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Ubisoft claims it has endured "a 93%-95% piracy rate" on PC

Ubishaft are so full of shit and they almost deserve to have their games pirated just so their bogus numbers become true, given the way they treat PC users.
 
JMendez81 said:
Don't play PC games but the few friends I have that still play PC pirate atleast 7/10 games played, so though I think this figure its really high, I do believe piracy is more of a problem than some of ya make it out to be.
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Amongst my circle of friends, this was true until Steam... well, started gaining steam. Steam is now just far and away the better option. Gabe is exactly right on this one, as quoted earlier:

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty."

The proof is in the proverbial pudding. "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe,".
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JMendez81 said:
Don't play PC games but the few friends I have that still play PC pirate atleast 7/10 games played, so though I think this figure its really high, I do believe piracy is more of a problem than some of ya make it out to be.
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The question not being accounted for in that kind of statistic is how many games those players would actually play if piracy was not possible. I am not saying its a morally good thing, but I assume that the current playerbase wouldnt be nearly as big if there was no piracy at all through the last decade. And a smaller userbase would in turn mean less profits for the companies.

I mean, sure. Some people that might have bought a game will pirate it, but there is more to it than that. Some companies argue that piracy has a positive impact on their game sales since its free advertisement when people pirating it tell it to friends who end up buying their games/make general buzz about it on the internet, etcetc.
 
meanwhile..

Gamer: Do you have a good sense of piracy rates with Steam games?

Gabe Newell: They’re low enough that we don’t really spend any time [on it]. When you look at the things we sit around and talk about, as big picture cross game issues, we’re way more concerned about the stability of DirectX drivers or, you know, the erroneous banning of people. That’s way more of an issue for us than piracy.

Once you create service value for customers, ongoing service value, piracy seems to disappear, right? It’s like “Oh, you’re still doing something for me? I don’t mind the fact that I paid for this.” Once you actually localise your product in Russia and ship it on the same day that you ship your English language versions, this theoretical hotbed of piracy becomes your second largest- third largest after Germany in continental Europe? Or third after UK?
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Link
 
I'd return my Ubi games now if I could.

They're trying to justify their future F2P games somehow because we know that "93-95%" of F2P games suck, even if they do generate profit for a short time. There are a handful of F2P games which are successful, but the chance of Ubisoft making such games is "5-7%".

If those percentages were right they wouldn't even make PC versions of games. That's so high that we would be seeing anti-PC trailers and interviews with them dedicated only to showing how bad the PC environment is and how they won't release XYZ for PC.

They used Starforce (uncracked for about a year but emulated a bit earlier) in the SC: Chaos Theory era.
They used no protection for the cell shaded Prince of Persia a bit later.
They started using always-on DRM quickly after
They're starting to push out F2P Games.

Pattern? It seems like they have two teams alternating every few years, competing for the biggest fool awards.
 
Glass Rebel said:
From your link:
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So?

He wanted to be nice and posted some possible explanations, although most of the time the obvious "URL in public forum and people leeched, because lol unprotected URL" should be true. Maybe he was shocked looking at those statistics. I was definitely shocked by them.

He even goes overboard and almost blames himself, because people would have to enter creditcard information and/or login to paypal etc. to pay and that's too much work for the buyer, so instead of doing that and pay, the so-called potential buyer saw that he had to login to paypal/amazon/whatever and decided on the fly to instead search for the game via google and download it directly (which shouldn't be faster than paying unless the game URL was straight under the paypal-login link). This doesn't even make sense, if you think it through.

I mean putting shitty always-on DRM in your game. Yes, that's anti-consumer and people should just stop buying them (and not pirate the game). But having no DRM, being Indie, even saying "pay whatever you like" and putting an unprotected URL to download the games and THEN you get that result? Of course, I would be happy that it raised so much money. On the other hand I would feel insulted by those ~25% of people. Or make it ~20%, if there were really friends that bought it together and handed over the URL instead of sending out the actual EXE.
 
Iztli said:
meanwhile..


Link
Click to expand...
Gabe Newell: It’s one of those things where everybody benefits. I mean, we benefit from having our competitor’s products on Steam, and they benefit from our products being on Steam. There’s this presumption that our industry is a zero sum game, and it’s so not a zero sum game. Nothing is more likely to make a customer less likely to buy other games than a really bad game experience. And nothing makes them buy more games, and want to buy more games, more than having a good gameplay experience.

Doug Lombardi: And the bigger the hype on the game, the more true that is. It’s an amplifier.

Erik Johnson: Finishing a really high quality game makes you want to go out and buy another game right at that moment.
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Damn if this isn't absolutely true.
 
