Ubisoft: PC games have 95 percent piracy rate

Andre Yoskowitz
22 Aug 2012 14:37

Ubisoft, always one to bring ridiculous figures to the table, has come out today with a number that should scare any developer looking to create a game for the PC.
CEO Yves Guillemot has said today that 93-95 percent of PC games are pirated.

Reads his quote, when asked about free-to-play titles:

It's a way to get closer to your customers, to make sure you have a revenue. On PC it's only around five to seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it's only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated. It's around a 93-95 per cent piracy rate, so it ends up at about the same percentage. The revenue we get from the people who play is more long term, so we can continue to bring content.

The rate is almost certainly not accurate, but it may be for Ubisoft games, each of which have DRM that does not allow gamers to play unless connected to the Internet. All of the DRM is usually broken in a day or less after release.