James
MyGaming Alumnus
Ubisoft: more people are buying casual games
40% of the publisher’s revenue is coming from the casual market
40% of the publisher’s revenue is coming from the casual market
Ubisoft: more people are buying casual games
- Thread starter James
- Start date
Lycanthrope
New member
Only market stupid enough to even consider purchasing a Ubisoft-published game.
will1023631
New member
I really don't see why people STILL rash about the DRM. sure it's a pain in the ass, but their games have proven to be worth the effort most of the time =/
Plus you do realise that saying Casual games are worthless, you're basically denying that that 40% of casual gamers are funding the development schedules for the more hardcore games. And on top of that you're saying that AC hasn't been pretty epic? I mean sure it has it's flaws but it's one of the few games out there with a decent SP story line.
In the end I say well done to Ubisoft for spreading their eggs about >.>
Plus you do realise that saying Casual games are worthless, you're basically denying that that 40% of casual gamers are funding the development schedules for the more hardcore games. And on top of that you're saying that AC hasn't been pretty epic? I mean sure it has it's flaws but it's one of the few games out there with a decent SP story line.
In the end I say well done to Ubisoft for spreading their eggs about >.>
Lycanthrope
New member
No, they haven't. To play them I would have to buy them, to buy them, they would first have to appeal to me by removing the archaic DRM.
I'm not letting that shit touch my PC ever again.
From Dust was their only chance to prove a modicum of practicality and to show that it isn't invasive, frustrating or downright ridiculous. It failed, fortunately I was refunded. Happy days.
Firstly, no-one said that casual games are worthless. You're welcome to quote where someone has said this. In fact, my exact words were, "Only market stupid enough to even consider purchasing a Ubisoft-published game" implying the casual market. And it remains true--casual gamers couldn't give a shit about ethical ramifications or how Ubisoft's DRM outright victimises legitimate consumers while doing NOTHING to hamper piracy.
Also, I am of the belief that those casual games are in large on console, much how Ubisofts AAA sales are largely on console.
Any PC gamer who would support Ubisoft in their crusade (lol, see what I did there?) against legitimate customers with that vile DRM should feel ashamed.
Assassin's Creed might be "pretty epic" but no amount of "epic" goodness would make me blind to the ethical injustice represented by archaic DRM. This is not only limited to Ubisoft but any game with activation limits, rootkits or similar Fuck You branded incentives.
Also, "few games out there with a decent SP story line?" Witcher 2, Portal 2, Dragon Age 2, Dawn of War 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Fallout: New Vegas are just "a few" which were released in the last twelve months on PC that I can recall. There are no doubt others on console. All of which have a fantastic narrative.
Casual games are not the bane of the gaming world, in fact it's safe to say that casual gaming is a largely inexpensive and beneficial way for publishers/developers to make money while working on titles they're really passionate about. However, the fact that 40% of Ubisoft's earnings are from casual games says a lot about their priorities and where their successes lie and it's definitely not in PC gaming, that I can assure you.
will1023631
New member
Haha I tend to forget some people struggle with Lan cables. One of the reasons I opted to have a wireless network card installed in my PC.
will1023631
New member
Firstly, casual gamers don't get as involved with the frustrating side of things really, I agree. They unlike us don't deal with the frustration of the bane of PC gaming, called DRM. Yes, you are correct in saying that they are mostly console gamers and yes they don't have to contend with DRM.
Developers will of course prefer to use consoles as a AAA release platform because they don't perceive that piracy is a threat to them on consoles since it is more of a schlep to make pirated games to work on a console. And no,I don't feel ashamed. DRM is the bane of PC gaming, it is intrusive, but do you think the big guns care? No. We can try to boycott the sales of their games, but in the end that just means they'll just let it run like water over the back of a duck and continue to produce games for consoles without a worry.
We have to pay the price until companies give up on trying to curb piracy and embrace a P2P based system for the distribution of their content. But as long as profit margins are in play, that isn't going to happen and they will continue to use nuisance DRM and other "Fuck You branded incentives" to get under your skin like every other pessimist in the gaming industry.
