Ubisoft DRM u-turn

[Saracen]

Oh good, agreement.



Infer what you like - but that doesn't half come across as being a tad precious.

.....

All right, I've had enough of this.

You are entitled to make your decisions for your reasons. You are entitled to reach different conclusions for different reasons. But you are not entitled to tell me I'm wrong to feel as I do about this.

All I did was express MY view about MY perspective and why I make MY decisions, and you chose to make an issue of it. If you want to express your views about your decisions, go right ahead. But when you want to

But you've told me I'm unrealistic, paranoid, over-sensitive, precious and "horrifically wronged somehow" and I'm acting like I'm in school, because I "want the last word" .

Stop it. Now. You have been warned.

[dangel]

All right, I've had enough of this.

Ah, this is not going to end well then.

You are entitled to make your decisions for your reasons. You are entitled to reach different conclusions for different reasons. But you are not entitled to tell me I'm wrong to feel as I do about this.

It's a forum - yes you're an admin - but I've simply expressed that i don't understand your logic from my perspective (after all, that's all I have). You've read far more into what's been said than is actually there as I've also tried to point out.

All I did was express MY view about MY perspective and why I make MY decisions, and you chose to make an issue of it.

Actually, I think it's rather that you just don't like me having an opinion (from my perspective) that you're wrong to exclude yourself (from Steam etc) for the reasons you state - if anything you've made 'an issue of it' rather than I. I did say I didn't expect to change your views (or want to) and that this wouldn't really achieve anything. To flip it back - all I did was express MY view about MY perspective on the decision making process YOU posted on a forum for the World to see. But please, read on before replying - and note that this isn't intended to be neither flippant or antagonising!

But you've told me I'm unrealistic, paranoid, over-sensitive, precious and "horrifically wronged somehow" and I'm acting like I'm in school, because I "want the last word" .

Stop it. Now. You have been warned.

Look, I'm sorry, but I call it as I see it - you've agreed it's not malicious previously so let's just call it a day on this one. As previously stated there's a difference between stating something seems 'paranoid' and calling somebody said. You're highlighting selectively (and ignoring context), inferring beyond the prose and seem to be saying (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you're beyond question when it comes to your own views. Debate should be just that - were the roles reversed I can't say I would of taken the same tact. If someone said (on here too!) that one of my views "seemed a bit stupid" or "was a bit stupid" I wouldn't jump back with "you're saying I'm stupid"! Sure, i'd challenge that view - but I'd certainly not end up nearly as offended as you seem to be because i expect such a counter on a public forum and don't really consider such a thing a big problem for me.

In life people will disagree with your views, I'm pretty sure you're a reasonable person and I think (hope) I come across as the same (but I suspect I'm not either due to my lack of skill in communicating it or your misinterpretation of what's being said or a bit of both) on here in general. I suspect this runs deeper than this thread alone in all honesty, and if that's the case then perhaps I'm at fault there, perhaps you are. Are we best to simply avoid each other on here? Possibly a loss for both sides, possibly not - you decide. People will clash but we ought to be able to agree to disagree - fundamentally we do (obviously) as to what's debatable. I rather suspect if you knew me a bit better (and I you) this wouldn't have ended up here - it's not what I wanted. I'd rather have people challenge my beliefs and vice versa because it's (to me) part of the process. That's me. Been around long enough to know it.

If I ever get to a social I'll buy the beer. Enjoy your weekend whatever you decide to do Saracen.

[Paranoid2000]

Valve are only setting prices for their own games, for other publishers (and probably Valve themselves, being Steam isn't their only distribution method) it seems pretty likely there are deals worked out to keep bricks n' mortar and mail order as viable options, at least around release.

This is a common justification for Steam's high prices - the "evil publishers and retailers" forcing Valve to charge full whack. Yet if this was the case, shouldn't that prevent Valve from running special offers at all?

As to the advantages you list, the online play and auto updates may be significant but many games have their own online setup and auto-updates can cause problems (in particular where a new version breaks savegame or mod compatibility). Updating manually is slightly more work (in practice, most games only receive a few patches after release) but then such problems can be avoided.

[dangel]

This is a common justification for Steam's high prices - the "evil publishers and retailers" forcing Valve to charge full whack. Yet if this was the case, shouldn't that prevent Valve from running special offers at all?

Not necessarily - a good parallel right now is e-books. Why are they more expensive than paper counterparts? Well, because publishers control the prices set - look at all the dirty laundry exposed when Apple joined the market and Amazon got outmanoeuvred by the publishers into raising prices. Steam faces the same problem - even though the costs are undoubtably lower, and the ease of use of it probably encourages legitimate punters versus piracy the publishers keep the prices artificially high because it suits them and all the middle men in the retail chain too. Long established business methods and working relationships benefit all those therein - but rarely the punter.

