Ubisoft commit commercial suicide

[Twistedpixel]

Khuutra said:

Ah but there is the rub, this conversation - this whole line of argument - has absolutely nothing to do with the fact of the games themselves, and barely has anything to do with the ideas of them. We are arguing about Digital Rights Management and how that relates to Ubisoft's relationship with its customers.

What you are actually arguing is not "They can design the game however they want"; remember, this argument is not about the games! I do not give a shit about the design of their games in the context of this argument.

What you are arguing is "They can treat their customers however they please." This is an invalid argument from several respects. Firstly, it does not make sense from a moral perspective, because the moral imperative of any business is to serve its customers in a way that pleases he cusotmers, at least in such a way that will convince customers to continue spending money.

The second - more important one - is that they cannot mistreat their customers because it is an intellectually and financially bankrupt exercise. You claim that it is their right to mistreat their customers. That's fine. Perfectly valid stance, sort of, but it ignores what one calls inevitable consequences.

First inevitable consequence: loss of sales translating to a loss of money. By narrowing their potential user base, they are necessarily cuttign off revenue streams that they might otherwise be able to gain. This is, in itself, a bad idea. They think this part is worth it because this move will cut down on used game sales. They may be right, but it doesn't consider the second, far more horrible consequence:

This iis going to result in much, much more piracy. In doing this, they are not trying to address pirates. They're trying to inconvenience people who pay for their games. They are giving incentives to not pay for their games. What is happening, if you will, is that Ubisoft is courting piracy. When they bed her, piracy will leave them bound and gagged in a closet and walk out with their wallets and the deeds to their house. It will be their own fault, because they have given consumers incentive to pirate instead of to buy.

Will this reaction be necessary, or just, or moral? No. Of course not. But it will happen. Ubisoft has signed their own death warrant with enhanced DRM.

It won't become the standad for PCs or consoles because nobody is going to cut themselves off from that amount of money. There will be at least one console manufacturer, and you have one guess as to which one, which will not support that standard. To pretend otherwise is to deny any sense of business acumen from game producers at large. When they see what happens with Ubisoft's DRM scheme.... it's going to be hilarious.

And please: I can abide by bad arguments, but I cannot abide by hypocrisy. If you want to dismiss my arguments on account of them being, you know, arguments, then please, extricate yourself instead of descending to my level.

I cannot see how this is a bad thing. They are taking away a universally hated thing with regards to having to use a CD-check, they are giving people portability of being able to continue their game on multiple different platforms. They are exchanging one bad thing (CD-check) which is almost universally hated with something which has lower negative impact on the average person considering the commonality of an internet connection. The CD-check is an inconvenience, secure-rom is an inconvenience when your game doesn't work, but this is a pretty straightforward requirement.

There is more good here than bad, so why do you see a problem?