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Ubisoft busting out the online DRM beams
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Also, it's incredibly naive for Ubi to say "we don't think we need to worry about people not having internet"? People still buy retail disc copies of games. Downloads are only like ~10% of game sales. We still don't have an adequate broadband structure in the States, let alone elsewhere in the world.
I pronounce it bee-log.
Isn't it quite often Ubisoft that makes the fuck ups with DRM, too? Yeah, brothers in arms...they used to use starforce or something didn't they?
Basically, this will drive more of their sales over to consoles. What are the odds that Ubisoft is one of those companies complaining that there's no market for PC games any more as well?
A short-term compromise would be to have a super-draconian DRM system - perma-online requirement, limit install to 1, disc always in, etc. - which expires after a month or something and then automatically becomes DRM free. Couple this with NOT LETTING YOUR SOURCE CODE GET LEAKED TO HACKERS A WEEK BEFORE RELEASE and then you effectively protect the most lucrative point in your game's lifecycle, protect your investment and don't get shat on by the community.
Actually, Steam Cloud save files are the bestest thing.
You mean I can have this game on any of my computers and they all use the same save file without requiring me to find which obscure folder they're hidden under and transfer them between computers? Yes, please.
However, this sounds like the absolute worst possible fucking way you could possibly have done this system.
I feel the same way. I'd be totally fine with even heavy handed limitations and DRM measures, IF they were removed once they had no more purpose to them, say a year down the line when you've got all the real sales you're going to. EA promised they'd do this with Dead Space, and still haven't done so yet. And I can't imagine that the game's still selling in droves right about now.
My main concern is being able to play a game 5-10 years down the line when YOU, as a developer don't give a crap about maintaining it anymore. I mean, I've still got my boxed copy of Planescape: Torment sitting on my shelf. What the crap would I do with that now that Black Isle no longer even exists? It's not like PS:T is available anywhere else to buy, it's stuck in legal limbo.
Heck, I've still got my discs for Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, and whilst Bioware is still around, nobody would expect them to be running verification servers for decade old games.
Yeah. Which is beyond ridiculous. Not only having to online activate a singleplayer game, but having to do it every second of every play period is beyond unacceptable.
Bioware still makes good PC games at least. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 have been polished with reasonable DRM on the PC, FWIW.
As do Valve. And Valve, for having a DRM system in place on all their games, has a good DRM system. I can't say I have any problems going offline with it these days. Heck, Torchlight even lets me know when the prfoile on my PC is newer than the Steam Cloud version and whether I'd like to use that. Aside from that, Steam actually gives added benefits in exchange for what you're giving away (resaleability). Ubisoft aren't offering anything like that.
The problem with the Steam discussion is complaining about requiring a connection to play a game you bought and downloaded is like complaining you have to get wet to swim. Sure, its a minor annoyance, but you lost all ability to actually be upset about it when you bought online.
On the other hand, not everyone has an internet connection (as a matter of fact, a significant number of people in the US don't have an internet connection). Furthermore, what happens if someone buys a game and goes on travel? Want to play in the airplane, or not pay 10+ bucks for a hotel internet connection? Of course, that factor applies to the steam discussion as well, but it gets a bit muddy at that point.
Yeah.
No, it doesn't apply to the Steam discussion because Steam lets you play offline.
Publishers and developers could generally care less about giving people the ability to play the game ten years from now because they are trying as hard as they can to move gamers into a sequelitic habit, buying the next game in the series eleven months after the bought the first one.
Their ultimate goal is to get you to give them $50-$60 a year, every year, for the new version, and to not want to go back and play an older game. This is why we get a new NFS or Tony Hawk or Call of Duty game every single year.
I do all the freaking time.
Well, not Dawn of War or TF2 obviously since I play those for the online. But I mean, I load up Torchlight when my net goes down (or even when Steam goes down on occasion), and it synchs up again when I'm back online again. And that's fine.
Whilst this is often true, I'd say it's not true of all devs. CD Projekt in particular have been really awesome with their releases and taking care to cultivate a real following for their games and projects. The Witcher eventually had its DRM patched out (and not just that but got a positively ginormous free update across the board). Their online store GOG.com is based around the principle of the DRM free purchases. And on the whole, this hasn't stopped them from making a sequel to the Witcher. If anything the increased goodwill has only made Witcher 2 a definite purchase for me. Unlike Ubisoft, CD Projekt actually GET how to increase their following and their sales in the PC sphere.
I think in general, individual developers want people to get the maximum enjoyment from the games they make, and if that's even 5 or 10 years down the line, then that's only more of a compliment to the work and effort they put into it. It's when corporate attitudes start taking over that a more "milk the consumer" mindset can sometimes take its place.
Not if the game you get off Steam has additional mechanisms preventing you from doing so (such as any future Ubisoft game might have).
However, you completely missed the point. Saying it sucks when discussing distribution through an online service/retailer is pointless. At that point you've effectively said you hate it and it might be an annoyance, but you've not wasted your money or been completely denied access to the game. Buying a single-player game from a brick & mortar store and taking it home where you don't have internet connection means you are locked out of playing the game if it requires an online connection.
