I Am Alive PC version 'not worth it' due to piracy concerns
Ubisoft's intriguing downloadable title, I Am Alive, is unlikely to find a PC release. Comments made by the game's creative director, Stanislas Mettra, are likely to continue the growing rift between Ubisoft and the PC gaming community.
Ubisoft's intriguing downloadable title, I Am Alive, is unlikely to find a PC release. Comments made by the game's creative director, Stanislas Mettra, are likely to continue the growing rift between Ubisoft and the PC gaming community.
According to Mettra, a PC release wouldn't be viable. "It's hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it," he said.
Mettra questions if the people vocal about the game's absence on the platform would even bother buying the game, or if they're protesting on the sake of principle. "Are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it?," he posited to IncGamers (via Eurogamer).
Ubisoft has drawn ire from hardcore PC gamers because of repeated high-profile delays and DRM snafus. I Am Alive's absence on the platform will likely continue to tarnish the company's reputation.
"Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC," Mettra noted. "It’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it."
I Am Alive is currently slated for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this winter.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, I Am Alive PC version 'not worth it' due to piracy concerns.
Ubisoft's intriguing downloadable title, I Am Alive, is unlikely to find a PC release. Comments made by the game's creative director, Stanislas Mettra, are likely to continue the growing rift between Ubisoft and the PC gaming community.-
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Yeah exactly, this piracy band wagon is such shit especially for downloadable titles like this when services like Steam are available, it's almost like they live in their own world and refuse to educate themselves. Sometimes you just want to sit with people who make these decisions and say WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING? Especially with Ubisoft.
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No I'm not saying that, damn you can pirate anything, even, wait for it...console games, what I am saying is Steam has proven to be successful for developers when it comes to download only titles. Ubisofts logic for fucking over PC gaming as they have been doing over the recent years is just shooting themselves in the foot. Their negative outlook on PC is their own doing.
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I always view these things as a cover story for the real reason - it costs more to develop for PC than consoles. Honesty is a hard thing to come by in the corporate world of gaming.
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It's not just Ubisoft. Many of the publishers have made similar statements.
Yet they are ignored and instead of pirates thinking... hmm maybe what I'm doing might actually be harming the industry.. they continue to pirate and spam message boards with crap about how piracy isn't really to blame.
Basically to all who actually pirate and are saying piracy isn't to blame....STFU.
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No, he's rightly imply that offering a game at a reasonable release window at a reasonable price on a good platform will result in good sales for indy titles.
You know, like MINECRAFT, and Super Meat Boy. The SMB crew had a fascinating piece up about how they made more money in a single day on PC sales than they did in their entire lifetime on Xbox Live: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/01/beefy-super-meat-boy-pc-outsells-360/-
an ubisoft game is a bit different than the titles you mentioned.
steam piracy is fairly quantifiable, so with that in mind, they might not be able to make their money back. that's not really a slight at PC gamers, it's just a business calculation that there aren't enough people out there to buy the title.-
Why would they ever come to this conclusion when there are tons of examples of games that sell extremely well on Steam? Are they being deliberately retarded in an attempt to only release on the consoles?
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Well, again, there's SKYRIM and BF3 that are both doing fine and major releases on steam. Released in a good window for a good price.
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-BF3, I meant Mass Effect 2
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Skyrim and BF3 are in an entirely different league than I Am Alive (at least from my point of view - obviously i don't have an insight into their sales/marketing figures that would help make this decision.) but it does cost money to make the PC title (and time) so they'd have to decide whether to get more people or hire a firm or push back the release date (or release the PC skew later, which rarely does well) - of course all of these things are business decisions that happen with or without piracy, so them saying "the PC version not worth it" would make just as much sense to me, and in that case "piracy" could be an excuse because saying "well we ran the numbers and PC gamers just really aren't going to buy this in the numbers we need based on our projections" would probably piss people off even more.
(conjecture, by the way.)-
I'm confused. You said the two indy games I mentioned are 'a bit different' from this Ubisoft game. So I went to larger ones. What games match in your point of view?
There's Braid, Trine and Bastion, all of whom are talking about how releasing on the PC is more profitable for them than the console. I can link the interviews.-
you named beloved games across the board (at least in my opinion) and i don't get the impression that this game is up to that level of hype or love. i might be wrong, it might be the next braid, and i'm sure if it is, they will port it later, but it seems they have done the calculations and not enough people are going to buy it. that's pretty cut-and-dry.
