Thread: Ubisoft loses $54 million

Originally Posted by lpaulgib

Everytime I've had one of those things on a game or cd, i've been able to fastforward. If not, then I go get something to drink or something and come back. It's a valiant 30 second price you pay for having to time to play games and watch movies on your gaming system. I don't hear people ..........ing about the FBI warning on all movies.

I'm glad it doesn't bother you. Noted.

But it bothers me. Take note.

Are we understood? Or are you going to keep pushing that attitude that we are all whiners and you are the cool cat who laughs at the face of danger?

Any copy protection, in general, on any product that inconveniences the paying customer is not a good DRM scheme. Sending a message on a DVD to a pirate who doesn't care and forcing your legit customers to endure it is plain stupidity. Forcing users to stay online while playing a game and also inconvenience them when the server has problems or your connection flickers for a bit is equally as stupid.

I'm convinced most DRM is just CYA for companies so investors feel comfortable about investing their huge sums of money. Does it really stop piracy? Not a chance but it makes Mr. Investor feel good and as long as he/she feels good then the company stays in business. I look at it like gun control. Gun control does not keep guns out of criminals hands b/c they could care less about the law, registration, and so forth. It only inconveniences the legal owners but makes politicians feel better at night....I guess. Just stop and think about how many 'feel good' or 'feel safe' laws there are and I think you will find tons of them. As well there are probably thousands of 'feel good' policies in companies when it comes to their products. The policies do nothing to improve the product but they make everyone 'feel good' about the product.

I haven't read the rest of this thread, but one thing worth keeping in mind about these copy protection policies and other things Big Game Co. do is their observation that these days, while it takes years for their studios to create great games, their ROI can be extremely low, because the game will only sell for about 5-8 months on average before it falls off the charts. This happens to a lot of games and series, so they try to cut costs, monetize as much as they can and protect their invested money with things like DRM.

The observations they have are accurate, although their means of combating it perhaps is not. Certain companies luckily don't go this route, e.g. Valve Software, although in that case I believe that is more in part to them in particular being privately traded as opposed to 99% of game companies/publishers out there. But DRM is annoying, and big publishers like EA for example are beginning to recognize this, so they're trying to find other ways to keep their investments worth it.