Looking at the thread linked earlier in this thread (here:http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=447864) and the torrentfreak article, using the raw numbers stated say for 2010 then downloads for any one Ubisoft game must have been less than 3.12 mill (assuming the numbers in that article are accurate). Estimating downloads for a popular Ubisoft game to be at 3.1 mill then which is claimed to represent 93-95% of total players means that actual sales of that game on PC must have been between 163k to 233k. This number I've arrived at of course doesn't have much meaning since I don't know how accurate the torrent downloads numbers are and as has been stated by some, games are pirated through other means than just downloading them (pirated dvds etc) but I did that calculation just to get an understanding of what kind of sales number Ubisoft must get. The 3.1 million estimate was for a popular game so assuming more obscure genre games probably get less torrent downloads then that means actual sales for those games must be less than 163k+ number stated before. Although I may have just completely botched up my calculation there in which case...(I don't even want to think about it).
 
and i thought it's because of game companies, which make terrible ports a long time after the originals came to the consoles.
 
jimi_dini said:
So?

He wanted to be nice and posted some possible explanations, although most of the time the obvious "URL in public forum and people leeched, because lol unprotected URL" should be true. Maybe he was shocked looking at those statistics. I was definitely shocked by them.

He even goes overboard and almost blames himself, because people would have to enter creditcard information and/or login to paypal etc. to pay and that's too much work for the buyer, so instead of doing that and pay, the so-called potential buyer saw that he had to login to paypal/amazon/whatever and decided on the fly to instead search for the game via google and download it directly (which shouldn't be faster than paying unless the game URL was straight under the paypal-login link). This doesn't even make sense, if you think it through.

I mean putting shitty always-on DRM in your game. Yes, that's anti-consumer and people should just stop buying them (and not pirate the game). But having no DRM, being Indie, even saying "pay whatever you like" and putting an unprotected URL to download the games and THEN you get that result? Of course, I would be happy that it raised so much money. On the other hand I would feel insulted by those ~25% of people. Or make it ~20%, if there were really friends that bought it together and handed over the URL instead of sending out the actual EXE.
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In what country do you live? Because there are huge countries where a CC/PayPal account aren't the norm.
 
Eideka said:
Considering how expensive games are in those countries this is no wonder.
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TBH ubisoft games are quite cheap here.

999rs on PC vs 2999 on consoles.

Looking at the thread linked earlier in this thread (here:http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=447864) and the torrentfreak article, using the raw numbers stated say for 2010 and downloads for any one Ubisoft game must have been less than 3.12 mill (assuming the numbers in that article are accurate). Estimating downloads for a popular Ubisoft game to be at 3.1 mill then which is claimed to represent 93-95% of total players means that actual sales of that game on PC must have been between 163k to 233k. This number I've arrived at of course doesn't have much meaning since I don't know how accurate the torrent downloads numbers are and as has been stated by some, games are pirated through other means than just downloading them (pirated dvds etc) but I did that calculation just to get an understanding of what kind of sales number Ubisoft must get. The 3.1 million estimate was for a popular game so assuming more obscure genre games probably get less torrent downloads then that means actual sales for those games must be less than 163k+ number stated before. Although I may have just completely botched up the my calculation there in which case...(I don't even want to think about it).
Click to expand...

Your mind will get fucked up if you start calculating.
 
Shame on those big mean PC gamers picking on and stealing poor little innocent Ubisofts games.

What an extravagant joke, I actually buy all my games and that includes a couple from Ubisoft on PC, but this and their terrible DRM and late delivery will make me have to rethink purchasing from them in the future.
 
oh ubisoft

0427_c1qzm.gif
 
A game's piracy ratio is based on 2 things:

- sales. Sales are based on marketing, quality of the game, reviews, game design, support, word-of-mouth, ease of purchase, release timing etc.

- piracy. Piracy is based on marketing. If a pirate thinks your game sounds interesting, then they will likely pirate it.

There is no significant way to reduce piracy beyond online-only.

-> If you're suffering from an abnormal piracy ratio then the real problem is that your sales suck.
 
Glass Rebel said:
In what country do you live? Because there are huge countries where a CC/PayPal account aren't the norm.
Click to expand...

In a country, where one could pay without any problems even w/o a CC. PayPal allows bank transfer as well. Sure kids don't have both, but kids have parents. And 0.01$ is not "too much" even for a super-low-income family.

Also this theoretical excuse could be easily proven or disproven by geo-checking the IPs that downloaded the files.

Even then - what excuse is that? I can't pay for it, so I pirate it from the developer's servers? That's so low.

I'm in region B land for BluRays, but I got a region A player. Is it okay for me to pirate region B-locked blurays, just because I can't play the ones that are sold? Surely not. I just don't buy nor pirate them. And if it would bother me that much, I would complain and send an e-mail to the companies. Someone in that position, that really wanted to pay, could have easily written an e-mail to the developer. Too much work, I guess.

