Ubisoft’s Latest DRM Blunder

I’m not really a journalist anymore, so I don’t really use this blog to “report news.”  Not like I used it to do that when I was a journalist, but I really prefer to offer commentary and opinion on various goings on with various types of media, but then, we get to see stupid crap like Ubisoft counting changing a graphics card as changing a system as far as their “X Number of Installs” DRM,or to be a bit less technical: a bunch of guys changed out their graphics cards while doing benchmarks and a game said it’s maximum number of installs and refused to work.

Oh wait, this is commentary!

Now, as the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article I linked indicated, this is probably a glitch and not an intended consequence of Ubisoft’s already arbitrary DRM crap, but it’s still rather irritating, especially with as of Monday morning, Ubisoft hasn’t gotten back to them after contacting them four days previously.  It’s things like this that make it really hard to want to support a studio that obviously cares enough about the artistic direction of video games when they pull this DRM shit.  I know I’m not really a PC gamer or anything, but I don’t want to support a company who will choose to shackle one section of the fanbase just because of their chosen access point.

I’m really trying to understand Ubisoft’s reasoning for their restrictive DRM policies.  I respect the idea of trying to curb piracy and I can get behind the idea of making sure they can protect their IPs, but their way of doing it is so ass-backwards, even by the standards set by the rest of the industry, it becomes infuriating to just think about what they’re trying to do.  I’m willing to grant to Ubisoft this particular instance is probably a glitch in the software, but in a lot of ways, it really encapsulates how little they seem to care or realize what their policies are doing to consumers.

Gabe Newell has said that a problem with piracy is really more of a problem with service, and Ubisoft is absolute proof of this.  We can bring up the arguments about punishing legitimate customers and the “$50 rental” all day, but those have been trotted out over and over again, and it’s clear they know these arguments and don’t care about them. I think they made that particularly clear this summer.

No, what we need to discuss are alternatives to this.  We need to show them that there are ways to incentivise legitimate consumers without being patronizing to them, like EA does , and show them there are ways of curbing piracy without making pirating a copy feel more legitimate than purchasing it (I’ve heard the argument that someone may buy a copy of the game, throw it out and then pirate it, just to show support of the game, but not have to be crippled by the DRM release).  Steam is one way of doing that, but it does have its own problems and issues that go along with it.  Day one DLC is an idea, but a lot of that is either superficial or it can feel like a way to punish pirates/used buyers/people borrowing games from their friends, so it’s probably not the way to go.

Instead, the industry and the hobby, needs to collectively sit down and figure this one out.  PC gaming isn’t going to go anywhere and consoles will probably take on more and more aspects of PC gaming (until they eventually merge), and piracy isn’t going to go away either, so this stand off needs to end, soon, before fans and companies start doing even stupider crap than they have already.

Personally, I think it would be smarter if companies gave a larger incentive to pirate (or buy new) than they currently do. Honestly, things like extra characters or cool weapons to download at launch is kind of stupid (especially if I have to sign up for some kind of service just to get Zaeed…) and kind of comes off as condescending, like I said earlier in the post.  I mean, it’s cool that they have this extra character or weapon, but the feeling is that the publisher is saying to me “oh, you’ve decided not buy used?  OK then, I guess I’ll let you have everything on the disc.  Well, everything I don’t want to sell you later anyway.”  It doesn’t feel like I’m getting rewarded for supporting them, but instead, they’re begrudgingly giving me access to what I spent my money on.

It also doesn't help that my "reward" for buying new is a guy like this. Maybe if it were Kasumi...

I’ve found things like art books, posters and maps do a better job of getting me to buy new (or get Collectors Editions as the case may be), but that’s not really something that’s going to work for everyone and in the case of buying used, it may mean Game Stop will just require someone who wants to sell the game for a quick buck to include the art book or map.  They haven’t done it yet, but who knows what could happen if art books become widespread.  Still, it is nice to get little “feelies” with a game, even if it’s just a cool looking poster, so that is something publishers can start with.

I don’t think finding an ideal solution is going to be easy though, but I don’t think it’s entirely impossible either.  I think what we do need to see is more understanding of the mindset of the consumer on the part of the publishers.  I mean, it’s clear most of the developers understand their audience, but it’s time the business people do too.