Ubisoft: I Am Alive skipping PC because “it’s not worth it”
After going off the grid long enough to generate cancellation rumors about its cancellation rumors, I Am Alive leaped back into the spotlight with Uncharted-esque climbing antics, enough shades of gray to power an entire ethics debate, and no PC version. And now, Ubisoft finally has a – frankly astonishing – statement for PC gamers who feel they’ve been left out in the cold: quit “bitching.”
“We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them,” creative director Stanislas Mettra told IncGamers. “But 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?”
“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. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC. 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.”
We recently spoke to Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult about Ubisoft’s piracy concerns. He views the free to play model as a good way to counter piracy. Previously, Ubisoft have experimented with severe and incredibly unpopular always-online DRM. That didn’t go down too well. The comments of I Am Alive’s creative director suggests that if the company can’t find a viable solution, they’re likely to consider skipping PC altogether.
And yet somehow, Skyrim managed a record-breaking first day on Steam and Portal 2 sold the majority of its copies on PC. Oh, and you know that Steam sale going on right now? The one everybody’s flinging heaping gobs of Christmas cash at? Need I go on? You heard the man, though: No one’s buying anything on PC. Clearly, my facts must be wrong. link
Quite honestly, the only game they've made recently that's worth owning (much less paying for) is Assassin's Creed, and I'm convinced that's just a fluke. I've actually sworn off Ubi games for years now, after many horrible experiences.. Far Cry 2 was the last straw, I've always had very poor customer service with them, takes me a week to hear back from them, and when I do they ask the most ridiculous questions (even though I anticipated them and had already answered them in the initial email, they asked them anyways, the answers they got to the questions they asked were literally pasted from my previous email.) then after everything is said and done I get basically "Well I dunno what to tell you, good luck!".
They really have no one to blame but themselves. They push out ***games, then offer customer service I'd expect from someone like this:
This is the same company that put so much DRM into Assassin's creed II that regular players were loosing save games just because there internet dropped. Ubisoft actually made gamers wish they HAD pirated games.
But it's not really about them not porting the game over or anything, it's the attitude that pisses me off, I didn't even know of the game before today.
But it's not really about them not porting the game over or anything, it's the attitude that pisses me off, I didn't even know of the game before today.
Ah ok, I can see where he's coming from but the attitude does stink
Well...They have a point. PC gamers do *** about everything.
PC gamers *** more because we use PCs... same reason why the PS2 players are not equally represented... they use PS2s.
It is merely a question of representation. I'm sure there are many console players who use PC's however the vast majority of PC gamers can just alt-tab to their firefox/chrome browser and troll their favorite forums to ***.
Console gamers have to wait that pesky 54 seconds for their computer to boot.
Well...They have a point. PC gamers do *** about everything.
Depends on the subject, I know most complain that the gaming companies dont take into account that PC players pour more money into their systems than what consoles could even dream of doing. Thus the higher end pc goers expect better results(+ more features?) than that of a console(ie if playing on pc, expect pc standards, not xbox/ps3 standards hence why they didnt get the game on said console).
I know this was the biggest complaint for Skyrim. All the pc enthuisest were even upgrading their rigs to handle Skyrim expecting it to push their systems. Only for it to be a console port and thus limited in its graphics. I think it was stated that it was an xbox port but I guess people were still expecting more.
Well...They have a point. PC gamers do *** about everything.
Depends on the subject, I know most complain that the gaming companies dont take into account that PC players pour more money into their systems than what consoles could even dream of doing. Thus the higher end pc goers expect better results(+ more features?) than that of a console(ie if playing on pc, expect pc standards, not xbox/ps3 standards hence why they didnt get the game on said console).
I know this was the biggest complaint for Skyrim. All the pc enthuisest were even upgrading their rigs to handle Skyrim expecting it to push their systems. Only for it to be a console port and thus limited in its graphics. I think it was stated that it was an xbox port but I guess people were still expecting more.
thats ok, they can use their upgraded PCs to play The Old Republic.
thats ok, they can use their upgraded PCs to play The Old Republic.
