Ubisoft: Piracy not only killing PC, but also cannabilizing console sales.

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/10/08/ubisoft-creative-director-piracys-basically-killing-pc/

Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater has told VG247 that a PC version of EndWar would most likely be shipping alongside the console SKUs if it wasn't for rampant PC piracy, and that copyright theft is essentially destroying the PC games market.

"To be honest, if PC wasn't pirated to hell and back, there'd probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two," he said, talking of the voice-controlled RTS.

"But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you're doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version. Piracy's basically killing PC."

We asked if piracy was the main reason to keep EndWar off PC.

"Yeah, at the time of release," he said. "You know, the level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version."

De Plater also told us that a PC version is likely to be released further down the line, as reported yesterday.

Tom Clancy's EndWar does appear to be very good, from what we played of it. Looks as though you're not going to be leeching a PC version for a while yet, though. You know who you are.Michael de Plater

My take: No.

Granted, Ubisoft is basing this on a reasonably sound proposition. As Mr. Plater points out, it's possible that some people might pirate the PC version instead of purchasing the console version.

However, this isn't exactly logically sound. No correlation has ever been proven between PC piracy, and PC sales decreases (rather, many, including EA claim there is no such correlation), much less between PC piracy and console sales.

There are plenty of multiplat games that sell great on all systems, despite Ubisoft's claim that piracy "cannibalizes" there sales.

Is it possible? Sure. Likely? Probably not.

What do you guys think? Does PC piracy negatively effect console sales? Further, would releasing a PC SKU then be a bad decision on the publishers part? Was posting this a terrible choice?

Ubisoft Shanghai

Stopped there.

Lol whaaa?

If you have a decent enough pc to actually pirate and run their game, then why in the world would you even buy the consol version in the first place (pirating or not)

Maybe that's their excuse for shoddy/late ports? Honestly everything that was said in the article sounds ridiculous.gasmaskman

Well, one thing is for sure; it's all speculation. Whether it's correct or not is up for debate, but they definitely made it all up.

Maybe that's their excuse for shoddy/late ports? Honestly everything that was said in the article sounds ridiculous.gasmaskman

This as well, I mean with thier history of ports no wonder people pirate your games. Treat them like dirt they won't pay for your product.

lol piracy isnt killing **** dude....you cant even play online like you can actually owning the retail copy.

plus the developers not puttting out any good games is killing gaming in general.

sons of beotches are running out of ideas.

Kind of agree.

[QUOTE="gasmaskman"]Maybe that's their excuse for shoddy/late ports? Honestly everything that was said in the article sounds ridiculous.Espada12

This as well, I mean with thier history of ports no wonder people pirate your games. Treat them like dirt they won't pay for your product.

I made the terrible mistake of buying R6:V for the PC. I've learned to stay away from Ubisoft's PC ports.

I see... Piracy is not only destroying PC gaming but also killing console sales.

Piracy kills.

I have to agree with the article on this one why would someone who pirates games on PC buy a console version when they can settle for a free PC version without hurting the old wallet and if the PC version is even better with even a few small improvements some people who bought the console versions will also buy the PC versions. Very businessly sound in my opinion

Huh? He does realize that consoles ain't exactly pirate-proof, right? :?

Oh, and YAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

LOL PIRACY ISNT KILLING ****

the pirated copys of unreal tournament 3 the people cant just click online select a server from the ingame server browser and play.

they have to find other people with cracked versions of the game and cant use the masterserver .

it's a big hassle compared to owning the real/legit copy of the game.

All I see is a lot of people remarking on the quality of the PC ports from ubi and not the actually issue at hand. Which is the PC piracy issue.

So lets look solely at that, some of Ubi's remarks may or may not have some merit. Some people are going to pirate no matter what. But I do think that some would opt for a "free" version of the game rather then one you'd pay for be it on PC or console.

The main point we should all take from this is that we're beginning to see a trend here and that is more and more devs complaining about piracy. So I think all PC defenders can make the excuses on why the devs are complaining on piracy ranging from their ports suck to oh its just some crappy dev. or its only one game or but it still sold a million.

