By Kieron Gillen on September 10th, 2010 at 12:30 pm.
As the subject line says. Which is sad, but is just something that occasionally happens. As long as it’s a proper delay, and not just one format being treated as an afterthoug… what? Oh no. Really? Man! Yeah, it’s just the PC one that’s been delayed until early next year. Ubisoft, you loveable funsters. You know how to make a dying format feel special.
In other notes, this talking about the Doctor’s deadly syringe seems very skeezy to me. MAN SYRINGE, etc.
10/09/2010 at 12:34 Brumisator says:
Dying format? :’(
Why are you intent on breaking my heart, KG?
10/09/2010 at 12:36 HexagonalBolts says:
I think he’s being sarcastic. Or ironic. Or some witty concoction of the two… hmm…
10/09/2010 at 12:44 Cooper says:
Sarcronic
10/09/2010 at 12:55 AndrewC says:
He’s trying to wind up PC gamers. I believe the Urban Dictionary entry for ‘going after the easiest possible target, over and over again’ comes under ‘Gillening’.
Also, and on topic: OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
10/09/2010 at 13:11 Alexander Norris says:
Irastic.
10/09/2010 at 12:35 bleeters says:
To be fair, they have to take that extra time to devise a new and inventive method of ballsing us over this time. Responsibilities, you know.
10/09/2010 at 12:43 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Probably thinking of new ways to ‘prevent people with pirated copies from playing the game’. And instead target their legit players.
10/09/2010 at 12:57 Navagon says:
Hey now! Shovelling all that DRM into a game takes time and patience, you know!
10/09/2010 at 13:01 Rinox says:
/insert generic rage comment
Good thing we all stopped caring about Ubisoft’s games about a year ago.
10/09/2010 at 13:01 blargy says:
It would be interesting to see how much time, people and money is spent on DRM, vs the amount of time, people and money it takes to remove said DRM.
10/09/2010 at 13:03 suibhne says:
Wait, this game is actually scheduled to come out on PC?
10/09/2010 at 13:03 el Chi says:
Release it on the formats which are less easily pirated first, hopefully forcing those who own a PC AND a console to buy it legitimately. Make lots of money and THEN release it to the mean old smelly PC gaming hordes who’ll rape and pillage Ubisoft’s poor wickle baby.
Considering they’ve decided we’re all callous bastards addicted to piracy, the strategy makes sense. Albeit in a thoroughly cunty sort of way.
10/09/2010 at 17:00 bansama says:
Yeah that makes sense… Ubisoft ignoring the ugly fact that it’ll be pirated to hell and back on the Xbox 360 for months now before the PC even gets a release. So all the console owning pirates will just pirate it there instead. They must really have little faith in their always on DRM huh?
10/09/2010 at 13:04 Tei says:
I trought the PC version is always the first one to be finished, but the last to be released. So the sales of PC copys don’t “collide” with sales of console versions. If you sell the PC and the console version at the same time, some people will buy the $50 PC version (better graphics, more freedom, etc..) and will not buy the $60 console version (pay for multiplayer, pay to downloat patches, pay to get demos, etc..) .
10/09/2010 at 13:07 mrmud says:
Hate to break it to you but the publisher makes more money from a $50 PC sale than from a $60 console sale due to royalties to the console holder. This is 100% a piracy issue.
10/09/2010 at 15:57 Goomich says:
Impossible, they got that unbreakable, always online DRM.
11/09/2010 at 00:10 deliciousandjuicypileofshit says:
Funny. it got cracked about a week after release.
Yep. The pirates get free, uninterrupted gameplay, while legit users get to have fun suffering and raging.
(Tip: you can buy the game but use a crack; as far as I know, its perfectly legal.)
10/09/2010 at 13:16 Sobric says:
This is a shame. I’m actually looking forward to this, since Ubi’s “always online” DRM is lessened by the fact that it’s multi-player anyway.
10/09/2010 at 13:19 Ravenger says:
Well I passed on AC2 due to the DRM, and now I couldn’t even be bothered to buy it if it were DRM free, I’ve got so many other games to play due to the various Steam sales.
Ubisoft don’t seem to realise that the whole point with a multi-format launch is to launch them all simultaneously. Formats that get released much later almost always fail as the marketing hype has long since gone by then and it’s too expensive to do a new full marketing campaign for a single format.
10/09/2010 at 13:23 Xercies says:
Welcome to the real reason why multiplatform games don’t sell on the PC instead of piracy. its like they want this to happen for some reason so they have an excuse to keep on with there DRM and not look stupid when it actually is not working.
10/09/2010 at 13:22 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
I would care, only I don’t have Assassin’s Creed II. I didn’t buy it because of the UbistupiDRM®. If Ubisoft ever do a rerelease without DRM, I’ll buy it, but not before.
I don’t expect that to ever happen, so maybe sometime I’ll borrow the 360 version from a mate. Then I can play the game without (a) adding to 360-instead-of-PC sales or (b) paying good money for bad service.
10/09/2010 at 13:37 dingo says:
Well I love to call out Ubi these day any time I see a chance but to be honest AC:Brotherhood seems to focus a lot on multiplayer.
