Splinter Cell Conviction Officially Cracked

it's not as stealthy as the originals.
at some point, you HAVE to go face to face with the enemy. which i think defeats one of the fun aspects of the series..
ubisoft is not going to remove the DRM in my opinion..
they are pretty cocky

 

Why the hell they dont wake up and relaise that all you need to do is go back to providing a nice package - anyone remember the way older PC and Amiga games used to come....printed manuals, stuff you needed to play the game, tee shirts etc....make it a better buying experience (£40 for a cd in a plastic box with 2 bits of paper is crap), get the cost down and many will not bother with the pirates....

 

Remember those code wheels that came in the game box in the old days of 5.25" floppy diskette games? Or you had to find a specific word on a specific page of the manual to enter into the game to play? Those were great.

 

Yeah - the likes of Rocket Ranger and It came from the desert - and all those txt/graphic adventures that came with a box full of stuff (and half a dozen floppy disks !) those were the days when if you bought a game that came on 3 or more disks you knew it was going to be just great - now we install 9GB games and some are turkeys. Listen, yeah of course that wont make everyone who buys pirate copies change....but I bet it has an effect..(I bet Microsofts Combat Flight sim didnt get as hacked because it came with an uber manual etc) .I just think people see a game for £30-40 and dont see any value in getting an original. Steam is about the only way stuff will stop being hacked - but I guess the next post will say thats been done already.

 

Let's say you owned a bookstore and everyone kept reading the books inside the store instead of buying them.

Let's say you hired a team of "security officers" to prevent this from happening.

The similar result would be that the customers kicked the crap out of the security officers (both the legit customers and the ones taking advantage of you).

Now instead of giving up this tactic, you hire the same security group to bring in more officers and tougher ones... who once again get the crap kicked out of them by even tougher customers meanwhile the good customers are getting sick of being treated like a criminal.

The good customers are leaving for stores that aren't so stupid. The bad customers are beating the crap out of everything this security group has to offer.

You hire the same group AGAIN?

Why not account for the pirates, make the game annoying to copy (but not so intrusive) and add special and refreshing (optional) online content for those customers who DO buy it? You could even sell aftermarket perks...

Some bookstores take advantage of the fact people sit and read...
Want coffee with your reading? That'll be $5... thank you and enjoy reading the $5 book.

Want to multiplayer? You require a unique key that is tied to a login with personal information.
Want your weapon upgrade patch? its free but we require your login
Want the user-customizable level generator? We require your login and its also required to register it for use by your friends.
Want that nice matching sword to go with your armor? $3
Want to participate in the user-makes-a-deathmatch ring, we need your login and registered key...
Want that user-created deathmatch ring along with some new content? That'll be $9.
Want a discount on your purchase of "PROGRAM-TWO!" login with your PROGRAM-ONE! account today!

Oh look... we don't care if you pirated it at this point... and our paying customers think we are incredible as we don't abandon our work when we finish the release.

 

You hit the nail on the head my friend

 

What KernalPanic said is a little complicated, but it makes more sense than brute force DRM like UBI's. +1

I hate to be nickeled and dimed, but hey, it'd be optional content.

 

1. Private servers.
2. Pirates will release it for download. Somehow. I.E. search for "The Passing Left 4 Dead 2" in a torrent site.
3. Same as 2. Plus, most people will only care about downloading maps, not making them.
4. Same as 2... plus, its free!
5. 1 and 2 combined.
6. Same as 2... plus, its free!
7. Or just torrent it for free.

Sorry, but aside from 1 and maybe 5, I don't think those are good solutions.

They do improve the game, but they just wont stop (most) people from pirating.

I believe a good solution would be to think outside of the USA. Most torrent downloads come from outside the USA, though I'm not sure about this. Games are simply way overpriced in other countries, like in Europe, or worse yet like in Latino America.

Make PC gaming friendly. Stop releasing everything for Windows, and give more options. Be honest when selling PC's, too many people think an ATI 5450 is better than a 4870, because the number is greater.

Those are just my opinions, though. The fact is that the problem about piracy is horribly complicated, and a half-***** approach like DRM isn't going to fix that.

BTW IGN should just rate that game a big fat 0. What would you NotebookReview reviewers do if you got a review unit and it didn't even turn on? and when you approach the seller/manufacturer with the issue they just flash a middle finger at you?

 

SCC only has 4-5 hours of single player gameplay (google the SCC reviews). So in a way, the consumer is already being nickel and dimed, and screwed over.

 

Should they really be trying to stop piracy? I'm not saying that I condone illegal downloading, but surely the companies must realise that they are fighting a losing battle and enforcing such tough DRM is going to harm their honest paying customers (and sales) more than the pirates.

