No DRM for Prince of Persia PC
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A post over on the Ubisoft forums states that the PC version of Prince of Persia 2008 shipped without DRM protection.
"You're right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games," says Ubisoft's Community Developer going by the alias "UbiRazz" in a recent forum post. His reply echoes the current battle between software pirates, and the developers and publishers they rob. Recently PC games using anti-piracy software have come under fire, more so than usual thanks to the quirky sim game Spore launched months ago.
But as forum members have pointed out, the piracy issue is a vicious circle: pirates crack DRM protection because they're against the imposed restrictions; publishers include DRM with their software to protect the overall investment and revenue, to prevent their property from falling into the hands of thieves. Many consumers understand both sides of the struggle, especially in the case of Spore: it secretly installs SecuRom without the consent of the end-user, and the software not only causes instability issues, but cannot be removed without reformatting the hard drive.
"A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games," UbiRazz said.
There's no question that piracy is a bad thing, leeching off the industry and eventually hurting the legitimate consumer. DRM implications are certainly understandable; developers and publishers have bills to pay and mouths to feed. But when the industry steps over the line of absurdity, violating the rights of the end-user, it only re-invests the determination of software pirates.
So what's the answer? Many believe in taking a different approach. A handful of publishers think that removing the DRM will actually lower the percentage of pirated software. "{But as} PoP PC has no DRM, we'll see how truthful people actually are (in regards to pirating the game). Not very, I imagine," UbiRazz added. "Console piracy is something else entirely and I'm sure we'll see more steps in {the} future to try to combat that."
While developers and publishers of PC games complain that piracy is killing that portion of the industry (and ignoring the fact that perhaps gamers just don't want to spend $1,500 on a new system every few years), console piracy is certainly just as evil, if not worse. Recently a playable demo of Resident Evil 5 hit the Torrent scene, apparently coming from Japan and playable on North American Xbox 360 consoles without modding the hardware. In October, the industry experienced a surprise attack by insiders, as Fallout 3, Fable 2 and Far Cry 2 found their way into the pirating scene before the games were even published (story).
"Everything gets pirated, so it's not limited to PC gaming," said CD Projekt's Tom Ohle in a recent interview. "But really, you just want to put out a game that's solid for your platform. If you're making a PC game, make a great PC game and people will buy it. I don't know of any pirates that buy games. They all seem to be pirates for life, y'know? So why fight it? Just make a good game that people want to pay for." He goes on to say that services like Steam and Gamer's Gate help fight piracy of PC games to some extent, but wants to see some evidence that piracy really has an effect on the industry. Consumers who download the demos are more than willing to purchase the game; they don't pirate games to check them out. Rather, Ohle says that it's the career pirates who make an impact on overall sales.
"So the key here, I guess, is to make kick-ass games that people want to pay for," he added. "Stardock's getting a lot of goodwill from fans who just buy their games because they don't use any intrusive copy protection. The games are good, so that helps."
Ubisoft has not spoken out on its reason for not including DRM with the latest Prince of Persia release on PC. It's quite possible that the company finally sees that it's a battle not worth fighting, that DRM software only causes legit consumers more headaches than the price of the game. Will DRM-free software be the way to go in the future? Probably not, but apparently Ubisoft is testing the waters to determine the ratio between pirating the game, and honest consumers shelling out the cash and credit cards.
Source : Tom's Hardware US
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I thought PoP re-imagining didn't get favorable review compares with Sands of Time.
Did they make it look not gay?
I have never been a fan of the PoP series, but I will be purchasing this game to support the "No DRM" release, and hopefully other game releases follow
I will probably get this game today just because it is DRM free. I was going to get Spore, but they messed that up for me with the DRM crap. When you reload your PC on a 3 month basis like I do, DRM is not a good feature to have.
I expressly did not buy any DRM-ridden games (or download the DRM-free ones), which hurt a lot because I was looking forward to several of them and even upgraded to a high end PC earlier this year. I'm glad to hear at least one publisher has cracked under consumer pressure. PoP is not my favorite series, but it's DRM-free at least so I'll probably go get it before Christmas. I hope the rest of the publishers will follow soon and retroactively disable DRM on some great titles, I still want to play them, but legally DRM-free.
Agreed ^^^. I am tired of DRM shiat messing up my PCs stability and maiing me have to reinstall everything to get rid of issues caused by it and there for taking my install #s down at the same time...................
The only Prince of Persia I own is the orginal computer one, and the one on Sega Genisis. I'll be buying this game come christmas.
Thats a good idea drm is 100% useless most games are already cracked BEFORE they hit the shelf, the company has to pay to put drm in there games why put something in that cost money when it does not do what its designed to do?.
Has drm stopped people from pirating a game no, with current drm not only does it cause problems for machine stabability but some even cause hardware damage to dvd/burners alignment.
simple cd check for when the game is released is all that is required to thwart most casual pirates
after like 6 months, release a patch that removes any cd checking
this is what epic did with unreal tournament games, seemed to be a good balance
Just release a good game and I will be willing to buy it legally, my and friends download games if we really enjoys them/ if we want to play multiplayer we buy legal games. That happened to GTA4, I torrented that to see if my system will handle and if I liked it, after that I got the game from steam and now I'm enjoying multiplayer.
If they released gta4 demo to get the feel for the game I wouldn't have to go thru all that mess and check it out legally if you know what I mean.
Fortunately there are consoles, which means my 8800GT will be high end untill the next-gen consoles appear.