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It's not cut and dry because those calculations are fucking imaginary.
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Not necessarily. At the company where I work, projects are canceled because it costs more to do than will be generated in revenue, or the revenue generated is too marginal compared to the revenue that could be generated if those same resources were devoted to some other project. And then there are the below-the-line costs that occur if you do decide to greenlight a project, which can then eat into revenue. For companies that make products, take a look at their "cost of goods sold" line item on their balance sheet. That's a key factor in any decision to go ahead with a project. Depending on the degree to which the business is high or low margin--and video games are low margin--cost of goods sold can be a killer.
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This is such a mixed message. The original article states that PC is not worth pursuing because of piracy concerns. So, it's not financially profitable enough to make back their cost of a PC version, due to piracy (lol). How is anyone releasing anything on PC then? How do indie developers ever make any money at all? Obviously both my argument and the original article are hyperbole.
It's really shitty, to be honest. I prefer PC. My PC never fails me, and if it does, I can fix it myself. My Xbox has red ringed once (out of warranty). I also bought another Xbox (silly stupid me) which is now toast as well. I rarely if ever use my Wii (except now, to watch Netflix in 480p since my Xbox is dead). I refuse to buy Sony consoles.
So, my corner of the market is being looked at as bad, because of "piracy".-
the last sentence is the most important - if only 50,000 people buy it, it's not worth it to make it. that's an example, who knows if that's his real calculation, but that's what matters. the piracy thing might have even just been an aside and it was focused on because it's such a hot button issue. probably would have been better for him not to say that.
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But they're releasing this on XBLA, which means it shouldn't be THAT much more to release it on PC. I know there are costs to porting and testing and blah blah. But if this is purely download only, you're not even talking about packaging here. Surely it has to be possible to break even at least.
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Right. I should add one thing to clarify what I said. One way in which product development is costed is that the company considers that the same resource will be required to produce both versions, so not only is there no cost saving by doing the "extra" PC version, there's possibly a cost expense.
E.g. Let's say you need a $50K coder to do the console version that will net you $100K, net of "piracy." If a PC version gets you $75K net of piracy, you still needed to pay that coder $50K, meaning you used the same resources but generated 25% less profit--but it's still profit. (Now if that coder had only cost $25K for $75K net, then it would be even and you might go ahead with it.) In most companies, and certainly any publicly traded company, there's almost no chance that will fly since they have to maximize profit, not just get "some" profit. I see this kind of thing where I work all the time.-
i'm not sure whether i follow you entirely because the piracy thing is tripping me up, but i think i might just be tired.
also even publicly traded companies make decisions for the long haul - public perception (to good ones, maybe not in this case) matters and keeping lifetime PC fans also (should) matter, but that doesn't mean they will take a loss or do something overall stupid. but it does factor in.-
Hah hah, no it's me trying to be clearer but making it even less clear.
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Probably no one bought From Dust on the PC.
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That was Ubisoft's own fault and that fault was made clear to them.
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I don't blame em in the least.
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Maybe, just maaaaaybe people aren't buying their games because of their shit DRM that comes with them. But I could be wrong.
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I wonder how that DRM-lite SKYRIM single-player only game is doing over on the PC.
What's that, it's selling gangbusters? Shocking.-
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We know that for most of the first week there were about 250,000 people playing it concurently on Steam. And right now there are 164,408 people playing it. Now I have no idea what we need to multiply that by to get a reasonable idea of sales, but I'm guessing its a significant ammount.
Consoles will sell better I'm sure, but I'd say the PC has a significant share. -
Yes.
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Because they established a pedigree by consistently releasing their products in non retarded ways.
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haha nice
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I've bought a ton of different games Ubisoft PC games, and I have to say...the DRM issues are definitely overstated in terms of how inconveniencing they are, but when the do inconvenience us purchasers of Ubi products, it is a huge fucking hassle.
For instance, I wanted to play Splinter Cell: Conviction co-op with a friend of mine, and because Ubi fucked up the license on his account, it literally took us multiple phone calls and hours of online support to finally get it working.
In addition, they also blamed Steam for the snafu, so we got sent on a goddamn goose chase bouncing from Steam to Ubi until Ubi finally owned up and fixed it for my friend.
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well, i was looking forward to that, but oh well.
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They really should give up on releasing PC SKUs instead of repeatedly bitching about it, releasing shoddy PC ports late, and challenging the decency boundaries of DRM.
Okay, I get it Stanislas, it mathematically won't make money, but your statement today lost more money for Ubisoft.
