Ubisoft fails. AC2 already leaked and cracked.

[QUOTE="Pixel-Pirate"]

No object is lost there for nothing is stolen. Excuse me if I don't cry if a billion dollar corporation treating it's customers like criminals gets taught a lesson.

Teufelhuhn

Let me put it this way.....work should be contracted, not CD keys or little useless pieces of plastic.

I'm not going to pirate the game, I don't care for AC2 and if I was going to play it I'd play it on a console. But I'm not going to feel bad and say "Awwww poor baby!" if Ubisoft's games get pirated.

This is the one topic that really aggravates me. Primarily because i know people who steal (yeah that's what it is...) every game, and do it with a smile on their face and their self-entitled feeling.

I'd really like to know just how much do companies lose to piracy, also see what profit margins are for games without DRM and those with DRM. I persoanlly wasn't happy to see that a game like "World of Goo" that 90% of it was illegally downloaded.

the gamer can be all happy about having saved themselves some dollars (be it 8 bucks for a rent, or 50/60 bucks new, or used) so they could play a game that costed a company upwards of 20-30 million dollars to make and market.

For those out there who say "why should i pay money to a publisher who didn't do anything but spent money to make the game". reality check bub..... without that money.... without that marketing dollars.... there would NOT BE a "Insert favorite game"...

As much as people hate it, with faster and more widespread internet, were looking at a future where everything will be akin to On Live. the gamer owns nothing, and will only get to play it via streaming.

I live on campus where people can get pretty much whatever game they want off of private servers... lets play the numbers games shall we? Dead Space, say it was downloaded 300 times, assume 300 different people downloaded, sells for 20 bucks on Amazon as of right now. that is.... 6,000 dollars right there... ok.. so say only half of those people would of bought it had the incentive to just grab and steal it was so easy... that's still 3,000 dollars. I'm looking at one site right now, with maybe 600 people seeding it... God knows how many people have downloaded the game. 600 people that's roughly 12 grand. this is at 20 bucks a pop. lets say it was 50, that's 15,000 and 30,000 respectively. Frankly i think i'm drastically low balling.

eventually... the pirates won't have DRM to point to as their reason for going to illegally obtaining games. soon enough there won't be any DRM. gamers won't even get to OWN the game, they'll pay full price, for the PRIVILEGE to play it off of some server. eventually... they'll just have to fess up for what they're doing. stealing.

In the end i"d like to see what the real numbers. there must be a reason - besides laziness - why NPD STOPPED tracking PC sales.

then it hits me........

The gaming community is full of 13 year olds who live off of mom and dads allowance or they"re a bunch of people living off of goverment aid while in college.

I am amazed this game hasnt still been pirated... so far (apparently...) you can run the game but you cant save and it crashes to desktop all the time. I would be happy if this game cant be pirated, I hate pirates and I am happy to have to be connected to the internet all the time (like playing WOW) if that stops pirates. MotherRussia

Are you connected all the time? No down time or glitches whatsoever? If you are, you're lucky. Many connections, like mine, can be unstable at times. Having a game crash because your connection had a hickup is no fun.

And I'm still not convinced this DRM will hold out for long. In the longterm Ubi is only going to make its customers suffer.

I'll buy your game Ubisoft, only when i know a good working crack is released.

How can you just generalise a whole group of gamers, who make up the largest amount of the whole gaming industry, bigger than all three consoles combined? There are loads of PC gamers who don't pirate anything. Does that make them a pirate? I don't think so...

siddhu33

Sorry, I forgot that piracy is rare on PCs and just an overblown excuse from lazy PC devs. I'll try to remember that.

Here is the fact of the situation, piracy on PC is out of control and developers are getting turned off. Yet, when developers start to focus more on consoles, the PC fanboys whine and complain. When PC developers try to protect their games through various means, PC fanboys whine and complain. So what do you PC fans propose that these developers do? Seriously?

Maybe try and come up with a useful idea on how to best support these developers instead of just making excuses for why people pirate. Because all that does is legitimize piracy and piracy is stealing.

In the end i"d like to see what the real numbers. there must be a reason - besides laziness - why NPD STOPPED tracking PC sales.

SaudiFury

Well, i don't know the specifics of why NPD did that, but i have some ideas.

- Services like steam are huge, and are not counted. Which would make the numbers very inaccurate.

- The reduction of pc gaming space on store shelves. Pushing more people into the DD realm.

I heard somewhere that Valve doesn't even keep track of the numbers.

