Uplay bullshit strikes again

[PZ]

I'm playing the Ubi games, but that doesn't stop me from ranting about their practices.  My silent protest comes in the form of failing to be interested in their DLC, which often approaches the initial cost of the game.

They are shooting themselves in the foot going to the expensive DLC while ruining the main game experience for gamers like me.  Yes, they will get my initial dollars, but none of the worthless DLC which is simply a furthering of their awful main story line.

Yes, they are suckering me into purchasing the main game, but I can honestly say that I get what I feel my moneys worth in entertainment doing all the side stuff.  After all, I am one that has never completed a game to 100% anyway.

[Stiku]

Ubi does actually take on too big projects and then when the deadline hits, they just wrap things up tightly, no matter how screwed the endproduct will be. And that last update showed that they didn't do a proper briefing considering the released client was bugged.

As for the moneyhungry DLC's, they are nothing compared to the prices that are in the mobile world, where every game is almost pay-2-win, and 10$/10€/10£ for some everyday item that you need to actually play the game for 5 minutes. But it seems that the industry is heading this way, just because its a nice way to counter piracy from their point of view,but still ruining the game experience for the rest of the people who dont actually have the money to buy or don't need to buy everything that is sold for the game, ie. Saints Row franchise which has about 20 different DLC that are mostly costumes or new weapon skins for the player.

But all in all, I see constantly people hammering Ubi on their own forum and other places, even in the media there is a huge complaint waves going towards them, not just because of the bugs but the state that their support is in and the lack of participation towards the community. I would actually like to know, what kinda framework they are using towards customer, and as Art has pointed out, even their CEO cannot be trusted, as he promised that they will give support, participate more with the community, liveupdates but yet again, nothing has been posted in almost 2 months now regarding the issues that are affecting, only ones that are doing something are the community managers, and even they have their handsfull of crap, as they don't actually have any power over things, only express their frustration how Ubi is handling things.

and if you read this far, here is a cat

[PZ]

I'm probably less allergic to the cat than I am to Ubi  8-X

[Binnatics]

You call that a cat? I'd call it an angry pile of meat :-X

[nexor]

All their so called attempts to curb piracy is a load of horse......, it's just their way of making excuses  :o

Here in SA you can buy a pirate copy of virtually any game online within one month after release for a quarter of the price including courier cost  :-\\

The game is delivered to the Post Office of your choice within 48 hours after purchase    ::)
and the game plays without a hitch, any updates can be downloaded free from gamecopyworld.com
and the funny thing is, these guys advertise openly.
I initially bought FarCry from them, which wasn't a pirate copy, then I bought FarCry2, only after opening the package to install the game did I realize it was a pirate copy. I nevertheless installed and played the game, only months later did I find a genuine cope, bought it, uninstalled the pirate version and installed the genuine copy

[Art Blade]

nice cat, stiku :-D

[JRD]

nexor, same thing here in Rio. You can easily purchase pirate copies of virtually any game/software for a very low price in the streets. They advertise it openly and there is nothing being done to prevent that sort of black market. It is treated as a "popular market" as it features low (popular) prices for any merchandise like Mike sneakers ( :D  ::)  ) and all sorts of fake chinese material. Every now and then the local government will raid the place on a "counter piracy operation" just to pretend they are doing their part but it  all comes back to the same way it was in the next morning.

It makes me think of how much money the gaming industry has made during the last decade. It has been brought into discussion here that in times of recession and crisis, most families will cut down their leisure budget and postpone an overseas vacation with the kids, the brand new car or any extravagant display of wealth and may instead choose a more appropriate form of having some time off.... gaming. For "only" 60 bucks you can join an online match with your friends and spend a nice low cost weekend. It is during this recession and crisis that the gaming industry grew exponentially, bringing along a share of the computer industry who is pushing new technologies to power better looking games and consoles. They have never been so rich... and so greedy.

This anti-piracy bullshit is nothing but an excuse to justify extortion and to hook more and more players tieing them up to their companies. Want to actually fight piracy? Lower the prices of the games and make them more competitive. Release more and better free DLC, grow the official community by making an official game almost as cheap as a pirate game. Of course there are also local policies that doesn't help. Buying a game on a retail store in Brazil is suicide. I'd have to use my credit card and pay the game during 6 months with interest and would be payng two maybe three times the price you guys pay in US or Europe. But if the industry is that strong, than push politicians into creating more flexible regulations to make a product available where it has to be imported. It is not like a cheaper Ubi or EA  game in Brazil would take jobs from the gaming industry here simply because there is no gaming industry in Brazil so there is nothing to protect here.

[Stiku]

Before anybody says anything about piracy, I want to hear, if someone would take 40% of your salary per month by stealing it, wouldn't you raise your voice and try to do something about it?

[JRD]

Stiku, ok, that's one way of looking at things. But what if your employer says he's been stolen and so he will start charging you for the lunch he serves at the factory and you are gonna have to pay the paper you use in the printer and employees will share the electric bill because he has to make up for his stolen earnings?

I don't think that charging players and creating ridiculous ties like always online and paid DLC is the way to fight piracy. My point on my previous post is that the companies are now too greedy. Having billions of dollars of annual income allow them to control the market and so they can lower their prices to be more competitive with pirates but instead they turn their losses to us and we have to pay more to play less. By making official games more accessible they could get a fighting chance against pirates. But it means telling the investors their annual profit won't be as high and in the end this is just business and we are just the means to make them even richer.

[Stiku]

Customers are always the ones who pay for the losses, this isn't anything new, just basic groceries stores will actually make you pay for the stolen merchandise, though you haven't stolen anything.

Gaming industry actually works like any other industry out there, regarding its framework and policies.

