Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2<< offhand comment; similar does not IMPLY EXACTLY THE SAME. This if or you, Aegiri. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
They might be better off than had they put copy protection in, because this sort of thing is probably a good way to maintain a fanbase. After all, the legitimate users weren't being treated like enemies, and I think core fans appreciate that. But it didn't help them any more when they couldn't play multiplayer the day they bought their game. And it didn't help Stardock who had to go in and increase resources to support all the pirated copies just so the 13% of users that were legit could actually play the game.
In the long run they're better off but shit. It just sucks.
I really don't see an issue with scoring 0. Actually, I can see it going into the negatives.
Why, you ask?
Think of the worst game you've ever played. The one that you're still kicking yourself over purchasing, even 10-20 years later. Battlecruiser 3000, perhaps? Does it still bring tears to your eyes? I have played a few games that I would score as a 0.
The funny thing is, once installed, could you hit "play" and it would at least start up?
If it did, it deserves a higher score than AC2 then.
A developer could make the greatest video game in the universe, where you'd get blowjobs from Tatyana Ali clones the entire time you're playing and cake would pop out of your monitor for you, but if it doesn't start up when you hit play, what's the fucking point? If the only time you could play it is when the company allowed you to play it, you'd get tired from clicking that "play" button, and you'd wear out your mouse and quit trying.
Tribes 2 crashed on start for me until the... second patch, I think, a week or two in. Something to do with the startup video (the developer splash, maybe). So 0/10, I guess.
Stardock was able to use the fact that GalCiv 2 had no DRM as a viral marketing tool, though. How many people would have heard about it otherwise?
Dude, GalCiv2 had way more going for its marketing (viral and otherwise) than "no DRM." Abbie Hoffmann didn't end up on the New York Times Best Seller list simply because he entitled his manuscript "Steal This Book."
That's true, but it's important to note that it is also the publication's responsibility to update that review should the DRM be taken out in the future.
No it isn't. My review has a date stamp on it, I need to do nothing else. I certainly could if I wanted to, but I sure as shit feel no responsibility to update my review for every change made to a game.
If reviewers actually took your approach, I'd probably still buy games magazines.
Not enough lime etc.
Look, updating reviews? A good practice if the site has the time to do so. But are journalists obliged in any way to do so? Is it irresponsible not to? No and no. That's all I'm saying. The publication is NOT in ANY WAY responsible for updating their review. But it's still good if they did.
It'd be good if magazines warned us off crappy, bug-ridden, DRM-crippled games too. But when the best we can hope for is "Oh, there's a bit of DRM/bug-ridden crappiness that you might not like, so try before you buy, 95%" - well, I just miss the old days when games could get marked down for being broken.
EDIT: Er, up-to-date info- yes, good stuff. But we don't get that to start with, so worry about that problem when it matters, y'know?
Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
I wouldn't mind DRM that verified that I have a legit copy of the game when I play multiplayer.
The problem is it would either have to dial into a 3rd party server like the publishers or it could be broken much more easily. Making DRM that only affects legit customers doesn't work. Steam's however doesn't for the most part and works well. Ubisoft should just rely on Steam if they are that crazy about DRM. Or create something that only verifies your copy when online and doesn't keep you from playing if the publisher server is down sometimes. One that would also stop checking a year after the game came out so we don't have to worry about the servers going away.
Cronus on
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
They might be better off than had they put copy protection in, because this sort of thing is probably a good way to maintain a fanbase. After all, the legitimate users weren't being treated like enemies, and I think core fans appreciate that. But it didn't help them any more when they couldn't play multiplayer the day they bought their game. And it didn't help Stardock who had to go in and increase resources to support all the pirated copies just so the 13% of users that were legit could actually play the game.
In the long run they're better off but shit. It just sucks.
I know I might be an apologist with this statement, but there is a difference. Demigod is one game, as as I recall, people did get pissed at it for the rough MP. Uplay is an entire company's worth of product. Every single game for the foreseeable future unavailable to legitimate customers.
Stardock gets a pass on this one.
Note, I've no stake in Stardock and own no games by them. I have kept an eye on them, thanks to their policies, though.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates.
Big fucking difference between not being able to play one aspect of a game and not being able to play the game at all. So what, you couldn't play the multiplayer portion for a while, you can still play through the single player portion, save your progress, make use of the product you own.
AC2 you can't do shit with until the servers become available. Well I suppose you could wipe your ass with the user's guide. I don't imagine it'd hurt much since your ass already got wrecked by Ubisoft.
So here's a question. If Stardock could see how many customers were using illegitimate keys on their servers, why couldn't they set up something that would auto-ban someone using one of those illegitimate keys to join their servers? I'm sure there's a reason for why they couldn't, but I'm just curious to know why not. Or did they eventually do that?
Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
They might be better off than had they put copy protection in, because this sort of thing is probably a good way to maintain a fanbase. After all, the legitimate users weren't being treated like enemies, and I think core fans appreciate that. But it didn't help them any more when they couldn't play multiplayer the day they bought their game. And it didn't help Stardock who had to go in and increase resources to support all the pirated copies just so the 13% of users that were legit could actually play the game.