Ubisoft at least offered the option to refund players that bought the game with their pain in the ass DRM.
And sure I didn't take into account the other games and forgive me for that since I haven't been able to play Deus Ex, Dragon Age and Witcher 2 and can't really comment on their stories without having to rely on the word of my peers too heavily.
And no I don't feel ashamed in supporting their crusade since I am a legitimate customer who hands over every hard earned cent to be able to break away from reality once or twice a week when time allows me.
Graal
New member
Lan cables and 5 walls between me and the router, effectively making a wireless card useless. Not to mention the fact that if I go lan at a friend's house, unless he has internet, still no game for me.
Point is, UPlay is bad and anybody who white-knights it is just as bad. It's absolute rubbish, and I've had no end of trouble with it so far.
You know that's only because they promised everyone the game wouldn't require a constant internet connection, and when it released, lo and behold, constant connection required.
Lycanthrope
New member
Indeed not. Fortunately, any objective individual can see that there are pros and cons to both PC and console markets
This is starting to sound an awful lot like one of those, "PC gaming is dead/dying/worthless" angles. A quick search determined that console games revenue is estimated to be around $12billion, whereas PC games revenue is around $16billion. It's arguable how accurate either of those figures are, whether they take all consoles into account, whether they take Steam games into account, but let's settle on the fact that the PC platform remains a strong financial contender.
Regarding "do you think the big guns care" have you ever heard of the concept of supply and demand? It's a very popular and easily understood economic model. It goes hand-in-hand quite well with the concept of voting with your wallet. If you financially support something you are ethically against, OF COURSE THEY WILL NOT CARE. You aren't hurting their income. You aren't standing up for what you believe in or to be treated with dignity and respect as a paying customer.
It's not a difficult thing to understand.
"Embrace a P2P based system for the distribution of their content?" What? :wtf:
I believe it was Steam that offered the refunds, not Ubisoft.
You're missing out
And who, exactly, do you think DRM is a problem for? Pirates?
will1023631
New member
Indeed not. Fortunately, any objective individual can see that there are pros and cons to both PC and console markets
This is starting to sound an awful lot like one of those, "PC gaming is dead/dying/worthless" angles. A quick search determined that console games revenue is estimated to be around $12billion, whereas PC games revenue is around $16billion. It's arguable how accurate either of those figures are, whether they take all consoles into account, whether they take Steam games into account, but let's settle on the fact that the PC platform remains a strong financial contender.
Regarding "do you think the big guns care" have you ever heard of the concept of supply and demand? It's a very popular and easily understood economic model. It goes hand-in-hand quite well with the concept of voting with your wallet. If you financially support something you are ethically against, OF COURSE THEY WILL NOT CARE. You aren't hurting their income. You aren't standing up for what you believe in or to be treated with dignity and respect as a paying customer.
It's not a difficult thing to understand.
"Embrace a P2P based system for the distribution of their content?" What? :wtf:
I believe it was Steam that offered the refunds, not Ubisoft.
You're missing out
And who, exactly, do you think DRM is a problem for? Pirates?
Of course there are advantages and disadvantages. In the end it is down to personal preference.
And I wasn't angling towards "PC gaming is dying". I was just stating that developers have alternatives available if they see that they aren't getting anywhere with PC games.
And yes, I'm not as ignorant as I seem to come across, I do understand supply and demand and voting with our wallets. But whichever way we go DRM has been around for the last 13 years and it's in almost all the media we use and it will be here to stay for quite some time. Unless it can be found unconstitutional in any fashion I doubt we will see the end of it soon. Plus voting with our wallets only works if the vast majority boycotts the process and as history has proven you'd need to educate the masses, but then again most people are against it in principle.
So either legislation needs to be passed to make it illegal or companies have to accept the fact that piracy is going to be rampant regardless of what they do to prevent it (other than drop the prices of games at release time and stop trying to restrict IP so much).
And concerning the P2P system. It's basically a utopian model (I assume you understand what utopia is) you distribute your game freely and people basically pay what they think it was worth. But then sign people A) won't pay or B) will always pay the bare minimum. Hence why it is a utopian concept. You're relying on the good nature of people. But then again it's just another way companies can use to exploit us.
