Ubisoft: PC Piracy Rate 93-95%

[thespyder]

Developers make sorry games = pirated, people do not pay for crap products.

Developers make quality games = bought, people are willing to buy a good product.

How many records did diablo iii set? What about left 4 dead 2? How many people are paying for world of warcraft every month?

Three problems.

1) developers take "all games" and calculate a projected piracy rate from that. So mediocre games that get pirated a lot factor into the overall. And games that don't sell as well as developers think they should also get calculated into the pot.

2) The argument is biased towards supporting the FTP (or pay to win) model because it is seen that this is a great way to bilk, ahem, earn more money from consumers (apparently with less cost outlay according to the article).

3) Diablo III was crap, yet still sold like gangbusters.

 

[cl-scott]

I really don't get it. If the piracy rates are as bad as they claim, then why are they still making PC games? It doesn't make any business sense. There's something else at play here, be it just another executive divorced from reality, or something more sinister like laying the groundwork for DRM that makes prostate exams seem about as invasive as using a tongue depressor I don't know, but no one would stay in a market if they were only making money off of less than 10% of "customers".

That said, since the Prince of Persia trilogy way back when, I can't think of a single Ubisoft game I've really cared about. Assassin's Creed, being kind of the spiritual successor to PoP, just hasn't really done it for me. Combat is too slow and repetitive, the plot is too convoluted, and a number of other little gripes that really are besides the point here.

 

[PowerYoga]

To be fair, assassin's creed was good. Then they decided they wanted to make online DRM mandatory, and if your internet hiccups you lose your game progress.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Piracy in Denmark was estimated to 25%. And we are some of those that pirate most sw in the world. Far far from 9x%.

 

[darkewaffle]

Well, CDPR said Witcher 2 was pirated 4.5M times and sold 1M copies as of about last November. What exactly constitutes "pirated" is unknown of course, but thats about 80% piracy on a pretty critically acclaimed title with no DRM from a company that people actually tend to like.

 

[mindcycle]

I find the article (un)surprisingly lacking in actual facts to support conclusions. The conclusions are clearly designed to support the business proposal to do more FTP games. But I don't see any actual facts supporting the stance.

For instance, the 95% figure may be based on projected or anticipated sales. Which may in turn be based on unrealistic market expectations. it may also encompass after market sales (being considered as pirated) and/or a set cost per unit ( which doesn't translate across markets). And I am sure that it is broad market, rather than focusing on any individual territory or demographic. For instance, the assumption that if country A buys 100 copies, that all countries are anticipated as buying at least 100 copies and other such spurious concepts. Even then the number seems extremely high.

But then again, with the complete lack of actual hard figures, it is pretty clear that this is a marketing ploy to make a business case for FTP. If they were required to nail down their assumptions, I am sure that quite a lot of them would be, if not wholly inaccurate, at least greatly exaggerated. It's a typical marketing game.

I agree. if he's going to make such a bold claim he should at least provide some sort of research to back it up. This is the exact claim that was used as reasoning to start the whole "always online" DRM, yet, to date, no hard evidence has been provided to back up this 95% piracy claim. I call BS.

I stopped supporting UbiShit a long time ago when their always online DRM was introduced. I'd love to change my mind about them but just about every PR statement they make concerning DRM and piracy is absolutely retarded.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Actually in several countries 60-80% is the norm. With such crappy drm 95% sounds right.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

It is disheartening to see them say this since I thought they were the clear winners of E3. This just proves to me that they don't get it, either. You know what 93-95% of my PC game rate is? Steam.

Guess that makes me a pirate, huh assholes?

 

[Anteaus]

Steam disagrees.

This. Statistics don't lie. They are painting a picture without offering any sort of context. The volume of PC game sales in brick and mortar stores has been continously dropping for awhile now while digital distributed games have skyrocketed. If Ubisoft is comparing brick and mortar sales to piracy rates, then yes their numbers start to make sense because the ratio of piracy per volume skews heavily due to decreased sales.

What they don't say, because digital sales are still not taken into account in retail, is that PC gaming is actually increasing in popularity and the total volume of legal sales has increased dramatically in correlation with the success of Steam as well as (love or hate them) Origin, Amazon, GOG and Impulse. In this light, the ratio of piracy versus total sales is much lower than people think.

 

[Fallen Kell]

TBH i dont even know what games ubisoft makes.

which makes me LOL

Only things I can think of are the Assassin's Creed games, but those are console games with a PC port (then again, what isn't anymore....)

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Splinter cell series. Rainbow series.

 

[thespyder]

This. Statistics don't lie. They are painting a picture without offering any sort of context. The volume of PC game sales in brick and mortar stores has been continously dropping for awhile now while digital distributed games have skyrocketed. If Ubisoft is comparing brick and mortar sales to piracy rates, then yes their numbers start to make sense because the ratio of piracy per volume skews heavily due to decreased sales.

What they don't say, because digital sales are still not taken into account in retail, is that PC gaming is actually increasing in popularity and the total volume of legal sales has increased dramatically in correlation with the success of Steam as well as (love or hate them) Origin, Amazon, GOG and Impulse. In this light, the ratio of piracy versus total sales is much lower than people think.

The point is they are not giving any context or what any of their assumptions are. they are giving absolutely no supporting criteria. And they don't want too. Because, I am sure that if anyone looked too closely at the numbers, they wouldn't add up. Oh, I have no doubt that someone could "Make" them add up. But not in a way that any sane person would accept.

But they want to make a case for F2P, so they are in the only way they know how.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Rayman is UbiSoft.

PC gaming had record sales numbers for a couple quarters in the last year or so. They are full of shit.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Who needs to pirate games when they are $5.00 on Steam. Seriously?

