The Needles: You Only Have Yourself To Blame

[nametakentwice]

snip

I think you might be misinterpreting what Andy and Susan are trying to say mate.

I understand the point. "People shouldn't buy DRM stuff if it's bad and they know about it."

What I'm saying is that they are looking at it from one fairly closed perspective on the issue, and it is also the one that would be the most potentially antagonizing to members of this community. The writer is writing an opinion piece, so having one narrow perspective makes at least some degree of sense, but the editor is representing the magazine as a whole, and the magazine should be representing multiple points of view.

It'd be like smoking cigarettes, and then suing the company for getting cancer. Sure, its the companies fault for manufacturing them, but the actual act of using them is always going to be the consumers choice.

Yeah?

No. Cigarette companies introduced an addictive substance into a product that kills people, and worked at making it more addictive. Ubisoft makes video games. I disagree wholeheartedly with your analogy.

They are the victims - shame on you Andy.

Sorry, dude. People who get caught in earthquakes are victims. People who bought Asscreed 2 for the PC are consumers who either made an informed choice or couldn't be bothered to make an informed choice. Either way, sow, reap, etc.

This re-enforces my point about the closed perspective. The writer copied Gildan's last sentence to respond to, made an remark about earthquakes that, like Aries' cancer remark, is going beyond a sensible scale of analogies (I don't think Gildan was trying to equate this situation to a natural disaster), and made a statement that can be viewed as antagonizing as it lumps all gamers into two groups - those who do research and those who don't (about a video game), with no grey area in between.

For reference, Gildan's full post is below. He makes some cogent points, some of which agree with the writer's (though the writer doesn't respond to any of these other points). Meanwhile, Fragamoo notes an agreement with Gildan's post, plus (and this is re-enforcing my point) he notes the antagonistic feel in the writer's article.

In this day and age, if the failure of Ubisoft's DRM caught you by surprise, then I would agree that you don't really have any right to be surprised - you do however have the right to be angry.

If you buy a product that says "Warning: This product will probably explode in your face" and when it does, get angry about it, you're pretty much a moron. If you buy a product that industry analysts warn "looks explosive", but which purports to be perfectly safe, and then it explodes, you shouldn't really be surprised but you darn well better be angry.

This is what it boils down to - Ubisoft did not clearly indicate that "by opening and installing this product you acknowledge that you may have service interrupted at any time because our servers are a piece of shit", ergo anyone who bought their games gets to be angry when that happens. It doesn't matter if everyone on the internet predicted it, the point is Ubisoft told us everything was going to be just fine and then it wasn't.

I don't have much personal sympathy for the people getting locked out of Assassin's Creed 2, as I consider them weak for not taking a stand on principle and boycotting the hell out of Ubisoft forever and ever (amen), but I'm not going to be arrogant enough to suggest they're culpable in this whole fiasco. They are the victims - shame on you Andy.

This is exactly how I feel about this article.

Also, the entire article had antagonistic tones towards the honest consumer, which were unjustly placed. It's their right as consumers to get mad when something like this happens, so instead of effectively telling them to shut up, we should be supporting them in the hopes that Ubi's crappy DRM never gets used again - if nobody is getting pissed at them, then they win.

 

[Aries_Split]

SNIP

Fair enough.

Try equating to someone who eats fast food a lot, then sues the fast food company because they're fat.

EVEN THOUGH the nutrition info is on a sheet posted in the restaurant.

As it stands, your argument is "People bought the game even though they knew there was a chance that they'd get fucked over. They got fucked over. Feel sorry for them."

 

[Killian Kalthorne]

I don't feel sorry for consumers. The Internet is there as a tool for people to make an informed decision if they are going to buy something. If people can't be bothered to make an informed purchase then they got no one to blame for but themselves. I won't be buying AC2 for the PC. I don't want to be bothered with this level of DRM.

 

[Undercover]

I agree 100%. While I'm not about to place the blame for what happened anywhere but at Ubisoft's feet, it's the gamers' own fault for being affected by Ubisoft's mistakes.

If you're paying to support and stimulate Ubisoft's retarded schemes, you deserve to reap the consequences. For better or worse.

I agree with your agreement, but the real reason I'm writing is because you have the best avatar EVER. That is the single greatest use of Pedo Bear and the World Wildlife Fund Logo that I've ever seen...