And yes, I agree with you on the DLC and online parts, but as a industry gaming(and software development) is a new industry and doesn't actually have any standards or any rules that they follow widely, they are just finding their own place in the world and establish their own rules and groundwork.

If you want to know more, you can check more with keywords like "UML" and "SCRUM" on google to find in what kinda state the industry is in, and what they have to deal with when creating anything.

And note, I'm not defending them on the piracy problem, but merely saying that things aren't as plain as they may look like to us, and yes Ubi is cutting corners even worse than formula 1 cars on track.

[PZ]

Good points, all.  While I would not purchase pirated goods of any kind, I'm now not sorry for the game developers because of what they have decided to TRY to do to stem the piracy.

Before I was always sympathetic with the game developers, and now because their obvious greed has impacted the honest people more than dishonest, I actually don't mind the piracy attacks at all.  In fact, if they went out of business due to their greed, I'd find something else to occupy my time.

I don't have any sympathy at all, except of course, for the honest gamer fallen victim to the unmitigated greed exhibited by game development.

Like any dictatorship, the developers increasingly force their way of thinking on the gamer - they know best, and if you don't like it, tough $h!t.  I believe the game development businesses have the attitude someone once displayed when asked the question: "How much money is enough?"  answer: "One dollar more"

[mandru]

While game or other computer programming theft was not what I was referring to in my post earlier about the pirate storyline putting me off the AC series (and blowing the bastards out of the water while sitting in ports that knowingly harbor them) I do believe in ownership of intellectual property and the basic right to protect one's interests whether individual or corporate.

So I try to be sure that my purchases are from reputable sources and that my money spent is not funding criminal activity.  I would make do without if I knew that the materials I was buying was illicit.  If there wasn't money in it the criminals wouldn't waste their time engaged in software theft.


I remember the release of a video game (I believe it was the game Doom) that every convenience store and many check out registers of supermarkets had a box of discs right there at the point of purchase when you had your wallet out.  They were charging $5 under the marketing concept higher profits through massive sales volume.  I suspect that out of the $5 dollars charged the stores were being given a huge profit margin to encourage them to display the game in prominent locations and that seemed to be working for them because the game was available for sale everywhere.

The product was "in the can complete" so other than distribution there was no further expense for production and selling for so little that it would make little sense to try to steal it.  Not to mention that in those days when someone finished playing a game they could pass the disc off to someone else to enjoy.  So it would seem clear that lower initial cost and ease of access can prove to be a successful marketing strategy.


Wow, just had a flash back.  I remember my outrage at the old Atari 2600 business model where highly hyped new released games often cost as much as the $50 I'd payed for the gaming system even though they usually turned out to be over blown unplayable crap like the Superman or ET titles.  ::)

[PZ]

Here's a positive note:

Amid the myriad of issues that plagued Assassin's Creed Unity at launch, one of the most vexing was having to utilize both a mobile companion app and the online Assassin's Creed Initiates web service in order to unlock certain chests within the game. However, according to Ubisoft, both of those requirements have now been nixed in the game's latest patch.

Ubisoft confirmed via its Live Updates webpage that Patch 5 for Unity is now live for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions (the PC version should be getting the patch later in the week). The biggest change Patch 5 introduces is that players no longer need to unlock the blue and gold chests associated with the companion app and Initiates service. All of these chests have now been unlocked by default and players need simply find them and open them to collect their rewards. Players can still progress in the companion app if they want to, but doing so will no longer be required in order to unlock chests in Unity.

Patch 5 also fixes several issues that were affecting the "Find Leon" objective in the Dead Kings DLC expansion as well as the random crashes that were affecting some players playing the campaign and cooperative modes. The patch for the PC version will also include improvements for the game's stability, performance, and connectivity.

[Art Blade]

By the way, FC4 just came up with another 31.4MB download..

that must have been a teaser.

I am just downloading a FC4 update, 1.1GB

[PZ]

I did that one the other day on the PS4  :D

[Art Blade]

So UBI releases a 1.1GB patch for a DLC I'm not even going to get. WTF  >:((

The 1.9 Patch on PC is for the "Valley of the Yetis" DLC. There are no other patch notes. We'll get an thread up in the announcement forum soon now that we have confirmation from Live Ops that it's being rolled out.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/1026672-just-got-a-1-1-gig-patch-from-STEAM-games-is-1-9-0?p=10620645&viewfull=1#post10620645

[fragger]

This is why I'm staying away from Uplay whenever I play FC4. I'm happy with the way it runs at present and I don't want Ubi stuffing me around with their endless infernal patches. Plus that 1.1GB update would make a good hole in my monthly data allocation.

I'm playing FC4 strictly offline from now on

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, since I have it set up to run from a desktop shortcut with the intro movies skipped, I don't even know there is an update until someone mentions it. I'll update it at w@&k today and bring in my transfer drive tomorrow. Wonder what this Yeti DLC looks like? I don't really mind getting DLC if what you get is worth it. So far, they haven't been. Well, maybe the one, the new Hurk missions, but the escape prison one doesn't interest me too much, not for that price, and the other one was multiplayer only so I don't need that one at all.

[PZ]

That is absolutely ridiculous  :D

Ubi is assuming that everyone will fall to their knees thankful for the fact that the company is magnanimous enough to sell us all additional DLC.

Doing any kind of update for software you do not even own would be as outrageous as updating MS Office when I don't even have the suite.  Even Microsoft is not as outrageous as Ubishit

In the past I have normally purchased all the DLC when I like a game.  Although I have enjoyed AC5 and FC4, I have not purchased any additional DLC, mostly because I am so disgusted with the company