Blazin

 

Correct, but they will have to rewrite the entire game code to allow for two of the same key to work together and they still will not be able to connect and play with their friends that bought it.

The point is to stop the non-hardcore crowd, the truly hardcore isn't going to be stopped by these tactics, but frankly nothing is... and those people are not going to EVER buy the product either.

Oddly enough I know more than a few private server players pulled into the legit servers to play with friends.

Correct, but legit users will have it first and someone will still have to have a legit license to download it to the pirate sites and private servers. You can never make it impossible, but you can make it a pain in the backside for private server operators without too much hassle for official servers. For the hardcore pirates with nothing else to do but spite the devs, yeah they can pour their own time in without hope for compensation and indeed skirt this... but once again, these people will likely never be customers.

Again, legit users will have them first and since the devs can take a look too you actually create a working and living community of creation people. For games like Neverwinter Nights, the original game was frankly only the beginning of an absolutely amazing game as the user-generated content eventually blew the doors off of anything the devs ever made by themselves. The devs actually contributed add-ins to user-created content and took suggestions and helped make scripts and eventually full features to accomodate imaginative users. The end result was more content than you could shake a stick at and left even the most talented pirates behind as the dev-created features were released often. Truly the pirates were screwing themselves out of play time so they could save a few bucks...

So instead of paying someone $3 for the upgrade, you will spend how many hours playing cloak-and-dagger dodging malware? Oh, did I mention you cannot play with your legit friends who had it first? Eventally, the pirates will have it on their side of the fence too, but part of the fun is having it on the legit servers. Frankly, on the private servers I dont see why anyone would care as they all have fists that shoot lightning and insta-kill anyway... who cares about some artwork when you are too 1337 to even wear equipment?

Again, the legit users come first and get the content first, and can play with other legit people, which will be a larger group of people. Plus the pirates cannot participate in the legit contest without an account and will never see their design in lights except when they make their own private server. (really this is the devs playing the pirates' own weaknesses -pride- against them)

The point above is serving loyal paying customers. Eventually the hardcore will break the second as they did the first...

You can't stop pirates... its not possible without completely alienating yourself from your customers.
You CAN earn loyal paying customers.
You CAN eventually convince all but the most hardcore of pirates that the $50 they save themselves on a game by pirating isn't worth the work to bypass it.

After spending 4 hours to download and crack a $40 game, perhaps one of them might ask themselves if it was worth it... now ask that again years later after DAYS of your life wasted cracking content when you could have spent the total of $50 and actually played the game with all your legit friends? Now ask the admin of the private server who spent 10-20times the time you did...

Some pirates will do it because they can... and those will never stop.
The rest (and vast majority) just want to play an amazing game.
Make the game worth paying for and put your customers first and some pirates (and some might say the best) will simply buy the game out of respect. The ones you lose will never buy it anyway.

 

unfortunately mate that isn't really going to help, for example i spent a number of years in India where buying legit pc games is ridiculously cheap, IE around 1000 rps ($20us) for new releases, and i have heard that India is one of the biggest countries for pirating games etc.........because the mentality might be why pay 1000rps when i can get it for free......

bottom line is pirates are going to hack and companies are going to try and make DRM's to stop it, and this isn't going to change any time soon, which is why i buy a game if i want to, regardless of its DRM, i understand why the companies are doing it, so it doesn't bother me as it seems to some others....

 

I'm sure everyone will end up buying it if the price was 1$.

Obviously you wont have games like Crysis go for 1$ but my point is that most people who pirate do so because:
1. They don't want to spend 50$ or simply can't afford it.
2. They can, as you said. It is a illegal but there is no law enforcement; and even if there was it would be controversial.
3. Sadly, DRM.
4. All of them want to play an awesome game. Though I guess theres is a small group of people who pirate games only for pride or whatever.

It is true that all those features will certainly add a lot to the replay value of the game, and will certainly gain the respect of a lot of pirates, convincing them to actually buy the game... But ultimately for a lot of people, specially outside the USA, the game is still overpriced and piracy will always seem like the only choice available to play a game.

1. The point (I think) of a private server is that it doesn't require a client to have a unique CD-key. I doubt it would require an entire recode of the game. Hackers can be very capable... this is evidenced on the name of the topic. Poor Ubisoft. Private servers don't really matter anyway; if you pirate a game you don't do it for multiplayer. Only a few of the pirates know about private servers and how to enter one.

2. I'm not sure what do you talk about when you say casual pirates and hardcore pirates. If it is what I think, then I doubt casual pirates would care about not being able to get the game the same day it is released. In fact, a few games actually get uploaded to torrent sites by pirates before it's release date (it is leaked by someone inside the developer/publisher). Downloading mods and user content for pirated game is as easy as doing so for legit copies; unless it requires you to register the game in the publisher's website which would mean that the modding community would be concentrated and regulated by the publisher's network... no a wise thing to do, I think.