In the long run they're better off but shit. It just sucks.
"For the first few days, we struggled to migrate people to a different set of servers that only legitimate users had access to. This took about 48 hours. But during this brief window, the game was basically unplayable because you couldn’t even get online – at all. We got whacked with some pretty negative first week reviews not surprisingly."
"Q: How are Demigod’s sales?
A: They’re considerably better than Galactic Civilizations II’s but slightly less than Sins of a Solar Empire at the same time. However, there are a lot of variables. Besides the online MP debacle, you have an April release versus a February release, you have a MP-centric game versus a SP-centric game (The most players I’ve ever seen online with Sins is around 500 whereas right now, mid afternoon on a Monday there’s 2065 players playing online). You also have the review difference: Sins has a review average of 88. Demigod’s average is 78 (still pretty good). If you took out the first week reviews the average jumps to 84. Overall though, it looks like Demigod will hit 100,000 units sold before the official European release."
Seems like the problem was that Gamestop started selling the games before they had a chance to set up secure servers. Demigod being a DotA clone, you can imagine what kind of a crowd a torrent might have attracted.
I know I might be an apologist with this statement, but there is a difference. Demigod is one game, as as I recall, people did get pissed at it for the rough MP. Uplay is an entire company's worth of product. Every single game for the foreseeable future unavailable to legitimate customers.
I agree. However, I just thought it was interesting that taking the opposite approach, using no DRM or protection, still results in incredibly massive piracy rates that in fact muddied up the experience for paying users and necessitated an increase in resources by the publisher to accommodate non-paying users so that paying users could enjoy the game.
I also brought it up since someone else mentioned Stardock and attributes success to their no-DRM policy. Like I said, they may be better off in the long run. But they still suffer and are affected by piracy and so are the legit users in some instances.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates.
Big fucking difference between not being able to play one aspect of a game and not being able to play the game at all. So what, you couldn't play the multiplayer portion for a while, you can still play through the single player portion, save your progress, make use of the product you own.
AC2 you can't do shit with until the servers become available. Well I suppose you could wipe your ass with the user's guide. I don't imagine it'd hurt much since your ass already got wrecked by Ubisoft.
I agree with you.
I just wanted to bring up the Stardock's other game since someone mentioned Stardock. And how their hands-off policy has affected them and gamers.
And yeah you can play "single player" in DemiGod. Although there is no single player campaign. Rather it's just bot skirmishes. Better than nothing, though.
Anyway, I just wanted to show that since someone brought up Stardock, I wanted to show how shitty the situation is even for a company that doesn't put any DRM or copy protection on their game. It still sucks for publishers who experience high piracy rates and have to "migrate" legit customers. And sometimes it sucks for legit customers too who have their servers crashed.
To reiterate: Stardock will be better off in the long run. But just because they have no copy protection doesn't mean things all become just totally fantastic. Pirates pirate.
True, but that is one of their games out of many they have produced over the years with no DRM. Ubisoft is now 0-1 with their new DRM scheme. As a consumer I think I'd be willing to cut one of them some slack. Ubisoft gets no slack for taking what should be a great game, adding any DRM at all, choosing the most draconian DRM in existence, doing it on a single player game, and not preparing for the eventual problems that will result.
Yeah there seems to be an undercurrent where some folks seem to think that the phrases "DRM is ruining gaming for the rest of us" and "piracy is ruining gaming for the rest of us" are mutually exclusive. Neither is especially pro-consumer; they can both participate in the ruining of a legitimate consumer's experience.
True, but that is one of their games out of many they have produced over the years with no DRM.
I brought it up solely to contrast the other non-DRM scheme game they released that someone else already mentioned in the the thread; Galciv.
Ubisoft is now 0-1 with their new DRM scheme. As a consumer I think I'd be willing to cut one of them some slack. Ubisoft gets no slack for taking what should be a great game, adding any DRM at all, choosing the most draconian DRM in existence, doing it on a single player game, and not preparing for the eventual problems that will result.
I can understand basic simple non invasive non-resource hogging protection that lets me play a game reasonably, there have been a few in the past.
However I find Ubi's DRM here to be extremely unreasonable and draconian and unacceptable and there's no way in hell I'm buying a game that utilizes it.
Yeah there seems to be an undercurrent where some folks seem to think that the phrases "DRM is ruining gaming for the rest of us" and "piracy is ruining gaming for the rest of us" are mutually exclusive. Neither is especially pro-consumer; they can both participate in the ruining of a legitimate consumer's experience.
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
I guess I wanted to shed light on the fact that even under the best case scenario for the consumer - no DRM at all - piracy can at times be bad enough to fuck us over, and the publisher, in other ways.
Yeah there seems to be an undercurrent where some folks seem to think that the phrases "DRM is ruining gaming for the rest of us" and "piracy is ruining gaming for the rest of us" are mutually exclusive. Neither is especially pro-consumer; they can both participate in the ruining of a legitimate consumer's experience.