And in the case of humble bundle, I guess the developers would have even replied that it's "okay then".
 
Make your games steamworks, don't delay them for obvious console sale boosts and make a good port like Sleeping Dogs and watch the money roll in. It's funny how Ubisoft is the only one claiming to have these problems when they treat the PC crowd worse than EA does.

"Durrr why do the people we treat badly treat us badly??"
 
What a coincidence. Consumers are enduring a 93%-95% bullshit rate from Ubisoft right now.
 
Glass Rebel said:
You'd do well to read the links you post....
Click to expand...

Please point out what I'm missing. Please do.

SparkTR said:
I'll point you to this. They stuck to their pro-consumer, no DRM methods and they were rewarded for it. You don't get sales by heavy-handedly fighting piracy, you get them by focusing on your customers.
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The links I provided were about a DRM FREE bundle, that was also giving portions of it's profits to a charity, and yet it was still pirated to hell and back. People could have paid a penny for it, and yet they pirated instead.

So ask yourself how high the piracy rate is when a game is $40-60. Threads like this are so frustrating to read, because you've got so many people just willfully ignoring the evidence we have that shows just how bad piracy still is on PC.

Just because Steam makes money doesn't mean piracy isn't a problem.
 
"Ubisoft claims it has endured "a 93%-95% piracy rate" on PC"

Funny how no one else seems to have issues selling games on PC but them...
 
BruiserBear said:
The links I provided were about a DRM FREE bundle, that was also giving portions of it's profits to a charity, and yet it was still pirated to hell and back. People could have paid a penny for it, and yet they pirated instead.

So ask yourself how high the piracy rate is when a game is $40-60. Threads like this are so frustrating to read, because you've got so many people just willfully ignoring the evidence we have that shows just how bad piracy still is on PC.

Just because Steam makes money doesn't mean piracy isn't a problem.
Click to expand...

I'm not denying it's a problem, I'm just critiquing the ways in which Ubisoft has been handling the issue. I'll quote myself from the previous page, because we've already had this discussion.

"The longer they can delay a cracked the more potential sales."

That's what I expect they tell their investors, on paper it all adds up and that's all that matters to the higher ups. In reality that very same heavy handed response is likely the reason for their PC sales dropping 90%, and the reason their brand is viewed a poison to the PC gaming community even though they've eased up their DRM (though that's not saying much considering the abomination Always-On was).

At some point they have to start focusing on their customers and end the quest to track down the mythical lost sales. Valve realize this, Paradox realise this, THQ realise this, Remedy realise this, countless indie developers realise this, hell even Sega and Bethesda realise this and they've all found success on the platform. The sooner Ubisoft matures and starts thinking outside of their warped corporate bubble the better off they'll be on the platform.
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And again the HiB supports that, by focusing on their customers they were rewarded completely, the last HiB was a huge success for all involved.
 
BruiserBear said:
The links I provided were about a DRM FREE bundle, that was also giving portions of it's profits to a charity, and yet it was still pirated to hell and back. People could have paid a penny for it, and yet they pirated instead.

So ask yourself how high the piracy rate is when a game is $40-60. Threads like this are so frustrating to read, because you've got so many people just willfully ignoring the evidence we have that shows just how bad piracy still is on PC.

Just because Steam makes money doesn't mean piracy isn't a problem.
Click to expand...

Pirates gonna pirate. They were never going to buy it anyways. The problem with DRM is that you're pushing legitimate customers away from your product. You're never going to gain customers with DRM.
 
I don't mind the rectal magics they're pulling with these numbers but it's really amazing how oblivious they can be to the adverse effects of their DRM from hell.
 
So, going by what he's saying, their DRM is basically doing nothing to stop piracy and yet they won't drop it? Awesome.
 
SparkTR said:
I'm not denying it's a problem, I'm just critiquing the ways in which Ubisoft has been handling the issue. I'll quote myself from the previous page, because we've already had this discussion.



And again the HiB supports that, by focusing on their customers they were rewarded completely, the last HiB was a huge success for all involved.
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See, the problem is how people label things a "success". That's a very vague term, and people like to throw that around in broad ways to make their points about PC sales being fine.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe these other publishers just aren't being as vocal about piracy as Ubi is, but see it as equally troublesome? I think Ubi's opinions on this matter are far more common than people think they are. Some publishers just realize it's better to deal with it quietly, rather than complain about it publicly.
 
5,000,000 people buy Ubisoft games on Steam --> 95,000,000 people are pirating those same games. Sounds legit.
 
