SOW - with new DRM model by UBI ?

[noxnoctum]

The irony is this may well drive people to not buy it and instead just pirate it (I'm sure the pirates will figure out a way around the DRM and make a "fix"... they always have in the past). So really it only screws over the legitimate customers.

I know I'm certainly considering that for SH5. I'll still buy it, because I want to support the developer, but I'll get a pirated copy too and use that as a backup in case my internet connection goes down so I can still play offline.

[Flanker35M]

S!

RoF now can be played offline too after last update

[noxnoctum]

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

S!

RoF now can be played offline too after last update

Wait, so is Ubi changing their DRM stance???

[Dano]

Originally Posted by noxnoctum

Wait, so is Ubi changing their DRM stance???

No, UBI have nothing to do with RoF.

However in the light of their latest DRM being cracked in something like 25 hours they may just need to revise it, my money is on them continuing to stick their heads inthe sand though.

[Avatar]

Wow, I had always thought that 1c had finally gotten away from UBI, especially after the Pacific Fighters BS they went through...

Like others here, I have finally said no to UBI's new type of DRM. I'm not against DRM but I am against having to be online all the time to play offline, just plain BS, IMHO. So if SoW comes with this form of DRM I will unfortunately have to pass, just like I am with SHV. I will not give the impression to the suits that I approve of this type of DRM in any way shape or form. I know too many people that can't play SHV just because of this requirement, e.g., military personnel stationed abroad on active duty, friends in remote, and not so remote places where their connections aren't reliable at all, etc. and UBI has made it abundantly clear in their statements that they don't care about people with those types of issues: "We think most people are going to be fine with it. Most people are always connected to an Internet connection." Well I guess their marketing guys need to learn a bit more and I hope they learn the hard way, and the only way they will learn and that's by losing money.

Unfortunately, people who say they are against this type of DRM but buy the game anyway stating they are "supporting the developers" are still sending the wrong message. The bean counters only look at the bottom line, how much money a title makes. They could care less if you agree with their chosen DRM or not, they only care if you buy their games. PERIOD!

[MikkOwl]

UbiSoft has plenty of people working for them. They have many different values and motives. But the owners and executives have one motive in common - they all want to get paid more. So that's how they act. Most corporations, as they are made up for more than a single owner, act on this one unifying motive.

If whatever they do brings in more money for them (or at least they think that it does) then they will conclude that this is a terrific idea. Losing some reputation is nothing if they percieve that they are either gaining more profit or that their profit decreased less than expected.

I too would love to have bought SH5 (I bought SH3 and SH4) and support this niche sim market, but it will NEVER, EVER happen if it is bundled with extra software designed in a way that significantly affects my ownership and use of the product they want to sell me. Moreover, it is fairly certain that they use it for very extensive data mining (monitoring and logging my personal profile + game usage patterns) for uses that might further profit them, and who knows what.

Buying this is not showing support for Silent Hunter, but showing support for this DRM (+ who knows what else) system. You are voting, with your money, sending a message to not just UbiSoft but everyone else saying "I like it, it works, and here's my money to prove it". Your forum word doesn't carry any weight if you still buy it.

I will never, ever buy Storm of War either if they try something similar. Requirement to be online to use their online gaming services (multiplayer on public servers they host) is Ok, but not for single player or playing with my friend on a LAN. There it steps into the "None of their business" zone.

If SoW did do this, then perhaps some other company will make a decent flight sim (maybe not WW2 but whatever), and I'm sure IL-2 will have increased lifespan and more improvements. And maybe some future release of a stand-alone addon to SoW will come along that doesn't have the DRM crap in it.

[Wolf_Rider]

An employer friend bought an English designed winch control program which he runs on concerts to enhance lighting effects... an interesting feature of the program, was in having to be online to install it as well as having to be online to uninstall it. In between those two situations however, there was no necessity to be online to run the program.


If it weren't for the pirates, there would be no need for protection methods eh?

[AndyJWest]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

An employer friend bought an English designed winch control program which he runs on concerts to enhance lighting effects... an interesting feature of the program, was in having to be online to install it as well as having to be online to uninstall it. In between those two situations however, there was no necessity to be online to run the program.


If it weren't for the pirates, there would be no need for protection methods eh?

Next year, the Ford Motor Company intends to release an 'online' control system for their cars: you don't have to be connected at all times, just when you want to use the accelerator or brakes...

