No real shock. Every new game with this DRM will be cracked before release from now on. So back to the status quo.
Wonder if Ubisoft thinks the whole thing was worth it, in hindsight, I mean. They obviously thought so when they launched. Seems to me like a whole lot of expense, fuss and ubi's reputation getting hammered(again!), just to get back where we started.
And nope, still not bought it, still not going to.
I doubt that somehow. The games industry always wants to imply that every single pirate download is a lost sale, and I don't think that's true.Originally Posted by kalniel
The real question is: What proportion of people who would've normally downloaded a cracked version in those 2 months chose instead to go and buy it?
Somehow, I doubt it's that high, but it's not like we'll ever get hold of those figures.
No they don't, it tends to be other people who say that or say that they imply that, without reason.
That's not the question at all, at least not as far as the games industry is concerned. They are only concerned with how many people buy the games and how much they pay for them. Some developers get pissed off that people are playing their games for free, but the industry as a whole don't really care about that - it's not anything to do with business.The real question is: What proportion of people who would've normally downloaded a cracked version in those 2 months chose instead to go and buy it?
I doubt it. Its a lose-lose situation. UBS didn't get any increased sales. Their customerse are angry.
Several times I've seen a quote from someone like SEGA saying "We lost £20m on this game", by virtue of the equation 1m pirate downloads * £20 RRP = £20m, so I don't think I'm being unreasonable.
I don't see why not? They are a business, so they want to maximise profit.That's not the question at all, at least not as far as the games industry is concerned. They are only concerned with how many people buy the games and how much they pay for them. Some developers get pissed off that people are playing their games for free, but the industry as a whole don't really care about that - it's not anything to do with business.
DRM boots profits by: Encouraging would-be pirates to purchase the game, because they don't want to wait until it's been cracked
And it costs profits by: Losing customers by irritating them with DRM inclusion, costing a certain amount to develop and implement in the first place
So they implement it on the basis that the amount of money earned from would-be pirates will outstrip the amount they lost with the DRM. And presumably if you look at the number of buyers against the level of irritation the DRM causes, you'll get a bell curve - so they have to get the balance right.
If you're saying that the industry only looks at headline figures, then fair enough - maybe you're right. But this is the reason why they implement DRM - and so that's the only way its benefits can be measured.
According to? They wouldn't have done it if the experts didn't project a return.
Profit is returns minus losses. Nothing more, nothing less. Stopping non-customers from playing the game doesn't have anything to do with profit, therefore as a business they aren't interested in it. In fact from a competitor perspective it's better to make sure they're playing your game for free than a competitors. See microsoft for example.
Yes exactly, and the numbers involved are so large that they can afford to get expert opinions on it.DRM boots profits by: Encouraging would-be pirates to purchase the game, because they don't want to wait until it's been cracked
And it costs profits by: Losing customers by irritating them with DRM inclusion, costing a certain amount to develop and implement in the first place
So they implement it on the basis that the amount of money earned from would-be pirates will outstrip the amount they lost with the DRM. And presumably if you look at the number of buyers against the level of irritation the DRM causes, you'll get a bell curve - so they have to get the balance right.
Last edited by kalniel; 25-04-2010 at 05:19 PM.
Let's just say any "experts" trying to project a return for Ubisoft's DRM cost vs benefits also didn't expect the customer's reaction either.
When you have one unknown (projected profits or losses due to privacy) and one known (costs) which you can spread over the life of all future developments, you always go for the known.
The high sell price of games also doesn't help the equation in having DRM-free software.
That explains why they don't use DRM then... oh no wait, they do.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that DRM isn't designed to increase their profits?
Of course they did - if they were that stupid they wouldn't be in the job - it's hardly the first controversial DRM system in existence.
Well also unknown is the revenue from legitimate sales. But it would be crazy for a private company to make games based on grants with no expectation of any returns. No, they have to project returns, and factor that in, that's their business.When you have one unknown (projected profits or losses due to privacy) and one known (costs) which you can spread over the life of all future developments, you always go for the known.
You mean the low sell price? Games are far cheaper now in real terms on the PC than they used to be.The high sell price of games also doesn't help the equation in having DRM-free software.
Sorry if I'm being confusing. I'm saying DRM is designed to increase their profits. Any decisions about using DRM will have been made ONLY with increasing profit in mind, nothing else. But that decision incorporates quite a lot of factors, and if you or I can think up some, you can be sure the experts have already considered them.