Funny enough when I think of RPGs, I dont think graphically intense environments for the GPU/s. FPS is really where PC players get their money worth when they sink in their bills on GPU/s and 1-3+ monitors.
Well it takes about 30 seconds to start then another 30 for the programs and s**t I have on to get done loading lol... Working on a new rig though! A bit pricy so I might wait till after Christmas lol
Well it takes about 30 seconds to start then another 30 for the programs and ***I have on to get done loading lol... Working on a new rig though! A bit pricy so I might wait till after Christmas lol
This happens if you have all your programs on 1 HD(ie you only use one HD).
To over come this, better results are seen(and its just that, better performance, your income/bank may say otherwise~)when using 2 seperate memory devices.
Basically you have one fast HD(or better yet, 2 in raid 0) for your OS and any games that you wish to get the best performance on, and the rest you load up on a fat drive(1TB @7200 or less if you dont need that much memory)theyre generally cheap and since its going to serve as your storage, it doesnt need to be fast at all(pictures/videos etc go here as they take up precious space esp on SSDs and slow your startup performance).
Well...They have a point. PC gamers do *** about everything.
Not really. I can't think of any major release where there's more bitching on the PC version of a game than on console. The only thing that garnered a ***ton of bitching on PC was GTA:IV, but most of the bitching was limited to just the level of pure ***of a console port it was and how poorly it was optimized, that said, even then there was just as many bitching about it on console as was PC. They didn't face the same exact problems, but they all faced huge problem, set backs and let downs.
I'd wager the only people who think PC gamers *** more is people who exclusively (or almost exclusively) play on console, but that goes both ways. Fanboyism doesn't stop at 360vsPS3.
Ubi's games get pirated because no one trusts them, and with good reason. They are pretty much bottom rung when it comes to quality gaming experience, and as if that wasn't enough to dislike/distrust them over, their customer service is just a slap in the face on top of spending your hard earned money on something that doesn't work. It's not that it happens on one game, it's that so many of their games are plagued so thoroughly with problems.. I can't even remember the last Ubisoft game I picked up and was able to play through with little or no game breaking problems.
Ubi's games get pirated because no one trusts them, and with good reason. They are pretty much bottom rung when it comes to quality gaming experience, and as if that wasn't enough to dislike/distrust them over, their customer service is just a slap in the face on top of spending your hard earned money on something that doesn't work. It's not that it happens on one game, it's that so many of their games are plagued so thoroughly with problems.. I can't even remember the last Ubisoft game I picked up and was able to play through with little or no game breaking problems.
I can't even remember the last Ubisoft game I picked up and was able to play through with little or no game breaking problems
Original Splinter Cell, Original Xbox. A stallion of a game plagued by a plethora of sub standard sequals :(
As for PC gamers complaining, can't deny the recent "consolization" trend is terrible. Not much point denying it either with so many sequals now being released with equal or less content/tech than it's predecessors, normally accompanied by a simplified UI/Menu as a final slap to the face & DLC a month after release.
A few that leap to mind:
Dragon Age 1 vs 2
Mass Effect 1 vs 2
Crysis 1 vs Crysis 2
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim (you can watch it through the ages lol.)
Of course said sequal can still be a good game regardless. Really enjoy Crysis 2 and Skyrim, just finding every review to grossly overstate them.
Syndicate is an upcoming video game by Starbreeze Studios set for release in February 2012 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 platforms. It is a reboot of the Syndicate series, completely changing the genre from a tactical shooter to an FPS.[2]
So because you don't have a mouse for consoles, it gets a complete genre change -.-. I think point proven.
Still stoked.
Edit: Trailer looks aight too. Crysis/Deus Ex fused
My best friend in secondary school used to be hardcore into RTS and TBS games and we used to play a lot of them competitively. I found Empire Earth one day and was impressed at the simple scale and depth of the strategy involved.
Invited him over one weekend so we could try it out and started on Prehistoric Age (for those who don't know, you start in the Prehistoric Age and can right up to post-modern space exploration etc ages, with your strategies/unit compositions/etc changing with each age).