This is just idiotic over-rationalization. So PC developers are desperate to stop PC piracy, which hermits claim isn't really THAT bad despite most likely having tons of pirated crap on their HDDs. Ubisoft makes an attempt at stopping piracy of one of their games...which people crack and pirate...and it is somehow UBISOFT'S fault that they are pirating it?

Please. This is BS. This is such BS that even Penny Arcade making a comic mocking it. PC users are pirates. Period. Now I'm not judging them because I can admit to pirating things, at times, myself. I'm not innocent, but I don't go around making excuses as if to pretend I'm doing something great and noble. That is just insulting.

Piracy is rampant on PCs and hermits are only ensuring that more and more developers continue to treat consoles as their first choice. This wasn't done because people were angry at Ubisoft's piracy "protection", they were doing it because they were going to pirate the game anyway.

RichardStallman

What did I say is so ignorant? That many developers are worried about the rampant piract on PCs? That many PC users pirate games (estimates are in the millions for big titles)? Or that whenever this issue pops up PC fans CONTINUALLY DEFEND the pirates?

Okay, so I over-generalized by saying ALL PC users pirate. But honestly, I've never met a SINGLE PC user in my life that didn't have some pirated material on the PC, whether that be movies, tv shows, books, music, games, software, etc.

But I'm all ears.

[QUOTE="RichardStallman"]This is just idiotic over-rationalization. So PC developers are desperate to stop PC piracy, which hermits claim isn't really THAT bad despite most likely having tons of pirated crap on their HDDs. Ubisoft makes an attempt at stopping piracy of one of their games...which people crack and pirate...and it is somehow UBISOFT'S fault that they are pirating it?

Please. This is BS. This is such BS that even Penny Arcade making a comic mocking it. PC users are pirates. Period. Now I'm not judging them because I can admit to pirating things, at times, myself. I'm not innocent, but I don't go around making excuses as if to pretend I'm doing something great and noble. That is just insulting.

Piracy is rampant on PCs and hermits are only ensuring that more and more developers continue to treat consoles as their first choice. This wasn't done because people were angry at Ubisoft's piracy "protection", they were doing it because they were going to pirate the game anyway.

ZIMdoom

What did I say is so ignorant? That many developers are worried about the rampant piract on PCs? That many PC users pirate games (estimates are in the millions for big titles)? Or that whenever this issue pops up PC fans CONTINUALLY DEFEND the pirates?

Okay, so I over-generalized by saying ALL PC users pirate. But honestly, I've never met a SINGLE PC user in my life that didn't have some pirated material on the PC, whether that be movies, tv shows, books, music, games, software, etc.

But I'm all ears.

pc games, what can you expect? lol.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]

[QUOTE="Pixel-Pirate"]

I'm very much failing to realize how a company's actions somehow makes it okay to just download their game off the Internet. If you don't like their licenses or DRM or whatever it is they're peddling, you can just not play the game instead of giving them one more reason to come up with worse DRM (or just abandon the platform altogether).

[QUOTE="Pixel-Pirate"]

Please stop acting like ubisoft is some mom and pop store. They're a multi million dollar company.

Pixel-Pirate

If the companies actions succeed and they continue to do this in hurting their customers it will give the green light to other developers to purpousley hurt their customers as well. I cannot support that and I support anything to show a development company that doing these type of things never works, it never has and it never will. All it does is make people resent you.

Big companies will lay off the little guy after their product fails to sell due to highly intrusive DRM that was most likely thought up by a high up in the company. In other words the little guy will end up being punished for the big guys failures.

And the difference between pirating from a small tiny company and from ubisoft is that one company may be unable to afford any loss and the other has funds to spare. That doesn't make it right to pirate from either one, I'm not saying it does, but I would consider it worse to pirate from the little guy then from the big guy who can take a hit or two.

That is actually irrelevant, because none of this will justfiy piracy, regardless of what said company is doing.

You have zero basis for a claim like this, maybe it's true, maybe not, i don't know, but that doesn't change the ethics. Unless you can show me some serious fact, this claim is purely based on speculation, nothing more. And it's clear you are taking the activision even into this.

I can understand that, but that doesn't mean that ou can ''stick it to the man'' and start cheering pirates for this, because in the end, it's still wrong, regardless of how you even try to spin it.

pc games, what can you expect? lol.

oajlu

[QUOTE="ZIMdoom"]

[QUOTE="RichardStallman"] And I thought people on SW couldn't get more ignorant.jimmarko21876

What did I say is so ignorant? That many developers are worried about the rampant piract on PCs? That many PC users pirate games (estimates are in the millions for big titles)? Or that whenever this issue pops up PC fans CONTINUALLY DEFEND the pirates?