And yes I know I'm missing out. Unfortunately, as a student I only have x amount of money and time every month, so games tend to take a back seat till closer to the end of the year.
Lycanthrope
New member
You'll forgive me, your posts seemed rather ambiguous in that regard. My mistake.
Yes, DRM has been here for a long time, however, intrusive "permanent internet" DRM is a new concept a fortunately limited number of publishers have taken to curb the resale of games (second-hand sales) as well as to push their own content distribution platforms while "curbing piracy" but Ubisoft have basically taken that to the next level.
Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with a publisher or developer doing what they feel is necessary to protect their IP, however, some lengths to which they go are extreme and blatantly infringe on consumer expectations (and dare I say "rights?"). Limited activations, for example, is something I refuse to support. It tells you how you may use your product, how often you may install it and just narrowly falls short of telling you what time of day you're allowed to run it.
Where you say that "voting with our wallets only works if the vast majority boycotts the process" I have to laugh. That's exactly the logic used by people who refuse to vote, the favourite phrase being, "What difference does it make?" Every individual has a choice in the matter and every time they make a purchase they contribute to something more than just that item. Whether it's in the food or clothing that you buy (does it contribute to animal cruelty?), whether it's in the media you purchase or whatever. Any difference, however small, adds up and becomes important.
The problem is simply consumer apathy--people don't give a fuck.
I really don't want to go down the piracy path because that opens up a whole new can of worms. Yes, it's relevant to DRM (the #1 selling point) but you'll find that many developers/publishers use DRM more to curb second-hand sales than anything else. I think many of them have realised that pirates, by their very definition, are people who don't buy media, ergo, they are not lost sales, they are not a target market, they are not "vital" in any way, shape or form to the success of a company or that of their product.
But yes, I firmly believe that consumers should be protected, by law, from DRM, licences or policies which impact how a consumer may or may not use that product within reason. Activation limits? Permanent internet connections? Rootkits? That goes too far. However, oddly, I can appreciate account-locking games. In an ideal world it would be possible to trade them after a certain time has lapsed but account-locking of games doesn't really bug me as long as certain conditions are met (reliability, speed, functionality, support and the ability to properly service a global community). So far, there's only one service which lives up to that and that's Steam. Which is also why Steam is basically the only DRM I'm happy to support.
Unfortunately, all I can do is give my opinion on the matter
I think you and I interpret "P2P" quite differently. The common interpretations are Peer-to-Peer (i.e. torrents, DCC, etc) or Pay-to-Play.
Another way to look at it is that pretty much all entertainment media works on that principle already: either you buy it and support it or you pirate it or don't. A much more black-and-white view on your "utopia" but the similarity remains--it's just not quite "legal."
Also, I'm not quite sure if you're aware of the Humble Bundles which go out every so often--basically indie games that are sold on a PWYW (Pay What You Want) model and have, each time, been hugely successful. I support them even though I don't always want the games available; I do so because I believe in supporting DRM-free games and the concept on an ethical basis.
All the more reason why you should be critical of where your money goes and what it is you're contributing toward
will1023631
New member
You'll forgive me, your posts seemed rather ambiguous in that regard. My mistake.
Yes, DRM has been here for a long time, however, intrusive "permanent internet" DRM is a new concept a fortunately limited number of publishers have taken to curb the resale of games (second-hand sales) as well as to push their own content distribution platforms while "curbing piracy" but Ubisoft have basically taken that to the next level.
Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with a publisher or developer doing what they feel is necessary to protect their IP, however, some lengths to which they go are extreme and blatantly infringe on consumer expectations (and dare I say "rights?"). Limited activations, for example, is something I refuse to support. It tells you how you may use your product, how often you may install it and just narrowly falls short of telling you what time of day you're allowed to run it.
Where you say that "voting with our wallets only works if the vast majority boycotts the process" I have to laugh. That's exactly the logic used by people who refuse to vote, the favourite phrase being, "What difference does it make?" Every individual has a choice in the matter and every time they make a purchase they contribute to something more than just that item. Whether it's in the food or clothing that you buy (does it contribute to animal cruelty?), whether it's in the media you purchase or whatever. Any difference, however small, adds up and becomes important.
