A Polite Screw-You to Ubisoft

[Tom Artingstall]

(It is my New Years resolution not to swear quite so much on the internet, with that in mind, the following is an extremely polite letter to Ubisoft)

Dear Ubisoft,

I recently downloaded Anno 2070, your popular strategy game. I would like to add at this point that I downloaded it legally, thus ensuring you receive your full and complete cut of profits, as is due you for the efforts and costs incurred in creating this game. In return, I would now like to ask that you pay me the sum of £18.97 GBP for the effort and costs incurred in playing by your rules.

I know for a fact that large companies such as yourself generally have an in-house PR and Marketing department, staffed by what I assume to be talented or at least vaguely competent individuals. If this assumption is true, then I must also assume they are aware, and have informed you, that the entire internet is laughing at your DRM attempts?

Yes. Quite so. They've taken time from their busy schedule of cat pictures and illegal downloads to mock your anti-piracy measures, because they are quite a pain.

Referring back to the previously mentioned sum of £18.97 GBP (not adjusted for inflation), this amount is what I feel my time is worth per minute, multiplied by the time spent installing, updating and registering for Uplay, which came to me as quite a surprise as I fired up my new game. I have of course added additional costs, and punitive damages, to this figure.

After honest people go out of their way to ignore the truly shocking reputation your company has for DRM on legally purchased games, and promptly paid for your games, do you honestly believe it fair to force them to register for your own game service whose purpose I cannot begin to divine other than giving you a useful little peephole through which to peep on your customers as they prance around in their frilly silk underwear and/or check that they haven't suddenly started using an illegal version of your game in the 20 minutes since they bought it?

I certainly don't, and you're giving the petty criminals you so despise a wonderful rallying call to the masses,

'We may be stealing games, but it's their fault for making it so hard to buy them legally!'

If I may direct you to one of the many Rules of Acquisition: "Always make it easy for someone to give you their money."

Your's Sincerely,
A Concerned (and mildly annoyed) Customer



TLDNR: I was just gifted Anno 2070 on Steam. After installing it, I was directed to some arse of a program called Uplay that spent 10 minutes installing and updating, then asked me for all my contact details so I could have an account to play my offline game. I was annoyed and this seemed a wonderfully refined way to vent.

Yes. I am aware I have made no points that haven't been stated already.

No. I don't care.

 

[Satan]

To start with you got gifted it which makes your argument less valid and then you ask for 18.97 GBP to cover how ever many minutes spent installing it.

Do you ask for money because someone gave you a dvd player that was new, but you didn't have a tv so you had to go to the shops and (for the sake of comparing it a FREE TV) get one? Do you ask to dvd company for money because you had to install the tv and dvd player? You could say it would be like if you had a TV then needed a specific one but its no reason to ask for money.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Couldn't you just fill in a pile of crap details? I remember signing up for something years ago and putting my name and address as The Queen, Buckingham Palace. As long as you put a valid postcode it doesn't really matter beyond that.

Also this probably won't achieve much, but bravo for trying and putting the effort in.

 

[xefaros]

I would assume you acquired the game through Steam.Speculating on that it would appear there is a way to install a game and then give it away,if thats the case would you provide the way that thing came to be.

 

[DoPo]

I would assume you acquired the game through Steam.Speculating on that it would appear there is a way to install a game and then give it away,if thats the case would you provide the way that thing came to be.

OP got the game as a gift, he did not gift it to anybody.

Couldn't you just fill in a pile of crap details? I remember signing up for something years ago and putting my name and address as The Queen, Buckingham Palace. As long as you put a valid postcode it doesn't really matter beyond that.

Also this probably won't achieve much, but bravo for trying and putting the effort in.

Are you saying he should lie in an online form? Great Scott, man, why are they even collecting this information, if he's just going to make. Stuff. Up!

 

[Laughing Man]

LOL, the guy is basically moaning about UPlay integration for offline play in a game that was gifted to him through Steam, a service that IS EXACTLY the same as UPlay.

To the OP, the game Anno 2070 has had a little more press for it's DRM than just the integration of UPlay. A hardware forum I visit called Guru3D questioned boycotting all Ubisoft games as a result of Anno 2070's original DRM

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/why-guru3d-probably-never-will-review-ubisoft-titles-anymore-anno-2070.html

To bottom line it, you got 3 installs with the game and that was that, but it turned out replacing something as simple as a GPU resulted in you using one of those installs. As a result of their article Ubisoft eventually relented and chose to remove the DRM

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/ubisoft_changes_anno_2070_drm_after_guru3d_critique.html

 

[DoPo]

LOL, the guy is basically moaning about UPlay integration for offline play in a game that was gifted to him through Steam, a service that IS EXACTLY the same as UPlay.