Okay, so I over-generalized by saying ALL PC users pirate. But honestly, I've never met a SINGLE PC user in my life that didn't have some pirated material on the PC, whether that be movies, tv shows, books, music, games, software, etc.

But I'm all ears.

I'm not going to pirate the game, I don't care for AC2 and if I was going to play it I'd play it on a console. But I'm not going to feel bad and say "Awwww poor baby!" if Ubisoft's games get pirated.

Pixel-Pirate

[QUOTE="jimmarko21876"][QUOTE="ZIMdoom"]

What did I say is so ignorant? That many developers are worried about the rampant piract on PCs? That many PC users pirate games (estimates are in the millions for big titles)? Or that whenever this issue pops up PC fans CONTINUALLY DEFEND the pirates?

Okay, so I over-generalized by saying ALL PC users pirate. But honestly, I've never met a SINGLE PC user in my life that didn't have some pirated material on the PC, whether that be movies, tv shows, books, music, games, software, etc.

But I'm all ears.

Sandvichman

There are way more PC users than 360 users, so of course the pirate numbers will be higher. Not to mention alot easier than modding a console, no hardware modding required. And there's more than enough pirating on consoles for devs to take measures, but what can they do to actually stop it. You think banning consoles wasn't a measure being taken?

[QUOTE="Sandvichman"][QUOTE="jimmarko21876"] Why is it always PC that is brought up in piracy? Final Fantasy XIII is available for 360 already, but no one is crying "Oh the evil pirates". At least be consistant when bashing piracy. Personally, I know more 360 pirates than PC, go figure.jimmarko21876

There are way more PC users than 360 users, so of course the pirate numbers will be higher. Not to mention alot easier than modding a console, no hardware modding required. And there's more than enough pirating on consoles for devs to take measures, but what can they do to actually stop it. You think banning consoles wasn't a measure being taken?

You do know that these "big companies" lay off the little guys when they don't make enough money, right?

Teufelhuhn

[QUOTE="SaudiFury"]In the end i"d like to see what the real numbers. there must be a reason - besides laziness - why NPD STOPPED tracking PC sales.

_Tobli_

Well, i don't know the specifics of why NPD did that, but i have some ideas.

- Services like steam are huge, and are not counted. Which would make the numbers very inaccurate.

- The reduction of pc gaming space on store shelves. Pushing more people into the DD realm.

I heard somewhere that Valve doesn't even keep track of the numbers.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]
You do know that these "big companies" lay off the little guys when they don't make enough money, right?

HuusAsking

You just hire other little guys.

[QUOTE="jimmarko21876"]

[QUOTE="Sandvichman"] What does that change, it's obvious it's more widespread on the pc, it's bad on consoles, but not enough for devs to take measures.Sandvichman

There are way more PC users than 360 users, so of course the pirate numbers will be higher. Not to mention alot easier than modding a console, no hardware modding required. And there's more than enough pirating on consoles for devs to take measures, but what can they do to actually stop it. You think banning consoles wasn't a measure being taken?

IOW, lots of loss of chump change may not mean much compared to the loss of a few valuable or prominent things.

All this piracy is ruining gaming.

Ubisoft would not put in DRM in the first place if PC gamers never pirated games.

It is worrying if AC 2 gets pirated then Ubisoft and other companies would more likely stop supporting the PC. Dont be stupid, just buy the game.

Ninten007

[QUOTE="Ninten007"]

All this piracy is ruining gaming.

Ubisoft would not put in DRM in the first place if PC gamers never pirated games.

It is worrying if AC 2 gets pirated then Ubisoft and other companies would more likely stop supporting the PC. Dont be stupid, just buy the game.

Ontain

[QUOTE="Ontain"][QUOTE="Ninten007"]

All this piracy is ruining gaming.

Ubisoft would not put in DRM in the first place if PC gamers never pirated games.

It is worrying if AC 2 gets pirated then Ubisoft and other companies would more likely stop supporting the PC. Dont be stupid, just buy the game.

Hahadouken

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"][QUOTE="Hahadouken"] I don't think anything gets hit as hard by piracy as gaming. These things have umpteen million dollar budgets, and all of their revenue comes from SELLING THE GAME. Not live concerts (music industry), not exclusive theatrical releases several months to a year before the DVD comes out (movie industry). They need to sell you the game. Pirating video games is taking money directly out of the industry, dollars that could have gone towards the next installment in your favorite series, which may not even be made anymore. I know some of you pirate. I know some of you justify it by saying you never planned to buy the game anyway. Stop it. All of you. The video game devs you idolize or respect would hate your guts if they knew you stole thousands of dollars from our industry every year.Hahadouken

Anyway, it doesn't address my challenge? Why isn't the book market affected so much by piracy when, for the most part, book sales are the bread and butter of the market?

