Ubisoft: PC Piracy Levels 95%, and 95% of Free-To-Play Users Do Not Pay

[Nameless one]

.
"I used to never pirate, and now I love it"
How do you pirate board games ?

I didn't write that

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I do know.

I just wanted to irritate you - because board games are still games.

I sometimes use Irritation as a means to make people think.

It works.

 

[Nameless one]

Well, you are probably right, if you consider such a places like China and India ( where most of the population with computers and internet reside ), where a lot of people loves to play these games but none pay for them, it is probably an understatement. It might be more like 96%.

Those are places with lower life standard so most of people who pirate game wouldn't buy it anyway so there is no loss for Ubi there.

I do know.

I just wanted to irritate you - because board games are still games.

I sometimes use Irritation as a means to make people think.

It works.

impregnator wrote that at your post shows like it's my quote

 

[DArtagnan]

I do know.

I just wanted to irritate you - because board games are still games.

I sometimes use Irritation as a means to make people think.

It works.

I must have made you think a lot, then

 

[GothicGothicness]

Those are places with lower life standard so most of people who pirate game wouldn't buy it anyway so there is no loss for Ubi there.



impregnator wrote that at your post shows like it's my quote

It still doesn't mean his numbers are wrong.

 

[Carnifex]

I disbelieve that many people support thievery, let alone actually do it. Need to bring back some old punishments, a couple of hands wacked off would put thieves on notice.


-Carn

 

[JemyM]

I disbelieve that many people support thievery, let alone actually do it. Need to bring back some old punishments, a couple of hands wacked off would put thieves on notice.

The peculiar thing about punishment is that once you punished someone you have proven punishment doesn't work, since had it worked there wouldn't be any need for punishment.

 

[blatantninja]

History shows this is a false idea.

IIRC Sins of a Solar Empire came out with zero DRM because the devs felt like most of us do about DRM. Thing still sold quite a bit, around 500k in the first few months I think.

 

[blatantninja]

Those are places with lower life standard so most of people who pirate game wouldn't buy it anyway so there is no loss for Ubi there.

It think that is the real issue. Companies love to trump out how many installs are pirates, but they never talk about ACTUAL lost sales.

 

[blatantninja]

The peculiar thing about punishment is that once you punished someone you have proven punishment doesn't work, since had it worked there wouldn't be any need for punishment.

Not at all. One of the main points of the justice system is deterrence of others. If we cut one guys hand off, 10 others that otherwise would have committed theft perhaps don't. Not that I'm advocating cutting anyone's hand off (yet )

 

[JemyM]

Not at all. One of the main points of the justice system is deterrence of others. If we cut one guys hand off, 10 others that otherwise would have committed theft perhaps don't. Not that I'm advocating cutting anyone's hand off (yet )

Nations with the harshest punishments also tend to both punish more people and have more crime.

Harsh punishments seem to work while it have no effect. The reason why it seems to work is that the punishment-proposer is often in a situation in which they can be rational, while the criminal is usually in a situation in which they cannot.

The reason it have a reverse effect is that to the punishment-proposer (who should be the rational one) the punishment act as a placebo, kinda like praying for cancer. They did something and therefore there's a satisfaction that they did something. Like prayer this creates a situation in which one feels one accomplished something when one did not. When one feels that everything is solved one cease to look for solutions, the problem go unchecked and may in time get worse.

The reason nations with mild punishments can still keep a low crimerate is because when for people with something to lose, social stigma or simply being called a liar or thief is enough to control their action, as long as they got something to lose. In the mean time they look for causes for crime and try to change such causes before the crime happen.

This doesn't mean a justice system is useless. It's just as effective when it's an illusion than when it's kill or maim people all over the place.

 

[JDR13]

IIRC Sins of a Solar Empire came out with zero DRM because the devs felt like most of us do about DRM. Thing still sold quite a bit, around 500k in the first few months I think.

I'm curious to know how many copies were pirated. 500k sold sounds good until you discover that 2 million copies were torrented.

They still made a decent profit though. According to wikipedia, SoaSE was developed on a budget of less than a million.

