Prince of Persia: The Lost Throne was a critical hit but didn't sell very well, and Michael Douse thinks that's entirely Ubisoft's fault.
Larian director of publishing Michael Douse, never one to be shy about speaking his mind, has spoken his mind about Ubisoft’s decision to disband the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team, saying it’s the result of a “broken strategy” that prioritizes subscriptions over sales.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite good. PC Gamer’s Mollie Taylor felt it was dragged down by a very slow start, calling it “a slow burn to a fault” in an overall positive review, and it holds an enviable 86 aggregate score on Metacritic. Despite that, Ubisoft recently confirmed that the development team has been scattered to the four winds to work on “other projects that will benefit from their expertise.”
This, Douse feels, is at least partially the outcome of Ubisoft’s focus on subscriptions over conventional game sales—the whole “feeling comfortable with not owning your game” thing espoused by Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay earlier this year—and the decision to stop releasing games on Steam, which is far and away the biggest digital storefront for PC gaming.
First sale doctrine applies to some software and not to others(often having to do with possessing physical media). Their general argument that it doesn’t is when they say it’s a “license” but that license gets superseded by the first sale doctrine where applicable. It’s a general shit show.
Edit: an example of the shit show nature of this: “Can you modify a copyrighted work you were sold and then resell it without the copyright owner’s permission?” The courts are split on this with one saying yes and another saying no. And mind you that’s just pasting pictures onto things with no EULA involved. What happens if you modify a physical representation of software and resell it? If Nintendo or John Deer decided to place restrictions on the resale of consoles, forcing them to be above a certain value or in violation of their copyright license re the software inside the console/tractor, would that violate the first sale doctrine? Who knows.
Even the Stream version doesn’t require Steam. You can just run the executable. A few folks over on Reddit claim they’ve given the game to their friends just by copying the files from an external drive.
The multiplayer also works no problem without Steam. I own the game on Steam and I did a playthrough with friends who torrented it. They just had to keep the patches up to date manually.
Yeah but is that technically purchasing the game, or just a license? Not that they have any means of enforcement if it’s DRM-free but you still might not technically own it.
Practically, outside of second-hand sales, there’s no difference between e.g. GOGs offline installer and a physical copy of the game. No, you don’t technically own it, but for all intents and purposes you do.
lol ubisoft publishes a good game once in a blue moon and when they do they disband the team that does it. seriously these motherfuckers need to be jailed.
Let me guess, Windows also not a monopoly, because Linux exist, and it’s just a loud minority that doesn’t like their data monitored by third parties for “ad” purposes.
The difference being that I can resell a physical media, even at a profit if there’s enough demand for it, and to most people that’s the definition of ownership.
If you can’t dispose of it by selling it to someone else, your don’t own it. Notice how even DRM free games are just the purchase of a license and the distributor can revoke your right to use that license? Yeah, do you don’t own DRM free games either.
If that’s the definition of ownership we’re going with, does the fact that I can sell my steam account mean I do actually own every game on it regardless of DRM? Also, does a lack of a demand for a game degrade your ownership?
You can’t though (not by following the terms you agreed to) and Valve can ban you or remove your right to use the license you paid for whenever they want.
Mostly yes, especially if you’re a big AAA publisher, so your game won’t get buried under cheap shovelware and the latest AAA slop. Also don’t forget that Steam barely does any moderation, especially once you become a power user, so hate groups will buy your game, leave a negative review, then refund it, because a YouTuber named Prof. Chud called it anti-white and anti-male…
If you’re talking about Steam, while it provides its own DRM system, games can be published on there without any DRM whatsoever, so you can do whatever you want with the downloaded files and then play the game without Steam.
And baldur’s gate 3 is one such game, it only runs the steam service (which includes a check that you actually can play the game either through ownership or family sharing) when steam is actually running so you can join multiplayer properly.
I guess you could sell a literal copy, yeah. But ironically, the lack of DRM binding that copy to an account by a user makes a “proof of original ownership” harder, if that’s what you want.
That’s not how it works with digital goods, but that’s a limitation of digital goods really.