Why is it always PC that is brought up in piracy? Final Fantasy XIII is available for 360 already, but no one is crying "Oh the evil pirates". At least be consistant when bashing piracy. Personally, I know more 360 pirates than PC, go figure.jimmarko21876

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because this thread topic is specifically about pc piracy?

Second, while piracy does exist on consoles, it is nowhere near as prevalent as on PCs because of the very nature of PCs. Maybe because there aren't so many console owners going around trying to justify stealing/piracy as being "okay". Maybe because you don't see console owners making threads about how unfair it is and wrong when developers try to STOP piracy.

[QUOTE="jimmarko21876"] Why is it always PC that is brought up in piracy? Final Fantasy XIII is available for 360 already, but no one is crying "Oh the evil pirates". At least be consistant when bashing piracy. Personally, I know more 360 pirates than PC, go figure.ZIMdoom

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because this thread topic is specifically about pc piracy?

Second, while piracy does exist on consoles, it is nowhere near as prevalent as on PCs because of the very nature of PCs. Maybe because there aren't so many console owners going around trying to justify stealing/piracy as being "okay". Maybe because you don't see console owners making threads about how unfair it is and wrong when developers try to STOP piracy.

Maybe because there aren't so many console owners going around trying to justify stealing/piracy as being "okay". ZIMdoom

I don't see people saying that the principle of piracy is okay. They are just upset about the over intrusive DRM, and some view the piracy as retaliation.

I prefer to just stay away from the products of companies that conduct in this manor.

Maybe because you don't see console owners making threads about how unfair it is and wrong when developers try to STOP piracy.

ZIMdoom

Ubi is very much aware that this DRM won't stop piracy. I think they even said so, and in the end it only harms the legitimate consumers.

So much discussion on the topic and no one seems to realise the most basic thing about piracy.. Only people who don't want to buy the game are pirating it.. When developers finally figure that out, their stance on intrusive drm protections will change.. Person who pirates the game only does it because he doesn't want to buy it AND the game is accessible through torrents and whatnot.. If you take out one of the conditions ie. remove the accessibility of the game through uncrackable drm, the other condition still applies, he doesn't want to buy the game. That person will just shift his interest to some other game that is accessible. Simple as that. DRM doesn't have magical effect of making you suddenly want to buy the game, but it does have a tangible effect on regular buyers who actually buy the game to instanly become aware that they also got a decent chunk of iritation boxed with their new game.

Anyway, it doesn't address my challenge? Why isn't the book market affected so much by piracy when, for the most part, book sales are the bread and butter of the market?

HuusAsking

[QUOTE="Hahadouken"][QUOTE="HuusAsking"]What about books?HuusAsking

Anyway, it doesn't address my challenge? Why isn't the book market affected so much by piracy when, for the most part, book sales are the bread and butter of the market?

Is that even a serious question? Because of the digital nature of the medium, silly. Not to mention the high price tag of digital media and the demand it creates.

Sadly, I am one of the only people I know who gets really excited over books coming out (WRU Song of Ice and Fire book 5?!?!) while everyone I know gets all frothy at the mouth and juicy in the nether realm when MW2 is about to drop

If you could produce books that were identical in every way to retail books, but they were free, I bet people would pirate books more often. It's not really a valid 1:1 complaint, I thought you were being facetious.

Sins of a Solar Empire, No DRM at all. There view is, if people want the game they will buy it.toxicmog

[QUOTE="Ontain"][QUOTE="Ninten007"]

All this piracy is ruining gaming.

Ubisoft would not put in DRM in the first place if PC gamers never pirated games.

It is worrying if AC 2 gets pirated then Ubisoft and other companies would more likely stop supporting the PC. Dont be stupid, just buy the game.

Hahadouken

So much discussion on the topic and no one seems to realise the most basic thing about piracy.. Only people who don't want to buy the game are pirating it.. When developers finally figure that out, their stance on intrusive drm protections will change.. Person who pirates the game only does it because he doesn't want to buy it AND the game is accessible through torrents and whatnot.. If you take out one of the conditions ie. remove the accessibility of the game through uncrackable drm, the other condition still applies, he doesn't want to buy the game. That person will just shift his interest to some other game that is accessible. Simple as that. DRM doesn't have magical effect of making you suddenly want to buy the game, but it does have a tangible effect on regular buyers who actually buy the game to instanly become aware that they also got a decent chunk of iritation boxed with their new game.

