Coming to Terms With UbiSoft

I have an insane theory about the airline industry — I think they genuinely want me to stop flying on their airplanes.

I think that when major air-carriers tuck into their silk sheets at night, they dream of a hyper-efficient fleet filled with steely-eyed business class flyers with practiced methods of travel and corporate expense accounts. Never again would they be burdened with a bunch of pesky amateur flyers with screaming kids and an over-inflated sense of entitlement just because the family managed to scrounge up a few hundred dollars to fly to Omaha.

Were I to write to Delta airlines and tell them of how I chose to spend three days driving across the country with my two boys rather than endure ten hours under their thumb, would the response be a curt but genuine, “Thank you?”

Sometimes it very much seems like certain companies are entirely comfortable with the idea of just annoying a certain segment of consumers away. You know, companies like Ubisoft.

Is it insanity to imagine that a game company would seed the foundation for catastrophic PC numbers so they can justify ending support for a customer base they neither like nor trust? Is that nutjob conspiracy theory territory, because every time I look at the evidence the slippery slope gets greased just a little more.

I had been looking forward to buying Assassin’s Creed 2 for the PC. As friends raved about the experience on the consoles, I decided to hold off for a release on my platform of choice: the trusty Personal Computer. But as Ubisoft slowly revealed worse terms than Lando Calrissian got from Vader in Empire, I realized that for me, a line had been crossed.

Historically my reaction would have been histrionics, but for a lot of reasons that I don’t want to explore right now, I have been thinking hard about learning to accept the things I can not change. It is a distressingly voluminous list, to which I must now grudgingly add the schemes and machinations of multi-national game publishing companies. Unless I’m willing to become a mid-80’s Sally Field movie, the only question left is how mad I am willing to let the whole thing get me.

Rather than take this to the next level of a broad and meaningless call to social action — Boycott Ubi, yo! — I have chosen instead to realize this is a very personal choice where no available option seems particularly desirable. Do I reward Ubi with my money in the hope that they might be grudgingly forced to create more PC games with even tighter restrictions? Do I deny myself the experience of playing a game I had been looking forward to? Do I build flimsy self-justifications for piracy, choosing to contribute to the problem out of an overwhelming sense of self-entitlement and convenient moral flexibility?

Ok, obviously not that last one. Whatever moral subjectivity it is that endows people with the latitude to pretend like rules don’t apply if they are sufficiently mad at the victim just doesn’t work for me. So, for me, the choice is only one of buy or sit out.

Why is this such an emotionally charged dichotomy for me and for that matter so many other people? Ubi and its ilk have presented a product and presented their terms. I can either take part, or I can abstain. That I am disgusted by the terms offered should be the point where I get the luxury of keeping my $50. I mean, it’s not like when some guy comes to the door asking if I’d like to let him fertilize my lawn for a hundred bucks, I suddenly have the urge to punch him in the face.

I recognize in a very rational way that the internet’s response to Ubisoft’s decision to make all PC gamers maintain constant internet connectivity to play their games is one of breathless hysterics. Three Stooges movies show more moderated self-control than message board discussions in response to this issue, and yet I am drawn to the furious debate like a moth drawn to a flame if that flame were the burning singularity of a super-massive black hole.

I hate the corporate policy of Ubisoft for this. I hate the precedent it entrenches for PC games, and I hate that I have no recourse to protest save a few hundred futile words and a well practiced glower. Therein lies my real problem, and the point this all draws back to.

I don’t get a vote, not even with my dollar. Choose to buy and I am supporting something I believe undermines the rights that should be afforded to PC gamers. Choose not to buy and Ubisoft is free to interpret diminished sales as evidence of the impact of piracy and the antipathy of the consumer base. Check and mate.

I must learn to accept that which can not be changed. It is a bitter lesson.

I choose not to buy, and I choose not to pirate if for no other reason than it would provide publishers with one drop of additional proof that PC games aren’t worth the trouble.

Now I must choose to accept my own decision, and that, so far, has been the hardest choice of all.

Comments

Interesting point. It's probably easier to pirate AC2 on the 360 than it is on the PC. In my locality, where the majority of 360s are sold chipped whether you like it or not, that's practically a surety.

It doesn't seem like Sony or Microsoft are any more concerned about pirates than Apple is. Nintendo is more severe, probably because it has more financial interests along those lines.

LarryC, I would say that's my point: is AC2 a good peephole through which to see the breadth of the PC Gaming landscape in the first place?

Probably not, but I counter with this: Is morality a good basis for making economic and legal action?