 

[blatantninja]

I'm curious to know how many copies were pirated. Still a good sales number for that game though. According to wikipedia, SoaSE was developed on a budget of less than a million.

I imagine it was probably pretty high, but the developers made a good point about that when they said they weren't worried about it. Something along the lines of "You design and budget a game for the people that are willing to pay for it."

 

[JDR13]

Something along the lines of "You design and budget a game for the people that are willing to pay for it."

Yeah, but that only says that we're getting less quality overall because of pirates. I have to imagine that games like that would potentially be a lot better if more people were paying for them. I wish the people who always pirate their games would realize this.

 

[blatantninja]

Yeah, but that only says that we're getting less quality overall because of pirates. I have to imagine that games like that would potentially be a lot better if more people were paying for them.

I agree, but that gets back the original question of "How do you turn a pirate into a paying customer?" Most DRM schemes get circumvented pretty quickly, they aren't effective. If you go to something like always online or even just online activation, you add a tremendous amount of cost to implement them, do you actually recoup the cost?

In an ideal world, everyone that plays a game will pay for it and we'll have awesome games all over the place. In the real world though, you have to operate within the parameters that exist.

I'm curious, the Witcher 2 was released on GOG DRM free. How did that work out?

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

impregnator wrote that at your post shows like it's my quote

Interesting.

I quoted him and this is what I got (and cut out his quote from) :

Maybe if they had less idiotic DRM people would actually buy their games.I hope they bankrupt so that HoMM and Anno licences go to better publisher.

Except paying customers eventually give in. Piracy is increasing. I used to never pirate, and now I love it. I got sick of subsidizing the habits of people with little brains and poor taste. The only way to fight back is to join the opposition, because paying just helps them out. Since the only good games are coming out of the indie niche scene it doesn’t even matter (and by good games I mean the ones I think are good).

I hope they all burn, from UbiSoft to Blizzard. I don’t hold anything against any publisher from UbiSoft to Blizzard, besides a general dislike of their games, but if they all go under all the people I despise will not have their shitty games to pirate. Maybe they will read a book and stop being such fucking morons, or maybe they will go outside and play and stop being fat stupid fucks.

The normal people just need to convince that 5% who still pay to stop feeding the trolls. This train isn’t going to end until 2 or 3% more stop paying and start a-thieving. Those dickheads in the F2P games are killing my dreams though. Turbine has the audacity to charge the same for their shitty little expansions as a new game costs, and they don’t even throw in a free month of subscription. That is pretty much saying, “Fuck you, sane people! Give the reasonable amount of money you would have spent to someone else.”

But, how long until the 5% paying dickheads subsidizing the F2P market decide they don’t want to foot the bill for the freeloaders? This shit isn’t just going to affect the video game market; this is a question for the world. The answer is things get worse before they get better, which is fine with me. When you’ve eaten enough bitter you get a taste for it, and misery loves company.

 

[JDR13]

I'm curious, the Witcher 2 was released on GOG DRM free. How did that work out?

I wasn't impressed by the numbers, but CD Projekt seemed satisfied.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...r-2-gog-com-sales-vindicate-drm-free-decision

 

[Nameless one]

I wasn't impressed by the numbers, but CD Projekt seemed satisfied.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...r-2-gog-com-sales-vindicate-drm-free-decision

that is pretty old article.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-30-the-witcher-2-sales-top-1-7-million
this is not fresh either but it's less old

 

[JDR13]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-30-the-witcher-2-sales-top-1-7-million
this is not fresh either but it's less old

Yes, but I was talking about the PC version and GOG in particular. Your link shows combined numbers for PC and Xbox.

Still, it's good to know that TWII continued to do well more than 6 months after release.

 

[blatantninja]

I wasn't impressed by the numbers, but CD Projekt seemed satisfied.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...r-2-gog-com-sales-vindicate-drm-free-decision

What is interesting to me is how many people purchased the Steam version vs the GOG version.

Anyone know what the budget was for the game?

Obviously we are only looking at PC sales here and in the first 6 months, but the going price of the game was $39.99 IIRC on all distribution platforms. So that's roughly $10M in revenue (obviously some of that goes to Steam or the other distributors for non-GOG sales).