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UBISOFT: 93-95% PC piracy rate means F2P is just as effective
Article here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-22-guillemot-as-many-pc-players-pay-for-f2p-as-boxed-product
I'm not sure about numbers there in which is stated that only 5-7% of the gamers actually BUY the product and that the rest uses a pirated copy of the game. I'm also not sure if F2P for games in general will be good for the industry. When looking at the F2P MMORPG market and see how much crap comes from publishers like Aeria Games and gPotato.
This is also in line with the I saw an article about it from BioWare last week here, stating that players want DLC form day #1. IF games in general go F2P, then publishers do need to get their income from other resources, and DLC is the perfect way for that.
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Also they make they classic mistake of assuming all piracy is lost sales, that guy I'm China on $3 a day wouldn't have bought your game anyway.
Very right spoken! Back in the 'early days', every game came almost immediately with demo that'd allow you to play for 5% of the game (yeah, I'm talking about early 90's here). These days, publishers don't even care to make a demo, and with all the players willing to try a new game, they turn to .torrent sites, download it and play it. If they don't like it, no money lost, if they do, then... well, I guess a lot won't buy the box then. If the publisher did have a demo for their game, then the player didn't need to download a game illegally and could have made his mind up earlier if he liked it (and probably buy it as well), or just skip it.
this!
I buy games. I have never pirated a game. When Spore was released, what did I do? I saw the 3x then never again DRM and refused to buy it. I played something else. I still haven't played Skyrim. Or Civ V. I don't have a steam account either. I've played several F2P games however.
DLCs are good, but if they are released for a base game that has draconian "always online" or 3x or else type DRM, I still won't buy it. I buy box games to use when my internet is acting wonky. If internet is up, I play an MMO. As a result, I'm still having a blast with games released in the early 2000's. I still have an old laptop with Win 95 to play my even older games when the mood strikes.
Still haven't tried Diablo 3. "Always Online" drm for what should have been an offline game.
I also don't buy games that have a history of game breaking bugs. MMOs I give a lot of latitude to, because they have to constantly release new content on the fly that breaks a bit of the old. Box games should never be released in a state where it cannot even be loaded (as the Civ IV expansions were). Or locks up due to extended play (Sims 3, wow what a bugfest). I then refuse to buy products from that company again.
Casual games are still released with demos, just wish the big games were too.
I am sorry I just can't believe those numbers. If that were true no company would be selling games.
Agreed, I smell some hyperbole being employed to drive home a point.
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5-7% ???
I just cant give that any credit.
I don't have a problem with skyrim and civ5, steams drm is different in that you actually own the product. There's a clause in the steam contract where for games that are just steam they promise to give you the dvds if the service ever shuts down.
Without a shred of evidence I too am willing to back Quiz's theory on this. It's not rocket science really, if you deny someone access to something altogether rather than offer it openly you are inviting the VERY human nature of curiousity that is often acccompanied by illegal access in order to sate said curiousity.
Those numbers are the biggest load of shit. Honestly, the only people stupid enough to believe those stats, unfortunatly, are the politicians owned by the copyright lobbyists that are trying to screw internet freedom at every turn.
95% piracy....pfft. Scew you Ubisoft, really, screw.....you. I've got a Steam account that says differently, take a look and fuck off while you are doing it, liars.
Which is why most games coming out now is either a console game or a MMO.
Companies are trying to kick the freeloaders to the curb and rightly so. If the game is a MMO pretty hard to pirate that. ;-)
This is an outright lie for most games. The only one I can think of that actually had a 95% pirate rate with valid claims was Demigod. Almost everything requires a login and always online. Even then look at games like Skyrim...
"During the first day of release, Steam showed over 230,000 people playing Skyrim concurrently. In the first week of release, Bethesda stated that 7 million copies of the game had been shipped to retailers worldwide, and that total sales through the following Wednesday were expected to generate an estimated US$450 million. By December 16, 2011, this had risen to 10 million copies shipped to retail and around US$620 million. Additionally, Valve stated that it was the fastest selling game to date on their Steam platform. Steam's game stats page showed the game breaking a five million user record by having 5,012,468 users logged in as recently as January 2, 2012."
You can't say that 10 million copies sold is 93 to 95 percent piracy and could have been 200 million with a straight face.
