Big Ubisoft is Watching You

[marcus]

Just when you think Ubisoft can't get anymore terrible, they recently announced that You no longer own your PC games.

In order to play their games, you have to authenticate it from their servers. Always. Your save games? On their servers.

Forward deployed military? Frequent flying traveler who hops from hotel to hotel? Guy who doesn't live in America and has to pay out the ass for bandwidth? Too ****ing bad. I thought EA or Activision would be the first to try this but I'm glad it's a company I don't care about testing the waters for bad ideas.

I can see how this went down...

Yves Guillemot: I have a solution to piracy! Flip the bird to everyone who actually buys our games by making the DRM equivalent of showing your receipt to the crippled old guy that stands at the Wal-Mart exits EVERY TIME YOU WALK INTO THE STORE!

Steve from Testing: Shouldn't we spend our efforts developing secured code that doesn't actually suck?

Yves: Steve!

Steve: Market analysts estimate about 50% of a game's sales happen in the first month. If we fool hackers for that long, we've effectively "beaten" piracy.

Yves: That's dangerous thinking Steve!

Steve: People are going to crack our games to circumvent our servers anyways so this is hurting no one but the customers. We could also try creating quality products for PC gamers instead of shoddy ports and ****ty The Settlers games which haven't been good since we acquired Blue Byte Software in 2001!

RIP Steve from Testing

[Valkysas]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

stuff like this is why I don't really play PC games, and dont understand why people say it's a superior platform.

[marcus]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

stuff like this is why I don't really play PC games, and dont understand why people say it's a superior platform.

It was a superior platform when you actually had people that cared. Every once in a while you get an exclusive, good game that isn't a terrible port and makes use of the PCs power. I wouldn't play Arkham Asylum or Resident Evil 5 on any other platform after playing it on PC. But devs have their heads so wrapped up in piracy that instead of trying to strengthen their code (which is so easy that a child with the right tools could hack; I mean, some of these games literally take 8 hours) they just say "**** it" and kick everyone in the nuts.

I guarantee you if you didn't have Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo to license and approve games, Ubisoft would do this on consoles as well. The console publishers are the only barrier against creedy corporations that want to find new ways to take your money while only giving you half a product.

Kotick (Activision's CEO) has already stated that he'd gladly charge you more for games if he could.

[Valkysas]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

and I'd wish him luck with that, since the last activision game I bought was nothing ever.

[marcus]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

and I'd wish him luck with that, since the last ubisoft game I bought was nothing ever.

The last game I bought was the Might and Magic VI collection on gog.com which also happened to be DRM free. Go me!

I'd just wish they would think back to their better products like Chaos Theory. That game had strong protection (took almost a year for cracks to circulate) and sold more than any other Splinter Cell game.

[Valkysas]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

er, I meant "activision" up there. not ubisoft. because do get ubisoft games. beyond good and evil, armored core: for answer, no more heroes...

but thinking back, I did buy an activision-published game once. Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram.

[Toaster]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

Kotick (Activision's CEO) has already stated that he'd gladly charge you more for games if he could.

The dude is already rich off dropping a bunch of shares of his own company. He's a greedy **** and I ****ing hate Activision.

[Perversion]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

Of the big gaming companies, in this day and age, I'd much rather support EA than Activision or Ubisoft. At least EA tried some new IPs last year (you know, took a risk), even if neither panned out that well.

Some of Ubisoft's first two years of DS games were commendable, but now...yeah.

And don't even get me started again on Activision.

[Caciss]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

It's funny that EA has become the more respected big video game corporation.

[Perversion]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

Yeah, and that's the thing...as recently as 2 years ago, people were complaining left and right about how EA just milked its Madden and other franchise games. So EA took steps to listen to gamer complaints, and took risks. Unfortunately, doing so bit them in the ass this fiscal year, as they are now paring down staff and shutting down studios.


Activision, ever since the initial success of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, is now pulling what EA used to and milking those franchises for all they're worth. And people are eating it up in droves. I guess it's a cycle, and a few years from now, Activision will go the current EA route, and some other company will take their place.


But it just annoys me at the lack of justice in the gaming world. Companies that try to do the right thing inevitably fail, and companies that go for safe bet after safe bet succeeed. What message does this send? That as much as gamers talking about wanting something new and different, they still vote with their wallets.

[John Mora]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

It's all about giving people what they want~

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

Companies that try to do the right thing inevitably fail, and companies that go for safe bet after safe bet succeeed. What message does this send?

That safe bets are called that for a reason.

[orius]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

Just when you think Ubisoft can't get anymore terrible, they recently announced that You no longer own your PC games.

Not necessarily new. Ever read an EULA for software? The whole idea behind that is that you don't own a copy of the software, you're just paying for the right to use a copy. The company owns the software forever (well, until the bastards go out of business anyway). By making games downloadable, a company strenthens their position in this regard, since there's no hard copy you can claim to own, and the EULA probably has some stiff restrictions on making one.

I have a word for that: douchery.

At least EA tried some new IPs last year (you know, took a risk), even if neither panned out that well.

Oy, I think my head just exploded.

Activision, ever since the initial success of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, is now pulling what EA used to and milking those franchises for all they're worth. And people are eating it up in droves.

People may be sated at this point though. I've read sales of GH/RB etc. were way down over the past year.

But it just annoys me at the lack of justice in the gaming world. Companies that try to do the right thing inevitably fail, and companies that go for safe bet after safe bet succeeed. What message does this send? That as much as gamers talking about wanting something new and different, they still vote with their wallets.

It's also a matter of advertising. The big guys can push their games more than a smaller company.

That safe bets are called that for a reason.

Safe bets don't pay off as much. Flipside is that you can lose your shirt on the really big bets.

[Caciss]

Re: Big Ubisoft is Watching You

this community is the really in the minority when it comes to most things