EA did quite well. :P

Off Topic (sort of), I no longer follow new game releases due to the DRM used, but I am wondering about the upcoming Starcraft (wings of liberty, I think).
What form of DRM does it use?
I just cannot bring myself to support DRM, but would like to consider this game, but will forgo it if it carries DRM.
Thanks
Now after answer...back on topic of Ubi-DRM

Missing the point. Wasn't about reward, was about the experience, which was the complete opposite of shallow for me...combat did suck though. :P

FY 2009 earnings can be found for most companies through a quick Google search. I checked both EA and Activision-Blizzard, and both of them recorded a loss as well. EA's loss was about on par with Ubisoft, while Activision-Blizzard's loss was quite a bit less (just a few hundred million USD). Of course, these are just raw numbers and not normalized for revenue or historical performance. I'll leave that as an exercise to anyone who's more interested in this than I am.

They can't blame piracy for this because it's a loss on all platforms, not just the PC, and while consoles have piracy no publisher ever talks about it (with the exception of Nintendo complaining about DS piracy)--as far as publishers are concerned, piracy is a strictly PC-only problem. Not only that, the cracking instructions for Ubisoft's ostensibly formidable DRM system seem to follow the tried-and-true "dump these files into the install folder and start playing" method. Oops.
And just how are they going to return to profitability for this fiscal year? With their new Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, Ghost Recon and H.A.W.X games which are just as shallow and unremarkable as the last ones?

You are right, to an extent. (sorry, I couldn't resist)
Maybe StarCraft was an exception purely based on how many copies were moved (nearly HALF of worldwide sales?). But yes, you were right, there is, in theory, a smaller market. I say in theory because atleast here, when economists talk about consumer confidence and spending, they don't take into account "frivolous" activities like gaming, going to cinema and so on. EDIT: Actually, forget that. Economists usually talk about businesses as a whole - but what's underneath still applies.
But the impact that StarCraft had to South Korean businesses was that a mass of net cafes started to pop up to accommodate the mind-boogling popularity of StarCraft when it was released. So, smaller market, maybe. Smart government decisions (before the release of StarCraft, the SK government railed out their legendary broadband service) led to what was initially a boon for local businesses - and later became a cultural phenomenon.
It's also hard to judge game sales, especially when you take into account DD services, that unless you're American, or Polish, tend to be overseas - so while it might bode badly for a local economy, it doesn't always mean the market is smaller.
You're right about multiplayer, it has become insanely popular.
Whatever the case, though. Ubisoft fucked up, and they did so majorly. The people who got to play Assassin's Creed 2 without encountering the bullshit of Ubi's "service", are far over shadowed by those who couldn't even play the game they bought because the prerequisite "service" supplied by Ubisoft wasn't up to scratch - and so, Ubisoft handed out a free game. Which amounted to a shit load of free games. It really is a horrible, horrible system that doesn't even apply to intelligent, sensible, rationality.
As far as being spiteful towards one of PC gaming's biggest publishers/developers.. Well, you treat your customers like crap, and you will get a lot of angry, spiteful rants.
They don't deserve an exemption from disrespect based on their years in the business. And really, they didn't learn from Spore? Come on, most publishers, even EA, learned a lesson from that.
I'll laugh, and I'll take great pleasure in knowing that the company has been hit by it.. Then that elation will be popped when I realise that in business, it's usually the guys lower on the heirarchy who end up feeling the effects - and they are the ones who don't deserve the effects.

Well, TBH, that report I linked says they're expecting to turn a profit next (this) Fiscal Year...again, it's light on details, though....

Hmm, Ubisoft has mentioned DS piracy in their second last earnings report I believe, saying they were going to include extras Atlus-style to fight it. Pretty progressive considering how jerky they are on PC.
I'm not sure publishers do feel that way...Microsoft kills LIVE accounts where they can for those who use pirated Xbox 360 games. The 2009 Torrentfreak numbers are pretty terrifying, I think about 1/4 as big as PC numbers on average. I assume they just don't want to talk about it so as to keep awareness to a minimum...a lot of console gamers seem to still not know they can pirate. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. :)

Oh look the number of PC rips 8P
PS.: I know there isn't any PC release yet...

Remove your image please.

I was purposely not posting the link, sorry 8(

I understand, but still. Thanks.

