Ubisoft Realizing That Perhaps 'Pirate' Users Are Really Just Like 'Free To Play' Users Who Don't Pay

from the same-percentages dept

Game maker Ubisoft is pretty closely associated with annoying DRM and an insistence that it needs DRM to fight infringement. And yet... the company seems to be recognizing something fundamental as it experiments with "free to play" games that have elements that you can purchase within the game: the percentage of people who pay are the same in both cases.

Yes, you read that right. According to Ubisoft's stats, when they determine how many copies of their DRM'd games are infringing vs. how many people play free to play games without ever paying... they're both right about 95%. From that you could make the argument that the people playing "for free" in either case, just aren't that interested in paying. Thus, cracking down on the infringement isn't likely to make much more money -- and, in fact, may be an expensive waste of time.

Filed Under: free to play, paying customers, piracy rates
Companies: ubisoft