To all those who think Ubisoft should just let the pirates win... you have no idea how frustrating it is to spend many millions of dollars and several years of our life making a game, and then see statistics from our update servers that 15 to 20 people are playing pirated copies for every legitimately purchased copy.
I have news for you, most of those pirated copies are from people who wouldn't normally buy the game or can't afford to buy games regularly.
PC gamers have $2000+ computers and drop $200-500 on a video card every year. But most of them are too damn cheap to buy their games.
This isn't true. Most systems have came a long way and unless you are running a game like Crysis, you don't need a $500 video card. Again, I point out that a lot of the people that are on your server with pirated copies don't have the money to drop on games every month, wouldn't normally buy it any way and the game is more enjoyable without the DRM complexity. I understand your frustration, but assuming that those 15-20 would be money in your pocket is just corporate suit thinking that you've been brain washed with. It's not much of a consolation, but at least people are enjoying your game and are playing it. Everyone that I know with any type of skill level will buy what they support, buy what they think is a completely good work or buy what they want to see more of.
They grew up pirating them through high school and university, and don't see any reason they should stop now.
Stereotyping
By the way, after the reactions to Spore and Bioshock (and a other heavily DRM-ed titles) we tried shipping the recent Prince of Persia without any DRM. Guess what? It was pirated heavily.. more so than any of the previous Prince of Persia games.
What do you expect? You can't do something like that with the pretense, and I did read that UBISOFT expected the results, that if you don't make more money of a non DRM then UBISOFT will do ultra DRM.
Some of those pirates (a small fraction probably) would buy a retail copy if they were not able to easily pirate the game.
Not true
Most of them won't, and we don't care about those guys -- they can go pirate our competitors' games and thats fine. But after we spend 2+ years with hundreds of people working their ASSES off to make something just to entertain people, we would like them to pay us for it. Is it really so much to ask?
I understand your frustration, I want companies that make good games to be rewarded. But i don't fully understand your stance. Grand theft auto sold millions of of games and had no DRM that I know of. There has to be a better way than punishing everyone that eventually alienates paying customers as well.
Meanwhile, even if you develop a 100% effective DRM solution, the pirates will still not buy your game! I fail to see how even that helps you get paid for your work.
I'm sorry, but there are more options than the false dichotomy of "give your game to everyone for free" or "enslave humanity," and if you really want to get paid for your work, then you're going to have to back away from your dug-in position. There are plenty of games out there without oppressive DRM that are doing perfectly well in the market. I'll simply choose those instead—and you'll continue to get nothing.
Well said sir. Well said.
The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group"