Ubisoft shaft PC gamers yet again!

[Folji]

Well that's a real shame and-

Oh, wait. People still buy boxed retail copies of PC games? I say, what a charming novelty! Allow me a moment to fetch my monocle so that we may better chirp on about these quaint ole times.

 

[distortedreality]

This isn't the first time this has happened. Hell, it's happened on Steam before.

This is an oversight, nothing more. But feel free to use it as a soap box to list all of your unrelated grievances by all means.

 

[Crises^]

Well that's a real shame and-

Oh, wait. People still buy boxed retail copies of PC games? I say, what a charming novelty! Allow me a moment to fetch my monocle so that we may better chirp on about these quaint ole times.

Normally I buy through steam as well but this game required a real tone cable and when its ?43 on amazon with the cable, but ?50 on steam and you have to buy the cable for ?20 in a shop it's kind of a no brainer there.

 

[Folji]

Well that's a real shame and-

Oh, wait. People still buy boxed retail copies of PC games? I say, what a charming novelty! Allow me a moment to fetch my monocle so that we may better chirp on about these quaint ole times.

Normally I buy through steam as well but this game required a real tone cable and when its ?43 on amazon with the cable, but ?50 on steam and you have to buy the cable for ?20 in a shop it's kind of a no brainer there.

?43 for everything but the guitar and the CD key.

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

Or, you know, buy assassins creed on day 1, but not be able to play it for a week because their stupid DRM servers were down.
I really had it with ubisoft. Since Assassins Creed II, I've never bought another game from them. NOt that hard, since in my opinion they don't make many good games anyway.

 

[Crises^]

Well that's a real shame and-

Oh, wait. People still buy boxed retail copies of PC games? I say, what a charming novelty! Allow me a moment to fetch my monocle so that we may better chirp on about these quaint ole times.

Normally I buy through steam as well but this game required a real tone cable and when its ?43 on amazon with the cable, but ?50 on steam and you have to buy the cable for ?20 in a shop it's kind of a no brainer there.

?43 for everything but the guitar and the CD key.

I have a guitar for it already, all be it a shit one. Just hoping the cd key comes, which I shouldn't have too but Unfortunately these thing happen some times. End of the day I might be delayed playing it for 2-3 days but I save around ?25.

I think the best show of faith Ubisoft could do is release a patch that removes the need for a cd key, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

One other thing, I always wondered why they even bothered with cd keys as people who pirate games get around this straight away so why bother including them in the first place.

 

[Yopaz]

Production accident /= intentional shafting. I'm sorry for your situation, but they weren't being malicious.

Yeah, people should really learn the difference. As crappy as this is it's hardly something intentional from Ubisoft. I don't even think it's Ubisoft themselves which do the actual production, they just publish and sometimes make the actual games. Not the discs themselves, covers or manuals.

 

[Amaror]

This. I don't think the staff at Ubisoft intended to spend the month staring at pictures of receipts and punching in numbers. You can get angry because, well you aren't able to play the game you wanted to for a few days longer, but I don't know if you can really get angry at someone for this. It was a mistake, something they'll try to avoid in the future and something they tried and succeeded to avoid in the past. You can yell at them but what are they going to do? Remember to put the CD-keys in? I bet they wanted to do that the first time round

Of course it wasn't intended. Does that make it acceptable? Hell, no! And don't come to me with: People make mistakes, it happens.
This is a big company, things like that are not supposed to happen. They should have noticed that the cd - keys were missing.
And about that receipt "fix". I didn't buy this game, but not everyone keeps his receipt when he buys something. I do now, when i buy something more expensive, but i know i didn't do that when i was younger.
This think will most likely lead to some people not being able to play a game legally, which they bought legally.

 

[RevRaptor]

It's crap like this that makes me play on my console more than my pc despite the fact that I love pc gaming, I'm just so sick of all this drm bullshit. You never hear about crap like this happening on consoles. I play a lot of smaller titles and retro titles on pc but the big new releases just don't interest me any more.

 

[Folji]

I have a guitar for it already, all be it a shit one. Just hoping the cd key comes, which I shouldn't have too but Unfortunately these thing happen some times. End of the day I might be delayed playing it for 2-3 days but I save around ?25.

I think the best show of faith Ubisoft could do is release a patch that removes the need for a cd key, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

One other thing, I always wondered why they even bothered with cd keys as people who pirate games get around this straight away so why bother including them in the first place.