Stopping non-customers from pirating the game for example has no effect on profit so isn't considered (save the theoretical anti-competitive example I gave). Stopping would-be customers from pirating the game does have an effect on profit.
Can we all just agree that ACII was crap though?
kalniel (26-04-2010)
Right, yeah I'm with you now. That's what I meant by this:
In effect, they were the would-be customers, who have been prevented from pirating the game.The real question is: What proportion of people who would've normally downloaded a cracked version in those 2 months chose instead to go and buy it?
There are three options really for those people when they want to play their game:
Give up waiting and buy the game
Wait for it to be cracked
Boycott it altogether
I have a feeling that very few people take option 3, a much larger proportion take option 2, and heck knows how many take option 1. If you take people at face value, you'd say that virtually nobody does, but anyone who admits giving up waiting and buying the game on pirate-focussed forums and the like are usually lambasted for giving in to the evil DRM, so I would imagine that a lot more people do it, than admit it.
Hence why I said I - and probably the people who pay for the DRM too - would be interested to know what those figures are. If a company uses effective DRM, how many additional people will purchase the game as a consequence... would be extremely interested to see a poll on the matter, but obviously it's no use running one on here.
Haven't played it
AC1 was fairly rubbish though.
Wow, that's quite a leap of faith you have going there. You do realise, that 'experts' and people in general do stupid crap all the time, especially if it's in their best interests. They will lie, cheat, kill, and steal their way through the rat race without losing a millisecond of sleep if it so inclines them. And this tendency is ten times worse in corporate America. If you think DRM and copyright 'experts' will make recommendations in the best interests of their clients, then you have more faith in people than most monotheists have faith in God. And that's kinda scary tbh. At least God hasn't shown himself up yet. People have already demonstrated to be nowhere near as trustworthy as you ascribe. That's up there with putting your hand on the Bible. :/
Except stopping non-customers from pirating the game does have an effect on profit, because they're the ones who actually make money from it, and the people who buy from them don't have to put up with crippleware, so people start catching on that knock-off Nigel in the market sells better quality games at a lower price than Game in the shopping centre. That's how the markets work. And that doesn't hurt their profits? And why would end-users pirate a game they already bought with their hard earned? That makes no sense. They might occasionally lend the game to their pal, but they have every right to, they already paid for it.
In fact inter-lending games is what made the games industry grow in the first place. Foo buys game, bar sees game and wants to try, foo lends bar the game and bar plays it, bar likes game and goes out and buys it.
These are the factors that DRM and copyright 'experts' knowingly neglect to integrate into their recommendations. Why? Because doing otherwise would put them out of their job as people would catch on that their field is yet another bull**** profession which jumps on the inflation racket and panders to the fears of business men who don't know how their day to day business works and only see profit/loss figures.
Your terminology was throwing me - 'proportion' means you are inherently taking into account the people who pirate the game who wouldn't buy it (or you can't say this many out of that many). If you don't care about those who honestly wouldn't buy it anyway then you can't care about the proportions.
Yeah that was my point. It's obviously enough people to make it worthwhile from a business perspective. Also remember that forum populations make up a small portion of people (potentially) buying these games - we'll get over-representation of certain views. I have no idea of the numbers of casual pirates who just do it because it's simple and their mate showed them how to do it while they were visiting. There's certainly a case for saying that the ease of pirating on the PC verses the console where it's equally possible, just more hassle, is part of the reason console games seem to suffer less from piracy, despite the fact console games cost so much more than PC games.In effect, they were the would-be customers, who have been prevented from pirating the game.
There are three options really for those people when they want to play their game:
Give up waiting and buy the game
Wait for it to be cracked
Boycott it altogether
I have a feeling that very few people take option 3, a much larger proportion take option 2, and heck knows how many take option 1. If you take people at face value, you'd say that virtually nobody does, but anyone who admits giving up waiting and buying the game on pirate-focussed forums and the like are usually lambasted for giving in to the evil DRM, so I would imagine that a lot more people do it, than admit it.
I'll leave that one to the business expertsHence why I said I - and probably the people who pay for the DRM too - would be interested to know what those figures are. If a company uses effective DRM, how many additional people will purchase the game as a consequence... would be extremely interested to see a poll on the matter, but obviously it's no use running one on here.Maybe I'm just naive, but DRM is not something new. There are people out there who are the worldwide experts in judging that kind of thing.. and they're employed by the companies making these decisions - the industry is too valuable for them not to. As much as we forumites might like to think we know better than the experts (in all walks of life
).. I would love to be able to just walk into that kind of position at one of the industry giants..
