I don't think he was so much advocating DRM as he was saying that the shareholders wanting to stop piracy is understandable...7ru7h said:
Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
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Yep. And I'm going to have a lot of fun watching it.somedude98 said:
Honestly, it sucks to be a consumer. Not only do you have to deal with crazy shit like this, but you actually had to pay lots of money for it. Now compare that to those pirates who haven't paid shit-all and are doing perfectly fine, and that option starts looking real good.
Atleast with single player games and Steam, you can go into an offline mode. Say if you don't have internet or the steam servers are down. You only need to be connected to first run the game with almost all of them. This constant connect to play DRM system that Ubisoft has invented is treating customer's like prisoners. You can only play when they authorize it. Not thanks .. Steam just wants to make sure ya own the game, and provide a service to redownload it and patch it. That much I can handle. As well steam's major issues have only been when they were changing server hardware, which gives any service issues.Icehearted said:
I hope Ubisoft's system will be the death of them, if it isn't. Be prepared for the large majority of games to become like that. At that point I'm fine with what I have. And will probably spend my money on more Indie developed games.
Personally, I don't care how non-invasive Steam pretends to be. Sure, it's convenient to a certain degree, but the days when all I had to do was enter in a CD Key during install are still fresh in my mind. Why can't we revert back to that system? The DRM's just as effective and at least then, they can still pretend to be doing something about piracy, just like they're pretending right now.Antari said:
Aheheh.....
A typical meeting at the ubisoft offices
Ubisoft worker A: Okay, lets think up a system to stop people from downloading our games and actually paying for them.
Ubisoft worker B: How about, we make them constantly have to connect to our servers to be able to play our games?
A: But our servers are terrible.
B: Don't worry, nobody'll notice.
A: PROMOTION ************!
A week later
A:Hmm.... ou servers crashed, so now nobody can log in and play our games. It seems that now less people are buying our games now, which is what we wanted to avoid in the first place.
B:Just tell them that we'll eventually solve the problem, they won't notice.
A:MOAR PROMOTION ************!
A typical meeting at the ubisoft offices
Ubisoft worker A: Okay, lets think up a system to stop people from downloading our games and actually paying for them.
Ubisoft worker B: How about, we make them constantly have to connect to our servers to be able to play our games?
A: But our servers are terrible.
B: Don't worry, nobody'll notice.
A: PROMOTION ************!
A week later
A:Hmm.... ou servers crashed, so now nobody can log in and play our games. It seems that now less people are buying our games now, which is what we wanted to avoid in the first place.
B:Just tell them that we'll eventually solve the problem, they won't notice.
A:MOAR PROMOTION ************!
I have never looked at Steam as a DRM system... I always saw it as a digital distribution system. It's interesting to me that people view it as a DRM system.commasplice said:
The days when CD Key's didn't exist is still fresh in my mind. But unfortunately they will never take what they see to be a step backwards. Its picking the lesser of two evils. If the industry goes completely nuts I'll just play old games and stay away from new stuff entirely. At best Ubisoft will tone the current DRM down, but unless people stop buying their games, they will continue to think they've done a great job.commasplice said:
Oh, I don't really have that much of a problem with it in that regard. I mean, as long as I can still own a physical copy, if I so choose, I'm happy. I just don't like having to sign in to Steam any time I want to fire up Portal. I play single player games for the hell of it plenty, but I know that one of my favorite ways to pass the time during an internet outage is to play video games. Any system that makes it impossible for me to do that is just kind of silly in my eyes. What's the point in buying the game if I can't play when I want, where I want, you know?SavingPrincess said:
Good, wont be long until they patch it out and publicly admit that the DRM was a stupid idea and that they owe the PC gaming public a huge apology. Then I can hand over my cash and play it. I really hope this will make them completely remove plans to implment this DRM with Splinter Cell:Conviction.
I agree with @icehearted and @commasplice; I hate the Steam system. Sure, you can use Offline mode...if Steam feels like it. I swear, EVERY time my internet has gone down unexpectedly, Steam absolutely refused to function in offline mode.
Also, there's the fact that sometimes Steam likes to start patching the game I want to play, so I have to wait for it to finish. Or, if something happens to my connection during the patching process, then I'm shit outta luck...I can't play a partially-patched game in offline mode.
Steam is also responsible for me pirating my very first game: Half-Life 2. I bought the game while I was in the military, and I didn't have an internet connection in the barracks. So, there I was with my brand new laptop and freshly purchased copy of HL2, and I pop it in the drive to install it...and no joy. You needed an internet connection to play.