I can't speak for Mr. Sands, but it seems to me that he is making several more or less moral stances in his piece, when talking about DRM, which is an economic structure. It's not supposed to be based on moral principles, and if it is, then the entire basis of how it works is totally bonkers.

It's like designing a prison facility on an honesty system.

Scratched wrote:

I believe one aspect of the xbox certification is that every game (or at least every singleplayer game) has to work fully offline. It can't rely on updates, talking to servers, or anything outside of the xbox. A scheme like ubisoft's would not fly on the console at all.

To a certain degree, yes. There is the issue of "console ID" when it comes to the Xbox. I had problems with Mass Effect 2, for example. I am not allowed to play any of my saved games when not connected to Xbox Live, because they incorporate DLC. This is probably because the console I am currently playing on is my backup unit and the DLC licenses are likely associated with the other console ID (which is dead btw). It doesn't matter the the DLC was free and available Day 1, it still insists I be online.

Transferring the licenses would probably fix this, but there you have it.

Heh, that's a good question, LarryC: when is a 'law' based on morality, and when is it based on economics?

When a game company asks for a tax break from the government, that's clearly a law based on economics: the tax break will create jobs which will make the area more prosperous, and there might even be a net gain in tax revenues as money flows into the area.

When a private citizen asks for a law against someone coming along and stealing information they created and put on their personal computer, that's clearly a law based on morality.

When a game company uses DRM to protect their legal rights, do those legal rights have a *moral* basis, or do they have an *economic* basis? Or both? Or what about a privately held company vs. a publicly held company?

The question is more fundamental than that. You see, DRM is not being assessed on whether it's economically effective, but whether or not it's morally correct. The obvious conclusion is that either Ubisoft management has gone totally crazy (which isn't as impossible as it sounds), or that DRM has aims other than the prevention of piracy, which it hasn't effectively curtailed in any way so far.

The red flag here is that Ubisoft itself is playing the morality card. You don't spend millions of dollars on development for product because you think it's the morally correct thing to do. You do it because you think it's going to earn you money.

So far, no DRM has ever been assessed along the lines of whether it's profitable or not. Why the hell not? If piracy is costing these companies millions of dollars, how is it that DRMs aren't being assessed on estimated profitability as opposed to cost?

Why is it always the morality card?

Shouldn't a company's best line be "This DRM has prevented enough piracy that it's economically sound and serves both our customers and shareholders best?"

DRM should be about earning money, not punishing sinners.

I wish we could get an honest interview from who ever makes the decisions to implement these sort of DRM policies, or maybe even better some sort of round table discussion where they could talk and really explain to people why they do this and what they perceive the benefit to be. It probably wouldnt change any views but we could at least get an idea of what goes into the decision making process.

LarryC, I totally agree about the issue of figuring out if DRM is cost-effective. I think these corporations sometimes forget the difference between "economically effective" and "morally correct" and have faith that if it's the morally correct thing to do--and by morally correct, they only mean the absolute right to property and not whether there is any moral duty to offer the consumer a product that actually works--then it somehow must be economically effective.

Like NathanialG said, I'd love to know exactly what sort of thinking goes into these decisions.

+++++

Another issue is whether this is about DRM, or *bad* DRM. Let's say some company could come up with an absolutely perfect version of DRM--would that be acceptable to people who will not buy AC2? In other words, is this about DRM being *wrongly* restrictive or is this about DRM being *too* restrictive?

If a company puts DRM on a product to stop people from making mods and therefore competing with the company's DLC, should we blame modders the same way we blame pirates? Should we blame people who buy used games the same way we blame pirates because they are the ones that have brought us to the point of First Day Free DLC? The only DRM issue I've ever encountered is the one heavyfeul did: an EA game requiring me to be connected to use the DLC.

In fact, it may have been pre-order bonus DLC that broke the game for me: now wouldn't that a kick in the pants--having to deal with DRM because I pre-ordered like the game company wants me to do!

I've been on the fence about getting AC2 as well on PC, and I've been also contemplating getting the new Splinter Cell game on PC. My situation is somewhat a unique one because at the moment, as I'm living with my father-in-law right now along with my wife and two teenage stepchildren. Our bandwidth quota is fairly shallow unless I go to my mother's house. I normally don't really care about DRM all that much, and I just care about playing the game I bought more than anything. But good on you Elysium for making your voice heard and count amongst those out there.

