14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft, perhaps one of the most controversial game companies in regards to anti-piracy measures, has pledged to try and add more value to its games in order to get people to buy them, instead of simply pirating them.
Piracy has always been an issue with video games, and while some companies try to motivate players to buy their titles by adding lots of extra features, like online multiplayer, other developers or publishers are simply content with adding more obnoxious and restrictive Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.
Among the latter group of companies is Ubisoft, which became infamous for bundling anti-piracy software that requires an always-on Internet connection with games that don’t even have online features.
Things will change for the French company, as Ubisoft’s new Vice President of Digital affairs, Chris Early, has talked with Eurogamer about the new strategy that will see games get more attractive features instead of DRM.
"Is it fair for someone to enjoy our content without us receiving some value for that? I think at the core of that is, no," said Early. "Otherwise, other than works of charity, there would be few games made. The balance, however, is, how do we do anything about that and not harm the person who is giving us value for that?"
"As we continue to keep our player at the center, we want to find ways that don't inconvenience that player who is paying for it," he added. "We've had a variety of degrees of success as we wind our way down that path. Our plan, our hope is we stay on the less intrusive, less cumbersome side of that path as we go on."
Piracy will still happen, for one reason or another, but Early believes that as new types of experience become possible, people will be more inclined to spend money on games.
"Will some people still pirate? Yeah, they will. Will the person who really wants that broad experience pirate? We hope not. As the rest of the game industry continues to evolve, the more you hear more about cloud gaming, the more you hear about companion gaming, the less a pirated game should work in all of that environment. So, therefore the value of that pirated content becomes less," Early concluded.
It’s great to hear that Ubisoft will start to get rid of its DRM systems but, until the company reaches a strategy similar to the likes of CD Projekt Red, which promised to stop bundling DRM into its future games, we still have a long way to go.