Pachter Supports Ubisoft DRM

[anyGould]

"I'm ethical and I'm a lawyer by trade." lol

This upset me tho: "I welcome the flamer comments on this one ... we have no interest in your business since you don't pay for stuff anyway."
So everybody who voices a negative opinion on drm is a thief?

Yup. Classic example of the "have you stopped beating your wife" argument. Probably why he's doing public relations instead of lawyering.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Yeah, no. It seems that he thinks only pirates will have a problem with the DRM. Well, I'm an honest customer (not according to EA though, because I buy used games), and I think that the DRM Ubisoft put it is nothing short of (forgive the Yahtzee quote) pants on head retarded.

EDIT: I mentioned pirates, so I'm now required to post this picture, if only to make myself feel better.

Spoiler

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Looks like the point zoomed right over Pachters head, the main reason people object to this sort of DRM is because it hurts paying customers a lot more than the pirates who'll have no trouble at all with the verification servers.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Epitome]

Theres just so much wrong with what he says its hard to take anything he says credibly. Nobody begrudges Ubisoft protecting revenues thats there right and their duty to their shareholders. What we disagree with is stomping on the legit user for PR while the infringers get a superior product for free. Hows does somebody miss the point that hard?

Also "the guys who ran bittorrent are in jail" ... Does he know nothing about the system he hates. Ill presume that he doesnt mean the people who came up with the protocal, or the many clients that allow bittorrent transfers, Im going to guess its safe to say he mean the 4 TPB admins, 2 of whom are not in the jusristiction they were convicted in and 2 who are still roaming free while the appeals process is underway.

Also "they dont mind you selling your copy or giving it away"... Seriously what market is this man anaylising because its not the one Im looking at. Project 10 Dollar, Limited installs, the PR campaigns against Gamestop.... How is this man a credible source on anything market related?

 

[Quesa]

I think the term came about thanks to The Pirate Bay, just my speculation on the matter.

It's true, why, I remember when the grand clipper ship 'The Pirate Bay' used to sail into Norfolk harbor and toss out pirated Atari 2600 and c64 games; what noble work those lads did.

 

[zakski]

who is this pachter anyway and why should we care what he says?

 

[Serenegoose]

joining the chorus of people stating that this guy missed the point so far, that by the time the light from the point reaches him, we will all be living in space.

 

[SavingPrincess]

(I hate the term "pirate", a "pirate" is someone who murders, kidnaps, rapes and steals)

I think the term came about thanks to The Pirate Bay, just my speculation on the matter. If anything since pirates (not the digital ones or the new asian ones in motor boats) have gained the reputation nowadays for standing up against the establishment...or some BS like that; the term has become a symbol of empowerment, and calling them as such only fills them with a sense of pride. Had the term never become associated with it and it was just called digital theft I feel the numbers would be much smaller. I say this because out of all the flimsy arguments in favor of it a very scary amount of them are made on the basis that they're part of some noble cause.

The term was actually coined by the industries and was worked into the legal definition of "pirate" back in 1993. I wrote a piece on it [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.195139] a while back talking about that very point.

Now what if the DRM was implemented into the 360 version and people who didn't have an active internet connection on their console were unable to play the "single player" game?

 

[Trivun]

I usually support Michael Pachter and think he has a very good idea of what the industry is all about. He's a great analyst and he's shown that time and again. But I cannot agree with him here. That said, I think everyone saying he's an idiot or dismissing his views offhand are completely ignorant and shouldn't have that opinion.

My reasoning? He doesn't fully understand the problem with gamers towards the DRM. And that's fine. All it means is that his ideas are wrong. What he says though, if you actually read his comments, are that he agrees with Ubisoft using the DRM to protect their product. Which I fully agree with too. He makes absolutely no reference to agreeing to the actual form of DRM used, and he doesn't make any opinion either way on the way it affects honest gamers. So I can see why people will disagree with his views, but really, he's not saying anything that wouldn't be agreed with by many other industry people. He's just stating that Ubisoft have every right to protect their IP, which is true, and something I agree with completely.