I can't say I'm terribly interested in this question since I'm primarily a PS3 gamer, but Ubisoft would do itself well to engage in some very candid PR talk on this issue. I understand the need to protect their IP, but how about a system that saves your game before kicking you out? Or that only needs to make periodic checks, and has some tolerance for connection loss? Why is the DRM so strict in these regards?

I have a feeling that whatever its reasons are, its customers would have at least a minute bit more sympathy if Ubisoft came out and said,

"look, we know it sucks. We're gamers too. The problem is, budgets are tight, paychecks have to go out, and new games require pretty big investments of time and money. The PC game market just isn't as profitable as it used to be/as the console market. We know this is a pain in the ass for our gamers, and it's not exactly fun for us, either. We tried a new DRM system, and we can see there are flaws, some pretty big ones. We're constantly working on it. But if we want to keep making PC games, and we know how devoted our PC game customers are to the market, we need to figure out a way to deal with piracy. That is an undisputed fact, and it worries us that more and more gamers are beginning to accept piracy as normal behavior. We don't hate these people, we want them to buy our games. But we need to find ways to minimize the behavior. We can't afford to take legal action, but we can't afford to sit idly watching either. Thus, we have DRM. I think any of us at Ubisoft would love to hear from the PC gamer community about better ways to handle piracy that still allow us to make the money we need to keep investing in new and more creative IP. The only point we cannot debate is that piracy is having a measurable and harmful impact on our bottom line. We'll be tweaking our DRM in the coming months, but we're all ears for better ideas."

Or something like that. Maybe the truth isn't so noble and they are just out of touch with their audience, but that's all the more reason to start getting in touch.

I'm on the internet (clearly) and playing GTA4, but Rockstar's server must be down because I can't log into their social club thing. Good thing they have an offline mode.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
django wrote:

We pretty much had this debate already with Spore.

Now I learn that there's a line, and that it has been crossed.

The DRM supporters/don't care crowd is now marginalized, while the "won't buy" crowd doesn't get labelled with being a bunch of romantic civil disobedient yarring pirates.

For a fleeting moment, goodjers don't ramble about gamer sense of entitlement and we wonder if we have to play every game.

Funny thing these lines.

PS: In the meantime, I'll be waiting for a steam sale (if you were wondering how I'm coming to terms with Ubisoft)

I'd welcome you to point me to a GWJ post that said declining to buy Spore was the same as pirating it.

Alright, I was trolling.

But please, remember this article : http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/4...

Beside the fact that our ability to participate in the industry debate has been completely dilluted as a result of our tacit approval of piracy[...]

I'm sorry that I may have sounded like some despicable forum troll, but I still had that article in mind.

That's an interesting link. It appears that Mr. Sands has always considered the question of piracy a moral one rather than an economic one. It makes no sense; but he is, at least, consistent in his views.

To me, it makes no sense for a great company with a great game to limit exposure to their game. You only do that with poor games banking on misleading advertising to make its mark. You don't want the gamers finding out how much of a lemon your game is until they've gotten on the EULA and it's too late to get their cash back.

Oh come on. It's not like there aren't other games to play.

I received an email today saying that AC2 is now available via Impulse. Does anyone know what the DRM ramifications of this distribution deal are?

Oso wrote:

I received an email today saying that AC2 is now available via Impulse. Does anyone know what the DRM ramifications of this distribution deal are?

The DRM is on the Steam and GamersGate versions. Given the severity of it and Ubisoft's intentions with using it, I would assume this will be on every digital version.

I don't ever sweat skipping out on a new game because, honestly, they're overpriced.

At some point you are going to play this game. The only thing Ubi really accomplished is putting you off from spending 50$, when you can drop 10$ in a year and get the same experience -- probably without DRM at that point.

Things have to be perfect -- absolutely perfect -- for me to pick up a game during its release window. It has to be a developer I want to reward, or a genre I want to support, or a multiplayer experience I don't want to miss out on. If any one of those pistons aren't firing (or the publisher annoys me in *any* way), I'm very happy to wait for price drops.

This is not good... UbiSoft's site was hacked earlier, and now appears to be getting DDoS'ed.

Stuff like this is going to make them drop out of the PC market, not affect change.

Not really, I bet MS gets ddos attacks or attempts at such every day, I doubt they will be leaving the OS/PC market anytime soon. Stuff like that just happens. At least this is one sure way of making them notice(even more) that people aren't happy with this.

I didn't go through all the responses. My general response for UBI's limitation is : " I'll wait till it enter the bargain bin". By the time it reaches the bargain bin UBI would be likely to release a patch that remove those silly limitations. Anyways If the game is less expensive I'm more willing to "live with" whatever limitations they put on it.