Ridiculous? Of course it is. Nobody would even think of coming out with such c**p if it wasn't the computer software market. I don't know what the real solution is, but hopefully whoever is responsible for publishing SoW:BoB will realise from the RoF fiasco that p***ing off potential customers and encouraging the 'crackers' and pirates isn't a sensible marketing strategy. In my local supermarket, there are plenty of opportunities to 'pirate' a tin of baked beans or a bar of chocolate, but the profit they make on making purchases easier for the rest of us outweigh the losses. I'm no fan of the retail food industry, but at least they understand how to look at the big picture.

[MikkOwl]

An employer friend bought an English designed winch control program which he runs on concerts to enhance lighting effects... an interesting feature of the program, was in having to be online to install it as well as having to be online to uninstall it. In between those two situations however, there was no necessity to be online to run the program.

Interesting arrangement. Being online to install it is not a big hassle. I don't think I would put up with the 'online to uninstall' part though. Once I pay for it, install and activate it, that's it - it is mine. Don't want any more hassles (including DVD checks, which are noisy, impractical and discs are not the most durable thing). I have hard drive errors and other things that can be random, and not being able to uninstall something we bought is a preposterous idea. Still, that system is mild enough to be tolerable as long as it is patched out later (else the software could be permanently broken if they stop supporting it and take down their authorization servers).

If it weren't for the pirates, there would be no need for protection methods eh?

True. Although there's a lot of things to be said about it.

(A copy here is defined as being a copy that functions).

The cost of manufacturing a copy of a medium that is digital is zero. The cost of distribution is also zero. In a market economy, this means supply is infinite. And that the market value of such a copy is zero.

Before the apperance of fast computers, large storage medium and the Internet, it was a good business model to offer the service of producing a copy and distributing the copy to consumers. But having a business model where one is selling the service of providing one digitally made copy (which costs nothing) and distributing it (again, does not have to cost anything) is maybe not the most innovative or well thought out anymore.

In order to try to keep the old business model of selling the copy and distribution, supply must be choked somehow. But one can also attempt to coerce people into choosing only their service. Two main methods:

1. Attempt to make it more difficult to produce a copy (what we are discussing mainly in this topic).
2. Threats of, and carrying out: violence, robbery or kidnapping in any combination (by a third party, nearly always the state) if people choose to handle the task of producing a copy and distribution themselves instead of choosing the offered service.

The second needs legislation in order to support it specifically. There are smaller things which are fairly innocent where the stake-holders of the business model run campaigns for the public that attempt to make people believe that copyright infringement of any kind is not copyright infringement, but theft (a different crime, where someone is robbed of something. Like stepping into a game/movie store and literally taking a DVD case with print and disc inside and walking out - the store then deprived of those items).

Personally I think (and many, many, many others) that if someone does something good for you (like a favor), you should return the favor. That means give back to the people who gave to you. Also, people can do it for purely selfish reasons - trying to secure 'more of the same' enjoyment in the future (gaming studio can go bankrupt or try making other less interesting games in order to profit more). I think these two are big reasons people choose to buy officially distributed copies even though they have plenty of alternatives. It is harder to always do so when the officially distributed version is less attractive/appealing (in the form of it just performing worse and being inferior to other versions).

Anti-copy schemes are morally completely OK. People are trying to sell something they made and are just trying to limit the supply through those means to raise the market value. It will usually not limit supply much but will make the product on offer (possibly) crappier if care is not taken. I.e. requiring a registration code and going online to check it once to enable the functionality is agreeable for nearly everyone, but being constantly online as a requirement when it is not technically required is nonsense for many. So it would be to have to enter a new reg key each time software is to be used or a movie watched.

Crap. Long, long post. Pardon everyone.

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

Next year, the Ford Motor Company intends to release an 'online' control system for their cars: you don't have to be connected at all times, just when you want to use the accelerator or brakes...

Ridiculous? Of course it is. Nobody would even think of coming out with such c**p if it wasn't the computer software market. I don't know what the real solution is, but hopefully whoever is responsible for publishing SoW:BoB will realise from the RoF fiasco that p***ing off potential customers and encouraging the 'crackers' and pirates isn't a sensible marketing strategy. In my local supermarket, there are plenty of opportunities to 'pirate' a tin of baked beans or a bar of chocolate, but the profit they make on making purchases easier for the rest of us outweigh the losses. I'm no fan of the retail food industry, but at least they understand how to look at the big picture.

Good analogy with the supermarket there. I'm going to remember it for the future. Copyright crimes are very different in that no one is deprived of anything, unlike the supermarket analogy. But the concept of business doing something that is good/bad for them is absolutely the same.