It is really both, the law tries way too hard to pretend digital data is goods that can be thought of in individual instances like physical goods can. That is how misconceptions like “owning” or “reselling” are put into people’s heads in the first place.
Sure that’s reasonable at the moment. And while it seems Gaben would never sell out, he is going to die at some point. What’s going to happen to steam / valve after that?
The inner-circle at Valve might be tighter than we assume. The next three or four in line might be just as aligned with Gabe. There’s a chance they aren’t, but Gabe made it this far with the people he’s working with, I’d say he probably picks people he trusts.
I mean given the massive industry layoffs over the past few years developers are already pretty used to not having jobs.
I hate how developers are the ones attributed to game industry problems. Decisions like this almost never fall on the developers shoulders, specifically the ownership quote was from their subscription service director. You know… the guy whose job depends on you not wanting to own games.
Agreed, I’m always saddened by quotes like “well the devs should have” when it’s almost certainly “the execs should have.” Unless a studio is owned by its devs, or they make up some of its leadership, which are few and far between, the devs don’t have the say on the shitty things that happen to the product they’re working on, and often when the devs have more say you end up with like Kingdom Come Deliverance from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhorse_Studios. One of my favorite games, was supported by the studio for long after it came out, and now they’re working on a promising sequel
Worst part is, they got acquired the year after release, so even if KC:D 2 is good, their games in the more distant future are bound to be enshittified.
Ah that’s disappointing to hear. And also probably extends my point that now warhorse has grown, and their execs are making bad calls that I’m sure the devs would choose not to make
Fwiw the sequel is supposedly going to have Denuvo in it, which is pretty blatantly an executive meddling decision.
But personally, the phrase “the devs should” never bothers me. It’s pretty transparently referring not to individual developers but to the priorities and decisions of the “developer”: the company in charge of development, as distinct from, say, the publisher or the platform.
Yeah, this is classic class warfare and the trajectory of these things has been moving away from developers having any say for a long time, the difference now is that business majors have finally found a killer app to convince society it is ok to destroy software development as a decent career… it is called AI and it doesn’t actually matter if it works or not, the point is to convince people it is only natural and right to treat software devs like worthless commodified contract labor that is just around the corner from being entirely obsolete.
I find it darkly hilarious how confident so many people who work in the software industry are that they aren’t about to have their future crushed by the rich. Again it really doesn’t matter if AI lives up to the hype at all, if AI fails to deliver and a market crash happens all the better since society will readily accept that as proof there needed to be a market correction on out of control labor costs for development, consolidation will occur and the labor of software development will be indefinitely and likely permanently devalued.
This should be clear as day to programmers but people who program for a living tend to think understanding programming is a shortcut to understanding everything and it leads to hilariously naive views from otherwise apparently very intelligent people.
Make no mistake this is the beginning of an awful era for game developers and software development.
Flash news: you dont own your steam games and you’re use to it. This “Ubisoft is the bad guy” but we all lick steam and others capitalist business’s ass is getting ridiculous. Steam has 78 employees lol. Dont buy ubi’s games and stop crying.
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That’s every publisher’s wet dream. AI’s almost ready, right?
god I wanna see them fail so badly.
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You can. There are physical , drm free, releases and drm free releases on gog :p No online required either. So yes, you can :)
All consumer software is only available as a license. That is how the law is written, if you hate that fact you need to lobby for changing the law.
First sale doctrine applies to some software and not to others(often having to do with possessing physical media). Their general argument that it doesn’t is when they say it’s a “license” but that license gets superseded by the first sale doctrine where applicable. It’s a general shit show.
Edit: an example of the shit show nature of this: “Can you modify a copyrighted work you were sold and then resell it without the copyright owner’s permission?” The courts are split on this with one saying yes and another saying no. And mind you that’s just pasting pictures onto things with no EULA involved. What happens if you modify a physical representation of software and resell it? If Nintendo or John Deer decided to place restrictions on the resale of consoles, forcing them to be above a certain value or in violation of their copyright license re the software inside the console/tractor, would that violate the first sale doctrine? Who knows.
Point me to the EU law which clearly states this, please.