BruiserBear said:
So ask yourself how high the piracy rate is when a game is $40-60. Threads like this are so frustrating to read, because you've got so many people just willfully ignoring the evidence we have that shows just how bad piracy still is on PC.
Click to expand...

I don't think that as many people ignore its prevalence as you think. Where there is wide disagreement, however, is in assessing that actual pragmatic impact of this activity. If you look at every pirated copy obtained as the loss of a full MSRP sale, then yes, it's a gigantic problem. If, however, you surmise that these sales probably wouldn't have occurred anyway for any of a number of reasons, then the notion that this is a terrible problem that decimates industry revenue each and every year becomes much more dubious.

And I think your own example of "name your price for DRM-free software that benefits charities" games being pirated just illustrates that further. Mind you, I get that it undermines arguments that some levy that piracy is all just done in reaction to anti-consumer practices. However, it also shows that there are some people that just are not going to buy this stuff no matter what. Is it really worth worrying about this audience?
 
DennisK4 said:
So I take it they looked at how many times a game had been torrented and then assumed each one was a lost sale?

Otherwise I don't know how they would get that 95% number.
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I could also imagine that they just added some made up number to the number of torrented copies to include filesharing sites like rapidshare.
 
Gbraga said:
So, going by what he's saying, their DRM is basically doing nothing to stop piracy and yet they won't drop it? Awesome.
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Can you imagine what the piracy rate would be without the DRM? It'd probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of 500%, defying everything we understand about statistics.
 
Fuck these guys.

They lost a long time customer when their Splinter Cell Conviction 'DRM' stopped myself and a friend from playing the co-op for 2 days after release even though pirates were able to easily play both online and offline (their amazing DRM didn't even bother to include basic CD-key authorization).

Have not bought or played a Ubisoft game since then out of principle (even if it is killing me not being able to play Anno 2070).

TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
That would be inaccurate. It's also making their legit customers flee away.
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Indeed it is.

Recent Ubisoft games owned prior to the SC:Conviction mess:
All SC games (usually bought on 2 platforms)
All Anno games + expansions

The new Splinter Cell will really test me (as well as Watch Dogs), but if I didn't cave for Anno 2070, I doubt I will for those two either.
 
zou said:
I can't play Dawn of Discovery because their activation servers are fucked up. Steam can't help and Ubi doesn't give a fuck. Myth my fucking ass.
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you're wrong. if a game's activation servers were down you wouldn't be able to play anything regardless of where you bought it from, its a form of DRM most games have.

so as before, the only games that retain always on drm are settlers 7 and hawx 2. all their other titles, and likely future titles will have DRM comparable to steam/origin.


zou said:
Edit: This is funny.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=31634898&postcount=10
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i entered a DLC key accidentally to activate the game, for some reason the game accepted it and i couldnt play online for a while - its funny, but it doesnt take away anything from my point.

and for the record, i havent purchased another ubi game since. as i said i'll prob just get AC3, and maybe have a think about far cry 3 down the line.

lexi said:
Fuck right off, Ubisoft. It's like you're begging me to pirate.
http://i.imgur.com/QNkSd.jpg[/QUOTE]

i posted in the other thread but the from dust drm was patched out so you can store save files locally and play offline
Click to expand...
 
Steve Youngblood said:
I don't think that as many people ignore its prevalence as you think. Where there is wide disagreement, however, is in assessing that actual pragmatic impact of this activity. If you look at every pirated copy obtained as the loss of a full MSRP sale, then yes, it's a gigantic problem. If, however, you surmise that these sales probably wouldn't have occurred anyway for any of a number of reasons, then the notion that this is a terrible problem that decimates industry revenue each and every year becomes much more dubious.

And I think your own example of "name your price for DRM-free software that benefits charities" games being pirated just illustrates that further. Mind you, I get that it undermines arguments that some levy that piracy is all just done in reaction to anti-consumer practices. However, it also shows that there are some people that just are not going to buy this stuff no matter what. Is it really worth worrying about this audience?
Click to expand...

I completely understand that there are always going to be some people who won't pay, but there are also lots of people in this thread suggesting that DRM is the reason people don't pay, and "anti consumer" stuff is the reason people don't pay.

Then we see an Indie Bundle with NO DRM, and "pay what you want" pricing, and it's still pirated to hell.

I get the arguments though, but I see both sides taking rather extreme attitudes towards the argument. Ubi acting like every pirated copy is a lost sale, and PC enthusiasts acting like DRM is the main reason people pirate.
 
Wildesy said:
Has piracy ever not been more convenient than buying the actual product?
Click to expand...

Like... right now. In the present, you know.

You can download games from a few officially sanctioned distribution channels, some of which have DRM but some don't. Without fear of viruses too...
 
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