The truth is that graphics haven't improved that much since Oblivion (except for Crysis), and pirating a game because you don't want to spend 1500$ every 2 years is the lamest excuse. You don't have to cranck all the settings to max and get a 24" or bigger monitor if you don't want to spend lots of maoney on a PC. And today you can buy a more than capable PC with less than 1000$ which will play all the games (except Crysis) maxed at 1680x1050 or less.
Really such a shame. I hate DRM and want to make a point to UBIsoft by buying POP. Problem is, I hate POP ever since POP II. POP 1 was absolutely brilliant and I loved it but POP II and III just added more color. Nothing special. And the 3d versions are awful to play.
Lately, these torrents have been jam packed with trojans and viruses. I wonder if game developers have had anything to do with that...
It works cause I'd rather spend $35-40 bucks than have to re-format my machine cause of a trojan. The sole reason I downloaded Far Cry 2 was because of the invasive DRM and the stupid ubiquitous CD-in-drive-check bullcrap. Really wanna play GTA IV but I heard you have to jump through hoops to install and performance is awful.
UbiRazz is completely correct. Pirates are not inclined to pay for the game, whether it has DRM or not. Therefore, having no DRM will not hurt sales, it may help sales by not pissing off the legit users.
A game pirated, is not a sale lost, if the pirate wouldn't of bought the game in the first place. Thats what all theses anti pirate orgs need to understand, you can't attribute pirating to lost sales. Just because some are playing for free, doesn't mean that you are losing money.
Congrats Ubisoft, for sticking your neck out. Intrusive DRM doesn't hinder pirates, or increase sales, it merely annoys your legit customers.
yay it doesn't matter, ppl will still pirate just the same as if it had drm
[citation][nom]JWL3[/nom... The sole reason I downloaded Far Cry 2 was because of the invasive DRM and the stupid ubiquitous CD-in-drive-check bullcrap.[/citation]
While you may have avoided CD-in-drive-check, I heard even the Steam version of Far Cry 2 includes the DRM. Totally pointless, but it still installs it on your system. This was a dissapointment to me as I really wanted to play Far Cry 2. As for Prince of Persia, is this game just another Final Fantasy rip-off now? No DRM still doesn't make me want to buy this game.
Ill be buying this game. Like the pop series, and no drm, will definitely support them. Any game company that uses DRM isn't getting another dime from me.
Why on earth do most publishers not release demo's of their games? I mean how awesome would that be? We could get a taste for the game, test it out, see how it runs on our systems, decide if its crap or not and then simply not purchase it in the first place... oh wait I think just answered my own question.
Games cost a lot, so when you buy a game for $80,- you want to play that game right away. Last time I bought a game it had STEAM protection. I had a key so I fought no problem. After installation of the game and the STEEM software I got the notification that the key was invalid. So it was impossible for me to play the game in my vacation.
That was the last drop for me, now I inform about the CD protection before I buy a game again. If a lot of people have issues with it I do not buy it.
"Will DRM-free software be the way to go in the future? Probably not, but apparently Ubisoft is testing the waters to determine the ratio between pirating the game, and honest consumers shelling out the cash and credit cards."
I think the future will be online content (perhaps downloadable with expiration time).
I want to buy this game for PC to support the no DRM thing, and it looks like a good game. Does anyone know if the game supports the xbox 360 controller?
so as i was scrolling down this page, i saw alot of people mention that they will only buy this game becauseit's drm free... imagine how many other people are thinking like that... maybe this game will become gold cause of this move...i think 2009 will be a good drm free year
Unfortunately I doubt it. The anti DRM crowd is a vocal one but also a small one, unfortunately most people don't care about DRM.
They will probably sell an extra thousand or so but its really just a drop in the bucket as its not really trackable.
The game will be pirated just like any other, a Prince of Persia game on the PC had no real chance of selling well. I fear they will use it as an excuse to continue their support of DRM.
"His reply echoes the current battle between software pirates, and the developers and publishers they rob"
The problem is most developers are taking it out on the very consumer who supports them. DRM does nothing to stop the pirates, they enjoy a good challenge. The ones who download from a Torrent never have to deal with it. Why is this so difficult for people to understand. This is like watching the miss reaction of the music industry unfold all over again.
Yep. You are right. Most people don't even know what DRM is. But in anyway this is move to right direction. It's very frustracting to see good game that is not useable because of DRM. I keep myy fingers corssed that this trend continues, but I am not too hopefull...
I want that jacket or raincoat or wtf ever it is. Does it come in any color other than bright yellow?
I've torrented several games this xmas season: NFS Underground, Fallout 3, Dead Space and Prince of Persia. I'm going to buy a legit copy of all except for Dead Space (it's controls are crappy), all the other games are worthy of the PC platform and are genuinely good. BTW, Fallout 3 for PC also has no DRM, so I'm definitely going to buy it. I just got a 360 and I'm going to pirate the hell out of it!
I don't hate consoles, I just hate the lame excuses of console publishers who don't want to publish to PC because of 'Piracy'.
The article title should have been:
"Ubisoft fired their monkey, and hired an actual person with a brain."
Steam has the right idea- I can only log on to one place at a time and play games, so it's very frustrating to try and share an account with someone else.
i am a big fan of prince of Persia series(sands of time,warrior within & two thorones)but last part "prince of Persia 2008" really disappointed me because this pat not so good comparing with other 3 parts and i think ubi soft should create a new pop game and it should similar with "sot, ww,t2t"
pop 2008 graphics quality is good but if we compare this part with privious 3parts then i will or fans of pop will give 1.5 out of 10
ubisoft should make a new platformer rayman instead of more of this prince of persia 3d junk! the original scrolling game was a lot more intuitive and interesting. the modern 3d versions are just kinda hack&slash with a bit of frustration added by missing jumps and being stuck.