And as long as Ubi has its little DRM bullshit, I won't be buying any of their games. And I'm a HUGE Ubisoft fan, despite them being from Quebec.

It's a Canadian thing.

 

[nametakentwice]

A twitter on The Escapist's Water Cooler both furthers my point and provides a counter-perspective to the marketing point.

Andy Chalk Feel like yelling at me because I hold you responsible for enabling Ubi's new, idiotic DRM? Join the fun! http://bit.ly/90Htyb Mar 10 02:16 Reply

The writer seems less interested in discussion than furthering controversy. From a marketing point of view, though, engendering controversy, particularly controversy against the readership, can make for some eyeballs to screens. Not the most uplifting way to gain readers, but potentially effective if it doesn't go too far. Admittedly, it has worked on myself and others:

In short. Ubisoft made a dangerous weapon, griefers used that weapon, customers suffered.
I'll grant you that anyone who knew about the DRM and bought the game is braindead.
Otherwise I'm left only to wonder if your proposal that it's the victims fault is a weapon of mass trolling. If so nicely done, you got me to type a page up...

[emphasis mine]

Personally, rather than maintain a close-minded* view antagonizing readers for ratings, I'd prefer to see the author (or more importantly some Escapist editors) engage in discussion about various options that could have an effect on Ubisoft and DRM. The author purports to be a "die-hard PC gamer" - I would suggest his own advice could be paraphrased - "The hard fact is this: If Ubisoft decides to stay with this DRM for the long run, it will be because of you [the PC gaming author with the podium to encourage serious discussion on the issue of Digital Rights Management and Intellectual Property in our quickly evolving modern times]; and if you get screwed because of it, you'll have nobody but yourself to blame."

For those interested in IP and copyright, I recommend Michael Geist's blog - http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ It's largely Canadian, but follows copyright around the world. I myself submitted a letter to the Canadian Government when they were soliciting public opinions about copyright, an action that I think is a better stand than simply not buying a game.

*adj. Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas ...
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/close-minded

 

[TazTheTerrible]

I would say there is a distinct difference between surprise and outrage. The fact that people knew it was going to happen means they don't get to be surprised any more, but they're still fully entitled to be pissed off I would say.

I mean honestly, are you going to blame gamers for wanting to play a new game and having the decency not to go for a pirated copy?

I think you've made some pretty broad assumptions here. The big ones being probably "gamers are informed" and "we all knew this was coming".

I think it's easy to assume that most of people have access to the information you do and see the world the way you do, but that's often not the case. I think a lot of gamers won't be quite as informed, and if they are "informed but to a lesser degree" then it's far more likely they consider those concerns more trivial.

Also, "we knew this was coming" is a pretty broad statement and easy to make after the fact. No we didn't. We thought it was likely that there would be quirks, as there often are with new systems, but we didn't know what or how bad and "we" is hardly every gamer alive.

Bottom line is: a lot of people bought a product with real, honest money, they were fairly expecting it to work, and it didn't. They are slightly pissed off.

I say that's fair. This ISN'T like licking a frozen lamppost. This was something a lot of people were supposed to be putting a lot of time and effort into getting to work to a point that it WOULDN'T cause significant trouble. It's a product, something you buy in the fair expectation that it's functional.

I'm not going to buy it myself, but I think it's fair for people who did to expect it to work and be slightly ticked when it doesn't.

 

[secretsantaone]

I do agree that consumers should accept that they should have expected this, but I don't think anyone would have expected it to happen so soon.

Ubisoft is a coporate giant, you would expect them to be able to keep their servers up for quite a while before it inevitably went to shit.

I suppose most gamers would reason 'It's a single player game, I can complete it in the first couple of weeks and then I can play it again later if need be, if the servers go down later at least I've finished it.' This isn't the sort of game people would be playing constantly, after I finished AC1 I barely touched it again.

 

[ZephrC]

You know, I probably shouldn't admit this here, but back when I was in high school and college I pirated quite a few games, so I know how this whole thing works.

So I have to ask: How many people that had never pirated a game before do you think pirated Assassin's Creed 2 when this happened? And how many of those people will pirate a new game the next time their paycheck is a bit tight now that they now how?