In all seriousness, I actually have confidence in UbiSoft that they're looking to make up for this situation as much as possible. For all the things they've done, like the Always-On DRM and the controversial PC piracy statements (neither of which are anything to talk about compare to some other companies), at least UbiSoft is able to realise when shit isn't working and look into ways to make it work instead. Like shutting down and retro-removing Always-On, releasing a PC version of I Am Alive and soon enough fixing up this mess, they know when they've made a mistake and they try to fix that.

Plus it's kind of hard to hate the people behind a whole collection of childhood favourite games.

 

[Dollabillyall]

"Forgetting" a CD key in a couple thousand units is something easily avoided by spending petty sums on quality control checks. Many businesses outsource a lot of their actual production and distribution. Key to doing this outsourcing crap right is that you insert into the process a representative who KNOWS the product in-and-out and knows what important things to check for and how to check for them reliably.
They slimmed down too much and are now paying a price both in extra work that needs doing but also another blow to the Ubisoft name.

 

[BrotherRool]

Of course it wasn't intended. Does that make it acceptable? Hell, no! And don't come to me with: People make mistakes, it happens.
This is a big company, things like that are not supposed to happen. They should have noticed that the cd - keys were missing.
And about that receipt "fix". I didn't buy this game, but not everyone keeps his receipt when he buys something. I do now, when i buy something more expensive, but i know i didn't do that when i was younger.
This think will most likely lead to some people not being able to play a game legally, which they bought legally.

No I'm really still not following you, it's not like they've been negligent, it's not like this is a repeat occurence. It's not like this is even Ubisoft, this is the mistake of some factory in east asia printing out boxes, you know what, Apple had factories with conditions so bad the workers were committing suicide. That is gross negligence and something to get angry about, here we just had a factory who forgot to stick in the CD Keys.

 

[snowbear]

Production accident /= intentional shafting. I'm sorry for your situation, but they weren't being malicious.

Yeah, people should really learn the difference. As crappy as this is it's hardly something intentional from Ubisoft. I don't even think it's Ubisoft themselves which do the actual production, they just publish and sometimes make the actual games. Not the discs themselves, covers or manuals.

The publisher is indeed at fault. As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing.

While I agree it probably wasn't malicious on their part there is a little thing called quality assurance. All this shows is that they dont care enough to check what they are publishing.

As for the reason to buy retail, it was the only realistic option with this game.

on Amazon I paid £34.99 for the game which included the cable to plug my guitar into the PC. On steam the game is £34.99 with no cable meaning Id have to buy a cable for £19.99. common sense says buy the bundle, no?

I did cringe when I saw Ubi was publishing this game, but its such a fantastic idea and not buying punishes the Devs a lot more that it does Ubisoft.

If we all stopped buying games like this then they wouldnt get made and the dev would be shut down.

Of course it wasn't intended. Does that make it acceptable? Hell, no! And don't come to me with: People make mistakes, it happens.
This is a big company, things like that are not supposed to happen. They should have noticed that the cd - keys were missing.
And about that receipt "fix". I didn't buy this game, but not everyone keeps his receipt when he buys something. I do now, when i buy something more expensive, but i know i didn't do that when i was younger.
This think will most likely lead to some people not being able to play a game legally, which they bought legally.

No I'm really still not following you, it's not like they've been negligent, it's not like this is a repeat occurence. It's not like this is even Ubisoft, this is the mistake of some factory in east asia printing out boxes, you know what, Apple had factories with conditions so bad the workers were committing suicide. That is gross negligence and something to get angry about, here we just had a factory who forgot to stick in the CD Keys.

I think your missing the point. Its still ubisofts job to check each batch is up to standard. As far as issues with PC game it just another problem in a very long list of issues the company has had.

 

[lapan]

I haven't bought Ubisoft games on PC sicne assasins Creed. clearly they still haven't learned anything since then.

 

[Playful Pony]

Pony mad! Pony smash! *throws cars*

I can't get myself to care anymore... I've long since decided that I want nothing to do with Ubisoft and their games. Quite simply, I don't consider them worthy of my money and support, and I'm not interested enough in their games to live trough all the shit they fling, especially at PC gamers (of which I am one). I used to love many of the franchises under Ubisofts flag, but now I'm quite happy enjoying the games of more consumer friendly publishers and developers.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I hold no love for Ubisoft.
They make pretty good games, yet they seem to forget that the game will be shit if it's ported badly.
As I have a mac, I found that I could run most of their games through wine, cheaper and with less hassle than, what they claim to be official ports. The only recent game that run normally on my mac was Splinter Cell: Conviction, and that uses Unreal engine, not their own one. The other games they ported on mac were buggy, unplayable, and had downright gamebreaking crashes, yet they expect me to pay 40 dollars for that mess. No thanks.

But, to be honest, I'm sure they don't enjoy the prospect of checking dozens upon dozens receipts and resending CD keys.

do you have AC 2? I have a Mac too and wonder if it plays well.

 

[Seneschal]

Production accident /= intentional shafting. I'm sorry for your situation, but they weren't being malicious.

This. I don't think the staff at Ubisoft intended to spend the month staring at pictures of receipts and punching in numbers. You can get angry because, well you aren't able to play the game you wanted to for a few days longer, but I don't know if you can really get angry at someone for this. It was a mistake, something they'll try to avoid in the future and something they tried and succeeded to avoid in the past. You can yell at them but what are they going to do? Remember to put the CD-keys in? I bet they wanted to do that the first time round

And if their company's draconian policy on controlling its IP had been less psychotic, they'd just issue a "crack" of their own that users who were wronged by their mistake can download and play the game. And they'd apologize repeatedly. And they'd include bonuses with it.

That's what a real company would do. It would fight to keep its customers and try to please them, especially if it fucked them over through its own incompetence. They made it very clear what comes first in their eyes - keeping a death-grip on its intellectual property. Screw the customers (and also keep the money they paid).

 

[BrotherRool]

Production accident /= intentional shafting. I'm sorry for your situation, but they weren't being malicious.

This. I don't think the staff at Ubisoft intended to spend the month staring at pictures of receipts and punching in numbers. You can get angry because, well you aren't able to play the game you wanted to for a few days longer, but I don't know if you can really get angry at someone for this. It was a mistake, something they'll try to avoid in the future and something they tried and succeeded to avoid in the past. You can yell at them but what are they going to do? Remember to put the CD-keys in? I bet they wanted to do that the first time round

And if their company's draconian policy on controlling its IP had been less psychotic, they'd just issue a "crack" of their own that users who were wronged by their mistake can download and play the game. And they'd apologize repeatedly. And they'd include bonuses with it.

That's what a real company would do. It would fight to keep its customers and try to please them, especially if it fucked them over through its own incompetence. They made it very clear what comes first in their eyes - keeping a death-grip on its intellectual property. Screw the customers (and also keep the money they paid).

No publisher would ever ever offer a crack for their own game. Bioware once hinted slightly that Windows 7 uses might want to look for less legitimate tactics to get KotoR to run but that's about as far as it goes.

It would definitely be the right thing to do, but can you imagine how much trouble that would probably get them in? They have all this copy right, they've licensed images and music and pictures whatever, multiple parts of the game are owned by multiple people, they've got all this paperwork trying to protect themselves from pirating and then they release a crack of the game? They'd get sued five ways and suddenly pirates would be pulling out loopholes where it's fine to pirate a game if the owner has been actively encouraging methods to do it and no DRM company would work with them again after they advised ways to break it.

It sucks, it's not right, but I can't imagine they'd been in a position where they were even able to do that. I don't think even Valve could do that

 

[Seneschal]

No publisher would ever ever offer a crack for their own game. Bioware once hinted slightly that Windows 7 uses might want to look for less legitimate tactics to get KotoR to run but that's about as far as it goes.

It would definitely be the right thing to do, but can you imagine how much trouble that would probably get them in? They have all this copy right, they've licensed images and music and pictures whatever, multiple parts of the game are owned by multiple people, they've got all this paperwork trying to protect themselves from pirating and then they release a crack of the game? They'd get sued five ways and suddenly pirates would be pulling out loopholes where it's fine to pirate a game if the owner has been actively encouraging methods to do it and no DRM company would work with them again after they advised ways to break it.

It sucks, it's not right, but I can't imagine they'd been in a position where they were even able to do that. I don't think even Valve could do that

Huh? They wouldn't relinquish their copyright by doing so; it's totally within their rights to modify their own game through fixes and updates. And that's precisely what this would be - a "fix" for a "bug". If GOG can digitally distribute DRM-free games and make it a part of their image, so can Ubi.

Except they don't want to. They probably have signed contracts with DRM companies, whose only money-source is piggybacking onto paranoid publishers. And the higher-ups at Ubi (which I can guarantee came up with the "take a photo of your receipt"-idea, yet surely won't be the ones who flip through those photos) can't see past their fucking eyelashes, so they crib their IP in order to fool investors into thinking their company is "risk-averse" and "safe" and "takes precautions", and all of this is for naught because they get pirated like every other publisher. Now, if they would finally realize that the future lies in consumer trust, brand loyalty and providing a consistently user-friendly service, they wouldn't care what their parasite DRM company has to say about them issuing a crack. Or a "fix".