3. Pirated games having malware is a misconception. Where did you get that from? Pirated games can be as clean as legit copies; in fact, I would argue that they are cleaner because of the lack of intrusive DRM. Pirate downloaders know how to tell the difference between malwared torrents and reliable and clean torrents: if it has "leechs" without "seeds", the the torrent is broken or has a malware inside. Lots of seeds means the torrent is reliable for download and therefore you can go ahead and download it without any fear. People who pirate games don't play the malwared copies.

4. True, though "casual pirates" don't care about released dates or private servers; only "hardcore" pirates do, which are a minority. Honestly, games with very decent multiplayer don't have so many problems with piracy.

5. You are talking as if there was a significant amount of pirates who do mapping and modding. Mappers and modders are very important and respectable people, but they are few compared to the amount of people who only play the game. No one would ever think about getting fame or initiating their developer career with a pirated copy.

Again, the focus is on the vast majority of people who download or buy illegal copies: The "casual" pirate who simply use torrents to play awesome games, without knowing about private servers, and without aspirations to modding and mapping. How do you get them to stop downloading illegal copies? Your points are fine, they do make a game better with huge replay value that offers incentives to buy a game, but that is still not enough. IMO, the main reason people buy or download illegal copies is because they cant afford a 50$, and this is particularly true in countries outside the USA. There is a decent market in Latino America and publishers/developers should pursue it. Europeans are ditched with higher prices than in USA territories... and there is a LOT of people in Asia I think: Relic, the developer of Company Of Heroes and Dawn Of Wars knows this and they are going to release a separate free version of C.O.H. in China.

You CAN stop a lot of people from pirating, just not all of them (obviously). You just need to make games less expensive, especially in other countries.
Extremely hard, I know, but it should be turned into a very long project.

One last thing... pirating games isn't really that complicated. The steps are easy to follow and I bet you can find online tutorials to use Daemon Tools pretty easily. Spending 50$ might be easy, but a lot of people simply cant afford to do that.

Would that be the same here in America? maybe India is just a different culture. I don't know about them. Do they sell illegal copies and there is no law enforcement? What kind of games are you talking about? How does sales for Crysis compared to, say, Battlefield BC 2?

This is the first time I have ever heard that newly released PC games go for 20$ in India. It is hard to believe. If that is true, then someone should open a study to find how games sell in that country; it would be extremely to the game piracy debate, I think...

I spent the first 16 years of my life in Venezuela, and I didn't know I was purchasing an illegal copy the first time I bought a PC. Later it turns out there exist games that are sold in pretty boxes in some stores.... for like 20 times the price of a pirated copy. All my friends in Venezuela have decent pc's and we only played singleplayer games. Even with the horrible internet which would take 5 nights to download 4 GB, it was still better than purchasing an original copy (if you could find it) for like 150+ $. I did buy original games, but only when my father went to USA or by importing large amounts of stuff... and on the best games, of course (Doom 3, Half Life 2, etc.). Point is that we had decent pc's to play pirated games, which is silly, because games were too expensive. I'm sure our group was not the only one. Here in the USA I buy original games, though most games I play with a friend's copy.

 

I don't think it's so much people having a problem with understanding why companies use DRM. It is more that in Ubisoft's case, they have gone so far that it actually stops legit gamers from being able to play the game.. like for the first week that AC2 came out, some of the servers were down leaving the majority of legit players unable to play it!

And what if Ubisoft goes bust, or stops developing games that use this kind of DRM.. do you think that they are going to just keep the servers up and running? Unlikely.

I believe that Ubisoft will have to see a noticeable fall in sales before it warrants them releasing a patch to remove DRM.

Blazin

 

Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!

That is the reason people get so worked up over this (for good reason).

Blocking piracy is all well and good, but when it gets to the point of hindering legitimate uses it becomes an irritation.

 

mate what if half the companies with servers go bust, they will be in the same position, MW2 wouldnt keep servers running........and when BFBC2 was released there where a number of people that couldnt play the game due to errors/bugs so its not just Ubisoft that suffer from launch hick-ups many games suffer from them at launch as well.

Purlpo you said "Would that be the same here in America? maybe India is just a different culture. I don't know about them. Do they sell illegal copies and there is no law enforcement? What kind of games are you talking about? How does sales for Crysis compared to, say, Battlefield BC 2?

