Watch Dogs was intentionally hobbled on PC

You know what pisses me off more than Ubisofts arrogance. The fact that I just brought this game and find this out... Wish I could return it on steam.

Last game I ever buy from them.

this is why you try before you buy.
 
My source who works at Ubisoft on Watch Dogs says that the development team has written off the PC version saying that its a huge failure and one of the main reasons the PC version was released so broken is because they were over budget on it and had to say good enough. They also don't intend to offer much support for the PC version. That we can expect one or two patches to help address some of these current issues but that will be all as their is no additional money in the Watch Dogs PC budget to continues supporting it. He says part of the issue with Ubisoft PC games is too many components of the game are built in various studios around the world. When they start mashing up all these different elements it introduces problems.

Ubisoft shouldn't have released a POS game in the first place. Than it wouldn't be a failure. They're the ones who shot themselves in the foot and prevented paying customers, like me, from picking it up cause I knew they didn't deliver on their promises from E3. When I heard about the stuttering and everything else going on, I'm damn thankful I didn't give them my hard earned cash.
 
I applied this patch/mod and it helped quite a bit with my stuttering though it isn't completely gone. I would have to say though it has transformed the game considerably. Whoever says graphics don't matter should spend hours playing this with the "Ubishaft" settings then apply this mod its like playing a whole new game. The level of realism just makes the game come to life. At this point having found out Ubisoft hobbled the game when there was such a cool looking game hidden underneath leads me to believe Ubisoft is capable of just about any stupid we can think of.
 
People got way to much time on there hands. Just enjoy the dam game.
 
People got way to much time on there hands. Just enjoy the dam game.

Who are you to say how someone else should enjoy it? Just because you don't have the time or inclination to do it yourself? Especially with how the game was originally presented and the state of its release, I applaud the efforts of the people involved to point out how abso-fuckin-lutely ridiculous these ports are.
 
As is often the case with games these days if enough talented modders consider the game is worth the effort to improve we will eventually have a good game, doesn't excuse the poor PC release but game companies know full well that when the initial hate dies down and some third party mods are working their magic they will still be able to sell some copies when people know that the mods are available and will fix many of the vanilla game issues.

If Boris Vorontsov the ENB mod guru likes Watch Dogs he might make an ENB for the game which might be more efficient to run than all the features that are presently disabled, personally, I love ENB's and wouldn't want to play the vanilla versions of GTA, Skyrim, and Fallout without an ENB mod, it meant buying a GTX 780 to get a stable 50-60fps but the game looks so good it's worth it :cool:
 
Gotta wonder if Ubisoft deliberately handicapped the pc version and left the console versions "unmodded" for the purposes of one-sided console platform promotions...
 
PC gamers need to abandon Ubisoft. No other company has shown such outright contempt for the platform and its users than Ubisoft.
Except Microsoft.

You obviously don't code for a job, no offence.

Looks like a variable that only has one definition as it's only intended for the PC; the rem statement reflects this, but the else capture remains in place, probably just out of caution. 'DefaultProbeUpperColor' is likely undefined in the PC code, hence the 'Who cares' remark.

Nothing to see here.
Well it's this statement that can be misinterpreted AND them claiming the PC version was not downgraded AND discovering that they were clearly lying AND finding out that the performance is worse by default that kind of makes this all "something to see." So even if this comment is exactly as you say, it STILL means they were outright lying to PC gamers publicly. I don't see how Ubisoft gets off the hook as coming across as anything but arrogant jackasses on this one.
 
My opinion, as someone who has played video games since the original Pong, is that pc gaming sucks. It's a vast wasteland of shit, with a few scattered bright spots. It becomes more so every single day. There are just enough occasional titles to make me stay in it, but not enough do restore my love of, nor hope for, pc gaming.

Developers in the early years of pc gaming did everything they could to advance the hobby by developing new techniques and concepts. Now, they just cater to one concession after another.

I'm saddened to say it, but I can't escape the obvious. The more they keep fucking around with the destiny of pc gaming, the more they drive me into other hobbies.
 
QFT! The "who cares" statement is a non issue... what IS an issue is Ubisoft not letting PC gamers toggle the additional shader and particle effects that are already in the game. Labeling these settings as "E3" also shows that they intentionally misdirected the audience into thinking that the final product would look like the 2012 E3 demo they showed off.

^^^ Comments mean nothing. I've seen some pretty stupid comments. They are often meant for someone else working with the code at a particular time. They might have been working on something that had nothing to do with PC at the time and it was just intended to say, "Don't waste any time looking at this."