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This guy sounds like he has no confidence in his product. If you make a good game, for the most part people will legitimately buy it. If you make a crappy game, people will pirate it. Even if 50,000 people pirated a game, if you sold 250,000 you wouldn't care too much because you sold 5 times as much was pirated.
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I think Ubisoft is a terrorist of the PC Game industry, and their DRM are bombs.
Their own DRM scheme is the reason why they are selling PC games so poorly. They are auto-amputating themselves.
It's the same thing with Crytek that blame on piracy their poor sells while the truth is their games are poorly designed (whatever the power of the CryEngine).
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Don't forget the uber bomb that GFWL is, the games with it have to wait the really long times between patches like in consoles, it gives a lot of problems (in connection and performance) , it locks savegames for the account, the interface is a monstruous labyrinth that make you take lots of useless steps, etc etc etc.
And on top of this it makes the player base shrink in less time than it will take without it because of all these annoyances. -
There's plenty of "industry terrorism" committed these days in video game PR, disguised as visionary discourse.
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Not all PR is "industry terrorism"; I mean the statements like "this platform is dead because there's so much piracy" or "The person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC, to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know BitTorrent, to know all the elements so they can pirate software." (that last quote was Cliff Bleszinski in 2008: http://www.shacknews.com/article/55003/gears-of-war-2-director )
If you're going to reach for that, just shut up and constructively promote your console-based product instead, and stand out of the way of developers who DO want to sell their games on PC.
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Robotic Puppy Eater posted a rewritten article, Ubisoft PC Games 'not worth it' due to draconian DRM.
Ubisoft's mediocre downloadable title, I Am Alive, is unlikely to be purchased on the PC platform. Comments made by the game's creative director, Stanislas 'Press X to Win' Mettra, illustrate the company's difficulty in getting PC gamers to accept DRM schemes that would make the MPAA blush. Despite a requirement that players maintain a constant, low latency connection to Ubisoft's authentication servers, "gamers were still able to access and play the titles that they paid for," said Mettra. "That should be fixed in the next version of our DRM." -
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In my country, piracy for consoles far exceeds the PC
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I always read that here on Shack, but I don't know a single console gamer in person who doesn't use hacks. One of which is so console stupid that I was surprised when he told me that he did it.
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Why dont they just shut up? I mean, not releasing a game on a platform is ok i guess, but they fan the flames and just keep creating ill will from the PC community. I dont understand it, just shut the fuck up and do whatever your focus groups and suits are telling you, or dont. If your not releasing or supporting a platform, then stay out of its business and stop talking shit about it.
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This is pretty much how I feel as well. They should just stfu, stick to publishing for Xbox / PS3 (and Wii?) and do nothing more on PC, instead of crying about piracy incessantly. Developers who want to make a PC game can / will find another publisher. I own a PS3 so on the off chance they publish something I really want I'll consider getting it for that but odds are i'll just pass.
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Ubisoft hasn't had their heart in PC gaming for a while. I'm OK with them leaving the space.
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I don't think anyone checked their logic at the door. Ubisoft are really just making excuses for not porting to the PC. Once they have the XBox version, they are already > 90% on their way to having the PC port. They just have low sales due to their shitty DRM and now they are reaching for straws.
If this is their logic, then good riddance, I say. -
It's not necessarily a good business decision either.
Part of what releasing to a targeted platform in a way that complements that platform buys you good will, which could potentially translate into future sales and cred. with the PC community.
Ubisoft has consistently demonstrated that they do not know how to handle the PC market, which *is* profitable for plenty of other publishers.
They're just participating in a self-fulfilling prophecy where the PC market will turn out to be "not worth it" for them. Another way of looking at it is that they're closing themselves off to a valuable market sector.-
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What are you talking about? Both CD Projekt Red and Valve have built very successful businesses with the help of PC community enthusiasm, as well as a ream of smaller indie studios.
Good will and fan appreciation was basically the whole advertising strategy behind Amnesia, Frozen Synapse, Trine and a bunch of other indie titles like that.
That there's shitty posters out there is not a rebuttal to anything about the PC community. U dumb.
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Yep, and that's still not even all of the costs. The cost of Labor is a bit higher than the salary itself, because you have to consider the side of income taxes that the employer pays(at least in the US that's how it works, Shanghai will probably have different considerations) as well as the cost of benefits. Then there are the indirect costs like facilities, and all that.
Then there are still taxes on what the company brings in on the income end as well.
