe the opposite so that informs your opinion of DRM programs.  I do not think we have much more to talk about.

Maybe we could talk how on Ubisoft sucks at making PC games.

[dps]

Quickly, I would say Yes, I don't think it should exist but then that's unworkable in the modern world.

I, atleast believe that there has to be better the way then the current system Disney got us.

There's a difference between thinking that our current copyright laws need changed and thinking that intellectual property shouldn't be protected.

When it comes to games, pretty much anything that would run on current systems would be protected under the old copyright laws we had before Disney cajoled Congress into changing them.

[sbr]

Quickly, I would say Yes, I don't think it should exist but then that's unworkable in the modern world.

I, atleast believe that there has to be better the way then the current system Disney got us.

Ah, I see we have a fundamental disagreement with it.  I do agree that Copywrite has been abused, in particular by Disney, but I think that someone should have exclusive control over their own intellectual property.  At least for a short period.  Thus I see piracy is something wrong, and my support for DRM programs stem from this.  I suppose you believe the opposite so that informs your opinion of DRM programs.  I do not think we have much more to talk about.

I come from the stance that IP should be protected to some extent but DRM on games is an absurdly bad way to go about it.  Current DRM doesn't stop the games from being pirated at all and they can't exactly make anything more invasive or harder to break than they already have and continue to sell games to legitimate buyers.  Right now the current DRM schemes doing nothing more than hurt the real customer who can't get their games to work properly, cost the developers money for no real benefit, prevent some second-hand selling.  I think most companies use DRM schemes to make the ignorant higher-ups (stockholders, boards, CEOs etc) think that something is being done, even though it is pointless and to end the small second hand PC game market.

Developers need to give paying customers more value for their dollar, rather than try and stop the irresistible force of piracy.  Make demos so people can know if they like the game they have to spend $50+ on.  I have been tempted for a while now to pirate War in the East because I really don't want to spend that much money on something and not know it I like it.  Also going back to having real tangible things in the game box, whether a manual or art book or map or something else to give people a reason to buy your game instead of pirating it.

[Razgovory]

I think I have had trouble with DRM once and that was it.  Maybe I would more if I pirated games more.

[sbr]

I think I have had trouble with DRM once and that was it.  Maybe I would more if I pirated games more.

But the pirates have NO problems with DRM because that is the first thing to go when the game is broken, before it becomes available to priate.  It is the paying customer who has to deal with it.

[Jacob]

Are there any publishers who primarily do PC games and make decent money? Is Paradox primarily a PC publisher these days?

Whatever your argument about piracy, the fact remains that it is not worthwhile for most publishers to develop prime content for the PC unless it's tied to a server like WoW or the various versus shooters. You can wrap that up in "IP laws are stupid" or "DRM is stupid" or "make better games" or "free advertising" or "a pirated copy doesn't mean a lost sale" or any other kind of argument, but the fact remains that it is a lot harder to make money on PC games than it was, so it's not worth the time for most developers to do so outside of a hobby context.

Big console games get ported to PC as an afterthought. If it's possible to squeeze a bit of extra revenue out, why not? But that's basically it.

Why didn't RDR get ported when LA Noire did? My guess would be that the effort needed - probably for technical reasons - wasn't worth it compared to the projected revenue; and piracy was definitely part of that calculation.