Bottom line when Devs release a game on the PC they are losing money to those that opt for the free version because its available. On consoles the problems isnt nearly as prevalant as on the PC. Which leaves the devs and pubs with two choices:

Load up the game with so much DRM that actual paying customers have to jump through flaming hoops to enjoy their product in an attempt to stem the tide of piracy.

Or just release it and hope that it does well and enough people buy it legitmately and actually make profit.

So with these two options is it any surprise that today they are hesistant to put it on the PC where it stands a very great chance to be pirated or release it on two consoles that have very very limited piracy and make profit off it.

Which would you choose?

All I see is a lot of people remarking on the quality of the PC ports from ubi and not the actually issue at hand. Which is the PC piracy issue.

So lets look solely at that, some of Ubi's remarks may or may not have some merit. Some people are going to pirate no matter what. But I do think that some would opt for a "free" version of the game rather then one you'd pay for be it on PC or console.

The main point we should all take from this is that we're beginning to see a trend here and that is more and more devs complaining about piracy. So I think all PC defenders can make the excuses on why the devs are complaining on piracy ranging from their ports suck to oh its just some crappy dev. or its only one game or but it still sold a million.

Bottom line when Devs release a game on the PC they are losing money to those that opt for the free version because its available. On consoles the problems isnt nearly as prevalant as on the PC. Which leaves the devs and pubs with two choices:

Load up the game with so much DRM that actual paying customers have to jump through flaming hoops to enjoy their product in an attempt to stem the tide of piracy.

Or just release it and hope that it does well and enough people buy it legitmately and actually make profit.

So with these two options is it any surprise that today they are hesistant to put it on the PC where it stands a very great chance to be pirated or release it on two consoles that have very very limited piracy and make profit off it.

Which would you choose?

XturnalS

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

Which would you choose?

XturnalS

I would choose steam.

Bottom line when Devs release a game on the PC they are losing money to those that opt for the free version because its available.XturnalS

And this is where we disagree. It seems to follow reason that if someone steals a copy of the game, then money is lost. However, there is no way to prove that for every stolen copy, there is a lost sale. How can anyone guarantee that a pirate would buy a game, if not able to pirate it?

It's a common misconception, and I tend to think that pirates aren't interested in buying the game, just playing it.

EA agrees:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20424

Stardock agrees:

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=303512

The effect of piracy is blown out of proportion if you ask me. I don't think there is any reasonable way to justify pirating a game, and I personally highly discourage it, but I don't think it has the disastrous effects that some people like to claim it does.

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

gasmaskman

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

A lot of people think consoles are immune to PC pirating issues ... well heres what 10 seconds of googling found me

GOD do I hate ubisoft. They are IMO the worst company out their right next to EA.

They make Horrible PC ports, that are not optimized and have tons of bugs. and most of their PC games are just Console ports anyway. Most PC gamers never wanted the console games that come out like 3 months later. why is it that games like Assassins creed run great on the Consoles but they fail to optimize it for PC?

really why does Assassins Creed need a duel core CPU for the Min. requirements? terrible porting and NO everytime I download a demo I DON'T WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR WEBSITE.

unless Ubisoft is going to try on the PC then they best just stay away from it and make Console games. Really I'm still blown away by how Double Agent became such a terrible game for the PC. Horribly ported and not to mention the game was no where near as great as chaos theory.

[QUOTE="gasmaskman"]

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

XturnalS

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

just go into offline mode.

if yer trying to play online on a plane then thats not going to work out to well for you.

GOD do I hate ubisoft. They are IMO the worst company out their right next to EA.

They make Horrible PC ports, that are not optimized and have tons of bugs. and most of their PC games are just Console ports anyway. Most PC gamers never wanted the console games that come out like 3 months later. why is it that games like Assassins creed run great on the Consoles but they fail to optimize it for PC?

really why does Assassins Creed need a duel core CPU for the Min. requirements? terrible porting and NO everytime I download a demo I DON'T WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR WEBSITE.

unless Ubisoft is going to try on the PC then they best just stay away from it and make Console games. Really I'm still blown away by how Double Agent became such a terrible game for the PC. Horribly ported and not to mention the game was no where near as great as chaos theory.

