This is sheer fucking genius

Whatever happened to the good old days, where a teenager would carjack a poor old lady in lieu of downloading a single MP3.

I was reading an article in Game Informer for Command & Conquer 4, and EA is doing the same thing with it. At this point, I honestly don't think this has to do with piracy, I think they want to destroy the used game market. Game companies don't like how people can sell their games and they do not get a single penny from it.

caco_killer said:

I think they want to destroy the used game market.

The end result will only be that those who would resell their games won't buy them anymore. I think the current prices for new games are insane, especially if you have to buy this shit sight unseen and if you don't like it you are screwed. Such a marketing scheme never worked and never will.

Isn't it illegal to deny right of first sale in the United States? They can claim you are buying a service rather than a product in the EULA all they want, but I'm pretty sure when something like a game is purchased the buyer has the right to resell it if they so choose. I'm wondering how long it will be before this sort of thing is taken to court.

It is illegal, and I don't know why these companies are getting away with it.

Snarboo said:

Isn't it illegal to deny right of first sale in the United States? They can claim you are buying a service rather than a product in the EULA all they want, but I'm pretty sure when something like a game is purchased the buyer has the right to resell it if they so choose. I'm wondering how long it will be before this sort of thing is taken to court.

It is being taken to court as we speak. Autodesk is appealing the case they lost against a user they have sued for attempting to resell his 5 licensed copies of AutoCAD, which they claim, since they are "licensed and not sold," he has no right to do.

RIP PC gaming

This would be a total bummer if Ubisoft still made games worth playing.

I'll play some STALKER instead.

Interview with Ubisoft on this crap:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235596

LOL, especially at the last part.

There's no way in hell I'd ever buy this shit. Fuck'em. :p

I miss the good old days when the terms and conditions were stuffed inside a sealed envelope along with the software - opening the envelope signified your acceptance of the terms and conditions. :D

It's interesting that out of all the games that have the most staying power with me none have the kind of nasty DRM we all love to hate. This includes new games and olde.

Well, I love the original Lemmings that came with my SB, but the copy protection on the floppy was meh. Luckily it was extremely easily bypassed if you made a certain file read-only (it only checked for a disk occasionally, and kept a special flag file. By locking it, it never changed status).

Nuxius said:

LOL, especially at the last part.

We are your friends

This just touched a nerve.

Thanks to garbage like that -- among several other aspects of modern gaming that I won't mention to avoid miscarriaging a liveurinal-esque self-righteous whine-fest -- I absolutely REFUSE to support, in any way, any and all of today's moron-led gaming creation. In fact, I do my miniscule part to hasten their demise.

If the gaming industry has to suffer another crash before they wise up, so be it.

Thank you, game-companies, for making me ashamed to be a gamer.

Ubisoft's recent games are 5-hour cutscenes intersped with piss-easy action scenes with poor controls. Isn't that enough reason not to buy them? :P

Heh, I "like" how many of their reasons and examples of benefits to the customer are similar to those of Steam (even though Ubi apparently don't feel Steam is robust enough).

IMNSHO, this is a door opened by Steam and held open by everyone who supports it. It should not be a surprise that companies are taking a "If it works for Valve, it'll work for us and we can do our own, even more restrictive version" standpoint. And you know what? They're right, they will get away with it. End users will let them.

And people said that I was wrong when I predicted that almost exactly this situation would happen.

Oh well, I guess that's Ubisoft off my list of people who's games I buy then. For all the good it will do. People will buy their games and accept Ubi's "service" just like they do for Steam. I wonder who will be next and in what form.

Well done gamers. I hold you, as much as anyone, responsible for this.

Terrible. Thankfully, websites like Good Old Games exist, which proves that you don't have to shackle your customers in order to be successful.

AgentSpork said:

Good Old Games

Bookmark'ed

udderdude said:

Ubisoft's recent games are 5-hour cutscenes intersped with piss-easy action scenes with poor controls. Isn't that enough reason not to buy them? :P

What are they, mid 90s FMV games? :-p Or Dragon's Lair?

Graf Zahl said:

I'll play some SWAT 4 instead.

Enjay said:

IMNSHO, this is a door opened by Steam and held open by everyone who supports it. It should not be a surprise that companies are taking a "If it works for Valve, it'll work for us and we can do our own, even more restrictive version" standpoint. And you know what? They're right, they will get away with it. End users will let them.

Actually, even in places where hardcore gamers are the minority this games are torn apart. You just have to take a look at the reviews some of these games get at Amazon. I still don't think that this business model is going to work.

Isn't everybody talking about the PC gaming market being in trouble? Of course people are switching to the consoles to circumvent this shit.

And others just stick to the old games from a better time (Isn't that why we are still here..? ;) ) Personally I couldn't care less. The last game I thoroughly enjoyed playing was Max Payne and that's already several years old - not to mention that the replay value doesn't come even close to Doom.

Well, stuff like this doesn't surprise me really. I never really cared about Ubisoft anyways.

I'll go play some Elmo's Counting Adventure instead

Enjay said:

Heh, I "like" how many of their reasons and examples of benefits to the customer are similar to those of Steam (even though Ubi apparently don't feel Steam is robust enough).

IMNSHO, this is a door opened by Steam and held open by everyone who supports it.

What Ubi is doing nothing like Steam at all. Steam does not require you to be connected to the internet to play your games, nor does it kick you out of a game if you lose your internet connection.

You can even put Steam games on discs. This is something people conveniently ignore when complaining about Steam.

Graf Zahl said:

I still don't think that this business model is going to work.

Not yet. In the meantime, it doesn't need to work while there are lots of gamers who just play what's put in front of them by modern game design culture.

caco_killer said:

What Ubi is doing nothing like Steam at all. Steam does not require you to be connected to the internet to play your games, nor does it kick you out of a game if you lose your internet connection.

You can even put Steam games on discs. This is something people conveniently ignore when complaining about Steam.

Good Old Games lets you do the same thing without having to have Steam or any other DRM on your PC just to play a game, single player or not.

This is something people conveniently ignore when praising how awesome Steam is. Developers/publishers could be utilizing this DRM-free business model rather than shackling users to DRM, no matter how light or heavy it is.

If this is the direction PC games are going, then I'll just stick with the classic games for the PC. So far any game I bought that had DRM to fight with wasn't worth my money, my time, or hard drive space and was soon uninstalled after I beat the game or got tired of/fed up with it.

I'll go download some porn instead. Oh, and play Doom. At the same time.

caco_killer said:

It is illegal, and I don't know why these companies are getting away with it.

One word: Elitism.

Elitism makes my blood boil, especially on internet forums. I like how CoolROM forums bans elitism.

Nems said:

Good Old Games lets you do the same thing without having to have Steam or any other DRM on your PC just to play a game, single player or not.

This is something people conveniently ignore when praising how awesome Steam is.

I'm well aware that Steam has some DRM, but it is not terribly restrictive as you make it out to be.

Kagemaru_H said:

One word: Elitism.

Elitism makes my blood boil, especially on internet forums. I like how CoolROM forums bans elitism.

???
I think the word you were looking for was "capitalism"

Mr. T said:

???
I think the word you were looking for was "capitalism"

No, I used "elitism" because the government seems to suck up to these companies just for being big shots, but secretly laughs at/scorns anyone of lower class.

Capitalism is belief in money and enterprise, that whoever has the most money wins. May the better man win.

Both could be equally true in this situation, but I just had to get the elitism thing out of my system before one of my arms ruptured from excessive blood pressure.

It's a combination of both - money (obtained via capitalism) is power (which causes elitism).