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[madness]

Unfortunately once again, I don't have much time to write an article. So I'll just provide a link.

(for those of you who don't want to visit the link see the quote box below.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/s ... bisoft-dev

Studio closures a sign of industry maturity, says Ubisoft dev
September 10th 2008

Studio closures are an unfortunate effect of the industry's growing maturity, according to Gareth Edmondson, studio head at Ubisoft Reflections.

"I suppose we have to expect consolidation in terms of fewer, but bigger companies in our industry," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "It's been going on for a while and I think it's part of the growing pains of an industry coming to maturity."

Edmonson's comments come as a number of high profile studios including Pivotal, Venom and Flagship have been forced to close in recent months. GamesIndustry.biz revealed yesterday that NCsoft is to cut its European office in Brighton and halt development on an unnamed MMO. The company had been set to receive a GBP 950,000 grant from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), in order to aid its expansion.

Edmondson went on to stress that even though the industry as a whole was growing, studios in the UK are missing out, due to lack of support from the government, especially when compared to tax breaks offered by nations like Canada.

"Globally, the industry is expanding. Ubisoft for example has been and continues to expand and recruit in the UK and elsewhere. But the UK in general is missing out on the global expansion and it is saddening to see UK studios closing down and layoffs happening," he said.

Edmonson is a supporter of the recently launched Games Up? campaign, which he hopes can level the playing field for UK studios. "I do think that the UK is suffering from a very unbalanced playing field when it comes to cost. After all, GamesUp? isn't after handouts, it's after a level playing field that will help encourage investment in the UK, and lower the barrier to entry for start-ups as well."

"Another key objective of the GamesUp? campaign is raising the standard of our graduates for the industry. A well trained workforce will stimulate investment, and allow the UK to take much better advantage of the global expansion that we are seeing in the industry," he added.

The Ubisoft Reflections boss further noted that even studios taken in by a big publisher or console manufacturer aren't free from the tough conditions in the industry. Microsoft announced yesterday that it is closing Ensemble Studios following completion of the Halo Wars project.

"Being publisher-owned doesn't diminish the demands on the quality of your product, rather it increases as publishers are likely to bet bigger on their internal studio products," he explained. "Indies have other issues to deal with of course, and it's generally true that a publisher-owned studio gets a better chance as they have more resources at hand, less cash flow issues and other traditional indie worries."

"I do think it's a tough business... Publishers are responding to the demands of the marketplace like any business. Generally speaking, I am sure that all publishers are demanding of their studios because consumers are demanding," Edmondson added.

[Nikusakken]

Wow, UK's government needs to get laid and help the developers for once per all!

[bb_42001]

the UK should give them money so they can develop the video games they play in paliment instead of doing work!

[madness]

the UK should give them money so they can develop the video games they play in paliment instead of doing work!

Your intending they're using pirated versions of the games they play.
Ubisoft should follow suit with those other companies sueing people pirating their software.

If they hook up with major ISP, track who's illegally downloading their games and fine them $300 while fining those who share the games $100 for each other person they shared it with.

I guess that's a fair bit
But no one is going to care if they get fined a little sum of money. Then they'll just continue downloading.

[bb_42001]

in realety madness that will never happen

[Nikusakken]

Trying to know who downloads cracked/pireted versions of games os almost impossible. Because a lot of people download at the same time everywhere in the world. This is why they put stupid softwares like StarForce to "protect" their games.

[bb_42001]

even that get cracked it just takes a little more time

[madness]

Trying to know who downloads cracked/pireted versions of games os almost impossible. Because a lot of people download at the same time everywhere in the world. This is why they put stupid softwares like StarForce to "protect" their games.

Copy protection is useless, with the amount of people on this planet. It's only a matter of days maybe months until someone cracks it, particularly when protection software like the very popular StarForce and other alternatives is used.

I do buy all my games, however I still get them cracked so I don't have to put the CD in the disk tray all the time. (that's why I find this protection annoying and useless, especially for people who don't know what a crack is. Those are the ones who aren't going to try and copy the game)

Spore, another EA game was released with protection that only allowed you to install it three times, then it'll be void and you'll have to buy another copy to get it working again. That's just stupid and it's also annoyed consumers a fair bit. Many deciding it's not worth the purchase.

If your thinking you only have to install it once, well counts as another install when you get a new video card, computer or reformat your hard drive.

Actually it's pretty easy for people to track you game downloads, and it's much easier to find out those who are using P2P. A game publisher has to search for their product on the P2P filesharing network and check out all the IP addresses of those who are sharing it. Then they can contact the internet service provider of that address and find out who owns that address and then you have the full name and the address of the illegal file sharer. That's the first step they should take to get people scared, so they'll never touch P2P ever again.

Once they have that solved, then they should figure out the disk copying and sharing situation. It's not as important.

Driver: Parallel Lines
The first torrent site I went to had 5000 downloads.
5000 x $50 = $250,000 lost that Ubisoft Reflections could use for the next installment of the driver series.

I did see some more popular games have almost 1 million downloads.
Of course all those people aren't going to buy the game and some just want to see what it's like. But seriously P2P is hurting the industry.

I guess it's much worse for the music industry, since it only takes 50mb to download a $30 album. Where a game takes 4gig for a $20 to $100 a game. But in the music industries case I think they price music a little high. $1.25 a track (digital download), it should be 50 cents a track after all there paying next to nothing to distribute it on the internet.

[Nikusakken]

The IP idea is cool, however there are ways to cover up your IP using some softwares, and it would be more difficulty to know.

I guess that piracy is almost impossible to stop. It's a popular thing. Maybe someone create a software that stop piracy once per all, but it seems impossible.

Piracy is even worse here, because games here are a fortune, and as the government and companies doesn't support us at all, piracy is popular here either...

[bb_42001]

or they contact the ISP so it wont allow any user to use a P2P site???

[Nikusakken]

Nah, it woudn't happen. Someone could use someone's else computer to download the game, burn in on a cd, bring to his home and he would play i.

Also, there a lot of P2P websites in the internet, they would never find all of them.

[bb_42001]

but it is still a good idea

[Nikusakken]

Yes it would... if there wasn't other ways to download pirated games on internet.

[bb_42001]

yeah, oh well

[Aidan]

The whole protection thing wouldnt work.
Firstly, IP addresses relate to the location of your ISP, who do not have to comply.

Secondly, each country has its own laws, if you download it from a site where the files are hosted in a country where these rules do not apply, then you probably cannot be caught.

Also, games are shockingly overpriced. Its far more likely for someone to get it illegally than paying the rip-off prices for games.

I buy all my console games, and pay for all my games on my PC through steam, but not always.

Photoshop is/was the biggest ripoff i've ever seen, did i pay for it?

[Coyote]

I pay for everything : Games, Music, Movies, Applications.

[bb_42001]

i must admit that i haven't payed for everything that i own ,but mostly all the stuff i have paid for.