I'm not defending piracy. It's theft plain and simple, and I haven't done it for more than ten years, but when a company is making it a more tedious and less reliable process to buy their game than it is to simply steal it, it's rather stupid of them to be surprised when huge numbers of people chose to go pirate.

They are, in essence, causing piracy in the name of stopping piracy.

 

[Citrus]

As someone who has opposed this new DRM since it was announced and has urged people not to buy AC2, I could not disagree more with this article.

"... expecting a system like this to function smoothly, especially when it's virtually brand new, is almost willfully naive."

Ubisoft is a large and very successful company, and they do (did?) have something of a pretty good reputation. They've never made a blunder this severe before, so why is it the consumer's fault for expecting them to be extra careful with the implementation of such a touchy new DRM system? It is not naivety, it's having faith in the integrity and professionalism of a company. Ubisoft took the people who had faith in them and screwed them over, and that's why Ubisoft is truly the entity at fault here.

On a side note, I agree that this article seems like it was written for the sake of netting some extra hits. That isn't cool.

 

[arealperson]

- snip

Okay, you've taken a fairly personal tone with the Escapist writers here and I'm going to ask you and anyone who shares the opinion that Andy Chalk is wrong to consider a few things.

First, this event is not static, the game hasn't been rendered useless forever for anyone who has a legal copy now, or may happen to in the future (not that it may not someday become useless, for it surely will). The game's barely been out for the PC a few days, Ubisoft has acknowledged the problem and not simply chosen to ignore it. From what we can gather from Ubisoft however, is that this variety of DRM will remain for the time being, but most, and Andy Chalk did truly go out of his way to make exceptions, most should have been in the know. Next, you make the contention that Andy is "close-minded" or as I find more accurate in paraphrase 'not trying hard enough'. However, as you yourself tried to exploit, "The Needles by Andy Chalk is an ongoing look at the news and events..." and he did just that. Did he write an expose on the evils of DRM, the intricacies of copyright and the possible solutions? No. Of course not. It's almost explicitly what he did not set out to do. Another point that can be made here is that games can be returned, if you have a retailer that does not allow this, then I'm going to join Andy in calling "you" out in not shopping around. Also, if you're going to throw "anti-gamer" out there, you have to consider that in supporting(buying) Ubisoft's PC games with this DRM, you are encouraging further behaviour in what most would call an "anti-gamer" move on Ubisoft's part.

Personally, I think part of what Andy is trying to say in the short term, is that if you're going onto Ubisoft's forums to cuss them out for a lack of server availability, you're at best contributing to the problem by causing excess traffic for a problem that Ubisoft has already recognized, apologized-for, and is working on a solution. In fact, I'd say he'd be further on the side of encouraging the grievances on Ubisoft at this point, if not for the fact that it may hinder your fellow gamer. The biggest point still being, as stated, he does not support/condemns Ubisoft's DRM scheme.

Edit: One final point, I'm sure Andy feels and is trying to address all the people who heard of Ubisoft's plan and said, "Don't do it, because x could happen!" and then turned around and bought the product only to now say, "I told you so!... (expletives)."

If Andy made any 'egregious' assumptions, it's that you could find other such articles on the site, particularly in Shamus Young's Experienced Points segments (plugging done).

As a consumerist, if two months down the line the situation of playability (downed servers) has not improved, I would support any form of legal action and protection of your consumer rights. I'm sure you'd find the tone of the writers to have changed somewhat as well

 

[JaredXE]

They are the victims - shame on you Andy.

Sorry, dude. People who get caught in earthquakes are victims. People who bought Asscreed 2 for the PC are consumers who either made an informed choice or couldn't be bothered to make an informed choice. Either way, sow, reap, etc.

Way to be so flippant about this.

You're right, it's totally the fault of the people who purchased a product in good faith, used it the way they were supposed to, then got screwed through NO FAULT OF THEIR GODDAMN OWN.

They sowed by buying a game and installing it.

They reaped not being able to play said game.


Those bastards, how dare they!

Plain truth is, buying a game should not be a gamble(directed at Susan), buying a lotto ticket is. Purchasing a game, like any other product, comes with a reasonable supposition that the buyer can use their purchased product. Are the servers back up? Yes. Could they come down again? Hell yes. And the fact that they can breaks that supposition. I buy a shovel, I expect to be able to dig something. I buy a game, I expect to be able to play it.

