Tredecim wrote:
Well Valve and Steam have an big advantage by offering the "Offline Modus" for Steam - i can play my games anywhere on holiday, without internet connection, which i would need in some games to start the game.

Not to undercut you, but this doesn't apply to games where publishers have their DRM built into the game. For example, I bought C&C 4 on Steam (don't worry, it was only 5 bucks; I just needed to finish the story!) and I still have to sign into EA servers if I want to play. But yeah, Steam's DRM-free system is one of the main reasons they don't suffer nearly as much piracy, and why their service is so popular; DRM is something that Steam will actually not allow. For example, if you buy From Dust from Ubisoft you have a limited number of installs, but Steam lives by their DRM-free policies, much to gamers' content.

Tredecim wrote:
I considered to buy Diablo 3, but when i noticed that i would have needed an permanent internet connection, even for the singleplayer/offline parts, i dumped it.

Story of my life. I didn't like the direction they took the game in, but I probably still would have bought it if I could play it single player. And it's just another situation where pirates have the benefit of not having to deal with disadvantages paying customers have.

Tredecim wrote:
Protecting games is OK, but too much protection is, as we see, is contraproductive.

Couldn't really put it any better. Although the most effective protection from piracy seems to just be to make a damn good game in the first place.

Well Valve and Steam have an big advantage by offering the "Offline Modus" for Steam - i can play my games anywhere on holiday, without internet connection, which i would need in some games to start the game. I considered to buy Diablo 3, but when i noticed that i would have needed an permanent internet connection, even for the singleplayer/offline parts, i dumped it.



Protecting games is OK, but too much protection is, as we see, is contraproductive.

Here's how I see it...



The level of DRM Ubisoft applies to several of its games/lack of incentive, etc... (quite a few reasons) v.s. the immediate relative ease of piracy, the latter will win in most cases.

So I came across this article -> http://www.gamesradar.com/ubisoft-says-their-piracy-rates-are-95/

The Ubisoft CEO says the rate of piracy of their games on PC is at 93-95%. That's a lot.



I'm really just interested in what people say about this. This isn't a topic about whether piracy is good or bad, and this isn't a thread on whether or not Ubisoft is bad - I think this probably has more to do with their anti-piracy measures, which hurts paying customers more than it hurts pirates. For example, DRM - this was probably one of the killing points for Spore when it came out, since paying customers had to constantly go through customer support whenever they wanted to reinstall their game; I felt like I had to send an email every few months (I went through computers pretty frequently back then) whereas pirates can just download a DRM-free version and not have to worry about that hassle. EA did also draw some ire when you had to be always-online to play Command and Conquer 4.



Remember, this isn't a discussion about piracy or really about Ubisoft, just about what you think about anti-piracy measures. I think publishers would be better off not even trying, instead of punishing the paying customer.

Publishers tend to equate one downloaded file being directly equal one lost sale, which simply isn’t true. Fallacies such as this are trotted out every time the DRM debate kicks off and Ubisoft have been among the worst offenders for grossly exaggerating what they perceived to be lost sales due to piracy. Guillemot has said this before and never backs any of it up with credible research; once again he’s plucked “93% piracy” out of his botty and spouted it as gospel. To put it bluntly, Guillemot is a Richard and thusly Ubisoft behaves like a Richard (cf. Uplay PC activity logging) hence their dreadful reputation amongst the gaming industry.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
Wow, I didn't even think of it that way.

Well now you do.

Harel55 wrote:
You also have to wonder how greedy they can be to be so against piracy when they make a profit with a 95% piracy rate.

Wow, I didn't even think of it that way.

Wow, that's quite a bit. You have to wonder how they can make a profit with so much piracy. You also have to wonder how greedy they can be to be so against piracy when they make a profit with a 95% piracy rate.

Mansen wrote:
Actually most modern games packed with DRM are already on the various pirate outlets on the release day or even before that if someone has scored an early release.

Good point.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
Publishers that think DRM is the solution to piracy are generally just shooting themselves in the foot. They make it more difficult for a game to be cracked...

Actually most modern games packed with DRM are already on the various pirate outlets on the release day or even before that if someone has scored an early release.

InFlamesWeTrust wrote:
Piracy is destroying the industry for DRM games because you get a better game because you don't always have to be online. I no longer buy games from those companies. (I don't pirate them either because, well their games are generally not worth having)

Publishers that think DRM is the solution to piracy are generally just shooting themselves in the foot. They make it more difficult for a game to be cracked, but once a single download of the game is available the entire DRM system is now just a hassle for the paying customers. And quite frankly, I have no idea why a publisher has more concern for the pirates than for the customers, and for the profits - I don't think any publisher could legitimately claim their DRM games sell better than non-DRM games.

Piracy is destroying the industry for DRM games because you get a better game because you don't always have to be online. I no longer buy games from those companies. (I don't pirate them either because, well their games are generally not worth having)

The only time I have downloaded games for free is when I already have said game on a console and want it for PC as well because I'll be damned if I'm paying for the same product twice. This is generally GBA and GameCube games though so I'm actually not sure how else I would get them.