I think I know why ubisoft is being so quiet | Forums

[Friedweisel]

I have the game goes straight to after game report problem....
Ive tried a full uninstall and reinstall of the game. I did the reinstall via the new uplay client (that we didn't ask for or need).
That means completely removing everything from the pc and gamestop app. and spending the 6 hours it takes to redownload and patch the game... The game still wouldn't launch. So in frustration I paroosed a few of ubisoft's other game forums... and found out the problem is kinda wide spread... The client wasnt just a mess. it's a varitable sucking chest wound.

It got me to thinking about something...
I suspect that ubisoft is keeping quiet not because they dont care or know what the problem is. I kinda think it's because they don't want to take the PR hit: that comes with a brand new (drm scheme) client ruining thier gaming libraries online functionality. In short shooting thier future plans in the foot at the beginning of a foot race... Let me elaborate on what I mean.

Ive said since EA launched origin; that these compony owned clients that require online access have nothing to do with controlling piracy.
Digital distribution requires, no shipping costs, and no huge factories churning out a million copies of the game on physical media. In short massively lowered overhead. That reduced overhead SHOULD translate to a general decrease in costs. A savings that should lead to lower prices.
Look at the 33% and 50% sales on steam. Before the age of digital distribution. Those kinds of deep price cuts would have been impossible until years after a game was launched.

$60 a game has been a standard for a long time; and most gaming corporations are just that, corporations. They have to justify to shareholders why they have decreased the price of thier product. As such the idea of devaluing a product is just about the most alien thing in the world.

It's no mistake that two of the biggest developers (EA and ubi), in gaming, are the first to jump on the drm, always online permissions, client, cloud, etc bandwagon.

I think that Origin, Uplay, and any other clients I've missed (like diablo3's nonsense) Are a knee-jerk reaction to that idea of price reduction on products.

By creating thier own channels for distribution the products they offer.... They don't have to offer huge discount sales or lower the pricing of a game. There is also no competition with another companies product for your attention (no COD next to the other guys MW#3)... Plus, because you can't get the game anywhere else, if it requires online access to play. What all that translates to is YOU the consumer, are left with one option; to buy the game, at thier price-point, on thier terms....

[KaeYoss]

The game loader clients, like Origin, Uplay, Steam etc. don't really prevent prices dropping, at least not yet:

I have games that run with Origin, Uplay, Steam, I have Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Except for some stuff on Steam (mainly from their special deals), I bought them all in shops or ordered them from amazon. I got boxes and discs for those games.

For Diablo 3 I paid about 25% less for the box than the key would have cost me had I bought directly from blizzard. As long as they don't sell their games only via their own shops, the launcher clients won't allow them to dictate prices.

And even if they did, their monopoly would act like any other monopoly: Price and demand are linked. It's unlikely that many people will be willing to pay 60 bucks for a crappy, half-finished game, so they'd have to lower the price to maximise their profit.

Plus, the production cost for a game box (with disc, the usual minimal manual you get these days, etc) is probably less than 1€. They're not saving that much. Of course, they do save, but a lot of people still insist on the boxes (and that won't change until high-speed internet connections become more common).

It is, of course, clear that these draconian measures help nothing to prevent piracy, or, at best, help a lot less than they harm honest customers. They're not meant to prevent piracy. It's the same as those "You wouldn't steal a car!" things you get with original DVD and Blu-Ray videos (the ones you just edit out when you pirate the film, so only the honest customer is annoyed by them).

The real reason they're here is to show how poor these media companies are off. "Look at us, people pirate so many of our films and games. We are losing so much money. We have to do stuff like Uplay and these PSAs or we'd all be forced to turn tricks by now!" It pushes upon us the fact that there is such a thing as piracy again and again. So then, when they cut corners with games and raise prices, giving us less for more, we hopefully all know it's because those evil, evil pirates that force them to such desperate measures and won't raise a stink.

It's either that or admit that piracy isn't as much a problem as they claim and fight it the proper way: By delivering quality for reasonable prices.