For this an internet connection at all times is needed so I won’t call out Ubi on the Ubilauncher this time but instead mock them for the delay of the PC version.
10/09/2010 at 13:54 Hoernchen says:
Ah, i see, they pulled a fable 3.
10/09/2010 at 13:56 Dude says:
And again, all my friends with their modded 360′s will be able to play this game months before I buy it =(
10/09/2010 at 15:07 KTD says:
Who cares, Assassin’s Creed sucks. Or maybe I’m being sarcastic, who knows.
11/09/2010 at 01:54 mr.terrorist says:
Hey, you take that back!
AC may not have impressed you, but its got to be the only game that doesn’t treat us Muslims like bags of shit or evil filthy terrorists or target practice or whatever “AAA modern shooter”s have been cranking out lately.
You may not see much, but to me, its absolute genius and a nice breath of fresh air.
10/09/2010 at 15:25 Kid A says:
I’ll buy it second-hand on the 360, then. Ubisoft get no money, I get to play what looks like being a fairly decent game.
10/09/2010 at 16:00 Goomich says:
Phew, I won’t buy it in 2010 then. Big deal…
10/09/2010 at 16:01 Goomich says:
2011, not 2010.
10/09/2010 at 16:19 Clovis says:
So, does this featuring the always on DRM? I thought RPS was not covering Ubisoft until they gave up on that.
10/09/2010 at 16:35 ChampionHyena says:
Guh. Could Ubi get more schizophrenic?
R.U.S.E.: No UbiDRM! Multiplatform release! Whee!
Assassin’s Creed: Tub of whale shit! Whee!
So are we loyal customers snarking up copies of R.U.S.E. and driving it to the top of the Steam sales list, or are we filthy grimy criminals who need a release delay in addition to obscenely invasive DRM just to make sure we don’t thieve everything that’s not bolted down?
11/09/2010 at 08:38 bill says:
Is there a contradiction?
Ruse = good & no drm = happy.
AC:B = delayed and maybe drm = unhappy.
seems pretty consistent to me.
11/09/2010 at 08:52 Vinraith says:
@bill
I think CH means Ubi’s attitude towards its customers is self-contradictory, not the behavior of said customers.
Also, while Steamworks may be a vast improvement over UbiDRM, it’s a long way from “no DRM.”
10/09/2010 at 17:37 Klaus says:
For an assassin he’s bringing quite a lot of attention to himself.
10/09/2010 at 17:46 Jimbo says:
I feel like we’ve had this discussion about a million times, but I doubt it’s due to the PC being treated as an afterthought – I mean, the PC *is* treated as an afterthought of course, for good reason, but that isn’t the reason for this delay. It’s quite deliberate on their part, in order to maximize console sales and then pick up whatever PC sales are left to be had afterwards. That just seems like good sense to me – no use getting worked up about it.
It will be interesting to see whether they have dropped the always-on DRM entirely, or if RUSE is just a one off.
10/09/2010 at 22:55 Barnaby says:
Lol, not only do I like them shitting all over my chest, but it makes good sense too! Yes, a company behaving like a huge douche bag always makes perfect sense…
11/09/2010 at 08:48 bill says:
But if the PC versions were consistently released at the same time as the console versions, it wouldn’t be a case of “picking up whatever sales are to be had”. Would it?
11/09/2010 at 08:51 bill says:
I figure that since PC titles have 90% piracy rate, and AC2 had unbreakable DRM, it must have sold 10 times more than AC1. So ubisoft must have made so much money that they have no need to rush out this game, so they’re taking their time and doing a perfect port to pc.
Right?
PS/ Does anyone have any good sales figures for the PC versions of new vs old ubisoft games?
16/09/2010 at 17:51 Dude says:
ACII is a rather lovely game if you’re a very big fan of GTA IV and Arkham Asylum. Those cutscenes and Ezio’s voice acting is pretty much bang on Niko Bellic territory. I very highly recommend people to play it (preferably after buying it). If the DRM keeps you from being able to play it and if you–like me–don’t live in Ubisoft’s ideal world where everyone has always on unlimited internet access, use the goddamn like I did.
17/09/2010 at 06:29 Jay says:
I hope what u said is sarcrastic. Saying PC gaming is a dying format is like saying TV’s are going out of fashion. Ironic because everyone is using a computer right now. Ironic because there are millions more PC gamers out there than console gamers.
30/09/2010 at 19:34 Andrew says:
The Assassin’s Creed games offer almost all I like in a game: action, adventure, stealth, free roaming open world, a beautifully designed believable world, a great mysterious story etc. I would love to have all of them in my game collection, but I only bought the first AC game. The draconian DRM that was used in the second game is not acceptable and only because of this DRM I did not buy the game. If the same DRM is used in Brotherhood I will not buy that game either, but it will not prevent me or anyone else playing the game at all. So what is the use of such a DRM? I understand and accept the need for some kind of DRM, but there are other more effective, more acceptable, user friendly, less objectionable DRM methods. So why on earth use a DRM that makes pirated games more then ever seem like a very viable alternative?