That was my point. If you + Steam = useful, then you + complaining about forced online DRM = annoyance. If you + Steam = impossible, then you + complaining about forced online DRM = legitimate concern that should be brought up. If you still don't get that, consider it from the standpoint of a corperate entity. Someone saying its wrong to have the DRM through a mechanism that ensures you have consistent and regular access to a internet connection means you can ignore the complaint if you're willing to implement the DRM in the first place (therefore willing to take the PR hit). Approaching the issue from that angle just hurts the overal argument, rather than helps it.
The problem I see here is you are getting into territory (where other games have gone) where you've crossed some sort of event horizon, and now its easier and more attractive to play a pirated version of the game than it is to play the retail.
It's like if you have a problem with thieves stealing pies from your windowsill so you install an ADT security system. You find that works pretty good but a few pies keep getting stolen. instead of accepting that you setup a god-damned laser guided, motion sensing missile launcher on your roof. Well now your mailman won't come near your house, you kill your neighbors dogs so they are pissed at you, and that thief you are trying to stop is just taking some extra time and tunneling under your house for those sweet sweet pies. You just end up hurting yourself.
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Yeah, it's not like they need you to connect to their service to load your saves if you have any of the DLC... oh wait... right...
It's also not like the service running on your PC is known to miss it's cue to connect to their servers and authorize your content even if you are logged in... oh wait... right...
The example I use is Rifftrax. For those who don't know, the guys who did Mystery Science Theatre moved on to rifftrax.com, and they make funny commentary tracks that you synch up to a DVD to get the Mystery Science Theatre effect. However, a couple of my friends think that synching it up is too much of a hassle, so they just download a pirated version already synched up with the video file.
If you ignore the legal/ethical problems with it and examine it from purely a utility standpoint, this makes it a HELL of a lot easier to watch a pirated version than to synch up a bought one with a legal DVD, and frustrates people like me who have to do it the normal way.
Actually I saw Planescape: Torment in a store recently. I'm pretty sure it's a reprint or something, because it had the new colored PEGI rating symbol introduced within the last year.
A better example is DRM on MP3's. Even Apple have acknowledged that delivering content without DRM doesn't outright destroy your service. A lot of MP3 services have since switched off their authentication servers and either started selling MP3's without additional protection or simply left the market altogether. This has not, strangely enough, destroyed the market for MP3's.
This scenario is more like "You have to have your mp3 player connected to the internet either via USB or wifi every time you play the song, for the entirety of the song, and if the connection breaks at any time, the song pauses until you can connect again."
But, mp3 players are not devices that you would normally assume to have an active internet connection on a fairly regular basis. A gaming PC could fall under that assumption.
So really we can't compare DRM between PC games and mp3s at all.
It was the doomsday scenario that as soon as you unprotected something nobody would ever want to buy it, but it's more complicated than that. Not the least because the protection measures don't actually work, at least not beyond a few days.
There aren't as many people buying $50 and $60 PC games to make it worthwhile.
I totally agree that this scheme is ridiculous, and I totally agree on your point that smarter DRM would probably benefit the gaming industry as a whole, but you can't really compare the music and games markets at all. The only similarity they have is that they come to you digitally.
I think the only way to get the message across would be if, say, the entire community did a mad-rush on a DRM-free game at the time of release of a stupid-DRM game. I'd like to think that if a game without these ridiculous measures outsold one of Ubi's releases, they might take notice.
Then again, Sins of a Solar Empire didn't really get as much attention in this regard as it should have, even with Stardock employees issuing public statements about how much DRM is a silly goose.
I'm going to start making backups of all my games so that I don't need to worry about my physical media failing me for when that day is realized.
Now i dont think i will even purchase them. 60 dollars for a pc game? I got Global Agenda for 44, cause i preordered. 60 dollars and i dont get a physical copy of the game ( i purchase over steam ). Forget it.
Now there is this DRM scheme on top of it all.
Ubisoft may have just lost a valuable customer ( Ive been buying ubisoft games for years. Hell i even own 2 copies of Beyond Good and Evil ).
MechWarrior Online: Khyber Pryde
This. My account is worth more to me than an individual game. I'm not going to pirate it but I'll just wait until it's worth my while to buy it; there was an article I read on ddgamer.com ([STRIKE]dusk[/STRIKE][edit: Suds], were you the one who wrote it? I ask because of the same avatar) that pointed out, pretty accurately I think, piracy is more about convenience than anything else. As soon as buying games on Steam or GOG became viable for me I pretty much stopped pirating altogether. If they're going to go out of their way to make it a pain in the ass to play a game I was interested in playing I'll just wait until the cost of doing so is low enough for me to put up with the annoyance.
Was it the article on Steam? I think that might've been mine.
I don't think there's a contributor called dusk on ddgamer. Here's a list of the other contributors though:
http://www.ddgamer.com/contact.php
EDIT: Incidentally, Suds just put up an article about how he used to be a pirate, and touches on the same point (convenience of getting and playing the games).
Aha, Suds' was the one I was referring to. I have no clue how that translated to dusk when I typed it.
I don't, however, own any Ubisoft titles right now for my PC anyway. So if they implemented this for all their games I wouldn't be effected.