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
I guess I wanted to shed light on the fact that even under the best case scenario for the consumer - no DRM at all - piracy can at times be bad enough to fuck us over, and the publisher, in other ways.
And I agree with you entirely.
SammyF on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
There is a massive flaw in your argument.
One of those games is an online multiplayer RTS.
One of these games is a completely "offline" single player game.
Which one of these games - by reasonable expectations - do you think should be affected by an online server crashing the most? I can, even within my withered and blackened heart forgive ONE of these scenarios completely and absolutely revile the other.
So, I've heard that the games have been "cracked" within a day of release. I've also heard that the cracks are not complete. Is that the case? What are they missing, then?
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
There is a massive flaw in your argument.
One of those games is an online multiplayer RTS.
One of these games is a completely offline (well technically) single player game.
Which one of these games - by reasonable expectations - do you think should be affected by an online server crashing the most? I can, even within my withered and blackened heart forgive ONE of these scenarios completely and absolutely revile the other.
As a consumer I think it's fair for me to expect that neither game will be ruined by crashing servers. My money doesn't actually care very much whether a game's unplayable as a result of the DRM or unplayable as a result of the piracy. Either way, it's a sunk cost on my part as a consumer.
SammyF on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
That is true, but I would think that a single player game should never ever be affected by a server crash of any sort. An online multiplayer RTS I would not at all be surprised if the game crashed - that the game didn't have a satisfactory single player mode to keep me occupied would in fact be a good reason why I wouldn't really buy it.
But one of those scenarios should NEVER EVER happen.
That is true, but I would think that a single player game should never ever be affected by a server crash of any sort. An online multiplayer RTS I would not at all be surprised if the game crashed - that the game didn't have a satisfactory single player mode to keep me occupied would in fact be a good reason why I wouldn't really buy it.
But one of those scenarios should NEVER EVER happen.
No one (or at least neither Slash nor myself) are arguing that Ubisoft's DRM is good or that it's acceptable what's happening to the consumer because of their issues. We're simply saying that eliminating DRM isn't the panacea that some people want to make it out to be because it won't eliminate the people at the other end of the "dicking us over" spectrum: the silly geese pirating games.
In the specific case of ACII, well, yes, UPlay is undeniably the culprit for ruining the legitimate consumer's experience. But this will turn into a much more complicated discussion once they start protecting other games with UPlay -- games which bear a closer resemblance to DemiGod than to Assassin's Creed.
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
There is a massive flaw in your argument.
One of those games is an online multiplayer RTS.
One of these games is a completely offline (well technically) single player game.
Which one of these games - by reasonable expectations - do you think should be affected by an online server crashing the most? I can, even within my withered and blackened heart forgive ONE of these scenarios completely and absolutely revile the other.
I'm not saying it's equally bad. I was just saying that sometimes even the best case scenario for legit customers can have its drawback for both us and the publisher.
There's no way in hell I'm going to analogize Ubi's fucking bullshit and what Stardock does. Stardock does the best thing we could ever hope for and they should be commended for it, absolultely. Everyone should follow in their example. However, just because it's ultimately the best for us doesn't negate the other potential problems of piracy.
Anyway it's a little beside the point as I just wanted to bring up Demigod not as a comparison to A's Creed but rather I want to compare it to Galciv which was brought up before; the servers crashing just to incidentally happen to have that sort of hint of similarity, though totally unequal. As far as Stardock, on the one hand it was argued that no DRM was great for sales (Galciv). On the other hand the piracy rates are still astronomical and the games/publisher aren't immune to other problems of piracy for the consumer or publisher.
That is true, but I would think that a single player game should never ever be affected by a server crash of any sort. An online multiplayer RTS I would not at all be surprised if the game crashed - that the game didn't have a satisfactory single player mode to keep me occupied would in fact be a good reason why I wouldn't really buy it.
But one of those scenarios should NEVER EVER happen.
No one (or at least neither Slash nor myself) are arguing that Ubisoft's DRM is good or that it's acceptable what's happening to the consumer because of their issues. We're simply saying that eliminating DRM isn't the panacea that some people want to make it out to be because it won't eliminate the people at the other end of the "dicking us over" spectrum: the silly geese pirating games.
The pirates have certainly dicked people over due to the increasing intrusion of DRM into games, but your example is so horribly cherry picked I find it impossible to take seriously. A better example would be where a pirate somehow prevented someone from playing a single player game of some sort. Then we'd be comparing apples to apples here.
Many multiplayer games have been ruined by hackers, pirates and poor server stability. Multiplayer only games are immensely vulnerable to their servers being hacked, crashed and similar. This has been a reality of the internet since online multiplayer only games were conceived of. What you posted was really a flaw with multiplayer only games - not pirates or DRM.
The problem with the scenario in this thread is that the DRM through no fault of the customer prevents them from playing a non-online game when some online functionality is removed. That makes it an exceptional dicking over and a multiplayer games servers crashing - for whatever reason - is just not a valid or meaningful comparison.
I guess I wanted to shed light on the fact that even under the best case scenario for the consumer - no DRM at all - piracy can at times be bad enough to fuck us over, and the publisher, in other ways.
