Ubisoft slams PC pirates, confirms two PC no-shows

Ubisoft has blamed piracy for the decision to release neither I Am Alive or Ghost Recon: Future Soldier on PC.

Furthermore, the company had a big dig at the PC gaming community.

"We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them," I Am Alive’s Stanislas Mettra told IncGamers.

"But are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it?"

"It’s hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it."

Piracy was also blamed for the lack of a PC version of 2012 shooter Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, with Ubisoft pointing out that it will be offering free-to-play title Ghost Recon Online instead.

We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry,” the game’s producer Sbastien Arnoult told PC Gamer.

When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind.

To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, ‘Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.”

We’re adapting the offer to the PC market. I don’t like to compare PC and Xbox boxed products because they have a model on that platform that is clearly meant to be €60’s worth of super-Hollywood content. On PC, we’re adapting our model to the demand.”