I wouldn't call it "exactly the same" except in spirit, to an extent. From what I experienced from UPlay it was buggier than Steam - after an update, it somehow reverted itself back to the old interface, then lost all text for the labels all of it so I had to click buttons saying TextView.Button.ButtonPlay for example (well, not all of it fit, so it said less than that) and so on. It was all right, actually, I didn't have issues with it, until I got an error message that just had Views.Errors.ErrorMsg as content (and the title was something like Views.Errors.ErrorTitle, while the button was Vies.Errors.ErrorClose) and couldn't do anything but do a lengthy reinstall, and then restart UPlay again, because for some reason it thought I didn't have any games at all and offered to sell me some.

 

[Sassafrass]

Gifted a game.
Wants a refund.

Sweet logic you got there, I must use it sometime.

 

[fenrizz]

Gifted a game.
Wants a refund.

Sweet logic you got there, I must use it sometime.

So if I receive a birthday gift from my dear mother, I shall not expect the gift to work?
Am I not entitled to a refund (or, rather a new copy) if it fails to live up to what is expected of it?

 

[Klagermeister]

Oh no! Whatever will you do with the ability to earn free DLC?

Using Uplay enough gives you free DLC downloads. Some of them new skins, upgrades...
And even entire missions. And you only have to do it ONCE.

To me this is definitely worth the hassle of a few minutes taken out of your busy, busy schedule.

 

[Sassafrass]

Gifted a game.
Wants a refund.

Sweet logic you got there, I must use it sometime.

So if I receive a birthday gift from my dear mother, I shall not expect the gift to work?
Am I not entitled to a refund (or, rather a new copy) if it fails to live up to what is expected of it?

Well, seeing as he didn't pay for it and hasn't lost any money, not really. He didn't lose any money in this so why should he get any back?

However, whoever bought it for him has all the right in the world to ask for a refund, seeing as it was their money that was wasted because of a faulty product.

 

[astrav1]

(It is my New Years resolution not to swear quite so much on the internet, with that in mind, the following is an extremely polite letter to Ubisoft)

Dear Ubisoft,

I recently downloaded Anno 2070, your popular strategy game. I would like to add at this point that I downloaded it legally, thus ensuring you receive your full and complete cut of profits, as is due you for the efforts and costs incurred in creating this game. In return, I would now like to ask that you pay me the sum of £18.97 GBP for the effort and costs incurred in playing by your rules.

I know for a fact that large companies such as yourself generally have an in-house PR and Marketing department, staffed by what I assume to be talented or at least vaguely competent individuals. If this assumption is true, then I must also assume they are aware, and have informed you, that the entire internet is laughing at your DRM attempts?

Yes. Quite so. They've taken time from their busy schedule of cat pictures and illegal downloads to mock your anti-piracy measures, because they are quite a pain.

Referring back to the previously mentioned sum of £18.97 GBP (not adjusted for inflation), this amount is what I feel my time is worth per minute, multiplied by the time spent installing, updating and registering for Uplay, which came to me as quite a surprise as I fired up my new game. I have of course added additional costs, and punitive damages, to this figure.

After honest people go out of their way to ignore the truly shocking reputation your company has for DRM on legally purchased games, and promptly paid for your games, do you honestly believe it fair to force them to register for your own game service whose purpose I cannot begin to divine other than giving you a useful little peephole through which to peep on your customers as they prance around in their frilly silk underwear and/or check that they haven't suddenly started using an illegal version of your game in the 20 minutes since they bought it?

I certainly don't, and you're giving the petty criminals you so despise a wonderful rallying call to the masses,

'We may be stealing games, but it's their fault for making it so hard to buy them legally!'

If I may direct you to one of the many Rules of Acquisition: "Always make it easy for someone to give you their money."

Your's Sincerely,
A Concerned (and mildly annoyed) Customer



TLDNR: I was just gifted Anno 2070 on Steam. After installing it, I was directed to some arse of a program called Uplay that spent 10 minutes installing and updating, then asked me for all my contact details so I could have an account to play my offline game. I was annoyed and this seemed a wonderfully refined way to vent.

Yes. I am aware I have made no points that haven't been stated already.

No. I don't care.

You'll send this to them right?

 

[AlwaysPractical]

And yet the "RG Mechanics" version of AC III that my friend from Bulgaria downloaded starts up in 3 seconds, without the need for a net connection and no cloud saves. Seriously, DRM has to die. Make an internet connection optional, at the very least.

 

[Keltrick]

Gifted a game.
Wants a refund.

Sweet logic you got there, I must use it sometime.

So if I receive a birthday gift from my dear mother, I shall not expect the gift to work?
Am I not entitled to a refund (or, rather a new copy) if it fails to live up to what is expected of it?

Well, seeing as he didn't pay for it and hasn't lost any money, not really. He didn't lose any money in this so why should he get any back?

However, whoever bought it for him has all the right in the world to ask for a refund, seeing as it was their money that was wasted because of a faulty product.

If I purchase a toaster for my Mother as a gift, and it's faulty out of box, she can take it to Walmart for an exchange. She may need the receipt for a refund, but that's about it. One product was purchased, and if it doesn't work as advertised a refund is due, regardless of who has possession of it now. Its pretty widespread policy for gifts, in America at least.