Chofee

It's not work like that way, people are not good like that ,it's people mentality.

My country was infested with piracy in 16-bit nad 8-bit era on Commodore and Atari devices (only gameing machines we had), since it was grey zone market (no law restricting that) in and short after fall of communism. Now after that people still have mentality "why to buy if you can get for free" and download games insted of buying it, piracy is still high here, specially on PC. I had situations when i buy a game and my freind donload it and he laugh at me becouse of that.

DRM is needed what ever you like or not, since other way it will turn one outlaw. Removing DRM won't magicly make people buy a game either and make situation even worse, how do you will feel wasteing money if around you people just download it for free?

CD-Key are revolutionery, since this made people buy game to play MP, i seen that effect in my country. It's most effective DRM method, still single player games can't protect like that. Digital distribution might safe the day here.

[QUOTE="Chofee"]

So much discussion on the topic and no one seems to realise the most basic thing about piracy.. Only people who don't want to buy the game are pirating it.. When developers finally figure that out, their stance on intrusive drm protections will change.. Person who pirates the game only does it because he doesn't want to buy it AND the game is accessible through torrents and whatnot.. If you take out one of the conditions ie. remove the accessibility of the game through uncrackable drm, the other condition still applies, he doesn't want to buy the game. That person will just shift his interest to some other game that is accessible. Simple as that. DRM doesn't have magical effect of making you suddenly want to buy the game, but it does have a tangible effect on regular buyers who actually buy the game to instanly become aware that they also got a decent chunk of iritation boxed with their new game.

ShadowriverUB

It's not work like that way, people are not good like that ,it's people mentality.

My country was infested with piracy in 16-bit nad 8-bit era on Commodore and Atari devices (only gameing machines we had), since it was grey zone market (no law restricting that) in and short after fall of communism. Now after that people still have mentality "why to buy if you can get for free" and download games insted of buying it, piracy is still high here, specially on PC. I had situations when i buy a game and my freind donload it and he laugh at me becouse of that.

DRM is needed what ever you like or not, since other way it will turn one outlaw. Removing DRM won't magicly make people buy a game either and make situation even worse, how do you will feel wasteing money if around you people just download it for free?

CD-Key are revolutionery, since this made people buy game to play MP, i seen that effect in my country. It's most effective DRM method, still single player games can't protect like that. Digital distribution might safe the day here.

The whole situation is a real shame. I'd love for as many games to come to the PC as possible to take advantage of higher settings, mods, playing on the go with a laptop, etc. I may still purchase the game but then crack it. I want these games to still come to the PC. We can't seem to win. They treat us like garbage and then when we pirate, they stop brigning games to the PC altogether. : (

[QUOTE="ShadowriverUB"]

[QUOTE="Chofee"]

So much discussion on the topic and no one seems to realise the most basic thing about piracy.. Only people who don't want to buy the game are pirating it.. When developers finally figure that out, their stance on intrusive drm protections will change.. Person who pirates the game only does it because he doesn't want to buy it AND the game is accessible through torrents and whatnot.. If you take out one of the conditions ie. remove the accessibility of the game through uncrackable drm, the other condition still applies, he doesn't want to buy the game. That person will just shift his interest to some other game that is accessible. Simple as that. DRM doesn't have magical effect of making you suddenly want to buy the game, but it does have a tangible effect on regular buyers who actually buy the game to instanly become aware that they also got a decent chunk of iritation boxed with their new game.

HuusAsking

It's not work like that way, people are not good like that ,it's people mentality.

My country was infested with piracy in 16-bit nad 8-bit era on Commodore and Atari devices (only gameing machines we had), since it was grey zone market (no law restricting that) in and short after fall of communism. Now after that people still have mentality "why to buy if you can get for free" and download games insted of buying it, piracy is still high here, specially on PC. I had situations when i buy a game and my freind donload it and he laugh at me becouse of that.

DRM is needed what ever you like or not, since other way it will turn one outlaw. Removing DRM won't magicly make people buy a game either and make situation even worse, how do you will feel wasteing money if around you people just download it for free?

CD-Key are revolutionery, since this made people buy game to play MP, i seen that effect in my country. It's most effective DRM method, still single player games can't protect like that. Digital distribution might safe the day here.

Theres nothing better then offical servers, you won't be pro without them ;] incomplete access of those games still makes them buy the game with cd-key