It's pure number spinning.
Hell I'll milk some torrent numbers just for fun too. Right now on the Pirate Bay you can see 6k people seeding Skyrim and it's #1 Darksiders #2 is at 3k. Now lets pretend 90% of the people downloaded the game and pirated it and are not seeding the torrent even then your looking at 120k people that pirated Skyrim. Now lets double that because there are tons of sites with torrents you could download from. So we get 240k pirated copies of Skyrim. Hell you know what lets just say 1 million copies of Skyrim were pirated, even then your at a 10% pirate rate almost the exact opposite of what the CEO of Ubisoft is soapboxing.
It's complete BU*&SH!T.
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Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Don't believe those numbers, they were pulled out of his own delusioned ass.
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/ubisoft-ditching-its-intrusive-drm-for-pc-games/4350/
When pressed Ubisoft for more details about Guillemot’s statistics, I didn’t get much in response.
“That was an internal estimate for a few of Ubisoft’s popular PC titles like Assassin’s Creed and Driver, based on our own measurements,” the company told me a few weeks back. “It’s similar to broader external estimates from groups like the UKIE [Association for UK Interactive Entertainment], and to some recent examples of popular PC games from other companies.”
agree - another dodgy interview
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-drm-piracy-interview/
RPS: Last month, on the 21st, Yves Guillemot said Ubisoft’s piracy rates were 90 to 95%, hence the move toward online gaming. But in July last year your DRM was described as being “a success”, and as having shown a clear reduction in piracy. Can you talk about how those two statements square up?
Perotti: With regard to the numbers, the numbers are coming from both internal and external research. Research showed that it can reach that rate for some specific or popular PC games, and that number often varies depending on the territory. So we are not saying that it applies to all PC games for all territories, and we’re not saying that the same situation would apply for any game.
RPS: But last year it was said that the so-called “always-on” DRM had shown a clear reduction in piracy. The quote was, “A clear reduction in piracy from our titles, which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success.” Have you any data to evidence this, and if so, are you going to publish it?
Perotti: I’m not going to comment on data. That was an unfortunate comment. We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.
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That article with the 95 % games are pirated is completely fabricated. Example being recently crysis 2 most pirated game in 2011 which was also rated very poorly among console gamers. The top 5th most pirated game is also 100k under 1 million ubisoft isn't anywhere on that list. But collectively im sure you will find that not even 1 % of games are pirated. and two people that pirate games arnt going to buy a game in the first place unless they are the kind of pirates that want an extended beta. Then there's plenty of proof in the music industry that free is some of the best marketing they've had.
The only real meaning behind it is ubisoft feel's that maybe its a safe bet to jump on the free to play hope they get a bunch of those rich idiots that drop 5k on a bad game.
Ubisoft in particular has always been extremely paranoid about piracy. I tend to think anything that comes from them is propaganda meant to drive profit and retard piracy, rather than any actual reflection of the truth.
I mean, these are the guys that put in always-connected always-on DRM on single-player games because they are that afraid of piracy.
You would think they would stop pointing the finger at piracy, and start looking around the problem for a different solution from a different angle. F2P is one way to combat piracy (not my favorite though). Piracy isn't the problem, it's a symptom of a bigger problem. And when regular paying customers resort to a cracked copy of your product because it's more convenient, you've made that problem worse.
Well it is afterall Ubisoft. Don't get me wrong, i love alot of their games but dam they have been beating this piracy drum for a long time now.
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This is not 100% true. Quite a lot of people who pirate games might buy the game if they had no other choice. It really depends on your disposable income and how expensive games are in your country. But yeah 95-97% seems ridiculous.
Piracy has always plagued PC gaming. This is the main reason we are not seeing any AAA PC exclusives. When was the last time you saw a major game release for the PC which was not released on the Xbox360/PS3? The only company that I can think of that is still loyal to the PC platform is BLIZZZZZZZZZZZZARD! And no, MMOs don't count. They don't even deserve to be BBB let alone AAA release.
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92-93% piracy rate for games in general, is complete crap.
It might be accurate for Ubisoft games though. They have a fairly long history of using some of the most draconic DRM measures ever, many of which crippled or made games unplayable until they got around to patching them. It's basically a self-fulling proficy.
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