That depends entirely on how you define 'best case'. Having all major commercial games be released as freeware would certainly be better for consumers in the short run, but that's obviously a horribly bad idea. Game developers need to make money off their games to make more of them, meaning that the best scenario for consumers is for developers to have a strategy that maximizes the quality and quantity of published titles while minimizing the prices. This isn't the same as maximizing profit, obviously, but profit does need to be made in order for future work to be encouraged.
If including DRM can do this better than not including DRM, then DRM is a net positive to the consumer. By taking a hit to the quality of the current group of games, the next group will have a more stable base of support from the developer. DRM is only a bad thing if it drags down the quality of the games beyond the gain in quality from including it, which can be difficult to judge in advance. Ubisoft's system may very well have passed that line, though I'm withholding judgment until I see the sales figures.
Be specific with your complaints, is all I am saying.
Be intelligent with your complaints, is all I am saying. You really must be dense to take things so far out of context. Did I have to state which game also? And that it was on the PC? And the day and time? Should I get a notary to certify my review as well?
Probably would help.
Like I said, a lot of games you legitimately purchase might be unplayable on day 1, and that isn't cause for a zero review. Now, if it's due to terrible DRM that could potentially set an awful precedent? That might knock the score down a few pegs.
I'd say that every game unplayable on day one - particularly a single player game that you are prevented from playing SOLELY because of some bullshit DRM - absolutely deserves a zero review. In fact, what it actually deserves is a zero review and a total refund by the retailer/publisher for every single paying customer that could not use the software. Does that make it a less than zero review? Anyway, that's the exactly fair grade.
I still find this ludicrous.
You say particularly a single player game, but you're still including multiplayer games, correct? So if somebody decided to review WoW today between the hours of 4:00 and 11:00 PST, WoW would receive a zero score, and there's not a thing wrong with that.
Ok, so there's a difference between scheduled and unscheduled down time. Is scheduled down time forgivable? So what if Ubi suddenly decided to call these interruptions scheduled?
Alright, alright. Any game not playable on the day you review it due to something obviously unscheduled, a bug, a glitch, whatever, deserves a zero score, how's that?
See, I think it's still ridiculous. How do you determine if you've tried hard enough to get it working on your end? Does it get a zero if you personally can't play it, or only if there are widespread reports of nobody being able to play it? What if there's a day one patch, are you allowed to apply that before calling it a zero? Is it the very first time you click on the shortcut, or are you allowed to attempt to open that exe a couple of times?
Remember, this is independent of draconian DRM or Ubisoft's policies. You said every game (and so implied the original poster before people decided I was making a statement I never did).
That is true, but I would think that a single player game should never ever be affected by a server crash of any sort. An online multiplayer RTS I would not at all be surprised if the game crashed - that the game didn't have a satisfactory single player mode to keep me occupied would in fact be a good reason why I wouldn't really buy it.
But one of those scenarios should NEVER EVER happen.
No one (or at least neither Slash nor myself) are arguing that Ubisoft's DRM is good or that it's acceptable what's happening to the consumer because of their issues. We're simply saying that eliminating DRM isn't the panacea that some people want to make it out to be because it won't eliminate the people at the other end of the "dicking us over" spectrum: the silly geese pirating games.
The pirates have certainly dicked people over due to the increasing intrusion of DRM into games, but your example is so horribly cherry picked I find it impossible to take seriously. A better example would be where a pirate somehow prevented someone from playing a single player game of some sort. Then we'd be comparing apples to apples here.
Many multiplayer games have been ruined by hackers, pirates and poor server stability. Multiplayer only games are immensely vulnerable to their servers being hacked, crashed and similar. This has been a reality of the internet since online multiplayer only games were conceived of. What you posted was really a flaw with multiplayer only games - not pirates or DRM.
The problem with the scenario in this thread is that the DRM through no fault of the customer prevents them from playing a non-online game when some online functionality is removed. That makes it an exceptional dicking over and a multiplayer games servers crashing - for whatever reason - is just not a valid or meaningful comparison.
Ok, so there's a difference between scheduled and unscheduled down time. Is scheduled down time forgivable?
Yes.
So what if Ubi suddenly decided to call these interruptions scheduled?
Well that would be a lie, and thus not okay.
See, I think it's still ridiculous. How do you determine if you've tried hard enough to get it working on your end?
Well, in this situation Ubisoft saying "yup, our servers went down" would lead a person to possibly, maybe, conclude that it's not a problem at their end.
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
What's your opinion, then? Say it's alright to give AC2 a 0/10 in this specific case. You'd give it an 8/10 if you were able to play it the first time you tried? We can expect to look up Metacritic and see alternating 0's and 8's down the page, and that shouldn't be considered incongruous or strange at all?
If Ubi schedules some release day down time on their next DRM game, then we ought to see some pretty good scores by comparison, huh? Considering that's totally okay.
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
What's your opinion, then? Say it's alright to give AC2 a 0/10 in this specific case. You'd give it an 8/10 if you were able to play it the first time you tried? We can expect to look up Metacritic and see alternating 0's and 8's down the page, and that shouldn't be considered incongruous or strange at all?