Disabling features that were used in a public demo to sell the game though, I'd like an explanation for that. If it's because there's still work to be done on those features before they're ready for prime time, say so. Tell people there are more features to come in future patches but no show stoppers that require a delay of release.
 
My opinion, as someone who has played video games since the original Pong, is that pc gaming sucks. It's a vast wasteland of shit, with a few scattered bright spots. It becomes more so every single day. There are just enough occasional titles to make me stay in it, but not enough do restore my love of, nor hope for, pc gaming.

Developers in the early years of pc gaming did everything they could to advance the hobby by developing new techniques and concepts. Now, they just cater to one concession after another.

I'm saddened to say it, but I can't escape the obvious. The more they keep fucking around with the destiny of pc gaming, the more they drive me into other hobbies.

yep! i'm becoming more and more wary of putting any more money into my computer if things continue as they are. the problem for me is that i don't really enjoy anything else. it's going to be hard finding a new hobby if it comes to that.
 
Gotta wonder if Ubisoft deliberately handicapped the pc version and left the console versions "unmodded" for the purposes of one-sided console platform promotions...

My guess would be they gimped the PC version so as to not highlight the chasm between what is achievable on PC compared with the brand-new-hotness consoles. The cynic in me says they might have done this at the behest of MS/Sony not wanting their recently released hardware shown up too badly.

Out of interest, is this a TWIMTBP game too? The timing of the 6GB 780 cards and the Watch_Dogs required for 3GB for ultra textures got me thinking...

Failing the above, what possible reasons can there be for disabling all this stuff or not spending a bit of time to get it working properly in the first place?

Having seen how this has played out I am now wary of getting too excited for Far Cry 4 too...
 
My guess would be they gimped the PC version so as to not highlight the chasm between what is achievable on PC compared with the brand-new-hotness consoles. The cynic in me says they might have done this at the behest of MS/Sony not wanting their recently released hardware shown up too badly.

Out of interest, is this a TWIMTBP game too? The timing of the 6GB 780 cards and the Watch_Dogs required for 3GB for ultra textures got me thinking...

Failing the above, what possible reasons can there be for disabling all this stuff or not spending a bit of time to get it working properly in the first place?

Having seen how this has played out I am now wary of getting too excited for Far Cry 4 too...

apathy?
 
Really though? Their working environment must be completely fucked if that is the case.

I'm really struggling to enjoy my current job, mainly due to politics and red-tape. However, I still take pride in my work and want to do things to a high standard so that people don't look at me like I'm an idiot.

If the above is not true of the Ubi developers then they must be in a really bad place emotionally/mentally.

What's worse, now that the situation with Watch_Dogs has been highlighted and brought into the public domain by a community member their morale is going to be shot even further.

Either way, it's pretty shoddy and I for one am glad I didn't buy into the hype and pay for this game. What a shitty way to screw over, arguably, the most dedicated segment of gamers?
 
So, what will really become of all this? Will anything actually change with Watch Dogs on PC or Ubisoft's attitude towards PC? I'd love to think this will spur some change for the better of PC gaming, but I have a feeling this will just be passed over and forgotten in a short matter of time. As fired up as everyone is over this, it doesn't look like any of the right cogs are engaged in this ordeal to make anything meaningful happen.
 
My opinion, as someone who has played video games since the original Pong, is that pc gaming sucks. It's a vast wasteland of shit, with a few scattered bright spots. It becomes more so every single day. There are just enough occasional titles to make me stay in it, but not enough do restore my love of, nor hope for, pc gaming.

Developers in the early years of pc gaming did everything they could to advance the hobby by developing new techniques and concepts. Now, they just cater to one concession after another.

I'm saddened to say it, but I can't escape the obvious. The more they keep fucking around with the destiny of pc gaming, the more they drive me into other hobbies.

I totally feel ya. Just turned 46 and I get in those moods quite often about PC gaming.
When I get in those moods I hop on my 4wheeler and hit the trails and everything melts away.
Ubisoft like many other devs cater to the console kiddies but treat us PC gamers like a step child.
However, I think there are more “bright spots” out there than not, mainly because of modders and the indie devs.
PC gamers are really in an exciting time right now, the Rift will be pushing us into a new dimension of games, despite Sony and MS own VR gear, they are stuck in a 10 year cycle, we are not :cool:
 
You know what pisses me off more than Ubisofts arrogance. The fact that I just brought this game and find this out... Wish I could return it on steam.

Last game I ever buy from them.