That said, the summer sale this year has been amazing - but similar sales of older games exist in the hard copy world too.

[Cheapy]

I disagree with Ubisofts DRM requiring a constant internet connection to play and hoping it does get removed. But thats being hopelessly optimistic.

Steam I dont mind too much so long as I can have a hard copy of the game. They seem to presume that everyone can handle 10Gb downloads like its nothing big but for those of us with slower internet its a pain just downloading patches some times. At least Steam lets you turn off the auto update function on games even if it wont let you save the patches in case you ever have to reload.

One thing I wish I could do was to tie older games that are on steam now but were released before Steam to my steam account so I didnt need the CD in to play the game.

[Saracen]

....

That said, the summer sale this year has been amazing - but similar sales of older games exist in the hard copy world too.

Now that I do agree with .... some Steam sales are exceptionally tempting. At that level, it's a shame I won't use them. But despite the sales, I won't. They're not tempting enough given my other concerns. Frankly, they could be giving them away, or even paying me and the answer would still be "no thanks", because of the other issues I have with them.

I agree about the price of e-books though. I'm seriously tempted by the new Kindle, the standard WiFi one. I made up my mind ages ago that £100 was about my cut-off point for an e-reader, and the standard one is getting awfully close. The issue though if often the same as it is, in part, with games .... I want physical copies, not just e-copies. I'm a bit of a bibliophile, as evidenced by a collection large enough that I bought a database program and a barcode reader just to be able to keep track of exactly what I'd got, and where it was. I measure my book collection by yards of shelf space required. And I'm getting to the point where I need to measure by rooms used.

So an e-reader really appeals to me if I could have e-copies as well, and I'm damned if I'm paying out twice. So it would really come down to my own documents that I need to carry about, reference materials that I would settle for e-versions of and stuff available free on Project Gutenburg, etc.

[Zoso]

This is a common justification for Steam's high prices - the "evil publishers and retailers" forcing Valve to charge full whack. Yet if this was the case, shouldn't that prevent Valve from running special offers at all?

Not if the publishers are the ones setting the offer prices, no. At release nobody knows when or if a game's going to have an amazing discount, people who particularly want it pick it up via their preferred medium (shop, mail order, digital), with physical copies tending to have a discount to make it viable to have stock. After a while run a big discount on a digital distribution service, people who were interested but didn't want to pay full price pick it up, big sales boost. Best of all worlds, no "evil" on the part of publishers/Valve, just maximising revenue while keeping the distribution options happy.

I'm seriously tempted by the new Kindle, the standard WiFi one. I made up my mind ages ago that £100 was about my cut-off point for an e-reader, and the standard one is getting awfully close. [...] So an e-reader really appeals to me if I could have e-copies as well, and I'm damned if I'm paying out twice.

Yeah, likewise, I'm definitely tempted by an e-reader around £100, but the prospect of starting again with a big library of paper books is off-putting. That was where MP3 players were a no-brainer, you could rip an existing CD collection (even if not technically legal) to make the transition much smoother, and you can always burn music CDs of downloaded tracks. No paper equivalent, really, unless you cut a book up and shove it through a scanner with OCR... Wonder if anyone's stuck a code in the back of a paper book that would let you download a digital version of it as well? That might help e-reader take-up.

[Behemoth]

I'm with Saracen on some of what he says, I have a strong hate for DRM annoyingly its in the games I want to play. So I'm either forced to not play those games, or bite the bullett and buy them.

Really I should just ignore them and not purchase them and not hurt my wallett. That said I was glad that I didn't buy Command and Conqeur 4 as I'd read that the DRM in that was awful. I've personally had really bad experience with some DRM.

I religously buy all the Need For Speed games as I've enjoyed them all from the very first to the current. I was shocked after having to re-install NFS Under Cover for the fourth time that I was no longer able to play the game agaon because I'd used all 3 activations. Hang on a sec, nobody told me about this, it was'nt in the manual either.

If a game comes with DRM it should be clearly stated on the box and then I can make a choice to buy it or not. If I know it's got DRM already then I'll find out what it is, do I need to acticate the product if I'm likely to put new hardware in my PC.

Neither should I have to go cap in hand to any game publisher and say "Please sir, I need more activations, I've used mine" only to be told "Buy a new copy" Which is what EA did !

To be honest DRM in games is worse than WGA for Windows. We all know it's in Windows, and we all know how it works, but with games it's well hidden and only brought to our attention after the fact.

[usxhe190]

I am not a fan of DRM either. That's why I check to make sure there is no DRM for games I like on the Internet before making the purchase.

Yes, I haven't made a lot of purchases lately