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Isn't that more like 50,000 sales at $50 each = $2.5 million? Subtract the marketing, packaging, etc., and you'll still be above $250,000. Where did you get that $5 per copy figure? Also, I'm sure they would sell more than 50,000. That seems pretty low to me.
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Steam's common is ~30%, but you can negotiate for more based on the deals you get with other services.
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So...
Not selling anything whatsoever on a platform is better than selling anything at all?
I think someone really needs to review their managers' performance. This kind of decision making is unbelievably braindead.-
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The cost of porting and supporting the title. People don't realize how much it costs for support.
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Plenty of companies make money off of PC sales. Maybe it has something to do with their DRM and/or crappy games. Fuck Ubisoft, then. I have plenty of games to play anyhow.
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I can see why Piracy is such a problem for them: http://www.giantbomb.com/chat/ (they're demoing the new kinect Rabbids game)
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So, so true. Good job most Ubisoft games are ignorable shite anyway.
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If they are going to release another bad port weeks after the console version 50,000 sounds generous.
They can keep it. -
I'd say what I think about this, but you guys already know.
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DGAF
I just want multiplayer games. That is the future for PC and has been since atleast 1999. IMO, shame Carmack has lost track :/ -
It only makes sense for the biggest titles to consider a PC port these days. You figure a fraction of the AAA gamers will go with the PC version and a fraction of that number won't pirate it and you realize your original figure of expected copies sold probably needs to be in the vicinity of 1-2 million. On the flip side, an indie game with very low dev costs could also be worth it. However, in a similar vein to the consolidation of games around the biggest franchises/sequels, the middle ground gets squeezed the most and is the riskiest play. New intellectual property or B grade titles that have dev costs well beyond the indie scene can only expect to sell copies in hundreds of thousands (not millions) and that's not enough to justify a PC release. We're lucky we get the ports we have now.
My Xbox 360 copy of Red Dead Redemption GOTY just showed up but I still would have preferred a Steam version. If only the tools/middleware were matue enough make PC ports dirt cheap. -
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It's sad when a company starts taking the $ > Fans approach.
Fun spreads. If something's good, people will buy it... eventually.
That being said, the developers that make the game with the intent of at least a few people buying it, believing in there game, are the ones that people stick with.
The marketing concept of 1 customer being worth $1000000, speaks volumes.
This kind of mentality..."It’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it." is why Ubisoft's fanbase keeps taking a beating...-
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lol, that read like a Chuck Norris website
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Well good thing I'm still not buying anything Ubisoft publishes.
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I started with Far Cry 2.
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I thought it was a decent game on pc, despite its mouse issues.
But yeah lol not buying most Ubi games. I see people playing Assassin's Creed on PC and I honestly don't know why, with all that DRM junk heaped on top, even if it does work who wants the worry that it might spaz out later? Plus they're games very much meant for controllers with no particular PC benefits at all.
But the main thing that turns me off the games I might have wanted to buy from them is the poor port quality. Jesus it's really inexcusable what they did to From Dust, a game that by all rights should have been better on PC than consoles. I would expect the same from any theoretical I Am Alive port.
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Around the time Ass Creed 2 came out I think.
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At this point when a dev or publisher says they aren't doing something due to piracy concerns I take it the same as when I hear a politician say they are dropping out of the race to be with their family. Its just a really easy answer that can't possibly hurt them and really they got caught fucking their secretary.
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Lackluster sales have little to do with their poor sales in this case. Their DRM sucks, they don't make that many games I find interesting, and they're too stupid to use steamworks.
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Meh lackluster sales have little to do with piracy in this case....
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never even bothered to pirate an ubisoft game until they the crap they started with AC2 and Splinter cell convinction. oh and mouse accel?? really? as if the drm wasn't enough? i dont think your games are even worth my time to pirate anymore, dont worry ubisoft. ill be sticking with the devs that are making plenty of money on this platform.
stay the fuck out of my way, you sore loser-
It's funny, because they act as if pirating XBL and PSN games isn't easy and happening frequently already.
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Stanislas Mettra is only looking at half the problem of poor PC sales- piracy.
The second reason is half assed PC releases. No mouse sensitivity, sluggish controls, PC games best played on a console controller, UI not designed with PC in mind, no key mapping, the list goes on and on. They won't put in the effort for features PC gamers want in their games then they get mad at the PC gamers for not buying it anyway.
Well poo poo on you, Ubisoft, take some responsibility yourself.
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