JangoWuzHere

Don't group EA with ubisoft. They are much much better than that.

Don't group EA with ubisoft. They are much much better than that.

Espada12

Agreed. Ubisoft is the worst publisher out there.

EA is one of the best.

[QUOTE="JangoWuzHere"]

GOD do I hate ubisoft. They are IMO the worst company out their right next to EA.

They make Horrible PC ports, that are not optimized and have tons of bugs. and most of their PC games are just Console ports anyway. Most PC gamers never wanted the console games that come out like 3 months later. why is it that games like Assassins creed run great on the Consoles but they fail to optimize it for PC?

really why does Assassins Creed need a duel core CPU for the Min. requirements? terrible porting and NO everytime I download a demo I DON'T WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR WEBSITE.

unless Ubisoft is going to try on the PC then they best just stay away from it and make Console games. Really I'm still blown away by how Double Agent became such a terrible game for the PC. Horribly ported and not to mention the game was no where near as great as chaos theory.

Espada12

Don't group EA with ubisoft. They are much much better than that.

well IMO they are.

EA is worse but Ubisoft is right behind.

If you open up a designer clothes store with outfits people love -- you will suffer a lot of theft, but you will also make more profit than many other stores.

If your clothes are crap, no one will buy them and no one would think of stealing them either.

Stores know this and just factor in theft as a typical loss of having a business.

Same with games, no one wants a crap game, even if it's free. But a great game? You know the rest.

Basically..

stop crying please

Ubisoft Shanghai

Stopped there.

SSCyborg

A lot of people think consoles are immune to PC pirating issues ... well heres what 10 seconds of googling found me

ColdfireTrilogy

All the console games are pirated, the only difference is that you need a chip and not a crack.

All the console games are pirated, the only difference is that you need a chip and not a crack. Redgarl

[QUOTE="XturnalS"][QUOTE="gasmaskman"]

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

JangoWuzHere

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

just go into offline mode.

if yer trying to play online on a plane then thats not going to work out to well for you.

but if the DRM installed is one where u have to be connected to the internet for it to verify. I know I'm typing a wall-o-text but read the points I'm making so they can be actual discussion on what I'm talking about. And I still see people side-steping the issue here.

Please stop ignoring the real issue that piracy is out there and its hurting the industry at what extent? We're not entirely sure but it is hurting and enough so that more and more devs are becoming vocal about it.

[QUOTE="Redgarl"]All the console games are pirated, the only difference is that you need a chip and not a crack. Vandalvideo

GOD do I hate ubisoft. They are IMO the worst company out their right next to EA.

They make Horrible PC ports, that are not optimized and have tons of bugs. and most of their PC games are just Console ports anyway. Most PC gamers never wanted the console games that come out like 3 months later. why is it that games like Assassins creed run great on the Consoles but they fail to optimize it for PC?

really why does Assassins Creed need a duel core CPU for the Min. requirements? terrible porting and NO everytime I download a demo I DON'T WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR WEBSITE.

unless Ubisoft is going to try on the PC then they best just stay away from it and make Console games. Really I'm still blown away by how Double Agent became such a terrible game for the PC. Horribly ported and not to mention the game was no where near as great as chaos theory.

JangoWuzHere

Agreed.

I bought Graw and RB6:V on steam for cheap and boy was that an experiance. I loved how it felt like my xbox version was way better and ran much nicer. I ha

Like Ubisoft should have ANY SAY in the PC market, since every single one of their games is a console port to the PC.

Piracy killing PC gaming? More like shooting pistol rounds into a mountain.