Hence the reason why publishers don't put out demos anymore, they don't have an ounce of commercial morality or artistic integrity to stand behind their products. They know they are pumping out complete shit in many cases and that if people had an opportunity to test the product beforehand that this would cost them money in terms of lost sales. In many ways they probably love the PC platform, put in minimum effort and as long as you dazzle the undiscerning easily enamored mass of users with hyperbolic marketing, you have money in the bank given that games can generally not be returned or sold off second hand.

Ubi's behavior was even more egregious and unforgivable IMHO because they flat out LIED about the product. They didn't skirt around the truth or use marketing bluster, they attempted to refute concerns about the graphics by boldly stating that there had been no downgrade. Jonathan Moran in particular ought to be singled out and viciously pilloried for all of his dishonest statements and half truths.

I had been banging on about this for quite some time in the main Watch Dogs thread because I could see from a million miles that Ubi was attempting to hype this game so that people would overlook the glaringly obvious signs that it was going to fall short on so many of its pre-release promises. Hopefully the community appropriately punishes Ubi by not buying the sequel so that it bombs MoH: Warfighter style.
 
So, what will really become of all this? Will anything actually change with Watch Dogs on PC or Ubisoft's attitude towards PC? I'd love to think this will spur some change for the better of PC gaming, but I have a feeling this will just be passed over and forgotten in a short matter of time. As fired up as everyone is over this, it doesn't look like any of the right cogs are engaged in this ordeal to make anything meaningful happen.

No clue, the fact its been more than 24 hours and no response from Ubisoft, to mean speaks that they never intended this shit to be known, and a team of very very very high priced PR people are charging $10,000 a word for the perfectly scripted response that doesn't make them look bad

In short, this http://youtu.be/9u0EL_u4nvw
 
So, what will really become of all this? Will anything actually change with Watch Dogs on PC or Ubisoft's attitude towards PC? I'd love to think this will spur some change for the better of PC gaming, but I have a feeling this will just be passed over and forgotten in a short matter of time. As fired up as everyone is over this, it doesn't look like any of the right cogs are engaged in this ordeal to make anything meaningful happen.

We're on the very last console generation, at least for home systems. After that it will be PC only, judging by the poor sales of all the new systems it looks like consumers are wising up to up to the fact they are buying underpowered overpriced hardware
 
Has any sites done benmark reviews of this mod? would be nice to see side by side video with some real numbers on a several diff cards/cpus.
 
You obviously don't code for a job, no offence.

Looks like a variable that only has one definition as it's only intended for the PC; the rem statement reflects this, but the else capture remains in place, probably just out of caution. 'DefaultProbeUpperColor' is likely undefined in the PC code, hence the 'Who cares' remark.

Nothing to see here.

Actually, if you look at the full shader he linked too back here
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/40bed5f8fd163b8de7df

The consoles both use a 3d texture lookup for the value of upperColor where PC has only the static value.

Based o the names, it looks like consoles get some variance in the global ambient lighting in weather (rain for this shader) based on a volumetric texture (something like: rain will darken the scene with distance, or this area has more clouds and should be darker), the PC does not.

Now, on the list of things wrong with Watch Dogs on the PC, this probably doesn't rate in the top 100, but it may be a good sign of how much they cut corners with the PC version.
There's nothing in PC hardware that should prevent them from using 3d textures for the same purpose they did on XBox and Playstation, other than they're video memory consumption was already out of hand and 3d textures are huge memory hogs.
 
We're on the very last console generation, at least for home systems. After that it will be PC only, judging by the poor sales of all the new systems it looks like consumers are wising up to up to the fact they are buying underpowered overpriced hardware

What fantasy world do you live in?
 
yep! i'm becoming more and more wary of putting any more money into my computer if things continue as they are. the problem for me is that i don't really enjoy anything else. it's going to be hard finding a new hobby if it comes to that.


I don't think I will stop building systems, its a great stress reliever for me on a personal level, and the gaming capability at this stage of my life is almost entirely secondary. As for other hobbies, you're totally right, way to many other things to enjoy to continue shoveling our money into something that isnt paying much dividends anymore.
 
I don't think I will stop building systems, its a great stress reliever for me on a personal level, and the gaming capability at this stage of my life is almost entirely secondary. As for other hobbies, you're totally right, way to many other things to enjoy to continue shoveling our money into something that isnt paying much dividends anymore.