I think that as you get older you have less of the urge to keep up with the mainstream (well it could be me). I have less time to play and I'm not in a hurry to get new releases unless it's worth it . The games aren't going to get any worst with time. Maybe less people would play an old game online but at that point the number of immature online players would drop significantly.

heavyfeul wrote:

Transferring the licenses would probably fix this, but there you have it.

You are correct, sir.
You can only do it once ever 12 months, but it would fix you right up.

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/default.htm

SallyNasty wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

Transferring the licenses would probably fix this, but there you have it.

You are correct, sir.
You can only do it once ever 12 months, but it would fix you right up.

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/default.htm

I figured. I just do not want to go through the trouble. It is an annoyance I feel like I shouldn't have to deal with. I don't mind DRM as long as I never notice it. If a legit a paying customer is ever inconvenienced, then the DRM should be removed or modified.

DRM is fine with me as long as it is ignorable. This Ubisoft DRM does not seem to fall into this category.

heavyfeul wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

Transferring the licenses would probably fix this, but there you have it.

You are correct, sir.
You can only do it once ever 12 months, but it would fix you right up.

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/default.htm

I figured. I just do not want to go through the trouble. It is an annoyance I feel like I shouldn't have to deal with. I don't mind DRM as long as I never notice it. If a legit a paying customer is ever inconvenienced, then the DRM should be removed or modified.

DRM is fine with me as long as it is ignorable. This Ubisoft DRM does not seem to fall into this category.

Fair enough - but in all honesty, I don't think it would be any trouble. Just register the boxes and I think it all works through the internet. Shouldn't take too much time at all.

And I feel the same about DRM.

It's amusing how obvious it is that Ubisoft's DRM is attacking the wrong segment of their gaming populace, and for the wrong reasons. If Ubisoft opts out of PC gaming because of this, then more power to them. Let Stardock handle the PC gaming market.

As much as stardock is a nice friendly company, I don't think they're comparable to ubisoft.

A quick scan of torrent/warez sites shows that the game hasn't been cracked. Pirates are losing their minds in frustration. The prevalent comment is: "Be patient, Razor/Reloaded are working on a crack." or "Don't waste your time on this download, wait for a proper crack" etc.

I have legally purchased this game and I am enjoying it. This DRM is the least intrusive in terms of user experience. I didn't have to enter any cd keys or copy some word from the game's manual. Just use my existing UBI accout. That's it.

So, as it turns out this DRM works (and probably will become the standard because it works).

Honest customers are playing the game, pirates are losing their sh*t. It's actually a little comforting that all the thieves are being punished on this one.

I suppose a good question is...Are there any groups that are actively lobbying against DRM? By that I mean legitimate groups that actually educate consumers on what DRM is and what its implications are..Perhaps a good strong unified voice is what the community needs instead of relying on pirates and hackers to do the talking..

BirthdaySuitBurns wrote:

I suppose a good question is...Are there any groups that are actively lobbying against DRM? By that I mean legitimate groups that actually educate consumers on what DRM is and what its implications are..Perhaps a good strong unified voice is what the community needs instead of relying on pirates and hackers to do the talking..

I think the problem is not that DRM exists, but in the way it is implemented. And the voice against DRM would be a small one, because it would also have to be a voice against piracy/hacking for it to gain any legitimacy.

BirthdaySuitBurns, there's always the Brad Wardell of Stardock--he wrote this a while ago:

http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/...

If the industry won't listen to one of their own, I don't see why they'd listen to anyone. Because here's what I think is the dirty little secret of the PC gaming industry, touched on by Elysium: the PC industry outside of a few fanatic PC enthusiast companies...they just don't like you guys. I think he's right--you guys are "a customer base they neither like nor trust."

They don't see you as much different than pirates and hackers. Why? Because those companies don't care about right vs. wrong: they care about *control*. And the one thing all PC gamers have in common is a feeling that they are entitled to control. As well they should! Mods and other forms of non-piracy hacking are great. However, legitimate customer or not, I think these companies are just...they're wary of consumers with the expectations and intelligence PC gamers have.

I hate to say it, but I wonder if every time a PC gamer complains about DRM, that's not just as much a part of the problem as piracy: because every time a PC gamer complains about DRM, that's "one drop of additional proof that PC games aren’t worth the trouble" to quote the article.

I think piracy is the big red herring in all this. DRM is not about nor has it been for a long time a means for preventing piracy: DRM is about *control*

There is nothing wrong with DRM that does what a DRM is supposed to be doing.