It's ironic that so many developers whine about Piracy yet so many PC games sell 1+ million copies. And keep in mind that production costs and developments costs on PC games is much lower than other platforms so not as many copies are needed to make a profit. Look at Sins of a Solar Empire for the PC, they recorded a massive profit (don't know their exact sales but it wasn't 1 million, that's for sure) and that wasn't a very marketable game in general. I'm not denying that Piracy is a problem but i don't think it's as influential as developers like to think. You're essentially losing that money anyway by having to pay Sony/MS/Nintendo royalty fees to allow you to put it on their platform. PC is an open platform. You don't pay any royalty fees but you have some piracy and your games still sell well (in alot of cases) around 1 million or more. Keep PC productions costs down and you always have a profit. In other words, make PC exclusives (less costs due to one platform development + Low development costs on PC to begin with) and you always turn a profit while at the same time maximizing the potential of said game due to it being on PC exclusively. Just my thoughts anyway.

Just release through steam and be happy Ubisoft.Espada12

yeah like let everyone in the world buy it like all valve games unlike ubi's pro piracy policy of north america only, that's just asking for it to be piracy since people will pirate since they are mad at ubi for being anti rest of world (row)

funny how only valve steam games are hard to pirate while the others can be cracked with any retail cd crack

All I see is a lot of people remarking on the quality of the PC ports from ubi and not the actually issue at hand. Which is the PC piracy issue.

So lets look solely at that, some of Ubi's remarks may or may not have some merit. Some people are going to pirate no matter what. But I do think that some would opt for a "free" version of the game rather then one you'd pay for be it on PC or console.

The main point we should all take from this is that we're beginning to see a trend here and that is more and more devs complaining about piracy. So I think all PC defenders can make the excuses on why the devs are complaining on piracy ranging from their ports suck to oh its just some crappy dev. or its only one game or but it still sold a million.

Bottom line when Devs release a game on the PC they are losing money to those that opt for the free version because its available. On consoles the problems isnt nearly as prevalant as on the PC. Which leaves the devs and pubs with two choices:

Load up the game with so much DRM that actual paying customers have to jump through flaming hoops to enjoy their product in an attempt to stem the tide of piracy.

Or just release it and hope that it does well and enough people buy it legitmately and actually make profit.

So with these two options is it any surprise that today they are hesistant to put it on the PC where it stands a very great chance to be pirated or release it on two consoles that have very very limited piracy and make profit off it.

Which would you choose?

XturnalS

the thing is ubi is bringing it on themselves with their stupied digital distrubution policy. usa= you can buy it row = we don't want your money.

the fact is when did you last heard valve complain about lack of sales or how about iw? has crytek complained since crysis warhead and crysis have been on steam with its unneeded drm?

I'm honestly over all this crap, in my eyes piracy is nowhere near as catastrophic as developers would have you believe. I remember when I was younger, me and my mates never owned a single legit PC game, nowdays I can't find a pirated game in my collection and the same goes with them.

Consoles, well let me tell you, they are far from pirate proof, it's not hard to find someone who would install a mod chip. Again, when I was a young lad, back in the day of the Playstation one, every man and his dog had a mod chip installed.

I think companies have just become extremely money hungry, seeing as the industry is growing they think that they should be raking in the dough to the equivilent as the film industry. Video Games are still a very new form of entertainment, we all need to keep this in mind.

[QUOTE="gasmaskman"]

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

XturnalS

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

this is one huge myth, you only have to download your games then you can play all you like with no internet conection. there is something called "start in offline mode"

the regonal lockouts and high row pricing is what is killing many devs steam sales. if all devs when steam exclusive and used the copy protection as hl2 uses the pirates would have a big task on their hand. try and play tf2 without buying it. hl2 ep2/portal is one mega task to pirate. the thing is all non valve games are in a folder called "common" rather than the users name folder which means they are installed just like any other game making pirating easy, while valve games put files all over the place and make the game much more relient on steam, orange box games basicly haven't been cracked.

portal game fixes = nil

hl2 ep1 game fixes = nil

hl2 ep2 game fixes = nil

tf2 not listed

hl2 has 15 all trying to make the game work and have mostly filed some sort of work but they are a pain in the ass compared to any ubi or ea game crack

try and find another big name game from last xmas that still has basicly no cracks, the fact is valve has really made its games close to crack proof. if all pc games used the technology valve uses pirates would have one huge task on their hand.