Ditto- I haven't upgraded my PC in forever and probably won't for a while. I am thinking of selling my gaming pc and just building a simple AMD system with built in video so I can use it for music and office stuff. I have a Xbox One and 360 now and pretty much game on that. I don't have the time and money anymore to keep up and Watchdogs is a perfect example of how PC gaming is going. It will probably be my last PC game I ever purchase. I don't see investing the money in PC paying off either.
 
Hence the reason why publishers don't put out demos anymore, they don't have an ounce of commercial morality or artistic integrity to stand behind their products.

So much truth in that sentence.

If the developers/publishers had any conviction they would see no issue with releasing a demo. The lack of demos will also continue to drive piracy in my opinion. Why pay for something when you don't know what you're getting???

The other daft trend is for games to reach c. 50% of their day-1 price within 2-3 weeks of release. It doesn't pay to be an early buyer any more. You either get burned on the price or with a shitty, half-baked game.

I am done with Day-1/full-price purchases (though I might make an exception for Arkham Knight as I really want to support Rocksteady).
 
yep! i'm becoming more and more wary of putting any more money into my computer if things continue as they are. the problem for me is that i don't really enjoy anything else. it's going to be hard finding a new hobby if it comes to that.

/get a motorcycle, either dirt, or street. Everything else just melts away....
 
So much truth in that sentence.

If the developers/publishers had any conviction they would see no issue with releasing a demo. The lack of demos will also continue to drive piracy in my opinion. Why pay for something when you don't know what you're getting???

The other daft trend is for games to reach c. 50% of their day-1 price within 2-3 weeks of release. It doesn't pay to be an early buyer any more. You either get burned on the price or with a shitty, half-baked game.

I am done with Day-1/full-price purchases (though I might make an exception for Arkham Knight as I really want to support Rocksteady).

Look at what demos did for that Spintires indie game. They actually updated the tech demo multiple times in 4 years.. Then went on to raise $80k on Kickstarter and now the #1/#2 selling game on Steam. That demo sold the game for that without a doubt because the demo was fantastic.
 
This developing trend of intentionally crippling PC release to make console titles sell better via 'graphics are as good as PC ultra!' is annoying to say the least.
 
Look at what demos did for that Spintires indie game. They actually updated the tech demo multiple times in 4 years.. Then went on to raise $80k on Kickstarter and now the #1/#2 selling game on Steam. That demo sold the game for that without a doubt because the demo was fantastic.

Spintires the demo is actually impressive as hell, and is a great indicator of the quality of the game

Publishers, every one of them asked, has publicly stated they don't put out demos anymore at all, because even if they have a fantastic game they won't release a demo

Why? Cause 99 out of 100 times the game isn't that great, thus, a demo actually shows how poor the product is, and gamers won't buy it.

Worse is that publishers are very, very, very, VERY well aware that PC gamers are flat out the hardest base to please ATM, because PC gamers have access to an unbelievable back catalog and know what is good and bad games. No better statement of that truth with Epic games where Bulletstorm had a demo for 360 and PS3, but not PC, because it would hurt sales of the PC version if people got to play a demo of it. And the game wasn't that bad, but it was not a $60 game that's for sure.

And today? Companies have been pretending for the last TEN YEARS that PC gaming is "Not that big" and "Does not make money", and the last ten years the numbers have shown they are full of it as they try to hang off the teet that is consoles as that WAS their bread and butter for all this time, even though PC game sales have dwarfed console sales for over ten years now, but the last two years PC game sales dwarfed -EVERY- other console combined, its so big that now publishers are doing, well, this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0EL_u4nvw

Activision? Check. Epic games? Check. Microsoft? Check. Ubisoft? Check. Capcom? Check

All of them have come forwards and publicly said that "PC is going to be a major focus etc", and there is no evidence of that yet as they still have all their money tied up in console game production, but they damn well know that all the money is on PC, and they're playing catch up.
 
QFT! The "who cares" statement is a non issue... what IS an issue is Ubisoft not letting PC gamers toggle the additional shader and particle effects that are already in the game. Labeling these settings as "E3" also shows that they intentionally misdirected the audience into thinking that the final product would look like the 2012 E3 demo they showed off.

They didn't call them E3, look closely at that image, it's environmental settings for areas, those same settings are on fully or off or somewhere inbetween for other areas, they were just setting rain, clouds and lightning (not lighting, lightNing) off for the E3 areas mentioned there.
 
We should be used to this by now. Ubisoft is a fucking disgrace. People who pre-purchase/pre-order/pre whatever need to wise the fuck up. I have no faith in any big publisher/developer anymore. They are all sucking that console dick and catering to fucking dude-bro's who drink Jager bombs while watching UFC and listening to nickelback .
 
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