DRM Thread

[alanschu]

I'm sure they were just flying off the shelf before that.

 

Besides, its like saying "advertising works!!!"

Edited January 25, 2009 by alanschu

[Hurlshort]

I've never understood why any companies bother trying to get their stuff pulled from Youtube. The quality is lousy and who the heck is going to watch an entire movie on that thing? It really is just free advertising, because if someone really wants to enjoy the show, they will end up buying it.

 

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with DRM.

[Humodour]

Besides, its like saying "advertising works!!!"

 

One would think so, right? Yet Google is being sued every whichway by Hollywood and the RIAA because their stuff is on YouTube.

 

Hurlshoot: it helps to understand the mindset of the people implementing DRM before you go defending it.

[alanschu]

Besides, its like saying "advertising works!!!"

 

One would think so, right? Yet Google is being sued every whichway by Hollywood and the RIAA because their stuff is on YouTube.

 

Hurlshoot: it helps to understand the mindset of the people implementing DRM before you go defending it.

 

 

Ah, so because it works for Monty Python, with the permission of the Monty Python cast, that has a long history of supporters and so forth, it's obvious that if every thing was available for free on Youtube, sales would skyrocket 23000% and the economic crisis would be over!!!111oneone

 

Nice work!

 

 

I'm sure sales would have gone up even more had the Monty Python crew just given everyone in the world a DVD of each of their movies and their TV show.

Edited January 25, 2009 by alanschu

[skuld1]

Prince of Persia PC DRM Free apparently.

 

Thought some people here might be interested in this news.

 

I found it quite interesting that they did this. Looking at it from one perspective, Ubisoft basically called the bluff of many pirates ("We only pirate because of the eeeeevil DRM")... and judging from a few torrent tracker sites I looked at, the pirates were basically proven to be full of sh*t.

 

Actually, according to a number of posts/indications on the Ubisoft website, the piracy rate for the Prince of Persia has been unusually low.

 

Sources that provides some figures? Posts from borderline trolls like Sblade saying things like "Ubi won't release information, that must mean removing DRM was a complete success!!!!11!!oneone" are basically worthless.

[alanschu]

If Prince of Persia was an unmitigated sales success, do you think that publishers would take notice?

 

Contrary to popular belief, publishers do NOT like flushing money down the drain for DRM.

[Magister Lajciak]

If Prince of Persia was an unmitigated sales success, do you think that publishers would take notice?

 

Prince of Persia sold about 2.2 million copies since December (http://360.kombo.com/article.php?artid=15677) and the vast majority of those sales seem to be for the PC, since only about 483 thousand were console sales (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21937). Yet for some reason Ubisoft still calls Prince of Persia a 'slow starter' despite these excellent sales figures. This could mean one of two things. Either Ubisoft is referring only to the console sales as a slow-starter, since the PC sales are actually excellent, or Ubisoft does not want to give ammunition to DRM critics and wants to portray its experiment of a DRM-free game as a failure so that it can continue to use draconian DRM and say "hey, we tried" to the critics. So why would it want to use draconian DRM? Perhaps to prevent second-hand sales rather than to prevent piracy...

 

I will reiterate that I don't actually mind DRM (not even SecuROM). I only mind draconian DRM or DDRM, which requires online activation or install limits and thus artificially decreases the longevity of games.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Magister Lajciak

[Hurlshort]

Unfortunately console sales seem to be all that matters to publishers these days.

[alanschu]

Based on the link it definitely seems like they were hoping for more total sales.

 

Though I'm confused, as they talk about discrepancy between Eidos reporting 1.5 million units of Tomb Raider, but NPD reporting much smaller numbers.

 

 

Are we comparing units shipped to units sold at retail?

 

 

EDIT: The 400k number is US sales only. I'd need to see a breakdown of where PC and Console sales were going.

Edited January 26, 2009 by alanschu

[Magister Lajciak]

Unfortunately console sales seem to be all that matters to publishers these days.

 

You may be right.

 

Based on the link it definitely seems like they were hoping for more total sales.

 

It seems so. But the PC logged more than 1.7 million sales, which is very impressive in one month for the PC platform. It is not record breaking (Ubisoft is no Blizzard), but very impressive nonetheless. I doubt even games like Fallout 3 sold that many copies on the PC even as of today (I have no data - just an assumption on my part that the majority of the 3+ million Fallout 3 sales were for consoles). The fact that console sales did pretty poorly at 483 thousand is another matter.