I don't agree with the form of DRM used, but even so, I still fully support Ubisoft's right to use DRM, and I still like Ubisoft as a firm to some degree (how can I not when they gave me the Assassin's Creed series?). But Pachter isn't wrong in his views here, just slightly underinformed. Which is no crime.

 

[Delusibeta]

Well, that's his reputation shredded, on fire and on the receiving end of a nuclear bomb. As I understand it, new games using the UbiDRM have been pretty much instacracked, rendering the DRM and the money spent developing it (and on server upkeep) completely wasted. Thus, anyone who now thinks the UbiDRM is a good idea is, frankly, wrong.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Who the hell cares? Why are we giving this guy any credit, anyway? He has as many credentials for being an "analyst" as the myriad of local fortune tellers and palm readers here in Salem.

 

[Void(null)]

The guys that ran bittorrent [sic] are in jail: it is illegal ... I think anything a publisher does to make sure you don't rip off their games is their right, and I think that people who steal should be in jail."

Bram Cohen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen], creator of BitTorrent and one of the people whom helped Valve develop Steam... and the 20 employees of BitTorrent Inc [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent,_Inc.] are in jail?

This is the first I have ever heard about it... Bram's Facebook page [http://www.facebook.com/#!/bram.cohen?ref=search&sid=fqb-YD9HF9vMykuPRkrPSw.3729674343..1] never said anything about this and if BitTorrent Technology suddenly became illegal then someone needs to inform Blizzard and Turbine before their patching system lands them in jail along side poor Bram.

 

[McNinja]

This man opinion has no bearing on anything of any importance. The question wasn't do you approve of DRM in general, but Ubisofts DRM. The man didn't answer the question, and probably has no idea what kind of DRM was used. He needs to re answer the question so that he doesn't look like a fool.

 

[mightybozz]

"I'm ethical and I'm a lawyer by trade". If you are a lawyer then you should be able to see that the DRM goes far further than it needs to and makes purchasing PC games from Ubisoft pretty much impossible for a huge number of people, myself included.

Hopefully Ubisoft will get their sales figures through at some point and it will reflect on the the fact that no-one bought Settlers 7 (though why you'd want to since it went realistic generic medieval bullshit is beyond me).

 

[Salonista]

Which one is true theft, Mr. Pachter? Downloading a *copy* of something that might not have been purchased anyway, or taking money for a product that can be crippled or unusable due to circumstances on the *vendor's* end - and thus instantly devalued - that renders the paid for product a big pile of zero?

Because he's so blatantly uninformed about what he's speaking of, he's supporting the practice of selling defective products, for that's what Ubisoft is selling with this waste of money and goodwill.

And the gaming industry supports used game sales?! For godsakes, doesn't he read TheEscapist?! Kotaku? GamaSutra? RPS? PCGaming? ArsTechnica? ANY blog or journal to do with the industry he 'analyzes' that has quoted some of its major players saying exactly the opposite?!

Perhaps they should all stop giving him any coverage, for he is obviously not paying attention. Or he's a shill for the DRM industry.

Ugh. I'm so tired of being expected to PAY for the short end and smile while doing it.*

Sincerely,
Not Buying, Not Pirating, Not Bothering.

*not just for video games; the feeling is kinda pervasive for anything you buy these days. Maybe it's just me...

PS: the 'bitTorrent' guys aren't in jail, Mr. Pachter. If he's speaking of the PirateBay guys, last I saw their case was being appealed. Not that it's good or bad, just that he's wrong. Again.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

He said nothing about their system of DRM. I have no problem with DRM, but what Ubisoft did is a bit too much. I've had no problems with Steam, D2D, and anything else, but when I have to constantly be connected to their server, especially with Mediacom's "reliable" internet, I'm not going to waste my money...

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Patcher is pro corporation and anti consumer. His day job is to hype up the value of game publishers so that grandmothers and orphans buy stocks at inflated prices.