Ubisoft recently announced they weren't porting games onto the PC because of piracy. They claim that 90% of the players are playing pirated copies of their games which is ironic because when they implemented the always online DRM they claimed that it was working and helped their sales and that was the reason they kept their DRM. Who are Ubisoft anyways? They're a publisher that is known for their hatred for PC gamers and their use of draconian DRMs in their games. DRMs that break people's cd/dvd drives and other stupid shit making paying customers suffer. Why? All because of their irrational fear of pirates.
PC games must be completely horrible and a dying industry right? Everyone should stick to consoles! Nope. In fact PC games seems to be higher than ever right now. Especially with the release of games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. You don't see them whining that their games are being pirated. Why? Because they're still making money even after they got pirated. The problem isn't piracy itself, its if they can still make money. Its about turning pirates into potential buyers. Have you ever heard stories of pirates pirating a game then finding out that game is the best shit they ever played and decided to buy a real copy? Perhaps not now but later in the future for their future games? Yes you have because its not as uncommon as developers like to think.
To quote Gabe Newall, the co-founder of Valve and Steam:
"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.
Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe."
Full article can be found here.
That sounds familiar. Didn't my last post on piracy mention something like that? Oh yeah! CD Projeckt Red and Witcher 2. Guess what? Witcher 2 is the most pirated game in history because they don't have DRM and yet they managed to sell over a million copies. How? I thought no DRM means no profit because everyone would pirate it! Not everyone is a cheap ass. People want to support you guys but when you make it hard for them they don't. Your DRM encourages pirating. The problem isn't to stop people from playing your game for free, the goal is to make money in the end isn't it? Would crazy ass DRM really help?
Look at GoG, a niche digital distribution company like Steam except for one distinction. THERE ARE NO DRM FOR ANY OF THEIR GAMES. Re-read that a couple of times. Read it again. Done yet? Ok one more time. THERE ARE NO DRM FOR ANY OF THEIR GAMES. Now you're probably going HOLY SHIT NO DRM THEY MUST HAVE FUCKED UP THE ENTIRE GAME INDUSTRY THEN PEOPLE WOULD BUY A COPY AND PUT IT UP ON TORRENTS FOR EVERYONE. Yes they do, but guess what? Its successful. They sell old games for cheap without DRM but now more and more developers want to put their newer games up there for sale as well and they had to change their policy of selling old games. Games like the Witcher 2 were on there and was the first to get pirated but it didn't hurt their sales. Infact CD Projekt Red said they were swimming in money and is able to take more risks on new games.
How were they a success? They didn't have DRM they have the highest piracy rate ever in history yet they're making money. How do they do it? They are very dedicated to their fans. They take what they say to heart and change things based on popular opinion. They said DRM was lowering frame rates? Fuck it take it out. Shit was unbalanced and make the game less challenging? Fuck change it. There was not enough content? Fuck it more free DLCs.
According to GoG.
"If you make the whole gaming experience more complicated and more frustrating for people who buy the game; if it's easier to play a game that is pirated because they removed all the technical restraints, then I think there is a big issue on the plate now. It should be easier to play a game that you bought legally than play a game that you pirated."
You hear that Ubisoft? Maybe your game sucks thats why its failing. No other company seems to be having a problem. The biggest mistake that developers are making are that they refuse to let anyone play their game for free. Why do they get to play it for free for the time and money we spent in making this? Thats why there are no demos because they don't like to give shit out for free. Instead of trying to find a way for people to not play your game, why don't you find a way for people to pay for your game instead? You know how many games are now Free-to-Play these days? That concept single handedly killed the majority of piracy in Asian countries where piracy rates were skyrocketing.
Because people are able to play a game they can decide if they want to pay for the full game or for other content. Its something that works and is proven to work. PC gaming right now is shifting and Ubisoft is one of those that refuse to change. It will be one of those that will eventually collapse and fall because of their stubborness and they won't be missed. Another company will rise and take their place. The PC game industry is growing at an alarming rate afterall. Its at an all time high right now. Some companies just can't see it.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/
"In fact, the decline of sales even calls into question the decline in piracy rates."
