Recent comments from Ubisoft VP of digital publishing Chris Early indicate
Ubisoft has a newfound outlook on the impact of DRM on game sales, saying they
understand that this can lead to punishing paying customers while failing to
deter piracy as intended (thanks
The Escapist). This is in stark contrast to their historical outlook, which
led to the implementation of an
onerous
online DRM scheme several years ago that required a constant Internet
connection before this was relaxed. Chris explains their changed outlook on this
to
GameSpot:
What becomes key for us is making sure we're delivering an
experience to paying players that is quality. I don't want us in a position
where we're punishing a paying player for what a pirate can get around. Anything
is going to be able to be pirated given enough time and enough effort to get in
there. So the question becomes, what do we create as services, or as benefits,
and the quality of the game, that will just have people want to pay for it?
I think it's much more important for us to focus on making a great game and
delivering good services. The reality is, the more service there is in a game,
pirates don't get that," Early said. "So when it's a good game and there's good
services around it, you're incentivized to not pirate the game to get the full
experience.