Well, that’s it then. I don’t think the end justifies the means with regards to game DRM. I think that at a certain point, you hit diminishing returns and torque off as many customers as you may convert. Once that ratio flips upside down, why bother? You’re now spending more money to get less profit.
Obviously it varies with the game and the audience you’re marketing towards. I don’t think Stardock’s consumer-friendly policy would work with a game like CoD MW2, and I don’t think Ubi’s scheme would be viable for Gratuitous Space Battles.*
Steam seems to be a good compromise between the two. Yes, it can be cracked (and regularly is) but it’s a hassle and the frequent sales make it more trouble than it’s worth to many.
*Edit: Personally, Ubi’s method doesn’t work with me at all. I have no intention of ever buying a PC Ubi game as long as this DRM is used.
I think right now, Ubisoft probably did hurt themselves. But if they had helped themselves, I see nothing wrong with it. Suppose they managed to double their sales because of it, is it so unreasonable then? Even if it doesn’t work for you, isn’t it justifiable to put restrictions on games if it causes more people to buy it? I fully understand they may have hurt themselves, specifically in this case, but the idea that if they had helped themselves and it was still wrong just leaves a sour taste for me.
It seems more and more we’re being constantly hooked up to the internet. Once wireless internet becomes more of the norm, and constant, uninterrupted connections no different than needing to have a cable connection to watch cable TV, we probably will see more of this kind of DRM. Maybe not over the next couple years, but say, twenty years from now.
That “if” is a point of contention. Even if we all accept that statement, the question remains: does more onerous DRM translate into more sales? You say that you aren’t sure whether it does or not, but then go on to argue as though you assume that it does. The root of the disagreement that many people here have with you is this: it might not.
Whether or not it is “justified” is a matter of perspective. If it increases profit, then UbiSoft might reasonably think that it is justified. At the same time, if it creates an onerous and inconvenient experience for me, as a paying customer, then I might reasonably consider it to be unjustifiable, in the sense that I cannot personally justify spending $50-60 to put up with that onerous experience, whether the DRM is beneficial to UbiSoft or not.
Keboo, way to make a great first impression! Maybe you should take a breather, relax and tone it down a bit before getting all huffy about perceived slights?
PS You have read the whole thread, right? Because you aren’t really covering new ground here…
That’s a completely valid debate, one I’m not trying to stifle. I’m not trying to argue either way. My personal opinion is that it probably doesn’t affect it much either way, because the average, layman consumer may become more likely to buy it due to no immediate crack, while the more tech savvy that care about DRM would be less likely (the type of people on this forum).
Whether or not it is “justified” is a matter of perspective. If it increases profit, then UbiSoft might reasonably think that it is justified. At the same time, if it creates an onerous and inconvenient experience for me, as a paying customer, then I might reasonably consider it to be unjustifiable, in the sense that I cannot personally justify spending $50-60 to put up with that onerous experience, whether the DRM is beneficial to UbiSoft or not.
See, I believe there should be a distinction in what you’re saying. We’re all aware businesses generally do not operate based on what is most convenient for the customer, but what will sell them the most copies. I’m annoyed by the fact Supreme Commander 2 is simplified in order to better perform on Xbox 360 so they may sell more copies. But they were justified in doing so to increase their sales. If, and I’m not saying it’s proven, DRM definitively increases sales, at the expense of specifically your inconvenience, then how, from an objective, outside look at Ubisoft, is it not justified? It is not justified because it inconveniences you? You can feel a purchase of it is unjustified within the context of your life, that is not what I am arguing against, I am arguing a company is justified if the DRM gets more people to buy their game, from a moral or ethical point of view, whatever we may call it.
Cormac, the direct insults to me are more than just perceived slights. I have stayed perfectly calm, and in result, have been belittled and attacked, with my posts essentially thrown out as rehashed garbage with no merit. I didn’t come to these forums to argue about piracy, I came to play my favorite game, EFS, and then saw this topic as active (amongst others), so I posted my rant against the types of people that pirate, not so much you guys. I don’t want to go post my rant on a pro-piracy forum, for obvious reasons, and I figured a 33 page thread full of many redundancies would be a good place to vent my own rehashed redundancy.
Personally, in my opinion, I believe, and so forth, less units, less structures, the replacement of tiers with research, are all “simplifications” of how the game works - perhaps not in the implementation of strategy. A lot of professional reviewers agree with me on this. Either way, it works better with a controller than it did before.
I was just trying to establish that my opinion on the game is not completely unfounded, like some loner outlier without anyone in agreement. If I say Ubisoft’s DRM does not inconvenience me, does that mean it doesn’t inconvenience anyone else? I prefer the original SupCom’s gameplay to the sequel’s for several reasons, I didn’t think I’d start some side-debate over the game for saying what I did. I suppose I should have said “in my reality, in my mind, in my opinion, it is a fact the game has been simplified from my own perspective, a fact that it feels simpler to me to play and get into”. I’m sorry and hopefully I will never make such an outrageous claim again.
Kebooo, I think steve was disputing your claim that the game was simplified so that it could perform better on the 360, not how you feel about the game.
No, what you were doing was trying to argue from authority while flinging nonsense logical fallacies at the rest of the thread. You seem incapable of making a unique point at all, and far less so of doing it without being a total ass. Chill out.
A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation aint satisfactioning me
A little more bite and a little less bark
A little less fight and a little more spark
Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me
Satisfy me baby
In interviews, Chris Taylor, in a round-about fashion, points out that developing the game ground-up for 360 was important in the design stage, as opposed to the first. Considering the 360 controller is simplified, I don’t see why this is such a stretch. He even talks about taking ideas from Halo Wars, another RTS I consider simplified. I guess we can start arguing about the nature of simplification, or whatever. Fine, let’s pretend the game is more complex. Or no more or no less complex. The end conclusion is the same: I don’t like the changes, and I assume the changes were made to increase sales, by whatever causation would increase them.
I assume Steve worked on the game. Or is in fact Chris Taylor himself?
Either way, Chris said this:
The guys who did the first port worked very hard on it, but they weren’t well supported, and they were also porting a game that wasn’t well-suited.I started working on the designs for Supreme Commander 2, and I wanted to do something different. It makes all the difference in the world when you conceive of a game and you know where the game is going than when you try to do something after the fact.
Am I to believe the 360 had no influence on the design of the game after those types of comments, or after the fact it is easier to play on the 360 than the original was? I guess I shouldn’t believe what people say in interviews anymore. Why would Chris Taylor say it was a game not well-suited for 360? What about it made it not well-suited? So this implied they’ve made a change to, well, make it more well-suited for the 360. Just throw out the whole idea of simplification even. I didn’t like the change, it’s clear 360 had an impact on the design, from Chris’s standpoint, or his own words.
