Well, the tumor that is DRM is malignant now.
I've been boycotting EA games for a while now due to DRM - I would have bought Crysis Warhead and actually had a pre-order up for Red Alert 3 (I was a Beta Tester for it) but revoked the pre-order upon learning of the Securom on it.
And now, add Far Cry 2 to the list. And everything Ubisoft makes until it stops releasing computer games with DRM like this attached. The wonderful thing is, each of these games which has lost a sale has gained a sale for a company that respects me as a consumer, instead of fears me as a POTENTIAL criminal.
Red Alert 3 -> Demigod Pre-Order, Stardock Entertainment
Crysis Warhead -> Left4Dead Pre-Order, Valve
and now Far Cry 2 -> Fallout 3 Pre-Order, Bethsheda Softworks
It is good to know in a world full of EA and Ubisoft, there are still good companies that will treat me as a consumer and a customer.
I tip my hat to the companies, and more than that - I reward them now, with my business.
That's going to be an awesome game! Good choice!
Yep, I passed on FC2 as well and am getting FO3 instead. Funny thing is, apparently there's already a working PC crack of Far Cry 2, so I'd love to ask the Ubi brass how their DRM is working out for them.
I have FC2 coming today and had FO3 preordered for a while. As much as I don't like that kind of DRM on principle, I'm not about to let it stand between me and an enjoyable game. That's just me, though The way I see it, the developers should get rewarded for their work, even if they aren't fortunate enough to have a company like Stardock doing the publishing.
It's the artists, designers, and coders who make the game - not buying it because of the DRM the publisher slaps on it hurts the developer more than the publisher, and I don't think they deserve that. The game industry is a pretty ruthless business as it is.
It all depends on where you draw the line. Having been burned by this type of DRM before, I'm not willing to spend money on the extra payload and support the use of that type of DRM. To my eyes, by buying the game you're saying to the company "Hey, this DRM stuff you got going on is A-OK by me".
Anyway, hope you enjoy the game Annatar11, as it looks like a damned good one.
Your bit about not punishing the developers for the mistakes of the Publishers almost flies with me, with the exception of the fact that...
Sorry, but in this case, they're one in the same, and I just can't support this intrusive, customer-rights bashing DRM.
Any DRM that instals to Ring 0(the kernel) is not going on my machine, period. Securom has already eaten one of my DVD-Rom drives. Aside from that:
"Numerous customers have experienced problems with online activation of the PC version of Far Cry 2. Ubisoft Technical Support explained that the activation servers were experiencing problems." -Wikipedia, but also shown by a quick look around the Ubi forums, or the Steam forums for FC2.
I made a similar choice as well. I have owned every C&C game ever. RA3 is the first in the series I will not own (except the FPS renegade). Fortunately, my RA3-->Demigod. I think the next big game UI decide not to get because of DRM will likely mean I buy SINS.
I played RA3's beta and I'll be honest - It is a shame, because it's easily the best RTS game that EA has put out. It's not annywhere near on the levels of Sins of a Solar Empire or Supreme Commander, though.
They're not. Ubisoft Montreal is a studio owned by Ubisoft and carries their name. If it stops making money you know what's going to happen to it? Ubisoft will kill it and lay off most of the people.
Just look at what Microsoft is doing to Ensemble, or what EA did to the EA studio that was working on Tiberium Wars.
Like I said, it's a brutal business. Hell, even the developers of World in Conflict were dumped by their publisher, and that was a damn good game.
Not every developer out there is independent and only partners with publishers. Ironclad, GPG are independent - Stardock doesn't own them, only have publishing deals for Sins/Demigod. But most don't have that luxury, they're owned by another company. In cases of GPG/Ironclad, they decide to stay open or to close. In cases of Ubi Montreal, they don't have that luxury. Ubisoft as the parent company has tons of money flowing in from all over the place. If Ubi Montreal stops making money for them, they're not going to drop DRM, they're going to close the studio and then there will be no more Far Cry's.