 

[Lonyo]

Rayman is UbiSoft.

PC gaming had record sales numbers for a couple quarters in the last year or so. They are full of shit.

I would have said no, but then my counter argument was that their games are full of shit, which is effectively them being full of shit.

They might (somehow) be seeing 93% piracy rates, but other people are seeing growth in sales, so maybe piracy isn't the issue. Maybe their product is the issue.

HTC in phones have seen a MASSIVE drop in sales. Do they blame piracy? No, they blame the fact their phones aren't as good as the competition.
Ubisoft blame piracy as the reason people don't pay for their shit. Maybe people don't pay for their shit because it's shit.

 

[cmdrdredd]

They're trying to push a F2P or Pay 2 Win agenda.

 

[RussianSensation]

He was referring the piracy rate for Ubisoft games ONLY, not PC games overall. Regardless, I think he has wrong info since many people buy Ubi games and then torrent a copy to actually play offline.

"Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has told Gamesindustry International that paying players for its PC retail games and its free-to-play products are roughly equivalent. The executive said about 5 to 7 percent of free-to-play gamers purchase content from its games, which he claimed is about the same as paying users for its PC games, given a "93-95 percent piracy rate." ~ Gamespot

Plus, it's so hard to track accurate PC sales now since the numbers for digital copies sold aren't released. For example, when PC games sold at retail/brick and mortar stores and were fully counted, Myst sold 8 million copies and HL1 sold 7.85 million.

Where did all those PC gamers go? Nowhere, they are just buying PC games online now, not at retail so it looks like they all just disappeared.

 

[StinkyPinky]

LOL. Didn't Skyrim sell like 3 million units in a month on the PC? So without the rampant piracy that would equate to about 100 million units?

 

[thespyder]

They might (somehow) be seeing 93% piracy rates, but other people are seeing growth in sales, so maybe piracy isn't the issue. Maybe their product is the issue.

I'd bet this is the case. That they are actually seeing both profits and increase in sales. But they are not seeing all of the sales that they THINK they should get. And so are putting that down to Lost sales. or in their terms "Piracy". To companies like Ubisoft and EA, Lost Sales is synonymous with Piracy.

I am all for a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, but come on.

Also, again. They are trying to push the Pay to Win model. And are stacking the deck such that people who don't think will merely say "Yep, that's the way to go."

 

[Arkadrel]

Who needs to pirate games when they are $5.00 on Steam. Seriously?

^ this.

Price => alot people dont bother anymore with piracy.
Same thing with movies

My dad reguardly comes home with a new DVD movie.
When I ask him why? its typically something like it was "its a good movie, it was really cheap".

Im gonna go out on a limb and claim that price effects how many % pirate your game/movie.
Sometimes Id be willing to bet, that if you lowered prices, the extra units sold would be more profitable than selling less at higher prices.

Also like others have said, no one pirates online multiplayer games.
Dont like piracy? dont make singleplayer games that cost a fortune and you probably wont have any issues with it.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Most of my friends pirate single player games.

Im the same unless its a great deal or something I really enjoy. Although I got Mass Effect 1 and 2 legally, the DRM was a pile of fucking bullshit for Mass Effect 1 that I had to get a refund for ($5) because it didnt work at all and ended up downloading it. That said, I bought Mass Effect 2 ($5) and Mass Effect 3 ($60) and I dont regret it.

 

[mindcycle]

I'd bet this is the case. That they are actually seeing both profits and increase in sales. But they are not seeing all of the sales that they THINK they should get. And so are putting that down to Lost sales. or in their terms "Piracy". To companies like Ubisoft and EA, Lost Sales is synonymous with Piracy.

Yeah, exactly. It's a ridiculous and extremely inaccurate way to view loss of sales to piracy. We need to deal in facts, not made up BS statistics with no evidence to back them up.

I am all for a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, but come on.

Also, again. They are trying to push the Pay to Win model. And are stacking the deck such that people who don't think will merely say "Yep, that's the way to go."

You're probably right about this. Piracy is always used as a scapegoat in one form or another. EA pretty much said the same thing when they first starting pushing the whole pay to win thing.

For me it just means a lot fewer games for me to give a shit about really, so i'm generally ok with it, haha. I have very limited time for gaming as it is so no big loss really.

 

[WiseUp216]

Hardcore PC gamers also tend to have more disposable income than console-only players (i.e. younger).

Not to get too off-topic, but does Steam release any types of sales figures? I know they're a private company so I'm guessing public sales data is limited.


Edit: Nevermind, I googled it. http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/steam-sales-increase-100-percent-for-the-seventh-straight-year/

Doesn't sound like piracy is hurting them at all!

 

[crownjules]

I don't understand why digital sales aren't counted. You think it would be easier to track than B&M sales.

 

[thespyder]

For me it just means a lot fewer games for me to give a shit about really, so i'm generally ok with it, haha. I have very limited time for gaming as it is so no big loss really.

I too have a limited amount of time for gaming. So I really want my new game purchases to actually be fun and not frustrating. It's a shame that i have to keep going back to the old stand by's like Baldur's Gate and GalCiv2.

Hardcore PC gamers also tend to have more disposable income than console-only players (i.e. younger).

Individual Hard core PC gamers do indeed have a tendency to have more disposable cash than their more casual counterparts (console or otherwise). Unfortunately, there are a WHOLE LOT More of the casual breed than the hard core. So they tend to get catered too more often than the Hard Core.

big companies are going for the widest distribution possible. And tailor their games towards the largest demographic, not the individual with the most cash.

Which is why "Pay to win" is so popular. It means that, for a little extra cash, casual gamers can out-strip more traditional gamer methods. And the more casual gamers are less astute and rigorous about the cash they spend. All to the Publisher's benefit.