EDIT: I just remembered, I actually did this last Christmas. I got a pair of pants as a gift, one size too small. Went to the store (Walmart), instant in-store credit. No credentials required.

 

[Laughing Man]

I wouldn't call it "exactly the same" except in spirit, to an extent. From what I experienced from UPlay it was buggier than Steam

Lol, well I only been using UPlay since Farcry 3 came out so I dunno.

Steam on the other hand

- Slow, just in general yesterday their store servers where down for hours
- Slow, takes an age to log in on initial boot and for some reason that I can't explain will from time to time just get stuck at the logging in to account name page. On my Windows reliability list it is one of the most often forced shut down programs
- Slow, wonder if it still crashes routers upon initial login with it's stupid need to make thousands of server connections
- Slow it is still one of the few programs that will hold Windows at shut down
- Slow still allows you to buy games only for it to drop to an error page when you go to install it leaving you to wonder if you have purchased the game at all
- How about the time I logged in only to find ALL my games had just up and left, much searching showed it was a beta issue, that comically could only be resolved by reverting Steam via the registry.

Steam is by far and away the most bug ridden mess I have ever used so you're right it isn't like UPlay at all given that UPlay installed without issue, updated without issue, allowed me to purchase Farcry 3 and install without issue and so far has allowed me to play the game, without issue.

 

[Sassafrass]

Gifted a game.
Wants a refund.

Sweet logic you got there, I must use it sometime.

So if I receive a birthday gift from my dear mother, I shall not expect the gift to work?
Am I not entitled to a refund (or, rather a new copy) if it fails to live up to what is expected of it?

Well, seeing as he didn't pay for it and hasn't lost any money, not really. He didn't lose any money in this so why should he get any back?

However, whoever bought it for him has all the right in the world to ask for a refund, seeing as it was their money that was wasted because of a faulty product.

If I purchase a toaster for my Mother as a gift, and it's faulty out of box, she can take it to Walmart for an exchange. She may need the receipt for a refund, but that's about it. One product was purchased, and if it doesn't work as advertised a refund is due, regardless of who has possession of it now. Its pretty widespread policy for gifts, in America at least.

EDIT: I just remembered, I actually did this last Christmas. I got a pair of pants as a gift, one size too small. Went to the store (Walmart), instant in-store credit. No credentials required.

Well, in that case I'm the one who's got a different mind set to everybody else. I've always said if I get given a gift and it's faulty, I'll give it back to whoever gave it to me so they can get a refund on it.

So yeah, I just do things differently than the norm.

 

[Xman490]

It's this DRM bullshit that has shied (and will continue to shy) me away from playing Assassin's Creed 2 very much and from buying Far Cry 3. The Uplay servers were down, so I couldn't play Driver: San Francisco AT ALL FOR WEEKS.

I heard that THQ may be bought out by Ubisoft. That company will really go bankrupt if it follows in Ubisoft's DRM footsteps, or it might as well go bankrupt.

 

[Akyho]

Does the game work? I think the answer is yes. You have no argument except personal preference of "I hate wasting my time."

I dont like my bus service around here is cutting off half the community by dropping half of its routes then still racks up its fares seemingly every 2 months, with £5 just about able to get you a 15 minutes bus ride. THEN! the Bus drivers sneer at you when you give them a £10 or £20 note. Hell one bus driver held my £20 at me and shouted "WE ARE ALLOWED TO KEEP THIS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE CHANGE!" as you guessed I only had £20 for my £5 ride, I had to reply "If you didn't keep putting up the price I COULD HAVE CHANGE!" had to get off the bus since the driver just stared at me and nothing was happening.

I think my terrible experiences and the horrible business practices of my local bus service allows me a £18.97 compensation alot sooner than your "I hate your DRM and installing, because it takes time!" argument.

If the game didn't work, your are allowed. It works and you accepted the terms, if you don't accept the terms.... don't play the game. Its how TOS and these stupid DRM stuff has worked for years.

I hate DRM, however I cant get behind your self entitled argument at all.

 

[shrekfan246]

Snip

Snip

He says nothing about the game not working, merely that it requires DRM, which is something that anyone who knows anything about Ubisoft's PC games should not be surprised about by now, especially considering how many years UPlay has been around.

Imagine getting Portal 2 for free on the PC. As a Christmas or birthday present, whatever. But while you're installing it, you realize that it wants to set up Steam. Outraged, you type up a letter to Valve asking for a refund because this isn't what you asked for, you just wanted to play a game.

Or for consoles, imagine getting a download code for a game that's exclusive to Xbox Live or the PSN, and doesn't exist in a physical format. To redeem the code and download the game, however, you need to have an account with Microsoft or Sony. Incensed at the thought of giving your information to these giant corporations, you ask Sony/Microsoft to refund the cost of the downloadable game.