I'm not trying to convince you to not care about the DRM, that's for each person to decide for themselves, but there's always a distinction between the developer and publisher.
And these developers at Ubi Montreal can only make good games in that one studio? This may sound cruel, but as a consumer, I would rather the studio shut down and the developers go to places that don't use DRM than fund more DRM.
Ubi Montreal is a seperate legal entity, but it was created by Ubisoft, is funded by Ubisoft, etc. It meets all the requirements in my opinion to be fundamentally the same overarching company. It's like trying to argue Warner Bros Studios isn't the same overall company as Time Warner.
If there is a doctor in your town known for being a klutz and you have many reports of him doing damage to people, are you going to go to him, or anyone in his practice, because if you don't you'll cut into the pockets of his nursing staff? I think the onus is on the nursing staff to go find a better doctor to be a nurse for, just as I think the developers are not tied to Ubisoft Montreal and will not suddenly become developers of awful games without them.
- EDIT - At the same time, I hope you enjoy FC2, it does look like a good game, one of the few worthy of $50, if only there wasn't this DRM. If they release a version without the DRM or a removal patch down the line, I'll snap it up.
I know, it's sad and hilarious at the same time. Sad that DRM continues to cause problems for paying customers, and hilarious that companies still think it stops piracy in any way. Though it's not feasible, I'd love to see 6 months from now many sales they lost due to DRM vs. how many sales they gained due to pirates being unable to steal it, and buying it. Some of these oldguard managers and executives desperately need to retire because they clearly can't comprehend that pissing customers off tends to not increase sales.
No, instead they plug their ears, go, "LALALA I can't hear you." and blame pirates for medoicre sales. Apparently their shareholders keep buying that excuse. My personal favorite example of a company turning on their customers is Epic, and Cliffy B's loltastic anti-PC rants. He's 100% convinced that piracy is the sole reason UT3 and GOW did poorly on the PC. Nothing to do with a terrible port of GOW, and UT3 being worse in every way to UT2004. Also had nothing to do with their poor planning and releasing UT3 at the same time as TF2 and Crysis came out. Nope, nope, nope. Because consoles certainly can't be modded to run burned/downloaded games.
The console version of Far Cry 2 was actually pirated FIRST.
Epic games is anything but now - I forget to mention them in my list of blacklisted companies because all they release is Epic Fail now. And then they insult the PC customers that made them the company they are today?
UT3 was a peice of garbage - there was nothing really new or exciting, just prettier graphics than the last generation. My friends and I still play UT2K4 but we didn't even keep the demo of UT3 around for a full week.
EA, Ubi, and Epic have all been black listed.
ID software is perhaps the only big name that is not on my black list yet.
Oh, and Epic wouldn't release GoW 2 on PC because of the "ramapant piracy"
Well guess what, Epic?
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/gears-of-war-2-leaked-on-torrent-sites
Looks like your deicison failed hard.
Honestly I think you changed to better games. Crysis and Farcry will be eclipsed and forgotten in a few years. Red-Alert 3 I haven't followed so not sure. The other games (if they turn out good) have the potential to be something that people will love intensely and be talking about in ten years' time.
Left 4 dead was already a buy, I was waiting till post release for the others.
Talked in ten years time? Does that matter at all? Games I hear about today, a decade or more after their release, their developers are long dead. Star Control, Wing Commander, Command&Conquer, Age of Empires, MechWarrior, Imperium Galactica, FreeSpace, Master of Orion, Empire Earth, etc.. Even newer games, good games, their developers are already dead.
EA, even after releasing a crap load of shitty games, is still alive and growing. SOE, even after breaking countless MMORPGs, is still in that business (afaik). So these "bad" companies must be doing something right, something that the "good" companies did not.
But what could it be?
The ramapa piracy tha only let them sell another 1.5 million gears copies for the pc. Other then the hard core fans that wanted the extra levels I don't see how they could have sold much more. Consider they only sold something like 4.5 on the xbox.....
I did enjoy the co-op but muliplayer was to full of .....well people worse then the halo crowd......