Thus begins an epic tale of when we, vs AI opponents unfortunately (as this was yearrrs after it was out) first began on this large collection of islands. In the Prehistoric Age, much of the land was uncolonised and there were massive land battles. Eventually we started advancing and seeing our civilisation and even the land around us change to accommodate this. Our empires expanded and we had huge battles in the medieval ages, the renaissance period, world war 1/2 etc; all of the while having to get used to new unit types (land => land/sea => land/sea/air etc) and keeping our technology up to date.
I think it was like 21 hours later of playing it almost solidly that we finished that first Skirmish which started in Prehistoric and ended in the final age (Nano if I recall correctly). Such an epic game. It's a real shame its sequels weren't anywhere near as good.
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim (you can watch it through the ages lol.) Of course said sequal can still be a good game regardless. Really enjoy Crysis 2 and Skyrim, just finding every review to grossly overstate them.
In defense of the later two, Morrowind was for pc and not a console port iirc, while the later 2 were console ports. Thus Im sure they were limited in some aspects that they wouldnt have been if made for pc users aswell(I remember people being cautious of the 5-6MB being used and probably a console limitations thing.
Even now, isnt the ps3 suffering some lag from skyrim aswell?
Im curious though with their games, oblivion, fallout, and probably skyrim to a point, is it really lack of content, or generally the player liking the game to a point that they just really wish there was a whole lot more to do.
Terrain wise, morrowind iirc is larger than the area oblivion was in, aswell as the area skyrim is in, so I can see how morrowind would have felt like it had more.
It could just be repeatition that kills the excitement(the smell of new) for some gamers aswell, I know the gates in oblivion and the dragons in skyrim(the main attraction for both Id say) get repeatitive for some and thus come the feeling of lacking in content for some.
I know for games that I love, I can never get enough of and when Im done with it I feel I didnt get enough of it and incoming thoughts of it should have had more content.
Maybe the real question we should as ourselves is how much is enough content in a game?
Im sure that answer varies from person to person and its probably what companies look into when making a game, whats the majority of players buying their games. When they target the age group, they take into account college/school/work etc and then probably fit in as much content as the majority can fit in(time-wise).
Ubisoft: I Am Alive skipping PC because “it’s not worth it”
After going off the grid long enough to generate cancellation rumors about its cancellation rumors, I Am Alive leaped back into the spotlight with Uncharted-esque climbing antics, enough shades of gray to power an entire ethics debate, and no PC version. And now, Ubisoft finally has a – frankly astonishing – statement for PC gamers who feel they’ve been left out in the cold: quit “bitching.”
“We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them,” creative director Stanislas Mettra told IncGamers. “But 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?”
“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. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC. 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.”
We recently spoke to Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult about Ubisoft’s piracy concerns. He views the free to play model as a good way to counter piracy. Previously, Ubisoft have experimented with severe and incredibly unpopular always-online DRM. That didn’t go down too well. The comments of I Am Alive’s creative director suggests that if the company can’t find a viable solution, they’re likely to consider skipping PC altogether.
And yet somehow, Skyrim managed a record-breaking first day on Steam and Portal 2 sold the majority of its copies on PC. Oh, and you know that Steam sale going on right now? The one everybody’s flinging heaping gobs of Christmas cash at? Need I go on? You heard the man, though: No one’s buying anything on PC. Clearly, my facts must be wrong. link
Quite honestly, the only game they've made recently that's worth owning (much less paying for) is Assassin's Creed, and I'm convinced that's just a fluke. I've actually sworn off Ubi games for years now, after many horrible experiences.. Far Cry 2 was the last straw, I've always had very poor customer service with them, takes me a week to hear back from them, and when I do they ask the most ridiculous questions (even though I anticipated them and had already answered them in the initial email, they asked them anyways, the answers they got to the questions they asked were literally pasted from my previous email.) then after everything is said and done I get basically "Well I dunno what to tell you, good luck!".
They really have no one to blame but themselves. They push out shit games, then offer customer service I'd expect from someone like this:
