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Ubisoft claims it has endured "a 93%-95% piracy rate" on PC
- Thread starter PaulLFC
- Start date
50-60% is easily possible. 2 million sold, 2-3 million pirated.
95% is incredulous. 2 million sold, 38 million pirated.
I'm sure that's part of the problem, but I live in Western Europe and friends/colleagues pirate en-masse. These are people with full time jobs and spare money. And the number of children with flash carts for their Nintendo DS (given to them by their parents) is astounding.
AdventureRacing
Member
That won't prove that piracy is as bad as ubisoft thinks. All that shows is that ubisoft just don't understand the market and have performed poorly there. That's why people are laughing at comments like these, there are companies making money on PC gaming ubisoft just isn't one of them.
It's kind of interesting to me that when it comes to nintendo consoles ubisoft are one of the only ones doing it right but they just fuck up so bad when it comes to the PC. Then again maybe those are related.
Edit: Also those numbers are just such bullshit.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They deserve a 100% piracy rate with the horse cock ass fucking they've been giving PC gamers.
There are probably not even 40 million PCs out there that can play a new release AAA game right now.
Their PC versions don't sell 2 million. I doubt they even sell a million. Less then 100.000 for anything that is not a major release.
So? Why do you believe that's unlikely?
And you should really compare actual software sales, not imaginary ones.
drkOne
Member
They're lying about the DRM.
Their games end up being pirated as quickly as usual, so what does it change?
On the other hand I haven't bought a Ubisoft PC game at launch because I'm not going to pay full price for that shitty DRM, and I'm not the only one.
Of course they wouldn't go ahead and say that their strategy failed, but they should just be quiet if they're going to straight up lie.
And why are they comparing two models based on percentages when all that matters really is numbers?
Their games end up being pirated as quickly as usual, so what does it change?
On the other hand I haven't bought a Ubisoft PC game at launch because I'm not going to pay full price for that shitty DRM, and I'm not the only one.
Of course they wouldn't go ahead and say that their strategy failed, but they should just be quiet if they're going to straight up lie.
And why are they comparing two models based on percentages when all that matters really is numbers?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
If piracy didn't exist, Ubisoft games would sell 40 million copies on PC. The solution is more aggressive DRM.
sechsterangriff
Member
For a percentage that high, even those who buy the game end up downloading a crack or the pirated version...
No, not at all.
They're saying they're going into F2P more for the PC market because in places like Russia and China, no one is buying their games, they're stealing them, but they will play F2P games that can make them money. And there's nothing unusual about that, everyone does it, there are lots of Eastern only F2P versions of popular Western games, but now F2P is viable in the West, we're going to see a lot more of those projects come out worldwide.
vagabondarts
Member
I bought Dawn of Discovery (anno) a little over a year ago or so and it has the DRM.
At the end of the day I'm ok with it since it's a great playing version of anno, and I knew what I was getting into.
Also, it's worth mentioning that none of their other PC games interest me like that game does to the degree that I'm ok dealing with the DRM stuff.
At the end of the day I'm ok with it since it's a great playing version of anno, and I knew what I was getting into.
Also, it's worth mentioning that none of their other PC games interest me like that game does to the degree that I'm ok dealing with the DRM stuff.
There are no penniless English, American, Canadian, Mexican kids also pirating the game? I love how these penniless Russian and Brazilian kids do have enough money to afford computers that could run these games. Man, we should start a petition for these poor souls. I also think Porsche should offer me a product I could "realistically afford".
We all know piracy is out of control. To deny this is just burying your head in the sand. Do you think companies like Blizzard and Ubisoft are developing these DRM practices JUST to fuck with the consumer? People much smarter than us are running these multi million dollar companies and they know they are losing millions to pirates. They know something has to be done. Are the numbers as bad as Ubisoft claims? I'm in no way informed enough about THEIR numbers to make that call. But I will trust a gaming company that has provided me many hours of entertainment over a random person on the internet.
akachan ningen
Member
they should make better games then
teruterubozu
Member
How did they calculate this and who did the math? Receipts please!
This is a reference as to why I think that percentage is not believable. Even if you make reasonable assumptions about non-digital piracy (of which I'm sure Ubisoft has no solid data), that percentage is still too high to believe as a general rule.
What numbers? He was talking about PC figures in general. So I used a plausible number.
I don't have any AC numbers on PC. Assuming AC:R sold 500,000 on PC, it means it was pirated for 9.5 million times, which, again, seems unlikely considering the above reference.
Joseph Merrick
Member
just looks to me like people actually stopped buying their games, while the amount of piracy stayed the same
There are more ways to pirate a game than to use a publicly listed torrent tracker. In lots of countries where bandwidth is weak, that would be a pretty inefficient way to do it.
The numbers are accurate, at least according to guys like 2dboy etc. Nobody is saying that the 95-95% piracy rate means everyone of those is a lost sale. However, it does mean that they do not make any money off the 90-95% of the players who play the game.
so what companies are doing is change their core game design principles to potentially tap into that player base's wallet. According to Zynga, iirc, the top 5% of spenders on free games spend more than $200 and the top 1% spend more than $1000.
So from Ubi's perspective, not only will more than 5% of players playing a particular game on pc, pay money for a f2p game than pay for a traditional single player game, the top 5% will pay ccraploads more more than $49 or $59. Seems pretty logical to me.
so what companies are doing is change their core game design principles to potentially tap into that player base's wallet. According to Zynga, iirc, the top 5% of spenders on free games spend more than $200 and the top 1% spend more than $1000.
So from Ubi's perspective, not only will more than 5% of players playing a particular game on pc, pay money for a f2p game than pay for a traditional single player game, the top 5% will pay ccraploads more more than $49 or $59. Seems pretty logical to me.
Hahaha, brilliant use of clooney.gif, perfectly sums it up.
As it stands, it´s easier to pirate games on consoles (Xbox) than on the PC. Console versions of every major multi-platform release have hit the net to download and play up to a week earlier than any pc version crack...
This is the dirty secret MS and publishers are trying to hide.
This is the dirty secret MS and publishers are trying to hide.
I can confirm this, many of my friends play 360 games without any problems before the official release date.
GoofsterStud
Member
Well after you install PC exploits on consumers computers....even those who pay for them through steam are pirating them. >.>
EARTH TO UBISOFT!!! YOUR DRM IS ENCOURAGING PIRACY AND IS INEFFECTIVE.
EARTH TO UBISOFT!!! YOUR DRM IS ENCOURAGING PIRACY AND IS INEFFECTIVE.
Sentenza
Member
Yes, there are, and they are part of what makes these statistics bullshit, too.
But I wasn't going to list every single nation on Earth, I was just going to name those who usually come out with the most impressive piracy rates, so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.
Yeah, i know, games are a luxury and if they can't afford they shouldn't steal them, too!1!!
Of course, if you like to drag this idiotic argument from your ivory tower of privilege I'm not going to stop you.
But I'm surely not even join you in a crusade to tell to a brazilian or chinese kid how he's the scum of the earth because he doesn't pay what's the equivalent of a week of pay in his country to play a computer game.
Says who, exactly? Software sales are growing over the years, despise how piracy is becoming more and more easy and affordable to everyone.
Seems to me that what's going out of control are unrealistic expectations for constant multimillionaire sales.
Corporate apologist to the rescue?
I love how companies (UBISOFT) that don't get a particular market and how to sell to it blame the market while ignoring the fact that other companies who do get it see perfectly fine sales.
I don't approve of piracy but UBI have pretty much encouraged both it and customers to skip their products.
I won't pirate and I won't support their approach so I simply never buy their PC products - they seem to have no idea how to market/sell to PC marketplace and so they see people either skipping their products or pirating them as that seems easier than actually buying from UBISOFT.
TBH I'm surprised the rate's 95% - I can't believe some people do buy from them on PC and accept their ridiculous policies and as far as I'm concerned they're lucky to have 5% buying customers.
I don't approve of piracy but UBI have pretty much encouraged both it and customers to skip their products.
I won't pirate and I won't support their approach so I simply never buy their PC products - they seem to have no idea how to market/sell to PC marketplace and so they see people either skipping their products or pirating them as that seems easier than actually buying from UBISOFT.
TBH I'm surprised the rate's 95% - I can't believe some people do buy from them on PC and accept their ridiculous policies and as far as I'm concerned they're lucky to have 5% buying customers.
GoofsterStud
Member
Shhh...Blizzard is obviously having a hard time. What were the sales of Diablo 3 again? Damn piraters!
iNvid02
Member
d3 had always on drm - dont give them any ideas (again)
also, surely by 95% piracy rate they mean something like 500,000 sales and 475,000 pirates right - that seems plausible
Glass Rebel
Member
It's nice to know that there are people like you on the internet to outweigh the sane ones.
And I acknowledged that?
I'm not going to assume non-digital piracy is way more than digital/torrent piracy (in order to reach that 95%) unless there is some previous data to go by.
Also, it's likely Guillemot was talking only about torrent piracy because of the parallels being drawn with paying F2P players.
alexandros
Banned
I think the case of Valve and Steam proves otherwise. Valve bet big on PC gaming at an era when most gaming bigwigs thought it was going to die. I think the problem of Ubisoft and other likeminded publishers is that they don't really understand the PC market.
AssCreed sold 200 million copies?
Rickenslacker
Banned
Who would want to pirate an Ubisoft game? I was overjoyed knowing that Uplay offered a vulnerability to my system for a time. Not to mention it only served to enhance my Driver San Francisco experience when their servers were getting hammered due to the Steam sales and caused severe performance drops in-game because of that, with the workaround being entirely blocking it through my firewall.
Then again if they really want anyone to believe it's truly at 95% then what the fuck is the logic behind the DRM at all?
Then again if they really want anyone to believe it's truly at 95% then what the fuck is the logic behind the DRM at all?
original was of course Kuramu's
Bravo.
Perfect.
Really though, I want to see the math on this. There's a 93-95% chance it's complete bullshit, but I'm curious nonetheless.
Do people even read OPs?
They're not saying they'd ever buy it, they're saying that's why they intend to push the F2P direction.
electroplankton
Banned
It'd be more correct to say that 93-95% of PC gamers have behaved illegally (which means also SNES and GB ROM in a certain extent), which doesn't mean that the same PC gamer didn't buy a game once, or more than once.
Because the game is online only, which everyone hates (myself included)
there always has been and always will be a piracy issue. I'm pretty sure it is exaggerated in this case but companies put in drm for a reason. The longer they can delay a cracked the more potential sales.
This topic is useless on this forum as it is always the publishers fault, nobody pirates but they have a friend, etc.
You would think pc gamers would want to make pc's so attractive that they would become the lead platform for development again.
I will not buy a ubisoft game because of uplay but I understand why it is there
alexandros
Banned
It's very attractive for publishers and developers who support the platform. It's maybe not that attractive for companies that do a quick and dirty port instead of a proper PC version.
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