I have a friend who abosluty hated steam till he started using it leaglly since games are so hard to pirate on it.

And the thing is steams copy protection doesn't interfere in the same way as secure rom since there are no hardware ties, only have to connect to the internet to download the game or the aditional files if bought as retail, so once the game says 100% you don't need to be conected to the internet as long as game caching is enabled, if you want to move it to another computer just copy the steam folder, no need to install the game again, don't want all your game installed delete them, you can backup any steam game to dvd/hdd

And console versions are canibalizing PC sales.

It's Ubi Shanghai, console centric entity, if you would ask Blue Byte or Related Design (both owned by Ubisoft too) then they would be happy with current situation of PCgaming, considering their newest games are selling like crazy.

Also...if that's the case why is FarCry2 on PC releasing in the same day as console versions?

The funny thing is that End War will apear on PC 6-12 months after console version and the port will propably be sub-par. It won't sell well because people interested already bought it on consoles and the rest of PCgamers will think it's just inferior version of World in Conflict and a crappy port.

But despite those obvious reasons you can bet Ubi will blame crappy EndWar PC sales on piracy :D

Okay, it may have some sense, but here's a thing I don't get about this Ubisoft strategy of making games.

1. They announce a PC version of their game a few weeks before console release

2. Console versions receieved a ton of marketing attention, so customer knows what to buy

3. PC version will probably recieve a crappy "now on PC" trailer about three days before it actually gets released on PC

4. Because of that kind of marketing treatment, noone will know there's a PC version out there

5. Logically, PC version will sell like crap because of that

6. After Ubisoft sees sales of the PC version, they'll know they screwed up with it because of lack of marketing, but they'll of course start biatching again with OMFG, TEH PIRACY IS KILLING PC GAMING

I'm honestly over all this crap, in my eyes piracy is nowhere near as catastrophic as developers would have you believe. I remember when I was younger, me and my mates never owned a single legit PC game, nowdays I can't find a pirated game in my collection and the same goes with them.

Consoles, well let me tell you, they are far from pirate proof, it's not hard to find someone who would install a mod chip. Again, when I was a young lad, back in the day of the Playstation one, every man and his dog had a mod chip installed.

I think companies have just become extremely money hungry, seeing as the industry is growing they think that they should be raking in the dough to the equivilent as the film industry. Video Games are still a very new form of entertainment, we all need to keep this in mind.

wood_duck

exactly^

I remember people pirating quake 1 back in the day how come nobody complained then? people still pirates games back in the day...the dev's are just getting lazy/running out of idea's and have developers who lack imagination.

[QUOTE="XturnalS"][QUOTE="gasmaskman"]

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

imprezawrx500

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

this is one huge myth, you only have to download your games then you can play all you like with no internet conection. there is something called "start in offline mode"

the regonal lockouts and high row pricing is what is killing many devs steam sales. if all devs when steam exclusive and used the copy protection as hl2 uses the pirates would have a big task on their hand. try and play tf2 without buying it. hl2 ep2/portal is one mega task to pirate. the thing is all non valve games are in a folder called "common" rather than the users name folder which means they are installed just like any other game making pirating easy, while valve games put files all over the place and make the game much more relient on steam, orange box games basicly haven't been cracked.

portal game fixes = nil

hl2 ep1 game fixes = nil

hl2 ep2 game fixes = nil

tf2 not listed

hl2 has 15 all trying to make the game work and have mostly filed some sort of work but they are a pain in the ass compared to any ubi or ea game crack

try and find another big name game from last xmas that still has basicly no cracks, the fact is valve has really made its games close to crack proof. if all pc games used the technology valve uses pirates would have one huge task on their hand.

I have a friend who abosluty hated steam till he started using it leaglly since games are so hard to pirate on it.