As for polls, obviously the problem of over-representation would occur on this kind of forum. But yes, the experts do poll people. There are focus groups, telephone surveys, market experiments, server monitorings, 'game feedback/improvement' options within games, all sorts. The view is never static, but neither is there response, which also varies according to market. For example, EA employ different DRM schemes for different games - those with loyal communities such as Bioware games were able to get away with just CD checks (plus positive incentivisation for buying the game first hand)
Fair point, wasn't the best word to use
I know some people that play pirated 360 games, and you're spot on... it's a real pain in the neck. First off, you'll need a hardware modification of some kind, which people usually pay to have done - and even then you've got to be careful because MS will check up on you over the internet. If you wanted to play online, you had to stealth your games and so on, but then MS would discover the stealth technique, and ban loads of units from Xbox Live. So then people are faced with buying a new console in order to play online, and keeping that as the online "legit console", or having another go with newer stealthing techniques. So if you're unlucky, you end up buying an Xbox, paying to have it modded, and then buying a new one, and having to buy the games you want to play online for that one anyway. Hardly easy, and certainly not cheap if it goes wrong.
Compared to the last few years on the PC, where the biggest difficulty is a small risk of getting a virus, if you aren't aware of what you're doing, you can see why that's where it's really taken off.
Yeah that's a fair point... I suppose going back to Spore, the biggest DRM debacle that I remember (Starforce was before my time really), that game was never going to go down that well with videogaming aficionados, so it gave them the opportunity to test out something new, on a more casual market that's far less discerning or even aware when it comes to DRM.
Maybe you are right, and they do indeed position every piece of DRM very carefully as a result of cost/benefit analysis.
Thinking about it, my problem is that my overall view of "pirating" is based on the serious side of things. I know about scene, private bit-torrent trackers, usenet, so on so forth, and it's probably those kinds of places where people refuse point blank to pay for games with heavy-handed DRM. In those instances, DRM is a waste of space - it makes very little difference. You might as well wait 2 months for the game to be cracked properly, because you've got loads of other ones to download and play anyway.
Maybe in the more common worlds of limewire, demonoid and isohunt you're right, and people literally just say "Can I find it for free?", don't see it anywhere, or find a version that doesn't work, and consequently pop down to Game and pay £35 for for it. I don't know, but the more I think about it, the more reasonable that sounds.
Sure, but then they get sacked and you hire a new market analyst who doesn't make as many mistakes.
I think that's inaccurate. Market analysts have to make recommendations in the best interests of their clients or they won't be supported by the board and ultimately shareholders. If they didn't work they wouldn't be put up with.If you think DRM and copyright 'experts' will make recommendations in the best interests of their clients, then you have more faith in people than most monotheists have faith in God.
Okay my turn to talk about proportions: What proportion of people who would pirate a game that they wouldn't otherwise buy will go on to sell that pirated game themselves? My guess is it's so low as to be almost uncountable.Except stopping non-customers from pirating the game does have an effect on profit, because they're the ones who actually make money from it
So we're not really talking about stopping non-customers playing the game here, we're talking about targeting the few individuals around the world who enable would-be customers to avoid paying for the game. Fair enough, but that's simply talking about one of the mechanisms with which you target would-be customers. It's still not an actual interest in non-customers playing the game.and the people who buy from them don't have to put up with crippleware, so people start catching on that knock-off Nigel in the market sells better quality games at a lower price than Game in the shopping centre. That's how the markets work. And that doesn't hurt their profits?
Sure, and most DRM schemes are designed to allow that for that very reason.They might occasionally lend the game to their pal, but they have every right to, they already paid for it.
In fact inter-lending games is what made the games industry grow in the first place. Foo buys game, bar sees game and wants to try, foo lends bar the game and bar plays it, bar likes game and goes out and buys it.
A market analyst is not a bs profession. No company that sells a product can do without them for long, I can't believe you're suggesting otherwise.These are the factors that DRM and copyright 'experts' knowingly neglect to integrate into their recommendations. Why? Because doing otherwise would put them out of their job as people would catch on that their field is yet another bull**** profession which jumps on the inflation racket and panders to the fears of business men who don't know how their day to day business works and only see profit/loss figures.
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