EU is similarly confused about first sale doctrine as the US is. Steam was ordered to allow games reselling by a French court but eventually got it reversed on appeal, for example. https://www.bfmtv.com/amp/tech/gaming/la-justice-se-prononce-contre-le-droit-de-revendre-ses-jeux-video-dematerialises_AN-202210240308.html
This is despite the first sale doctrine being established as part of digital media in the EU with https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=A87D18058F3F93DB5719943E51D3B25F?text=&docid=121981&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=6657274
You can get it through gog where it’s DRM free. So I would say, yes you can
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Even the Stream version doesn’t require Steam. You can just run the executable. A few folks over on Reddit claim they’ve given the game to their friends just by copying the files from an external drive.
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The multiplayer also works no problem without Steam. I own the game on Steam and I did a playthrough with friends who torrented it. They just had to keep the patches up to date manually.
Love how that worked but me and my friends had version issues even though all 3 of us own the game on steam
Yeah but is that technically purchasing the game, or just a license? Not that they have any means of enforcement if it’s DRM-free but you still might not technically own it.
Legally it’s still a licence.
Practically, outside of second-hand sales, there’s no difference between e.g. GOGs offline installer and a physical copy of the game. No, you don’t technically own it, but for all intents and purposes you do.
lol ubisoft publishes a good game once in a blue moon and when they do they disband the team that does it. seriously these motherfuckers need to be jailed.
It’s all a distraction from the truth that you already don’t own games.
Except Battle for Wesnoth and Pingus.
Maybe OpenRCT and Osu! a little further down the line.
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Gamers be like “We don’t mind not owning our games as long as we don’t own them through the monopoly that we like, ok?”
You don’t know the definition of monopoly then
Yes I do and yes one platform is in a monopolistic position and people keep defending them.
Let me guess, Windows also not a monopoly, because Linux exist, and it’s just a loud minority that doesn’t like their data monitored by third parties for “ad” purposes.
Valve has a good track record, and you’ve never owned a game in your life. They’ve always been a license, with few exceptions. Even physical media.
The difference being that I can resell a physical media, even at a profit if there’s enough demand for it, and to most people that’s the definition of ownership.
Defining ownership as “can I sell this” is ridiculous
If you can’t dispose of it by selling it to someone else, your don’t own it. Notice how even DRM free games are just the purchase of a license and the distributor can revoke your right to use that license? Yeah, do you don’t own DRM free games either.
If that’s the definition of ownership we’re going with, does the fact that I can sell my steam account mean I do actually own every game on it regardless of DRM? Also, does a lack of a demand for a game degrade your ownership?
You can’t though (not by following the terms you agreed to) and Valve can ban you or remove your right to use the license you paid for whenever they want.
Indeed but being able to dispose of something by selling it does not automatically means you owned it
Unless you’re acting as a proxy for the owner, yes it does.
If you buy something out of some guy’s trunk in a parking lot, it does not mean that guy owned it before selling it to you.
Mostly yes, especially if you’re a big AAA publisher, so your game won’t get buried under cheap shovelware and the latest AAA slop. Also don’t forget that Steam barely does any moderation, especially once you become a power user, so hate groups will buy your game, leave a negative review, then refund it, because a YouTuber named Prof. Chud called it anti-white and anti-male…
If you’re talking about Steam, while it provides its own DRM system, games can be published on there without any DRM whatsoever, so you can do whatever you want with the downloaded files and then play the game without Steam.
And baldur’s gate 3 is one such game, it only runs the steam service (which includes a check that you actually can play the game either through ownership or family sharing) when steam is actually running so you can join multiplayer properly.
Oh so you can resell your used copy?
Plenty of people sell accounts with a specific game activated on it.
I guess you could sell a literal copy, yeah. But ironically, the lack of DRM binding that copy to an account by a user makes a “proof of original ownership” harder, if that’s what you want.
That’s not how it works with digital goods, but that’s a limitation of digital goods really.
It is really both, the law tries way too hard to pretend digital data is goods that can be thought of in individual instances like physical goods can. That is how misconceptions like “owning” or “reselling” are put into people’s heads in the first place.
