I’m saying that it’s an awesome game, and I would like to give them money for their awesome game. But they decided to put unacceptable restrictions on my use of that game and I cannot in good conscience buy the game while those restrictions stand.
As an aside note, I also think their choice of opening price point sucks, but I don’t quibble about that stuff, I just buy when I can do it at the right price for me.
You rented the PC game? I didn’t think many places did that and how do they get around the DRM with a rented copy? If you didn’t rent the PC version but a console one, they why don’t you just buy the console version?
Because it’s still giving money to the bastards?
Makes perfect sense to me. I’ve completely banned Ubi from my gaming life across the board – right down to the iPhone.
I’m not boycotting Ubi entirely, they would have to donate to David Duke’s campaign fund for that. I’m just not buying any of their titles with intrusive DRM. If I played console games, I would buy AC2 for the 360. But I don’t, so I just won’t play it at all. It’s not like it’s Dragon Age or SWTOR, I can take it or leave it.
Now if a game I really, really wanted to play had the DRM, I would have a tough decision on my hands. I’ll buy Fallout New Vegas and Diablo3 on day 1 regardless of the DRM. But there aren’t many titles I anticipate at that level.
Alright, though renting does validate Ubi’s behaviour to a small degree. Rental places purchase copies based on how popular they believe a game will be. Renting increases that popularity and contributes to how many copies the rental company will buy in the future. By renting AC2 malkav11 has increased the chance that the rental store will purchase more copies of AC3 and similar titles.
To which I say, “Meh.”
Companies like Gamefly will buy a few thousand or tens of thousands of titles or however many, but considering that they then rent and resell those copies, Ubi is almost certainly not making that much from them. I grant you that my own impact on their finances is even more trivial, but it’s principle. A tiny uptick in popularity of rental that might maybe influence a few more purchases on later franchise titles when Ubi might have reconsidered is a lot easier to accept than straight up paying them to fuck me (and gaming’s future) over.
Well you’re voting with your dollar, so it’s essentially money you’ve given Ubisoft already. I can understand it being a compromise though, you’ve certainly given them far less than if you actually bought it. Though, on principle, you’ve still given them money for behaviour you don’t like.
I’m vehemently anti-pirate (generally, I’d like them to all die in a fire), but the Settlers 7 crack has me waffling. I’d buy the game if I could play it without the atrocious DRM. Been looking at Dawn of Discovery too since it’s in the same genre, but it also has a fairly nasty DRM (and is Ubi-owned, not surprisingly).
If you bought the game, crack the living hell out of it
I’m thinking about it (buying and cracking it). Never looked for a crack in my life and I don’t use torrents, so I feel like I’d being doing the virtual equivalent of walking into the bad part of town, stopping on a corner and yelling “Whose got drugs? Anyone?” About the closest I’ve ever come is using abandonware off of the Underdogs.
Regardless, I think I’ll wait until there’s a Settlers 7 sale on Steam or (preferably) Impulse. Ideally I’d rather not give Ubi money until they crank down the DRM, but I don’t know that’ll ever happen.
Great job Ubisoft!
Seducing people to the dark side.
Well played…
I really recommend against giving Ubi money until they discontinue this DRM. They will neither know nor care that you resorted to cracks to evade the DRM, all they’ll see is someone willing to put up with the DRM.
Yeah I will do this now.
My plan so far was to pick them up cheap as I already did with SH5 but recent events made me reconsider this:
The Humble Indie Bundle sale that is ongoing which raised over $400.000 US asking people to pay as much or as little as they want (so you can get those games for $0.01 US if you want).
The Wolfire blog of the above deal that had a good post about piracy yesterday arguing that only about 20% piracy occurs on PC and de-mything the 90%+
Sega commitment to remove the DRM from Alpha Protocol 18-24 months after release of the game.
I did buy AC2 Black Edition because I had it pre-ordered for ages and I wanted the figurine. Same with SC2 Collector’s Edition but that was the last Ubisoft game I will buy that has a Ubilauncher that is not patched out by the publisher.
But that’s not the case here. I’m locked out of an entire game purely because Ubisoft can’t deal with the idea that the pirates that copy their games aren’t paying for them. What I want to know, as someone who hasn’t pirated their game, and yet has been landed with all this horrific DRM, is was it worth it? Did they see a significant rise in sales on these products with the DRM? Have they noticed any increase, hell, anything at all that’s different with these games compared to any they’ve published before?
Because if they haven’t, they need to get rid of this. Right now.
Increase? Who cares if there’s an increase in sales as long as no damn dirty pirates play?
To quote:
“So, Ubisoft decided that, in an effort to combat piracy, they’d implement a DRM system so draconian it’d make us pine for the days of SecuROM.”
So true.
the irony of course being that pirates can play all that anyway already
Maybe that’s the next step! “Okay, you all hated the DRM, and we heard you.” Cue collective sigh. “So we’re going to back up to something less restrictive, and announce the StarForce 4 platform.” And yet, we’ll still be relieved.
I’m so waiting for the next earnings report Ubi has to give as a traded company. Then we will see if it paid off for Noobi or not.
Also the sales of AC3 / AC Brotherhood will show the direction this will go in the future since enough people should have been burned with AC2 to avoid it like the plague.