Well, they wouldn't be alternating, since they sort them by score. So there would be a bunch of 8's at the top and 0's at the bottom. And metacritic also puts a comment from the review. If the 0's were from not being able to play during their scheduled review time, then the comment would likely say that.
-Loki- on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
What's your opinion, then? Say it's alright to give AC2 a 0/10 in this specific case. You'd give it an 8/10 if you were able to play it the first time you tried? We can expect to look up Metacritic and see alternating 0's and 8's down the page, and that shouldn't be considered incongruous or strange at all?
Well, that's what Metacritic is there for, to give you an average score based on various different reviews from various different reviewers who experienced the game in a different way. If some of them were unable to review the game at all because of technical fuckmuppetry from the publisher, that's part of their experience and should affect the Metacritic average score for that game.
Demigod seems like an odd example of the damage of piracy. Piracy was to blame for the problem, but if everyone had bought the game instead of pirating it the problem still would have existed. The servers would have crashed just the same under the weight of legit customers as it did with pirates.
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
What's your opinion, then? Say it's alright to give AC2 a 0/10 in this specific case. You'd give it an 8/10 if you were able to play it the first time you tried? We can expect to look up Metacritic and see alternating 0's and 8's down the page, and that shouldn't be considered incongruous or strange at all?
Well, that's what Metacritic is there for, to give you an average score based on various different reviews from various different reviewers who experienced the game in a different way. If some of them were unable to review the game at all because of technical fuckmuppetry from the publisher, that's part of their experience and should affect the Metacritic average score for that game.
Alright, and are day one patches allowed on this new scoring system we're working on, or does that get it a zero as well if we can't play it as-is on the disc?
I guess if it does automatic updates that would keep it from getting a zero. Manual patches would kill a game's average though.
And are we saying that reviews should then be edited to reflect a zero if the second time you go to play it, it doesn't work? Or do you average the score from your first time playing it with a zero.
Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
Their multiplayer servers crashed because they weren't up yet. GameStop started selling before the release date, making it available to GameStop customers and pirates before the real servers were up yet, meaning games were instead trying to use test servers meant for internal testing and review copies. And the game itself was stupidly coded to contact the server whenever entering the main menu, which is why pirated copies were part of the clusterfuck. When Stardock dealt with the issue, they changed the IP addresses of the servers so the pirated copies weren't contacting them anymore, but more importantly they brought up the real fucking servers that were meant to be brought online shortly before the release date. Though there are still problems because their netcode is terrible.
And lets remember that the reason the pirated copies were coded with the ip addresses of the real servers was because there was no pirate servers, no means for the pirates to actually play the multiplayer in a competitive RTS with no campaign. Fucking singleplayer skirmish against the computer only. Setting aside the release date being broken and Stardock coding the game to DDOS their own servers even if not using the multiplayer, you think those people represent any lost sales? Do you think people checking out the game before the release date and pirates satisfied with playing an overwhelmingly multiplayer game against the computer did so when they otherwise would have shelled out for the game? It was already in the category of games that naturally work like Ubisoft wants singleplayer games to work because they're fucking multiplayer, adding DRM to that is even more pointless than normal. Hell, as far as I know there's still not any pirate servers because the community is too small for anyone to bother, so Demigod's effective DRM of simply being a multiplayer game has yet to be cracked. It doesn't seem to have done them a lot of good.
Alright, and are day one patches allowed on this new scoring system we're working on, or does that get it a zero as well if we can't play it as-is on the disc?
Of course patches are allowed. Why wouldn't they be? Obviously if the patch comes out after the review has gone online/the magazine is in the print the game is getting a shitty score, and that's what you get for shipping an unfinished product.
And are we saying that reviews should then be edited to reflect a zero if the second time you go to play it, it doesn't work? Or do you average the score from your first time playing it with a zero.
Reviews can be edited or a later review can be issued when the game is working properly if the reviewer so desires to do, but that doesn't magically alter the reality of what the game was like when the original review was published. If the game ceases to function at a later date, I'm sure someone will mention that somewhere.
Stardock was the same publisher of DemiGod. The game whose multiplayer servers were crashed due to an overload of pirated copies' connections. The same group who came out and said, based on illegitimate keys being used, that their game had a ~87% piracy rate.
In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
Their multiplayer servers crashed because they weren't up yet. GameStop started selling before the release date, making it available to GameStop customers and pirates before the real servers were up yet, meaning games were instead trying to use test servers meant for internal testing and review copies. And the game itself was stupidly coded to contact the server whenever entering the main menu, which is why pirated copies were part of the clusterfuck. When Stardock dealt with the issue, they changed the IP addresses of the servers so the pirated copies weren't contacting them anymore, but more importantly they brought up the real fucking servers that were meant to be brought online shortly before the release date. Though there are still problems because their netcode is terrible.