Ya I trust Steam more than Ubisoft. I feel like that’s pretty reasonable?
Just pointing out the hypocrisy
Do you really find no difference in buying games (or the license to play them) and subscription services?
Sure that’s reasonable at the moment. And while it seems Gaben would never sell out, he is going to die at some point. What’s going to happen to steam / valve after that?
Lets fight the battles we’ve got, man.
The inner-circle at Valve might be tighter than we assume. The next three or four in line might be just as aligned with Gabe. There’s a chance they aren’t, but Gabe made it this far with the people he’s working with, I’d say he probably picks people he trusts.
I hope you’re right. I’m future proofing anyway by preferring DRM-free stores when possible.
Let Joy have the console for a while, Anxiety.
I wouldn’t know. We’d probably have to re-evaluate the situation when it comes to that.
This is to bad, I really enjoyed this game one of the better platformers to come out in a long time.
I mean given the massive industry layoffs over the past few years developers are already pretty used to not having jobs.
I hate how developers are the ones attributed to game industry problems. Decisions like this almost never fall on the developers shoulders, specifically the ownership quote was from their subscription service director. You know… the guy whose job depends on you not wanting to own games.
Agreed, I’m always saddened by quotes like “well the devs should have” when it’s almost certainly “the execs should have.” Unless a studio is owned by its devs, or they make up some of its leadership, which are few and far between, the devs don’t have the say on the shitty things that happen to the product they’re working on, and often when the devs have more say you end up with like Kingdom Come Deliverance from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhorse_Studios. One of my favorite games, was supported by the studio for long after it came out, and now they’re working on a promising sequel
Worst part is, they got acquired the year after release, so even if KC:D 2 is good, their games in the more distant future are bound to be enshittified.
Even worse that acquisition links back to the Embracer Group. Hopefully KC:D 2 makes it out the door before Embracer full fucks up Warhorse.
Seems they already did. KCD2 will have Denuvo.
Let’s put CPU heavy malware on an already CPU taxing game from a dev team known for not having the best optimization. Wcgw?
As a huge KCD fan (donated to the Kickstarter!) I have very, very low hopes for KCD2.
It will have Denuvo. Warhorse is awesome, but they are already not great at optimization. KCD on launch was rough. Amazing, fun, but rough.
Adding Denuvo is just asking for exceptionally poor performance.
Ah that’s disappointing to hear. And also probably extends my point that now warhorse has grown, and their execs are making bad calls that I’m sure the devs would choose not to make
The studios owned by the devs almost uniformly don’t put out complete gacha cash grab bullshit
Fwiw the sequel is supposedly going to have Denuvo in it, which is pretty blatantly an executive meddling decision.
But personally, the phrase “the devs should” never bothers me. It’s pretty transparently referring not to individual developers but to the priorities and decisions of the “developer”: the company in charge of development, as distinct from, say, the publisher or the platform.
Yeah, this is classic class warfare and the trajectory of these things has been moving away from developers having any say for a long time, the difference now is that business majors have finally found a killer app to convince society it is ok to destroy software development as a decent career… it is called AI and it doesn’t actually matter if it works or not, the point is to convince people it is only natural and right to treat software devs like worthless commodified contract labor that is just around the corner from being entirely obsolete.
I find it darkly hilarious how confident so many people who work in the software industry are that they aren’t about to have their future crushed by the rich. Again it really doesn’t matter if AI lives up to the hype at all, if AI fails to deliver and a market crash happens all the better since society will readily accept that as proof there needed to be a market correction on out of control labor costs for development, consolidation will occur and the labor of software development will be indefinitely and likely permanently devalued.
This should be clear as day to programmers but people who program for a living tend to think understanding programming is a shortcut to understanding everything and it leads to hilariously naive views from otherwise apparently very intelligent people.
Make no mistake this is the beginning of an awful era for game developers and software development.
Flash news: you dont own your steam games and you’re use to it. This “Ubisoft is the bad guy” but we all lick steam and others capitalist business’s ass is getting ridiculous. Steam has 78 employees lol. Dont buy ubi’s games and stop crying.