Ubisoft's controversial DRM system is "a good strategy" - but only because there is not better alternative, says Namco Bandai Partners VP, Olivier Comte.
Speaking to CVG in Barcelona this month, the Namco man argued that until something better is invented, the Ubisoft system - which requires a constant internet connection - is what the industry has to run with.
"I will be very honest. I think it's a good [approach] for one reason: I have no alternative today," he said. "Is the best one? Certainly not but as of today if I can make something else I'll do it, but it's better to do something than not do something.
"At the moment they are doing a good strategy," he said.
However, Comte - who's company is set to release Test Drive Unlimited 2 and The Witcher 2 on PC - digressed to add that the industry has "to put another system in place".
"We are analysing all of the situations. We have seen what Ubi and EA are doing, we've seen what Sony have announced for PS3 and it's clear that we need to make some choices," he said.
"I'm convinced that whatever system you put in place you can be sure that two hours before putting it out it'll be cracked in Russia. I think that the combat against piracy is very complicated because it's very complicated to explain to a 12-year-old that drag and dropping a file on a PC is piracy - he was born with this."
Comte's comments are in stark contrast to those of Christofer Sundberg, head of Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche. He told CVG this week of his belief that Ubisoft-style DRM "punishes legal gamers".
Look out for the full interviews with both Comte and Sundberg on CVG soon.
Not when it alienates a good percentage of your user base it isn't. plus Blizzard are saying DRM is not worth it and to reward genuine purchasers of a title rather than DRM crap.
"Namco says bad user experience is a good strategy"
So ubisofts anti-piracy measures get cracked and they bring in new ones which are even more restrictive than the last. "It's okay" the industry shouts in unison, "it's the best option we have" Meanwhile their customers have abandoned them, well, at least abandoned them on PC. Please stop this crap before my PC is left without the best new games and all my gaming is console only. Its a future I don't want. Sell us your products without making us feel like you hate us. We will buy them.
Ubisoft's DRM isn't a good thing at all. Millions of us live in the countryside where the internet is extremely unreliable so we can't really touch anything with this kind of DRM at all. And what happens when Ubisoft take down their servers? Is the game I spent £30 on redundant?
The fact is, DRM isn't doing anything to stop piracy. Millions of people are still out there, illegally downloading games. If anything, this restrictive DRM probably only causes more people to resort to illegal downloading. And why is it that the genuine customers are getting punished and having to put up with this bs because of the pirates?
The industry often shouts that PC gaming is in decline. Well, it's them that are killing it with crap like this.
Mr. Comte is of course entitled to his point of view - that's fair enough. I'm however also entitled to mine and I can inform him, if he cares to listen, that DRM schemes such as Ubisoft's constant-internet-connectivity-required has single-handedly turned me from being a paying customer of some of Ubisoft's games into a now irate former customer who will go out of his way to avoid supporting any product associated with Ubisoft. If that's Ubisoft's and Mr. Comte's idea of a sound business model then I look forward to their respective companies going out of business.
There are alternatives to using Ubisoft's DRM, and by his own commentary Mr. Comte essentially renders his claim that it's better to do what Ubisoft is doing vs. doing nothing moot since it "will be cracked in Russia before release, etc."
Namco, do yourselves a favour and distance yourself from DRM. It amazes me that people that you would think are intelligent can't see that DRM is very very bad. All this sort of DRM achieves is to Punish the people that legally bought the game! Ubisofts DRM was hacked pretty much straight away so the pirates were not stopped by this evil creation, however legal users are constantly punished!
Can someone at Namco please explain to me how this is better than nothing? Is it better to push people towards piracy by punishing them for purchasing your game while the drm did nothing at all to prevent piracy?
Any publisher going down the DRM route deserves to go bust.
Mr. Comte is of course entitled to his point of view - that's fair enough. I'm however also entitled to mine and I can inform him, if he cares to listen, that DRM schemes such as Ubisoft's constant-internet-connectivity-required has single-handedly turned me from being a paying customer of some of Ubisoft's games into a now irate former customer who will go out of his way to avoid supporting any product associated with Ubisoft. If that's Ubisoft's and Mr. Comte's idea of a sound business model then I look forward to their respective companies going out of business.
There are alternatives to using Ubisoft's DRM, and by his own commentary Mr. Comte essentially renders his claim that it's better to do what Ubisoft is doing vs. doing nothing moot since it "will be cracked in Russia before release, etc."
"Namco says bad user experience is a good strategy"
So ubisofts anti-piracy measures get cracked and they bring in new ones which are even more restrictive than the last. "It's okay" the industry shouts in unison, "it's the best option we have" Meanwhile their customers have abandoned them, well, at least abandoned them on PC. Please stop this crap before my PC is left without the best new games and all my gaming is console only. Its a future I don't want. Sell us your products without making us feel like you hate us. We will buy them.
