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Lol @ Ubifail for making a loss last fiscal year. Not actually blaming piracy or a dead PC market for games, though. They're blaming the world-recession. O_o
linky
Well, do we have statistics for other companies? The recession thing IS a pretty good reason to not make the returns they expected.
And if they didn't mention piracy, why are you?
Post edited May 23, 2010 by Gundato
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Lone3wolf: They're blaming the world-recession. O_o
just like my supplementary pension fund in last year
So... PC!!!!111!!!!!11!!!!... You know this poses more questions for me than you're actually asking.
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Gundato: And if they didn't mention piracy, why are you?

Because they blame everything on Piracy. They blamed the poor sales of Prince of Persia on piracy because it was DRM free. Now they have the DRM they wanted and sales are still poor. So it must be the recession. It cant be that the games are poor and people don't like their DRM. The PC is impossible to make money from obviously, thats why Sega, Konami and Square-Enix have bought into it.
Maybe they're not blaming piracy because it'd leave them open to "Well your new DRM system is totally FUBAR and no-one would really want to pirate such crap anyway." or somesuch.
It is rather convenient to use the recession as an excuse....Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. I just find it amusing they didn't mention piracy at all, given previous stances on it being a major influence on loss and need for ever-intrusive DRM schemes. :\ (at least in that brief report it's not mentioned....)
But that's just me, it seems.
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Gundato: Well, do we have statistics for other companies? The recession thing IS a pretty good reason to not make the returns they expected.

I was actually reading that the major reason for StarCraft becoming so popular, and just about selling half the units (world wide) in South Korea was because they were going through a recession.
This whole thing that economists report about lower consumer confidence and spending, pfft. Yes, we're not buying new houses/cars/big ticket items during a financial crisis, but how many people are staying home doing nothing but save money?
Doubtless many a laid off worker will be drinking away their life savings, or students with a bleak outlook doing dru.. playing video games. And so on.
My source is issue #178 of PC PowerPlay, if there's an online source, I don't know and I'm too lazy.
And an uproar of laughter directed at Ubifail. Nice DRM there guys, worked a treat.
Post edited May 23, 2010 by Shalgroth
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Gundato: And if they didn't mention piracy, why are you?
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Delixe: Because they blame everything on Piracy. They blamed the poor sales of Prince of Persia on piracy because it was DRM free. Now they have the DRM they wanted and sales are still poor. So it must be the recession. It cant be that the games are poor and people don't like their DRM. The PC is impossible to make money from obviously, thats why Sega, Konami and Square-Enix have bought into it.

Again, do we have the sales figures for Valve/Steam and EA? Valve have pretty much been all about the DRM for a long time now. EA are pushing similar DRMs for the purpose of C&C and a few other games, but also pushing a different DRM model for the games I actually want (Dragon Age and ME2 :p).
Activision/Blizzard are pushing the same DRM model for Starcraft 2.
Just saying, DRM might not be the only deciding factor here. Especially considering that, of everyone I talked to (yay, availability heuristics) who actually PLAYED AC2 and SC:Conviction, the games were pretty fun. Maybe not exactly what they were looking for, but fun games.
There is a lot more to this than "Ha, the people I don't like aren't doing well. I am going to assume that everyone hates them for the exact reason I do". But, then again, realizing this wouldn't lead to a "fun" conversation where we all preach to people with the same opinions about how the opinion we all believe is correct :p
And Shalgroth: You are right, to an extent. The recession has actually been great for video games, to an extent. People have decided that buying a 50 dollar game is likely to have at least 10 hours of entertainment, which makes it roughly the same value as five movies (assuming 10 dollar tickets and 2 hour movies). More when you factor in replay. So while the recession is better for video games than movies and theme parks and the like, that doesn't necessarily mean it is good for it. A larger market share is great, but not if the market itself is smaller. And a smaller market will hurt the larger companies (like Ubi :p).
Either way, it could easily be argued that the games Ubi released just weren't what people were looking for. Activision did great with MW2 because people wanted a nice multiplayer shooter. Maybe people weren't interested in singleplayer adventures like Assassin's Creed 2 or SC: Conviction. People might value multiplayer games more than singleplayer games right now. And that is all without talking about the DRM, which only impacts the "hardcore" gamers who actually knew about it (it affects more, but that will be next fiscal year).
That is why it would be nice to have more information before we assume that we have all the facts and are more qualified than the PR guys to comment on this (yes, that was intentional :p).
I also find it funny how everyone here is cheering that one of the major PC publishers/developers is doing poorly. You would think we would want PC gaming to do well, but maybe that is just me.
There is no emotion purer than spite. Because while someone might say they do something out of love, they likely have ulterior motives. But if someone admits they are doing something out of spite, they are probably telling the truth :p
Ubisoft's blaming list:
1)Pirates
2)hackers
3) God of War
4)Hardcore gamers and critics
5economic crysis
Did I forget something?
Post edited May 23, 2010 by Tantrix
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Tantrix: Ubisoft's blaming list:
Did I forget something?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFOAVVo9zQI
and Greece's fiscal crisis
Post edited May 23, 2010 by lackoo1111
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Gundato: I also find it funny how everyone here is cheering that one of the major PC publishers/developers is doing poorly. You would think we would want PC gaming to do well, but maybe that is just me.
There is no emotion purer than spite. Because while someone might say they do something out of love, they likely have ulterior motives. But if someone admits they are doing something out of spite, they are probably telling the truth :p

What we are not allowed to enjoy some 'I told you so time?'. If a company wants to treat it's own customers as criminals and then suffers in sales because of it then we can't celebrate?
Prince of Persia: Shallow
HAWX: Shallow
Conviction: Shallow
Wow noticing a pattern here? Lazy development should result in poor sales and a publisher in financial trouble. Thats how a perfect world works.
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Gundato: I also find it funny how everyone here is cheering that one of the major PC publishers/developers is doing poorly. You would think we would want PC gaming to do well, but maybe that is just me.
There is no emotion purer than spite. Because while someone might say they do something out of love, they likely have ulterior motives. But if someone admits they are doing something out of spite, they are probably telling the truth :p
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Delixe: What we are not allowed to enjoy some 'I told you so time?'. If a company wants to treat it's own customers as criminals and then suffers in sales because of it then we can't celebrate?
Prince of Persia: Shallow
HAWX: Shallow
Conviction: Shallow
Wow noticing a pattern here? Lazy development should result in poor sales and a publisher in financial trouble. Thats how a perfect world works.

Prince of Persia: more than shallow, it removed the need for skill and killed off all reward as a result. The combat sucked and was terrible compared to the combat of old. The whole experience felt dumbed down, simplified and given training wheels.
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Delixe: What we are not allowed to enjoy some 'I told you so time?'. If a company wants to treat it's own customers as criminals and then suffers in sales because of it then we can't celebrate?
Prince of Persia: Shallow
HAWX: Shallow
Conviction: Shallow
Wow noticing a pattern here? Lazy development should result in poor sales and a publisher in financial trouble. Thats how a perfect world works.
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Red_Avatar: Prince of Persia: more than shallow, it removed the need for skill and killed off all reward as a result. The combat sucked and was terrible compared to the combat of old. The whole experience felt dumbed down, simplified and given training wheels.

On a positive side note, that would make people like Warrior Within more.
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Tantrix: On a positive side note, that would make people like Warrior Within more.

I really wonder how can that be positive? :)
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Tantrix: On a positive side note, that would make people like Warrior Within more.
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Titanium: I really wonder how can that be positive? :)

It comes hopefully to GoG along Cold Fear and Chaos Theory :)