There was supposedly a phone registration option, but the half dozen times I tried it (over two days) it was either busy, or didn't ring at all. That falls into the category of "Go fuck yourself, Steam". Luckily, my roommate had had a pirated copy for TWO WEEKS. He burned me a copy so I could play the game I had already purchased.
Here's the rule of thumb for DRM: If it's easier to pirate a game than to purchase it legitimately, then people are more likely to pirate it. If purchasing a game is simply a matter of popping a DVD in the drive, installing it, and playing...then people will probably do that...especially if installing the game ONLY INSTALLS THE GAME. When I purchase a game, it's not a free license for the devs to set up shop on my computer and install whatever crazy shit they feel like.
A DRM system like the one UbiSoft was failing with isn't even the pinnacle of inconvenient...but it's getting there. I don't normally like to see companies fail, since there are undoubtedly many good people there who would lose income for a decision they had no part in. However, the only way an industry will learn a lesson is if they see one of their number fall flat on its face due to an absurdly stupid decision.
I hope UbiSoft loses enough money to become a cautionary tail for the rest of the industry...but that won't happen, so I'm going to go play some DRM-free games from GoG, because that's how I roll.
Also, there's the fact that sometimes Steam likes to start patching the game I want to play, so I have to wait for it to finish. Or, if something happens to my connection during the patching process, then I'm shit outta luck...I can't play a partially-patched game in offline mode.
Steam is also responsible for me pirating my very first game: Half-Life 2. I bought the game while I was in the military, and I didn't have an internet connection in the barracks. So, there I was with my brand new laptop and freshly purchased copy of HL2, and I pop it in the drive to install it...and no joy. You needed an internet connection to play.
There was supposedly a phone registration option, but the half dozen times I tried it (over two days) it was either busy, or didn't ring at all. That falls into the category of "Go fuck yourself, Steam". Luckily, my roommate had had a pirated copy for TWO WEEKS. He burned me a copy so I could play the game I had already purchased.
Here's the rule of thumb for DRM: If it's easier to pirate a game than to purchase it legitimately, then people are more likely to pirate it. If purchasing a game is simply a matter of popping a DVD in the drive, installing it, and playing...then people will probably do that...especially if installing the game ONLY INSTALLS THE GAME. When I purchase a game, it's not a free license for the devs to set up shop on my computer and install whatever crazy shit they feel like.
A DRM system like the one UbiSoft was failing with isn't even the pinnacle of inconvenient...but it's getting there. I don't normally like to see companies fail, since there are undoubtedly many good people there who would lose income for a decision they had no part in. However, the only way an industry will learn a lesson is if they see one of their number fall flat on its face due to an absurdly stupid decision.
I hope UbiSoft loses enough money to become a cautionary tail for the rest of the industry...but that won't happen, so I'm going to go play some DRM-free games from GoG, because that's how I roll.
You're not reading. It isn't understandable at all that developers and publishers try to prevent piracy right?7ru7h said:
Sad, but true. I think it's kind of ironic how so much in the video game industry is based around at least pretending to listen to what gamers ask for, but often, it seems like we're just ignored.Antari said:
"Yeah, this time around in Random Shooter 3, we brought back that fan-favorite weapon from RS1 that we left out of RS2. The users have been clamoring for it since RS2 was announced and we thought we'd throw a little nod their way."
"Okay, but did you fix any of the problems with the DRM that more or less made your game unplayable for millions of people? What about the unbalanced class system in RS2? Any change there? You also took out LAN support and dedicated servers, which were big draws for the first two games. Who exactly have you been listening to? Do you actually know anyone that's played your games?"
I personally can see both sides of the story. Yes, piracy is harmful to a company's profit, obviously. And there's nothing wrong with trying to stop them.7ru7h said:
HOWEVER
There are limits. Once your customers start becoming inconvenienced, then you have a problem. And Ubisoft now has a problem. Legitimate, paying customers are not being rewarded for paying for the legitimate product. And even if there is no cracked version of a game yet, there soon shall be, and then the pirates shall be the only ones truly enjoying the game.
So yes, I don't exactly support piracy constantly, but this is one of those times where even I change my mind.
From what I recall, Steam never actually went completely down. It was the download servers that had a huge amount of traffic, meaning it just took longer to download the games. Otherwise people were still able to play their games. I was lucky since I used the Steam beta and already had all my games transferred.Icehearted said:
I also recall a feature to convert old HL1 games to Steam, anyways, don't compare a failure like this to Steam. Considering the fact that Steam started almost a decade ago, you can't say they didn't deal with their problems quickly. The only time Steam had problems afterwards was for Half-Life 2's release. Beyond that Steam has been perfectly stable during all major title releases.