"EA, Ubi, and Epic have all been black listed.
ID software is perhaps the only big name that is not on my black list yet.:"
digital high five. id software in my opinoin is prob the greatest indepentent developer when i comes to fps.
by the way at the moment there working on 2 new games doom4 and rage. both of wich im looking forwared to.
I'll add CDV to my personal blacklist. I still have a brand new copy of Codename Panzers: Phase 2 sitting on my desk, sealed, in the bag and with the original receipt from January 06. It's sealed because my drive went down before I could install it. Yep, you guessed it- Starforce. The way I look at it, they owe me for the cost of the game, as well as the cost of my DVD drive, and until I get that, they will NEVER get another cent out of me.
EA is another I will never do business with again. When I heard about Spore, I decided to try out the free creature creator. It was a lot of fun and had no DRM. Great. I decided to buy the full version, and damned ea slipped in SecuRom. There is no easy way to remove it. I have weeded out most of it, but there are still a couple of hidden files that I can see, but can't access. So, I get to spend a day reformatting my hard drive, and re-installing XP and every other program that I have. Rot in Hell Will Wright.
There is no game out there that is worth taking one up the backside for, so I'll keep my money in my pocket, and my sphincter tight.
Is it just me, or does anyone else not have a problem buying a game you like with DRM (any form) but then D/L the pirate version and use that.
Iv'e done it now with a number of games. I don't beleive i am a pirate, i have a valid copy of the games in question (Spore being the most recent) but simply wish to play the game i bought without being hassled by DRM.
Speaks volumes of the game publishers/developers that i like their product so much i buy it, but then play the pirate version.
Since Securom messed up my favourite (and a number of others) DVD burner program, and I had to spend four hours trying to get them back up and running, any game, no matter how good it is, will not get on my hard drive with that piece of $^#! "security" bundled in.
What's ironic is, I would have gladly paid for such games, because they are good, or I want to play them or whatever. But the "anti-consumer" measures are working well I guess. I also recently have developed another gripe with publishers, and that is making digital downloads exclusive to certain regions, usually USA, Canada and Mexico. Sorry guys, but I don't want to fork over double the game price because the dollar is weak right now, nor do I particulalry enjoy spending money on plastic boxes and DVD's I don't need.
And finally, its funny when you realize that both the XBox and PC versions of Far Cry 2 have been already pirated, despite the "anti-piracy" measures. As I said many times, I simply don't get why companies spend so much money on software which is not only useless, but damaging to their reputation as well.
For german Players also Ascaron should go to the black list for using SecuRom in Sacred2 as should the bunch who did Drakensang.
Dunno about the latter but in Scared you only get two activations whhile they dare boasting that they use a customer friendly version of DRM to ensure mobile playing.
If it's any consolation or indication, Galactic Civilizations 2 appears to be THE most unprofitable software to pirate for Chinese and Philippine hackers. It's extremely difficult to find a pirated copy of this game, and when you do, it's obvious that it was hacked by some third stringer peon - the code has a tendency to CTD and it's missing the movies.
The last time I checked out the black market, there was no stock of GC2 or Dark Avatar - DA apparently never even made it out the code room. People apparently don't want to pirate games that don't piss them off. Imagine that.
Hrmmm, dunno...
Could also be just because GC is not as hyped as any of the other titles which are cracked and made available in notime.
Pirates are selling cheap copies of Nike shoes by the millions, while other brands which shoes excel in terms of material and overall quality remain untouched just because they're not considered to be as cool as Nike.
Still, there is of course the anarchy aspect. Some people simply enjoy pirating to show the publisher that they can, and that their counter-measures are useless. But you can't crack something that isn't there. And they wouldn't gain any "honors" either.
Well for me now havign compagnie that will use no DRM i decided that i would buy their games. And simply hack those with DRM just for the DRM. The problem has just gotten way out fo hand it'S almost as if they wnat to controll you cpu to make sur eyou dont hack their game. Well sorry but that desn't float my boat.
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