 

[Fenixius]

Andy Chalk Feel like yelling at me because I hold you responsible for enabling Ubi's new, idiotic DRM? Join the fun! http://bit.ly/90Htyb Mar 10 02:16 Reply

Oh wow. I am disappointed. As someone who is decidedly not to blame for this (ie: non-pirate, non-purchaser of DRM-laden products), I am insulted by you when you try to wake people up and get some accountability going, but then turn around and just laugh when people try to discuss it with you.

 

[KDR_11k]

The number of people who read up on DRM is still tiny, StarForce and SecuRom don't get in the way during normal use. Unless there's a giant warning on the box that says "lose internet connection = lose game" most buyers will be unaware of the system. I expect the response to be mostly in the form of low sales for the next Ubisoft game.

Also don't go all "you're at fault". I didn't buy the game and I'm sure the majority of people who even know about that DRM didn't either.

 

[Grampy_bone]

I disagree with every word of this article. The people who were aware of the DRM didn't buy the game. The only people being punished are the poor suckers who had the gall to assume AC2 would perform like every other single player game out there. Fine print does not absolve Ubisoft of anything.

 

[DTWolfwood]

A laugh is still a laugh. In this case Ubisoft's failed system and the comical reaction from ppl who KNEW ABOUT THIS DRM AND STILL BOUGHT THE GAME. but i'll take a gamble and say probably 90% of ppl who bought the game knew nothing of this or probably thought it was merely an online activation being its the MOST COMMON DRM now.

I'm almost certain the box doesn't say "You need constant internet access and be logged into your Ubisoft account constantly to play (and heres the part im certain they dont tell you) and for any reason your connection drops, your game will drop out without saving your progress." so...id say more shame on Ubisoft.

Glad he went with the console version of AC2 and will now avoid all UBISOFT PC products

p.s. you also can't blame the ppl who bought the game knowing the DRM but actually had faith Ubisoft is a big enough company to actually make this work, naive but faithful. my condolences for thinking these companies actually care about YOU rather than just your MONEY.

 

[tur2n]

The majority of PC gamers should have heard of this DRM scheme, and they still went out and bought the game. Ubisoft is very much wrong here and I don't think I'll ever buy another Ubisoft-published game again if they keep this up, but the gamers who STILL got the PC version even knowing the bullshit they'd land themselves in have no right to complain.

They have all the right to complain. I consider certain titles must-have. For me, AC 2 happens to be one of those. Since I don't own a console, my only option is to bite the bullet and buy it regardless of the DRM.
And now Ubisoft fails to deliver. I really don't see how I'm to blame here.

Most of you are probably totally boycotting Ubisoft, neither buying Silent Hunter 5 (because it sucks) nor AC 2 (because they've already played it on console). And then you tell the PC buyers of AC 2 that it's their own fault. Yeah...

 

[matrix3509]

This article is seriously the most obtuse thing I have ever seen on this website, and that scares the hell out of me.

When the hell did playing videogames (or rather, attempting to play, as the case is now) become an exercise in gambling? So suddenly someone who really liked Ass Creed 1 and really wants to play the new game is shit out of luck, and its their own fucking fault?

 

[matrix3509]

Sorry, dude. People who get caught in earthquakes are victims. People who bought Asscreed 2 for the PC are consumers who either made an informed choice or couldn't be bothered to make an informed choice. Either way, sow, reap, etc.

So to take your metaphor to its logical conclusion.

"Sorry mister earthquake victim about losing your house, wife, children, dog, and everyone you ever knew, but you were knowingly living in an area that had a potential to have earthquake. You took the chance, and now you are paying for it, tough shit."

Yup, makes sense.

Also, why the hell does buying a piece of entertainment require making an informed choice? What the hell happened to just buying a fucking game, going home, playing it, and not having any fear of being ass raped later on?

 

[Sneaklemming]

I think you are absolutely right. But also that the people at Ubisoft aren't stupid. They know that any DRM they put on a game will be cracked within hours or days of release. (Which is has.)

But you have to think this is to keep investors and other business-like people happy. To show they are proactive.

It's also moving toward a more all inclusive onine package that Ubisoft are trying to build around PC games. Services around the game to push people toward buying instead of pirating.

Steam had issues when it first launched, and still has issues on launch days for games. Ubisoft will refine their process, and it will become like second nature.