News - Ubisoft makes plans to tackle PC piracy

[watercooled]

Personally I'd say it was DRM that's killing PC gaming which in turn encourages piracy. I don't want to start on that again but really they need to scrap the malicious, invasive DRM systems currently in use to encourage people to buy the games.

[kalniel]

Personally I'd say it was DRM that's killing PC gaming which in turn encourages piracy. I don't want to start on that again

Then don't. Games without DRM are pirated at least as badly as those with it. DRM isn't the reason most people pirate.

[watercooled]

What I mean by 'don't want to start' is that I don't want to type a huge paragraph like I have in the past about the reasons DRM is bad. It just doesn't help - at all, and it turns away genuine gamers so why use it? It's broken in hours and it's absolutely useless at preventing piracy - not debatable really.

[Princess_Frosty]

More DRM, will cause problems with legit users and be cracked in days. Why bother? Put tht money into polishing the game and making it more attractive to your potential audience.

[watercooled]

My point exactly m8. I fail to understand the point of it...

[Kurono]

More DRM, will cause problems with legit users and be cracked in days. Why bother? Put tht money into polishing the game and making it more attractive to your potential audience.

Reminds me of the GTA4 SecuROM system, I remember there being a multitude of cracks and the such for people to either make the game accept Virtual CD Drives or outright bypass SecuROM and allow the user to play GTA4 without the CD. It's a race between companies trying to protect the game and people cracking said protection.

[kYza]

CD Burning protection just fail's admit it

[watercooled]

I think there's a valid reason (apart from the fact it goes against your right to make a backup copy...) for it but since 99% of it is invasive and digs itself deep into your OS as well as being broken almost immediately I think it should really be re-thought!!

[Lucio]

You know what they're missing, the good ol' standby of retail, price incentives. Release version A of the game with DRM at the £24.99 price point, version B without DRM at the £39.99 price point and let market forces decide what's better.

Make sure the games are slightly different so you can track which versions get pirated and see what really works. In the mean time, all the people who loathe DRM will likely spend their money on the more expensive verison, offsetting the extra costs.

[watercooled]

I don't see why genuine users should be punished by being forced to pay more just because they don't want any DRM malware on their PC though. I know what you're saying though and it would be a step in the right direction - especially if the companies more DRM-free versions sold so removed it from all of their future games...