And the thing is steams copy protection doesn't interfere in the same way as secure rom since there are no hardware ties, only have to connect to the internet to download the game or the aditional files if bought as retail, so once the game says 100% you don't need to be conected to the internet as long as game caching is enabled, if you want to move it to another computer just copy the steam folder, no need to install the game again, don't want all your game installed delete them, you can backup any steam game to dvd/hdd

Yes, i know steam can start in offline. Its a great feature and a needed one at that. But not all games are released through steam and the example i used was ME which isnt on steam and was supposedly going to have you be connected to the internet every 10 days to authenticate it.

I'm sure Crysis warhead has been pirated a lot, prolly by those bound and determined to pirate all games. Steam does help and I love steam and its ease of use. But if what you say is true, then all the 3rd party devs are missing out on the protection that valve games put on their software.

So valve is able to reduce piracy for their games but offers no such protection.

So while ubi may release half-assed pc ports may not certainly help them, the fact is piracy is a problem that needs to be addressed.

And if Valve needs to be the leaders in reducing it then they need to step up and offer they knowledge to these other people so perhaps ubi will put effort into their next pc port because there is an incentive to releasing a good product.

Its a two-way street.

Says the guys who are renowned for releasing shoddy and delayed ports in recent years.

A big no thanks.

[QUOTE="XturnalS"][QUOTE="gasmaskman"]

Find a way, like Steam, or reward people with legitimate copies, so that it's harder to pirate, or if you do you won't get the full game, or they have to constantly be on the internet, etc. Stardock knows what's up, and their indie games sell very well because of this. Anyways, how do we know that a pirate was going to buy a game in the first place??

imprezawrx500

Well I know Ubi has alot of TC games on Steam but I think its fair to say that it only does so much. Crysis is finally out on Steam but that didnt stop it from being heavily priated and before that it was on EAs online service. And im sure Warhead was also pirated quite a bit and it was on Steam shortly after it was released. Steam is an awesome service and yes more devs should get behind it.

But constant connection to the internet, sucks if your on a plane and want to play a game on my laptop or is away from an internet connection. I know people werent happy about the proposed DRM in ME with have to authenticate the game via the internet every ten days.

And yes there are those people who are gonna pirate it no matter what. Same with movies and music. But there are those that will get it for free because its there.

this is one huge myth, you only have to download your games then you can play all you like with no internet conection. there is something called "start in offline mode"

the regonal lockouts and high row pricing is what is killing many devs steam sales. if all devs when steam exclusive and used the copy protection as hl2 uses the pirates would have a big task on their hand. try and play tf2 without buying it. hl2 ep2/portal is one mega task to pirate. the thing is all non valve games are in a folder called "common" rather than the users name folder which means they are installed just like any other game making pirating easy, while valve games put files all over the place and make the game much more relient on steam, orange box games basicly haven't been cracked.

portal game fixes = nil

hl2 ep1 game fixes = nil

hl2 ep2 game fixes = nil

tf2 not listed

hl2 has 15 all trying to make the game work and have mostly filed some sort of work but they are a pain in the ass compared to any ubi or ea game crack

try and find another big name game from last xmas that still has basicly no cracks, the fact is valve has really made its games close to crack proof. if all pc games used the technology valve uses pirates would have one huge task on their hand.

I have a friend who abosluty hated steam till he started using it leaglly since games are so hard to pirate on it.

And the thing is steams copy protection doesn't interfere in the same way as secure rom since there are no hardware ties, only have to connect to the internet to download the game or the aditional files if bought as retail, so once the game says 100% you don't need to be conected to the internet as long as game caching is enabled, if you want to move it to another computer just copy the steam folder, no need to install the game again, don't want all your game installed delete them, you can backup any steam game to dvd/hdd

hl2 is preaty easy to pirate, same as portal...

Yeah it's true, I mean just look at CoD4, it was released at the same time on all platforms and no one bought it because everyone pirated it on PC...

It's simply ridiculous to claim that Ubisoft's bad sales has something to do with shoddy ports of shoddy games that came with the worst copy protection ever. And I'm sure that the bad optimization had nothing to do with it either, or the horrible reputation Ubisoft rightfully enjoys among PC gamers.