The problem is simply consumer apathy--people don't give a fuck.
I really don't want to go down the piracy path because that opens up a whole new can of worms. Yes, it's relevant to DRM (the #1 selling point) but you'll find that many developers/publishers use DRM more to curb second-hand sales than anything else. I think many of them have realised that pirates, by their very definition, are people who don't buy media, ergo, they are not lost sales, they are not a target market, they are not "vital" in any way, shape or form to the success of a company or that of their product.
But yes, I firmly believe that consumers should be protected, by law, from DRM, licences or policies which impact how a consumer may or may not use that product within reason. Activation limits? Permanent internet connections? Rootkits? That goes too far. However, oddly, I can appreciate account-locking games. In an ideal world it would be possible to trade them after a certain time has lapsed but account-locking of games doesn't really bug me as long as certain conditions are met (reliability, speed, functionality, support and the ability to properly service a global community). So far, there's only one service which lives up to that and that's Steam. Which is also why Steam is basically the only DRM I'm happy to support.
Unfortunately, all I can do is give my opinion on the matter
I think you and I interpret "P2P" quite differently. The common interpretations are Peer-to-Peer (i.e. torrents, DCC, etc) or Pay-to-Play.
Another way to look at it is that pretty much all entertainment media works on that principle already: either you buy it and support it or you pirate it or don't. A much more black-and-white view on your "utopia" but the similarity remains--it's just not quite "legal."
Also, I'm not quite sure if you're aware of the Humble Bundles which go out every so often--basically indie games that are sold on a PWYW (Pay What You Want) model and have, each time, been hugely successful. I support them even though I don't always want the games available; I do so because I believe in supporting DRM-free games and the concept on an ethical basis.
All the more reason why you should be critical of where your money goes and what it is you're contributing toward
Ah yes I was thinking of the Humble Bundles, thanks for that. Couldn't remember the name. But I think legislation should work in favor of both parties. Companies benefit quite heavily from the DRM system since we as the consumer are not protected. DRM only seeks to protect the profits of companies. But of you look at the whole system even with piracy development houses still make large profits.
And steam is quite the ideal platform. Sure it has it's flaws (like not supporting Visa Electron cards for purchases =\) but it has more benefits than negatives. And if I could I'd happily use steam rather than other DRM platforms
Lycanthrope
New member
Visa Electron cards (and Maestro) by ZA banks aren't verified with Visa/Mastercard.
I believe FNB provides a cheque card with no credit facility (i.e. no overdraft) as long as you keep it active although you need a minimum of R3,500 to qualify for eBucks rewards, etc
Graal
New member
With that I can easily agree. Steam is one of the few DRM schemes I have absolutely no problem with. If it didn't add all the extras like automatic patches, easy management of games and DLC, a social platform, I might not have liked it, but as it stands, it's the best DRM scheme out there.
will1023631
New member
Visa Electron cards (and Maestro) by ZA banks aren't verified with Visa/Mastercard.
I believe FNB provides a cheque card with no credit facility (i.e. no overdraft) as long as you keep it active although you need a minimum of R3,500 to qualify for eBucks rewards, etc
Thanks for the heads up. I just find it strange that it doesn't work, but then again they can't do much about it since they don't have the facilities available to check funds. Plus I'm in mo rush to go queuing for a new card just yet since it was a mess getting this one from ABSA. Maybe in December when I've got time to waste.
And yes it's pretty well featured. Just wish more publishers would utilize the platform, even though steam already has a very broad variety of games. I do however find it strange the AC Brotherhood is on there. Would that imply that one would have to contend with both Steam DRM and U-crap DRM or only one at a time? ( just a random stupid question)
Lycanthrope
New member
That's exactly what having the card verified does
It checks with your bank to make sure you have the funds, your bank takes the funds then clears it 24-48 hours later. It's a ten minute jobbie and you get your card four days later
Graal
New member
Both, I have Conviction on Steam, and if I launch it via Steam, it merely launches the Uplay launcher for the game.