 

Though I'm confused, as they talk about discrepancy between Eidos reporting 1.5 million units of Tomb Raider, but NPD reporting much smaller numbers.

 

NPD is reporting only console sales in this case and only in the U.S.. The 1.5 million number is total sales worldwide.

 

EDIT: The 400k number is US sales only. I'd need to see a breakdown of where PC and Console sales were going.

 

Good point actually. I doubt we will find the data though.

[alanschu]

Wait, the 1.7 million isn't necessarily PC right?

 

It's just not US console sales?

[Magister Lajciak]

Wait, the 1.7 million isn't necessarily PC right?

 

It's just not US console sales?

 

Yep, that was my mistake - I simply subtracted the console sales from the 2.2 million to reach the more than 1.7 million sales number. But I didn't notice that the 2.2 million refers to worldwide sales, while the 483 thousand refers to console sales in the U.S. - that makes the picture much murkier. It means we simply have no clue what is happening with respect to the structure of sales. Even so, I would argue that 2.2 million worldwide sales is not a bad number in such a short space of time, particularly when in comparison with FarCry 2 (which is being praised by Ubisoft in the same article) that achieved 2.9 million worldwide sales, but over a longer period (it was released earlier).

[alanschu]

Okay that's what I thought. I saw you agree with my post on one perspective, yet the earlier part seemed to go against it, so I wasn't sure exactly what you were saying.

 

I'm guessing the post was stream of consciousness

 

 

What were the sales figures of other Prince of Persia games? Maybe they sold faster? Maybe the Ubi execs were sniffing glue when they outlined their expectations?

[Magister Lajciak]

Okay that's what I thought. I saw you agree with my post on one perspective, yet the earlier part seemed to go against it, so I wasn't sure exactly what you were saying.

 

I'm guessing the post was stream of consciousness

 

Yeah, my consciousness sometimes streams in strange ways.

 

 

Maybe the Ubi execs were sniffing glue when they outlined their expectations?

 

 

Lol, that may be the case!

[Mamoulian War]

Maybe the Ubi execs were sniffing glue when they outlined their expectations?

 

 

Lol, that may be the case!

 

I would say most of the execs are doing that while outlining their expectations, and not only in gaming business

[Deadly_Nightshade]

DRM kills PC copies of Gears of War. Edited January 30, 2009 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Slowtrain]

Verisign certs are DRM?

[Hurlshort]

DRM kills PC copies of Gears of War.

 

That isn't DRM.

[alanschu]

Quiet DRM is evil!

[Mamoulian War]

DRM kills PC copies of Gears of War.

 

That isn't DRM.

 

It kinda is... DRM Digital Rights Management... With this certificate, they gave you the right to use the game only for limited time... after it expires and someone says that it's to much trouble for him to renew the certificate of the game again, you end up with coaster...

Edited January 30, 2009 by Mamoulian War

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I agree, it sounds like it's a DRM error.

Users on the Gears of War official forums are reporting that the digital certificates for the game have expired, as of 28th January 2009. This means that the game will not launch at a system date post-28th Jan. Obviously, this is awful news for those people who enjoy playing the game on the PC, since unless they keep their system date before the 28th, they cannot play the game.

 

This is what all the fuss about DRM (Digital Rights Management) is about; people who bought this game are essentially not allowed to play it. Ironically, the people who pirated the game, who the DRM is supposedly trying to stop, won’t be affected by this. The more that stuff like this happens due to DRM, the more the games are going to be pirated- only the customers are being punished. Anyway- bad show on Epic’s part; this needs to be fixed.

Edited January 30, 2009 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Pidesco]

DRM kills PC copies of Gears of War.

 

See? DRM is good for something.

[Hurlshort]

Certificates are designed to protect computers from unstable or infected software and drivers. This is a situation where Epic and Microsoft had a breakdown in communication. It has absolutely zero to do with DRM.

[Morgoth]

Wow. Tomb Raider Underworld sells 1,5 million units, and Eidos plays the sad Panda. PoP sells 2,2 million units, and Ubisoft plays the sad Panda. In other news, Drakensang sells a bit over 100k units, and publisher dtp announced this as "major" success. Addon and Sequel are being developed.

 

[alanschu]

What is Drakensang?