Not with software.  With software once purchased you’re stuck with it.   There is typically a very strict “no return” policy, and this sucks.  It’s to the point now where most stores wont even take back unopened software.  Once the transaction is done, its done.

So if you get that software home and it just plain doesn’t work, you’re hosed.  You’re just out that money, and you have absolutely zero recourse other than to not purchase that companies software any more.  That’s where I’m at with Ubisoft.

The reasoning for having zero recourse, and the reasoning you can’t return software is very simple;  Software piracy.   If you buy a TV at Walmart you can’t take it home and clone it.   But you can with software, so the industry as a whole assumes that everyone is out to clone their software because we are all dishonest, thus this ‘no-return’ shenanigans goes on in the name of loss prevention.

I mean seriously, this is a whole industry that thinks and treats their customers as crooks..   What other industry blatantly dislikes and mistrusts their own customers this much?

The problem is that major software companies like Ubisoft bank on the fact that you can’t return their shit, so they are more than happy to churn out crappy product after crappy product.   More over, since they know you have no recourse they don’t bother to provide any form of support for those crappy products.    So this is yet another example of the software industry screwing the honest consumer.

I purchased Silent Hunter 5 in the hopes of being able to play it, and it doesn’t work.  It crashes every time I run it.  I have installed/reinstalled it a number of times and have followed all the instructions I can find.  I have updated all drivers on my system to include bios and mobo drivers and still have the exact same issue.  No other game has this issue except this one.

It still doesn’t work.

I have posted on the Ubisoft support forums and have gotten zero responses.  I submitted a ticket to Ubisoft about the issue only to have a canned response telling me that my drivers were out of date… which they aren’t.

I honestly and in good faith purchased this product to play it, and for whatever reason it doesn’t work.  As a customer I believe I have a reasonable expectation of getting support for this product, but apparently that’s not the case as zero support has been forthcoming.

So, I should be allowed to return it.   But I can’t and they know it, and this pisses me off.   I’m just stuck with this dead piece of software.

So now my only recourse is to simply never buy anything Ubisoft again.  First you call me a crook by forcing me to use your shitty DRM, and now you call me a crook by refusing to let me return a product that is clearly broken all because you think I’m a pirate.

See.. the irony is, you guys hate your customers so much and fear software piracy so much that you have gone to such extraordinary lengths to stop it only to have succeeded in creating the very environment in which it’s acceptable by even the most honest person..

You obviously hate your honest consumers, well I hate you back.  Fuck you Ubisoft, your dead to me.

I will never buy another Ubisoft product.  You shouldn’t either.

Stop the DRM

When will companies learn that their draconian efforts to prevent piracy only serves to hurt their paying customers which directly affects their bottom line!!

Companies, you must stop counting pirated copies of your software as “lost revenue” — it’s not! Someone who is willing to pirate software isn’t willing to pay for it.. EVER! So you never had their money in the first place..

You’re trying so hard to capture that imagined lost revenue that it’s blinding you to how badly you’re screwing yourselves and your real customers..

Equating the number of pirated copies of your software directly to dollars is retarded.. More over, implementing these harsh DRM models only serves to prevent the honest players from playing your games, which effectively assures that you’re going to lose real money in the form of people who actually DO buy your games going else where..

Let take the new Silent Hunter 5 game as an example.. SH5 (a game with a lot of bugs and other issues that already pisses paying customers off) comes with the new DRM which forces you to be connected to the internet 100% of the time. The new system which the Ubisoft exec’s spin as being a positive thing for the customer is constantly phoning home to make sure you’re still allowed to play the game.. The game you purchased.

If at any time during your play period the connection to the mother ship fails, you stop playing the game. You can’t save your game.. You can’t do anything.. Effectively the game you purchased goes into cripple ware mode.. This is bullshit.

The hacker community took one good look at that and said “F’to you Ubi” and hacked it within the first 24 hours of release.. These people had no intention of buying the game in the first place so who does it actually hurt?

ME! If I’m playing the game that I purchased and I go on a road trip with my laptop, I can’t play it.. The hacker can.. he can play just fine..

If I am playing the game that I purchased at home and for whatever reason my internet goes out (it happens), I’m screwed.. Not the hacker.. He can keep playing..

So.. whats my recourse? Nothing.. I’m just shit out of luck.. I have to either accept their crappy DRM because apparently they think I’m the problem, or not buy the game in the first place.. The hacker doesn’t care, he isn’t troubled by these problems at all and in no way has the DRM affected him at all..

