Ubisoft: 'DRM wasn't a mistake', acknowledges 'unfortunate comments'

Ubisoft has declined to acknowledge that its always-on DRM policy was a mistake, and that it was damaging to the publisher's reputation in a new interview on the issue.

Speaking with Rock Paper Shotgun, Ubisoft's corporate communications manager, Michael Burk was asked if he was willing to admit that the publisher's heavy-handed DRM measures were a mistake.

Burk replied, "No, I wouldn’t say that. I’ll let Stephanie say what she thinks, but I wouldn’t use those words. This is a process, and we listened to feedback."

Ubisoft's worldwide director for online games Stephanie Perotti added, "I would say the same."

The hard-hitting interview also asks for Ubisoft's reps to explain why Yves Guillemot recently said that 90-95% of his company's PC games were being pirated, when back in July, Ubisoft exclaimed that DRM was working. The two statements didn't add up.

Perotti replied, "With regard to the numbers, the numbers are coming from both internal and external research. Research showed that it can reach that rate for some specific or popular PC games, and that number often varies depending on the territory. So we are not saying that it applies to all PC games for all territories, and we’re not saying that the same situation would apply for any game."

"I’m not going to comment on data," Perotti added, "That was an unfortunate comment. We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.

Thanks RPS.