This is the first time I have ever heard that newly released PC games go for 20$ in India. It is hard to believe. If that is true, then someone should open a study to find how games sell in that country; it would be extremely to the game piracy debate, I think..."

well all the computer shops that i got my games from only had legitimate versions of the games (im talking about PC games here not 360 or ps3, they are more expensive), the most expensive game i saw there fullstop was 1300rps which is around $25, i also brought a number of games from ebay.in as well for example i got NFS shift (new) on release day for 899 rps..(less than $20)...and yes its legit i signed in used the code and can play both online and off line with my EA account.

i will mention that the packaging and booklets are much simpler, IE booklets are in black and white (glossy), and boxes are cardboard material rather than plastic..... i honestly believe there are two main reasons for games being cheaper..
1: the economy wage is lower
2: the amount of pirates in the country, because they are packaged cheaper and at a very reasonable price it encourages people to buy rather than steal.....but its a lost battle, my friend who still is over there brought CoD 4 and said there was only one server in India...

i would also like to note you can buy imported games in India which cost the same as you would pay in America....

heres a link to a ebay seller that i have used that sells new pc games..... note BFBC2 at 929 rps

 

Here, I've an idea!

Ubisoft should start releasing games with no DRM at all. Then trawl through Warez sites for people who are pirating the games, and hunt them down.

And then execute them.

Blammo! Problem's solved. Nobody would pirate the games anymore, because they're going to get iced. And paying customers have nothing to fear, plus don't suffer because there's no DRM.

How's that for a solution?

 

Solution: idiotic neighbor's unsecured wi-fi

 

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

 

Yes, but the difference here is if the MW2 servers went down, people would still be able to play the single player part.. sure most people may argue that the multiplayer is the best bit, however, the bottom line is that people can still play the game. If Ubisoft servers go down, people cannot play the game, at all. And it's not like players are just missing out on online multiplayer.. because there isn't any in AC2!

Blazin

 

You can afford a computer to play the game, but not the much cheaper game?
I do believe the games themselves overpriced, but let's stop kidding ourselves on the "cannot afford" point. If you cannot afford the game, then you likely cannot afford the computer either and perhaps you should be saving your money for food and rent and not bother with luxuries.

I have been penniless before... you sell the gaming computer and you pay rent and buy food and spend time looking for a job or bettering yourself and not playing games.

A casual pirate is the average joe who starts with only knowing how to read directions and for whom the pirating is simply another program they run or process the follow that allows them to get something without paying money for it. The concept of coding anything or even what hex or binary is would be a mystery for most of these pirates. This is the largest percentage of pirates.

A hardcore pirate is someone who knows the nuts and bolts and who writes pirate tools and software. He or she is intimately familiar with both computer hardware and code and likely is a programmer with extensive experience and/or training. These people make up the core of the pirates and are the source for most of the pirated code.

Some pirates donate part of their personal life for your benefit out of the goodness of their heart. Most do not. Expanding their botnet and influence is indeed part of many of their plans and "free software" is an all-too-lucrative method to get it done.
I've had to disinfect way too many peoples' computers after they downloaded their latest game to believe the average pirate is much more than an average user with an average understanding of malware. I also know for certain you are not only wrong but horrifyingly so.
Clean torrents do exist, so do infected ones... do not fool yourself or anyone else please.
This is an informational site. Maybe you are a malware-spotting genius... but the guy reading this might not be. If you touch those sites for any reason, I suggest you treat them as if they were dipped in sewage.

While I do not disagree on lowering prices... at one point you understand this is a traditional "blood from a turnip" arguement.
If you sell at $1... it fails to become worth the effort required for the sale. The packaging materials are worth more than $1 even humbly packaged. Nevermind making back your development costs and advertising costs. Online sales like Steam make a lot of sense, but even then its going to have a cost larger than $1.

I am sorry, this is bull. If the game is too expensive, then the computer to play it reasonably well on is also too expensive. The actual numerical price should vary by market and investment required to bring it to that market... but the same is true of the computers they are played on.

I am all for treating different markets differently, but one thing remains the same... the income from the sale must exceed the costs to create the product and distribute it.

While I agree lowering the price would help, I would rather a product that costs $50 that was worth the price than one that was $20 and barely a $20 effort.

I am well familiar with the processes... as it is usually described to me when I am delousing their computers. No it isn't complicated, but it does take time.
If you spend 10 hours downloading and installing/troubleshooting/delousing the cracked game, you gained $50 in product and lost 10 hours.
Net result = you paid yourself $5/hour.
A skilless worker makes more than that flipping burgers.
Nothing is free... you must take into account your time as well.

 

We're done here.

If I see these paper-shredding style posts again I'm going to give out infractions. In my years on forums, I have never seen a thread recover from that kind of posting. It does not get anyone anywhere and can derail the thread.