And lets remember that the reason the pirated copies were coded with the ip addresses of the real servers was because there was no pirate servers, no means for the pirates to actually play the multiplayer in a competitive RTS with no campaign. Fucking singleplayer skirmish against the computer only. Setting aside the release date being broken and Stardock coding the game to DDOS their own servers even if not using the multiplayer, you think those people represent any lost sales? Do you think people checking out the game before the release date and pirates satisfied with playing an overwhelmingly multiplayer game against the computer did so when they otherwise would have shelled out for the game? It was already in the category of games that naturally work like Ubisoft want singleplayer games to work because they're fucking multiplayer, adding DRM to that is even more pointless than normal. Hell, as far as I know there's still not any pirate servers because the community is too small for anyone to bother, so Demigod's effective DRM of simply being a multiplayer game has yet to be cracked. It doesn't seem to have done them a lot of good.
I see nothing here that I disagree with.
Also don't read my post to say that I am in favor of putting DRM into Stardock's games because I think it'll necessarily help sales or curb piracy. Not sure if you are or not (I assume not), but just to be clear, I'm not.
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In other words, DemiGod suffered a similar fate as Assassin's Creed 2<< offhand comment; similar does not IMPLY EXACTLY THE SAME. This if or you, Aegiri. Legitimate customers couldn't play the game (in multiplayer) because their servers were crashed by pirates. Except it wasn't a DOS attack. It was just an overwhelming number of warez copies smashing their servers.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he continued. "About 18,000 are legitimate."
They might be better off than had they put copy protection in, because this sort of thing is probably a good way to maintain a fanbase. After all, the legitimate users weren't being treated like enemies, and I think core fans appreciate that. But it didn't help them any more when they couldn't play multiplayer the day they bought their game. And it didn't help Stardock who had to go in and increase resources to support all the pirated copies just so the 13% of users that were legit could actually play the game.
In the long run they're better off but shit. It just sucks.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Tribes 2 crashed on start for me until the... second patch, I think, a week or two in. Something to do with the startup video (the developer splash, maybe). So 0/10, I guess.
Dude, GalCiv2 had way more going for its marketing (viral and otherwise) than "no DRM." Abbie Hoffmann didn't end up on the New York Times Best Seller list simply because he entitled his manuscript "Steal This Book."
It'd be good if magazines warned us off crappy, bug-ridden, DRM-crippled games too. But when the best we can hope for is "Oh, there's a bit of DRM/bug-ridden crappiness that you might not like, so try before you buy, 95%" - well, I just miss the old days when games could get marked down for being broken.
EDIT: Er, up-to-date info- yes, good stuff. But we don't get that to start with, so worry about that problem when it matters, y'know?
I wouldn't mind DRM that verified that I have a legit copy of the game when I play multiplayer.
The problem is it would either have to dial into a 3rd party server like the publishers or it could be broken much more easily. Making DRM that only affects legit customers doesn't work. Steam's however doesn't for the most part and works well. Ubisoft should just rely on Steam if they are that crazy about DRM. Or create something that only verifies your copy when online and doesn't keep you from playing if the publisher server is down sometimes. One that would also stop checking a year after the game came out so we don't have to worry about the servers going away.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
I know I might be an apologist with this statement, but there is a difference. Demigod is one game, as as I recall, people did get pissed at it for the rough MP. Uplay is an entire company's worth of product. Every single game for the foreseeable future unavailable to legitimate customers.
Stardock gets a pass on this one.
Note, I've no stake in Stardock and own no games by them. I have kept an eye on them, thanks to their policies, though.
Big fucking difference between not being able to play one aspect of a game and not being able to play the game at all. So what, you couldn't play the multiplayer portion for a while, you can still play through the single player portion, save your progress, make use of the product you own.
AC2 you can't do shit with until the servers become available. Well I suppose you could wipe your ass with the user's guide. I don't imagine it'd hurt much since your ass already got wrecked by Ubisoft.
Wardell bloggs on the matter.
"For the first few days, we struggled to migrate people to a different set of servers that only legitimate users had access to. This took about 48 hours. But during this brief window, the game was basically unplayable because you couldn’t even get online – at all. We got whacked with some pretty negative first week reviews not surprisingly."
"Q: How are Demigod’s sales?
A: They’re considerably better than Galactic Civilizations II’s but slightly less than Sins of a Solar Empire at the same time. However, there are a lot of variables. Besides the online MP debacle, you have an April release versus a February release, you have a MP-centric game versus a SP-centric game (The most players I’ve ever seen online with Sins is around 500 whereas right now, mid afternoon on a Monday there’s 2065 players playing online). You also have the review difference: Sins has a review average of 88. Demigod’s average is 78 (still pretty good). If you took out the first week reviews the average jumps to 84. Overall though, it looks like Demigod will hit 100,000 units sold before the official European release."
Seems like the problem was that Gamestop started selling the games before they had a chance to set up secure servers. Demigod being a DotA clone, you can imagine what kind of a crowd a torrent might have attracted.
I agree. However, I just thought it was interesting that taking the opposite approach, using no DRM or protection, still results in incredibly massive piracy rates that in fact muddied up the experience for paying users and necessitated an increase in resources by the publisher to accommodate non-paying users so that paying users could enjoy the game.
I also brought it up since someone else mentioned Stardock and attributes success to their no-DRM policy. Like I said, they may be better off in the long run. But they still suffer and are affected by piracy and so are the legit users in some instances.
I agree with you.
I just wanted to bring up the Stardock's other game since someone mentioned Stardock. And how their hands-off policy has affected them and gamers.
And yeah you can play "single player" in DemiGod. Although there is no single player campaign. Rather it's just bot skirmishes. Better than nothing, though.
Anyway, I just wanted to show that since someone brought up Stardock, I wanted to show how shitty the situation is even for a company that doesn't put any DRM or copy protection on their game. It still sucks for publishers who experience high piracy rates and have to "migrate" legit customers. And sometimes it sucks for legit customers too who have their servers crashed.
To reiterate: Stardock will be better off in the long run. But just because they have no copy protection doesn't mean things all become just totally fantastic. Pirates pirate.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I brought it up solely to contrast the other non-DRM scheme game they released that someone else already mentioned in the the thread; Galciv.
I can understand basic simple non invasive non-resource hogging protection that lets me play a game reasonably, there have been a few in the past.
However I find Ubi's DRM here to be extremely unreasonable and draconian and unacceptable and there's no way in hell I'm buying a game that utilizes it.
Well someone brought up Stardock and Galciv to imply that having no DRM is the best route for great sales. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However the same group experienced huge piracy rates and, incidentally, similar problems for paying consumers (crashing servers).
I guess I wanted to shed light on the fact that even under the best case scenario for the consumer - no DRM at all - piracy can at times be bad enough to fuck us over, and the publisher, in other ways.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
And I agree with you entirely.
There is a massive flaw in your argument.
One of those games is an online multiplayer RTS.
One of these games is a completely "offline" single player game.
Which one of these games - by reasonable expectations - do you think should be affected by an online server crashing the most? I can, even within my withered and blackened heart forgive ONE of these scenarios completely and absolutely revile the other.
As a consumer I think it's fair for me to expect that neither game will be ruined by crashing servers. My money doesn't actually care very much whether a game's unplayable as a result of the DRM or unplayable as a result of the piracy. Either way, it's a sunk cost on my part as a consumer.
But one of those scenarios should NEVER EVER happen.
No one (or at least neither Slash nor myself) are arguing that Ubisoft's DRM is good or that it's acceptable what's happening to the consumer because of their issues. We're simply saying that eliminating DRM isn't the panacea that some people want to make it out to be because it won't eliminate the people at the other end of the "dicking us over" spectrum: the silly geese pirating games.
In the specific case of ACII, well, yes, UPlay is undeniably the culprit for ruining the legitimate consumer's experience. But this will turn into a much more complicated discussion once they start protecting other games with UPlay -- games which bear a closer resemblance to DemiGod than to Assassin's Creed.
I'm not saying it's equally bad. I was just saying that sometimes even the best case scenario for legit customers can have its drawback for both us and the publisher.
There's no way in hell I'm going to analogize Ubi's fucking bullshit and what Stardock does. Stardock does the best thing we could ever hope for and they should be commended for it, absolultely. Everyone should follow in their example. However, just because it's ultimately the best for us doesn't negate the other potential problems of piracy.
Anyway it's a little beside the point as I just wanted to bring up Demigod not as a comparison to A's Creed but rather I want to compare it to Galciv which was brought up before; the servers crashing just to incidentally happen to have that sort of hint of similarity, though totally unequal. As far as Stardock, on the one hand it was argued that no DRM was great for sales (Galciv). On the other hand the piracy rates are still astronomical and the games/publisher aren't immune to other problems of piracy for the consumer or publisher.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
The pirates have certainly dicked people over due to the increasing intrusion of DRM into games, but your example is so horribly cherry picked I find it impossible to take seriously. A better example would be where a pirate somehow prevented someone from playing a single player game of some sort. Then we'd be comparing apples to apples here.
Many multiplayer games have been ruined by hackers, pirates and poor server stability. Multiplayer only games are immensely vulnerable to their servers being hacked, crashed and similar. This has been a reality of the internet since online multiplayer only games were conceived of. What you posted was really a flaw with multiplayer only games - not pirates or DRM.
The problem with the scenario in this thread is that the DRM through no fault of the customer prevents them from playing a non-online game when some online functionality is removed. That makes it an exceptional dicking over and a multiplayer games servers crashing - for whatever reason - is just not a valid or meaningful comparison.
That depends entirely on how you define 'best case'. Having all major commercial games be released as freeware would certainly be better for consumers in the short run, but that's obviously a horribly bad idea. Game developers need to make money off their games to make more of them, meaning that the best scenario for consumers is for developers to have a strategy that maximizes the quality and quantity of published titles while minimizing the prices. This isn't the same as maximizing profit, obviously, but profit does need to be made in order for future work to be encouraged.
If including DRM can do this better than not including DRM, then DRM is a net positive to the consumer. By taking a hit to the quality of the current group of games, the next group will have a more stable base of support from the developer. DRM is only a bad thing if it drags down the quality of the games beyond the gain in quality from including it, which can be difficult to judge in advance. Ubisoft's system may very well have passed that line, though I'm withholding judgment until I see the sales figures.
You say particularly a single player game, but you're still including multiplayer games, correct? So if somebody decided to review WoW today between the hours of 4:00 and 11:00 PST, WoW would receive a zero score, and there's not a thing wrong with that.
Ok, so there's a difference between scheduled and unscheduled down time. Is scheduled down time forgivable? So what if Ubi suddenly decided to call these interruptions scheduled?
Alright, alright. Any game not playable on the day you review it due to something obviously unscheduled, a bug, a glitch, whatever, deserves a zero score, how's that?
See, I think it's still ridiculous. How do you determine if you've tried hard enough to get it working on your end? Does it get a zero if you personally can't play it, or only if there are widespread reports of nobody being able to play it? What if there's a day one patch, are you allowed to apply that before calling it a zero? Is it the very first time you click on the shortcut, or are you allowed to attempt to open that exe a couple of times?
Remember, this is independent of draconian DRM or Ubisoft's policies. You said every game (and so implied the original poster before people decided I was making a statement I never did).
Stop straw manning.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
It's not a straw man. Your argument just doesn't make any sense and is an irrelevant comparison.
Find me a single player game that pirates prevented a legitimate user from playing. That's an example that is a fair and completely valid comparison.
Yes.
Well that would be a lie, and thus not okay.
Well, in this situation Ubisoft saying "yup, our servers went down" would lead a person to possibly, maybe, conclude that it's not a problem at their end.
All these "points" you're trying to make are ridiculous and stupid.
You're really missing the forest for the trees.
Let's just say I agree with the point you're making, even though it's not directly relevant to what I was saying.
I agree with you. I honestly do. Now we can move on. No sense in wasting more posts on this.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
If Ubi schedules some release day down time on their next DRM game, then we ought to see some pretty good scores by comparison, huh? Considering that's totally okay.
Well, they wouldn't be alternating, since they sort them by score. So there would be a bunch of 8's at the top and 0's at the bottom. And metacritic also puts a comment from the review. If the 0's were from not being able to play during their scheduled review time, then the comment would likely say that.
Well, that's what Metacritic is there for, to give you an average score based on various different reviews from various different reviewers who experienced the game in a different way. If some of them were unable to review the game at all because of technical fuckmuppetry from the publisher, that's part of their experience and should affect the Metacritic average score for that game.
Alright, and are day one patches allowed on this new scoring system we're working on, or does that get it a zero as well if we can't play it as-is on the disc?
I guess if it does automatic updates that would keep it from getting a zero. Manual patches would kill a game's average though.
And are we saying that reviews should then be edited to reflect a zero if the second time you go to play it, it doesn't work? Or do you average the score from your first time playing it with a zero.
You don't hear about them because they were never made, because they wouldn't have been profitable to make. That is the cost of piracy to consumers.
Their multiplayer servers crashed because they weren't up yet. GameStop started selling before the release date, making it available to GameStop customers and pirates before the real servers were up yet, meaning games were instead trying to use test servers meant for internal testing and review copies. And the game itself was stupidly coded to contact the server whenever entering the main menu, which is why pirated copies were part of the clusterfuck. When Stardock dealt with the issue, they changed the IP addresses of the servers so the pirated copies weren't contacting them anymore, but more importantly they brought up the real fucking servers that were meant to be brought online shortly before the release date. Though there are still problems because their netcode is terrible.
And lets remember that the reason the pirated copies were coded with the ip addresses of the real servers was because there was no pirate servers, no means for the pirates to actually play the multiplayer in a competitive RTS with no campaign. Fucking singleplayer skirmish against the computer only. Setting aside the release date being broken and Stardock coding the game to DDOS their own servers even if not using the multiplayer, you think those people represent any lost sales? Do you think people checking out the game before the release date and pirates satisfied with playing an overwhelmingly multiplayer game against the computer did so when they otherwise would have shelled out for the game? It was already in the category of games that naturally work like Ubisoft wants singleplayer games to work because they're fucking multiplayer, adding DRM to that is even more pointless than normal. Hell, as far as I know there's still not any pirate servers because the community is too small for anyone to bother, so Demigod's effective DRM of simply being a multiplayer game has yet to be cracked. It doesn't seem to have done them a lot of good.
I can't play the game I shelled $60 for? Fuck you too. 0/10.
Of course patches are allowed. Why wouldn't they be? Obviously if the patch comes out after the review has gone online/the magazine is in the print the game is getting a shitty score, and that's what you get for shipping an unfinished product.
Reviews can be edited or a later review can be issued when the game is working properly if the reviewer so desires to do, but that doesn't magically alter the reality of what the game was like when the original review was published. If the game ceases to function at a later date, I'm sure someone will mention that somewhere.
I see nothing here that I disagree with.
Also don't read my post to say that I am in favor of putting DRM into Stardock's games because I think it'll necessarily help sales or curb piracy. Not sure if you are or not (I assume not), but just to be clear, I'm not.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games