Feedback -- Kinect 2 Rumors And The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword

CareyGrant

A bit of a one-sided argument on piracy; sure people will pirate out of protest, but I also know, personally, people who do nothing but pirate (and not because they can't pay--they have money, it just goes to things they can't pirate like food, rent, gas, clothes, etc). I also know people who will use any reason to justify why they pirate, like not liking box art.

As for Ubisoft's position, I see the argument differently. Tech savvy people know that DRM will get cracked PDQ once a game has been launched, and that not every pirated game is a sale lost. But you have to think like the non-savvy Investor or Shareholder who sees EVERY pirated copy as money lost, or a sale lost. And for publicly traded companies, making yourselves and your shareholders money is job one. It's the ONLY job: a reasonably rate of return for your investors, making video games is how they make that money. They could just as easily sell clock radios, it's the same thing, only their product is video games.

So when I see Ubisoft making this claim (along with their history on the matter, especially with DRM and the like) that they don't want to make a PC port, I hear the very loud voices of Shareholders and Investors who are demanding these things. They see figures about how many millions of times a game is torrented or pirated and then THEY light the fire under the publisher and developer to do something, anything about it.

For example, look at Witcher II. To date it's sold on the PC, what, around or over 1 million with physical and digital sales? That's great. But what's a shareholder or investor to think when they see estimates online that the game, which shipped without DRM, was torrented some 4.5 million times? Sure not every torrent is a lost sale, but for people who live and die by numbers and money, that's too big of a number to ignore.

So while we're quick to blame publisher and developers for these things, take a second and think about who it is that THEY answer to, and what they have to do to pacify shareholders and investors, or to attract more shareholders and investors.