This.
And in case some of those gaming companies are about to rub their grubby hands in glee at the above prospect, I'll have them know that I don't forget nor forgive the companies that spit on me via the PC platform. Just because I also play on one of the console platforms doesn't mean I'll support them there. Those companies' games are ones that I only buy second-hand, if I buy them at all. I will not reward their current behaviour.
...And should the gaming companies somehow manage to weasel their way past our consumer rights and/or lobby (read: buy) corrupt politicians into removing some of our consumer rights in an effort to kill the second-hand market, why then I'll simply stop buying any of their games completely. Simple as.
"Namco says bad user experience is a good strategy"
So ubisofts anti-piracy measures get cracked and they bring in new ones which are even more restrictive than the last. "It's okay" the industry shouts in unison, "it's the best option we have" Meanwhile their customers have abandoned them, well, at least abandoned them on PC. Please stop this crap before my PC is left without the best new games and all my gaming is console only. Its a future I don't want. Sell us your products without making us feel like you hate us. We will buy them.
This.
And in case some of those gaming companies are about to rub their grubby hands in glee at the above prospect, I'll have them know that I don't forget nor forgive the companies that spit on me via the PC platform. Just because I also play on one of the console platforms doesn't mean I'll support them there. Those companies' games are ones that I only buy second-hand, if I buy them at all. I will not reward their current behaviour.
...And should the gaming companies somehow manage to weasel their way past our consumer rights and/or lobby (read: buy) corrupt politicians into removing some of our consumer rights in an effort to kill the second-hand market, why then I'll simply stop buying any of their games completely. Simple as.
Mr. Comte is of course entitled to his point of view - that's fair enough. I'm however also entitled to mine and I can inform him, if he cares to listen, that DRM schemes such as Ubisoft's constant-internet-connectivity-required has single-handedly turned me from being a paying customer of some of Ubisoft's games into a now irate former customer who will go out of his way to avoid supporting any product associated with Ubisoft. If that's Ubisoft's and Mr. Comte's idea of a sound business model then I look forward to their respective companies going out of business.
There are alternatives to using Ubisoft's DRM, and by his own commentary Mr. Comte essentially renders his claim that it's better to do what Ubisoft is doing vs. doing nothing moot since it "will be cracked in Russia before release, etc."
LOL KFD, WHY YOU SO MAD!!!?????
WHY ARE YOU SO MAD KFD? XD
Types the child in "screaming" all capital letters....
1) I'm not yelling in any of my posts in this thread so far.
2) I am upset at the way a number of companies are treating me and other potential customers while chasing a pipe dream. In their hell bent obsession of stamping out piracy - which none of them have managed to do to date, not even Ubisoft's constant internet connection requirement - they are focusing on a false negative as opposed to a false positive. That is exceedingly poor customer service and when their efforts on top of that actually manage to make the legal products difficult to use, if not outright dangerous and/or inoperable, it ought to be abundantly clear to any person who isn't a toddler or mentally deficient that it's a broken system. The fact that none of the DRM schemes to date can actually claim to have remain unbroken by pirates is a declaration of bankruptcy if I ever heard of one. These clowns need to pull their heads out of each others asses and get back to basics in regards to what will please customers and entice them to spend money on their products repeatedly.
Its a good strategy eh Namco? Tell that to the thousands of legit gamers who cannot play thier game due to technical issues on Ubisofts servers or internet downtime. Meanwhile the pirates of course are happily playing the game they had no intention of buying in the first place, protection or not.
Scrap invasive useless Drm. Pirates will pirate anything, and adding phrases like 'pirate proof' etc only serves as a challenge to such people to crack the system(and boast about it afterwards), while legit gamers will always buy thier games. No amount of Drm will ever change that.
Except everything KFD has said is absolutely correct, what, it's a sound business model to p**s off all your customers? How does that work? Ubisoft have lost the plot.
DRM is bad. Majority being punished because of the minority.
Any DMR can be broken and the harder it is to crack the more fun the scene groups have doing it. Look at the 360 and wii, its just as bad as its on pc for pirate games, whats pushing it is the DMR to start with and high speed cheap net access I only pay 48 euro for a 30 meg line including my tv and soon that will be 100meg line when I get my upgrade.
I completely disagree with Namco, that scheme was a farce, nothing more.
The only anti-piracy scheme that looks to potentially work is paying for online multiplayer on pre-owned, that's a far more effective strategy and probably the only thing that can actually be enforced to a certain degree, however forcing people to use an internet connection for single player is frankly pathetic, and if they continue to try it they'll just lose a ton of sales (and tempt people to pirate).
Considering that with the AC2 crack, Ubisoft's DRM is about as effective at preventing piracy as using a wet piece of paper as a bulletproof vest, I can safely say that this rep is a moron.
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