Your games are so bad even pirates don't want to touch it.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Bloodline Champions - How to ruin a perfectly balanced game with greed
I played this game when it was in beta. I don't know how or why I got an invite but I found one in my email one day and I was like lets give it a shot. They called themselves an Arena game where everything is skill based with no levels or luck involved. The game wasn't bad. There was 16 champions for you to pick. There are four champions for each role which are Healer, Tank, Melee, Ranged. Healers don't deal a lot of damage and they can heal. Tank don't do a lot but they can take a lot of punishment as well as have a lot of disables at their disposal. Melee deals a lot of damage but they have to get close to deal it. Ranged have paper thin defense but can deal the damage melee does from a distance. Some champions are more offensive some are more mobile they are all different and they are very fun.
Its an Arena type Moba. In other words, imagine dota without the lanes the farming the towers the shopping. Strip it down to its bare bones and put champions inside an arena with 3v3 to 5v5 fights. There are no levels, there are no RNG. Everything is skill shot based, in other words everything must be aimed. You can miss a heal, you can miss a melee swing, and you can even block a player from reaching your ally by standing in front of them. Its fun going into a game and immediately starting the action rather than farming for 30 minutes like other Mobas. You just jump right in and fight to the death. Rounds are short. If the rounds get dragged on too long sudden death starts and the map gets smaller and smaller and everyone standing outside the shrinking map instantly dies. The game was balanced, the game was fun. Then beta ended and I stopped playing the game.
An year later I decide to check out where the game has gone. What the fuck happened I have to ask. How do you ruin a game like this? When the game came out it was a 1 champion per role rotation per week. Which was pretty dumb because everyone plays the same shit every game. You can unlock champions with real money or the in game currency. The in game currency can also be used to buy skins, titles, avatars, and even gender swapped champions. After I came back I noticed that all those are changed to real cash only. The only thing you can buy with in game currency is the champions themselves. Then they added a new system where you can buy and unlock permanent stat boosts. Wait but I thought the game was all skill based and not about RNG and levels and other shit? Yeah thats what they claimed but after realizing they don't earn enough money from shitty skins they adapted to pay to win.
When I jumped into the game I found that people were going around 2 shotting me because I don't have any of the stats. Thats bullshit. And looking around I found they completely killed any reason to make custom games. Using the automatic matchmaker gives you bonus in game currency for every game you play. But this automatic matchmaker is bad at balancing anything. You can have a couple brand new rank 1 players match up against a whole team of veteran rank 15 players who played for an year. You will get demolished. Custom games let you balance the team yourselves so people who are new to the game can set up games to play only newbies. However there is no incentive to make custom games and I see 0 games in there when I check. Which is ironic because back in beta no one used the automatic matchmaker because it was slow as shit and every game was custom.
Then I did some research, looked around, listen to what people say about the game and I realized the game is dying. Not just me but everyone knew the game was dying. New players jump into the game and get slaughtered by veterans. Its a pay to win game so theres basically no way for them to learn anything. Its still 1 champion per role every week so they can never try to see what they like. Rotation systems are retarded. Why milk money out of them buying champions or playing a billion games to unlock a champion? It does nothing but piss off new players and make them want to play the game less. Theres no custom games you don't know who is a noob and where to learn and practice. Basically its a noobie unfriendly game. Its worse than Dota where if you jump into a game and turned out to be a noobie everyone will flame you and banlist you with an illegal wc3 program locking you out from any dota game hosted with that program. Somehow Bloodline Champions went from a decent well balanced game where you can join a game and finish in a couple of minutes into a boring noobie unfriendly unbalanced piece of shit. All in the name of making more money.
The best part is that there were more people playing in the closed beta than the free to play release of the game after 1 year. Maybe thats not true but it definitely feels like there are less people playing. Perhaps the community was more vocal because there were less of us. Perhaps without custom games you can't really judge how many games are being hosted and how many people are playing. The UI is bad as ever outside of the game. The lobby is a terrible mash of garbage on your screen. You would think it would be the first thing they fix after beta. Its the first thing new players see and if they can't even navigate it then what are the chances they'll keep playing after joining automatic matchmaking game and getting their shit fucked up the ass? First impressions are lasting impressions. They also have the worst friend/chat/party system with horrible chatrooms that open up to nowhere when you are in a party and having random people sitting in a lobby while they are in a game and party systems where you are not even sure you're in a party or not. Its a guessing game. During beta it was acceptable because we gave feedback on its shittyness. Guess it wasn't enough to get them to change.