DRM only punishes the paying customer! Ubisoft is trying like hell to spin their new DRM in a positive light, but it’s not.. they claim that it’s “A platform of online services for PC titles offering gamers a more in-depth gaming experience as well as providing an innovative solution for reducing PC game piracy.” HUH?!

How did you do either of those things? It does absolutely NOTHING to offer me a more in-depth gaming experience and in fact does the opposite in that suddenly I have this invasive piece of software on my system that prevents me from playing at all from time to time.. I paid for the game, yet I’m punished.

And it doesn’t prevent or even reduce software piracy considering it was hacked out in the first 24 hours. The hackers never even notice the games DRM, it doesn’t bother them in the slightest..

At this point you’re actually encouraging people like me to hack the game because your own DRM is preventing the honest player from playing the game he paid for.. That’s right.. your DRM which is there to prevent piracy is actually encouraging piracy because otherwise we can’t play the game.. Good job genius..

You’re so busy counting the imaginary lost dollars you’re missing the fact that your real dollars are heading out the door.. The proof is in the pudding.. Your current sales for this year are down by over 20% and I have to think you only have yourselves to blame..

I realize fully that the “higher ups” are the ones making these decisions, but someone MUST stand up and tell them why DRM is not the right solution.. If you guys don’t stop the DRM shenanigans you guys are going to hemorrhage not money, but customers..

Simply put, this is a very impressive game — Not perfect, but worth the purchase.  To be honest I’m not sure why I waited as long as I did.  The game itself is quite beautiful and has a very nice story line.  It’s the first game in a while that I would classify as “smart” and clever at every stage — taking quite a step away from your usual brute force or shoot’em up games.  Stealth in this game is everything.

The player must use all manner of stealthy game mechanics like eavesdropping,  pickpocketing, and assassination in order to complete the missions.  Running in swinging your sword to just kill everything simply wont work, and while you’re not nurfed like you were in Thief, you still can’t take the overwhelming odds that you’ll encounter if you try to hack your way through.

The game mechanics are excellent as anything you walk at, run at or into, jump at/on/over will cause your character to behave exactly as you’d expect him to.  The “oh wow” moment for me was early on when I jumped and landed on a short platform and went a little too far.  The character hit the edge and flailed trying to regain his balance.  It looked very convincing.  The climbing mechanic is extremely well done, and you’ll use it pretty much constantly.

Your character is extremely athletic, probably unreasonably so heh.  I wish I could hang by my finger tips for an hour while my player went to the store for a coke..  And while jumping off the tower into the cart looks keen and all,  that’d kill the hell out of you!

I did find some issues with the game;

Jumping into water .. KILLS YOU!  heh, harsh.  But then I guess this is a desert memory and he can’t swim.

I’m not sure how slowing down and ducking your head makes you less conspicuous.. but.. it does.  This really is the only mechanic I don’t understand, but then how else would you provide a button that allows you to “fly casual”.

Controls are extremely unintuitive and border on confusing.  Especially for a PC gamer who doesn’t play console games.  You can really tell that this is a console game that was ported to PC where the controls are concerned.. The main issue is there is a LOT of things you can do and they try to do all of them with some combination of 4 buttons.

While the controls for the game are unintuitive and confusing, they give you quite a lot of options both in and out of combat.  And I don’t care who you are, sneaking up to an archer on the top of a building and pushing him off to watch him fall to his death is good wholesome fun.  You will eventually realize that you can be extremely “loose” with controlling your character and he’ll usually behave the way you wanted.

This is something that most PC players will have a hard time with simply because they are used to micro-managing their characters, as opposed to console games which will partly play themselves.

The graphics engine seems a tad unoptimized as I get a solid 60fps (with vsync) but there is video lag and jumpiness.. Also the game is beautiful, yet it has no ingame option for anti-aliasing.  This is a common trend of game makers lately and it boggles the mind.  Games with AA look so much better than without, but most of them don’t use AA.  It saddens me.  Forcing AA through the control panel has odd and unplayable results.

That’s really it.    Most of my complaints are pretty minor.  The game is a lot of fun and most likely will be one that I finish.  (For me that’s a sign of a good game.)

Oh and Chad, my computer gets a solid 60fps in most places though in a couple of the way up high views were you see everything, it dips into the 50s.  =)   Max graphics baby!   *sniff* I love my computer..