Interesting...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-scrapping-always-on-drm-for-pc-games/

Now they only need some games that people actually want to play.

Man these guys are full of s*. Is there some inviolable corporate principle saying "you should never ever admit to having made a mistake"? Apparently "sorry" is also out of the question.
"Unfortunate comment" lol

Their bs and arrogance is actually funny, when you think of all the dumb decisions they made and the grand show of incompetence they put on over the years.

The phrase too little too late comes to mind.

Again?

All the posters who said "it's the wave of the future and how it's going to be from now on" are conspicuous by their absence. Is it possible the free market, that part of the market being free to refuse to do business only on the company's terms, that finally won out?

Maybe, but he's not admitting to it.

Even though he's saying "Piracy is way down, but so are our paying customers.", he does not see a correlation there. Nope, not related, in no way.

So when does the GRFS patch come out that removes uPlay?

Oh, they see the correlation all right. It's a crystal clear case of correlation:

Ubisoft sees 90% drop in PC sales after implementing Always On DRM


'In terms of actual sales, however, the results seem decidedly mixed. Michael Pachter told Eurogamer that Ubisoft’s “PC game sales are down 90% without a corresponding lift in console sales.”

Pachter framed the problem in terms of piracy, as I’m sure Ubisoft frames the problem, but a 90% decline in PC sales is a catastrophic number. If piracy were the problem, then their “successful” DRM policy should have prevented such a free-fall.

Instead, PC gamers have stopped buying Ubisoft games. In fact, the decline of sales even calls into question the decline in piracy rates. All we know for sure is that Ubisoft have stopped people from playing their games. Full stop.'


The Ubisoft managers may seem cocky in the article, but what they are really thinking is - "Holy hell, we blew it big time this time. Sure hope the shareholders don't pick up on this fact, cause if they do, we'll be applying for new jobs managing burger joints or gas stations."

Although there is some justice at the end, we talked with our money and now it hit them where it hurts but we lose as well. Sooner or later Ubisoft will leave the gaming industry and we are left with less choices. I know that their management had much fault setting up draconian DRM methods but there should have been a different way to make them notice of their wrong decisions.

Unfortunately, the only language they understand is dollars and cents.

Ubisoft doesn't need to worry about piracy. Their console ports masquerading as PC Games are so bad, that the pirates won't even touch them. A little word to the wise Ubisoft, DCS is the most painless/fair DRM in the business and they seem sell games to just fine. Piracy doesn't seem to be an issue for them. You might want to take a second look at your business model.

+1

/KC

maybe they realized that keeping the server for DRM costs more than needed. my question is will those games still function once the DRM server will be put offline?

The theory is that before taking the respective DRM servers down, the game would be patched to no longer look for them. And that the said patches would be prepared in advance, just waiting to be deployed for years, so that its not a question of "who knows how to patch SH3?! Hell, no one left from the dev team".

In theory, nothing to worry about.

I trust your word for it, but if a company gets sold to another company, who says the other would release these patches?

Also I was told long ago that pre-prepared DRM Unlockers are not done because they might escape into the wild.

Who knows, I'm a (relatively) good guy and I believe in the good intentions of others too.

But I was totally against the always-on DRM for SH5, for the record, even with all said precautions.

1. That's based on the unproven (and unlikely) assumption that no other company will step forward fill such a void.
2. That's a market based free economy. For better or for worse (usually for the better), money talks. Those who serve their customers' interests best usually also earn more money than those who act against the manifest interest of their customers.

Of course, the case could be made that if the customers expect free service, there actually is no market (that's why piracy is real, and a real threat). I feel neither pity nor am I overly concerned about the fate of a single publisher. Concern for the market and the PC platform as a whole? Yes. But not about one specific publisher with a more or less erratic product policy enforced by a panic-stricken management that probably changes every few years. The only pity is that those who made the stupid decisions are probably no longer in the same positions to see the results of their disastrous actions


I disagree. That's what a free market is about. There is but one clear indicator, whether you make more profit or less, which works very well as long as the laws of the market are actually enforced/held up. That is, customers who decide to NOT consume when they don't like a particular aspect of a product rather than obtaining a copy from shady sources. Massive piracy mangles the market laws. On the one hand millions of people actually WANT that specific game as they demonstrate by acquiring the software from illegal sources, on the other hand the people who made it do not receive the just reward for their effort. As a consequence, everybody loses in the long term because due to a lack of profitability despite manifest demand, similar game titles are less likely to be developed.

I disagree with you then . Economic failure is the final indicator: once you get to that, it means you lost the game. Too late now to see you've made bad calls. It is always better to have indeed different ways to notice a wrong decision, in our case dumb ass DRM (and more). Competent management means finding what's wrong before the ship is sunk. Yes Ubisoft finally realised their crap DRM hurt in fact sales and didn't do that much for deterring pirates, but the net result is lost oportunities, good games that sold poorly, good teams dismantled, and also a lost for the discerning consumer (most of the simming crowd really), who didn't have a chance to play those games.


I know you're talking about piracy, but the same effect can be (and sometimes is) achieved through bad executive decisions (ridiculous DRM, rushed releases etc); even games genres, especially niche genres, can be hurt because of a perceived difficulty of obtaining profit.

Well, it's not that they couldn't have sensed that they were acting against their own legitimate customers' interests. In fact, I believe that they knew exactly that they were taking a big risk. When you do that, you better prepare a contingency plan to change course.
I mean, this is the 101 of management theory, military decision processes, etc. - you need to look at what needs immediate action and what doesn't, and what's important and what's not. If piracy rises to an alarming level, then it threatens your business existence (so it is important), and it may require immediate action - in that case it's a matter for top level management decisions and monitoring of the results. That also means that you need to gather additional intelligence, and to consider second order effects - somethig that was apparently neglected.

They could have done better, but the truth is, the top level management f*cked up, plain and simple. They may have been correct in analyzing the threat, but they surely did not analyze the possible consequences of their decisions to their legitimate customers. Even if they did, they failed to monitor customer opinion, and if they did even that, they misjudged how severe the backlash would be. Either way, I feel no pity with them. They risked a lot and failed to correct their actions quickly as soon as it became obvious that it was a failing strategy.

they did it again today, Ubi servers down, their paying customers can't play Far Cry 3. Of course pirates and legit users playing the cracked game are not affected. Man, this is really funny. And stupid.

Quickly found link: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/30/far-cry-3-servers-down-already-ubi-this-is-a-mess/