Way to go Funcom. Lets milk as much money as possible and alienate new players. Thats going to help make more money because who needs new players right!? The existing players will keep playing and paying forever for new shit right? Thats why the game is successful right? Its alright Funcom, we know you're greedy. Just keep staying delusional and do nothing about this game.
Its an Arena type Moba. In other words, imagine dota without the lanes the farming the towers the shopping. Strip it down to its bare bones and put champions inside an arena with 3v3 to 5v5 fights. There are no levels, there are no RNG. Everything is skill shot based, in other words everything must be aimed. You can miss a heal, you can miss a melee swing, and you can even block a player from reaching your ally by standing in front of them. Its fun going into a game and immediately starting the action rather than farming for 30 minutes like other Mobas. You just jump right in and fight to the death. Rounds are short. If the rounds get dragged on too long sudden death starts and the map gets smaller and smaller and everyone standing outside the shrinking map instantly dies. The game was balanced, the game was fun. Then beta ended and I stopped playing the game.
An year later I decide to check out where the game has gone. What the fuck happened I have to ask. How do you ruin a game like this? When the game came out it was a 1 champion per role rotation per week. Which was pretty dumb because everyone plays the same shit every game. You can unlock champions with real money or the in game currency. The in game currency can also be used to buy skins, titles, avatars, and even gender swapped champions. After I came back I noticed that all those are changed to real cash only. The only thing you can buy with in game currency is the champions themselves. Then they added a new system where you can buy and unlock permanent stat boosts. Wait but I thought the game was all skill based and not about RNG and levels and other shit? Yeah thats what they claimed but after realizing they don't earn enough money from shitty skins they adapted to pay to win.
When I jumped into the game I found that people were going around 2 shotting me because I don't have any of the stats. Thats bullshit. And looking around I found they completely killed any reason to make custom games. Using the automatic matchmaker gives you bonus in game currency for every game you play. But this automatic matchmaker is bad at balancing anything. You can have a couple brand new rank 1 players match up against a whole team of veteran rank 15 players who played for an year. You will get demolished. Custom games let you balance the team yourselves so people who are new to the game can set up games to play only newbies. However there is no incentive to make custom games and I see 0 games in there when I check. Which is ironic because back in beta no one used the automatic matchmaker because it was slow as shit and every game was custom.
Then I did some research, looked around, listen to what people say about the game and I realized the game is dying. Not just me but everyone knew the game was dying. New players jump into the game and get slaughtered by veterans. Its a pay to win game so theres basically no way for them to learn anything. Its still 1 champion per role every week so they can never try to see what they like. Rotation systems are retarded. Why milk money out of them buying champions or playing a billion games to unlock a champion? It does nothing but piss off new players and make them want to play the game less. Theres no custom games you don't know who is a noob and where to learn and practice. Basically its a noobie unfriendly game. Its worse than Dota where if you jump into a game and turned out to be a noobie everyone will flame you and banlist you with an illegal wc3 program locking you out from any dota game hosted with that program. Somehow Bloodline Champions went from a decent well balanced game where you can join a game and finish in a couple of minutes into a boring noobie unfriendly unbalanced piece of shit. All in the name of making more money.
The best part is that there were more people playing in the closed beta than the free to play release of the game after 1 year. Maybe thats not true but it definitely feels like there are less people playing. Perhaps the community was more vocal because there were less of us. Perhaps without custom games you can't really judge how many games are being hosted and how many people are playing. The UI is bad as ever outside of the game. The lobby is a terrible mash of garbage on your screen. You would think it would be the first thing they fix after beta. Its the first thing new players see and if they can't even navigate it then what are the chances they'll keep playing after joining automatic matchmaking game and getting their shit fucked up the ass? First impressions are lasting impressions. They also have the worst friend/chat/party system with horrible chatrooms that open up to nowhere when you are in a party and having random people sitting in a lobby while they are in a game and party systems where you are not even sure you're in a party or not. Its a guessing game. During beta it was acceptable because we gave feedback on its shittyness. Guess it wasn't enough to get them to change.
Way to go Funcom. Lets milk as much money as possible and alienate new players. Thats going to help make more money because who needs new players right!? The existing players will keep playing and paying forever for new shit right? Thats why the game is successful right? Its alright Funcom, we know you're greedy. Just keep staying delusional and do nothing about this game.
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