It seems that Ubisoft, the developer of such popular series as Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, doesn’t seem too concerned about console piracy. Recently Yves Guillemot, CEO and Chairman for Ubisoft went on record stating, “Altogether on console, the piracy is low. On the PC the piracy is quite a lot. We are working on a tool that would allow us to decrease that on the PC starting next year and probably one game this year.”

This isn’t surprising as piracy has plagued PC releases for quite some time, causing developers to shift their development towards safer, and more profitable platforms such as the home console market. As a result, we’ve seen an increased trend of Console games with the occasional PC port, often times following months after the game is initially released. On top of that, many studios that had previously developed exclusively for PCs and Macs have found themselves being sold to larger publishers. A recent example being the classic FPS developer Id Software. 

It’s a sad, but almost inevitable trend, and while some developers have found answers to the piracy problem, only a handful have managed to do well with the measures they’ve taken. Steam is a good example of how to properly market online games for digital distribution, but it can’t be the only method. And, if you look at the DRM issues that Bioware went through with titles like Mass Effect, you almost have to wonder how worth while developing security measures actually is. In the end, I can’t blame Ubisoft for being just the least bit concerned about the market, how about you?