I think we can all agree that a game becoming the national pastime of both Koreas is probably a one-shot :p
But you yourself said it, "couldn't even play the game they bought". While I question where your statistics come from, I am not going to get into that debate.
This is why I specified "impacted", as opposed to affected. The sales of the "hardcore" gamers were (possibly) affected (let's pretend it was, for argument's sake). But by and large, people don't know and don't care. So they still bought the game. Maybe they were affected by the outages, maybe they weren't. That will impact future purchases and next fiscal year.
And as for counting losses for the gifts. Your choices were: AC2 DLC, or four games from the previous two years. I don't think Ubi would count a single penny of loss on those, simply because they were already paid off. The DLC can go either way, but it is easy to write that off (since it was already in the console version :p).
As for EA and Spore: Everyone cites Spore as almost having killed EA. I don't see that. Does anyone have any sales figures that show the losses EA took on that game (if any)? Or do we just assume that because none of us wanted the game (especially since it wasn't even marketed toward us) it was a flop? If so, them Sims games must be a constant drain. And don't forget that god awful Madden series (admittedly, I have been playing Madden 2000 for something like ten years :p). And good god, how did Bungie stay afloat after those Halo games?
As for my other comment: All I was trying to say is that we probably shouldn't' be cheering and partying because one of the biggest sources of PC games is showing poor returns. Let's pretend for a moment that it was really 100% because of the DRM. How will that affect the other companies:
Those who tend to be equal opportunity (THQ, for example) will start to question if it is even worth making PC games. Ubi did poorly, and that is where a large portion of their revenue comes from.
Those who actually are pretty PC-centric (EA, sort of) are going to question if it is worth continuing. Like it or not, DRM serves a purpose. At the very least, it makes the publishers feel better. But if you run the risk of taking massive losses because a bunch of gamers threw a (semi-justified) hissy fit over a DRM model? Maybe Ubi-DRM was a really bad idea. But I am sure it looked a hell of a lot better on paper, and Ubi probably only started to see how bad it was when all the news outlets started bashing it (yay for coloring public opinion :p). By then, the investment had been made.
Those who are long-term PC game companies (let's go with BIoware, even though they are part of EA) are going to question if it is worth sticking around. You do one thing that pisses people off, and they suddenly treat you as worse than EA. And then they all cheer when you suffer losses.
Yeah, it is nice to see that Ubi lost some money that the loud-mouths can attribute to the DRM. That will provide a lot more fuel for the next "angry man on the internet" to rant about DRM to a bunch of people who are opposed to DRM (while managing to single-handedly alienate the people who actually SHOULD be talked to :p). But think with regard to the long-term. And also realize that there is nothing that indicates this was DRM-related.
And, if anything, we should be ecstatic that Ubi didn't take the easy out. They blamed it on the economy, not PC-gaming. It is all of us who are insisting upon saying it is because PC Gamers don't want Ubi's games.

Yeah, a few others have mentioned DS piracy but they still talk about PC piracy a lot more to the extent where you'd think DS piracy isn't really an issue in comparison (when in fact it still is). Some DS games incorporate anti-piracy checks but these can of course be cracked like on the PC or bypassed entirely by more complex flash cart firmware.
Aside from the DS and maybe the PSP, publishers say nothing of console piracy despite it being steadily on the rise (and typically has games dumped days ahead of even the pre-launch PC leaks). 360s can only be banned if they are used online, so I'd imagine some pirates have two 360s, only legally paying for the handful of games they want to play online. Once the initial work has been done it's actually much easier to pirate on a console because you just need to crack the system itself and can then play anything unless a game requires a new firmware version (which will be cracked in turn soon enough), whereas on the PC you need a unique crack for each and every game and even different revisions of a game. This will be one reason why console games get earlier pirate releases than the PC versions.
PS3 piracy is currently impossible but is definitely in the works, which is one of Sony's reason for forcibly patching out Linux support--unless you install the update (which frags your Linux partition if you have one) you can't play new releases or use multiplayer for your existing games. PS3 piracy will always be less common unless it becomes possible to burn to DVDs instead of Blu-rays, however.
As consoles become more popular, piracy will inevitably rise. Even if it threatens to match the level of PC piracy I don't think publishers will say much about it, but one thing they will do is try to get Microsoft to make the next 360 more resilient; the PS3 has the desired resilience, partly due to deliberate technical limitations and partly due to the high cost of Blu-ray burners and writeable media. The next Xbox will surely use a higher-capacity disc type so they will be half-way there already.

I doubt the PC platform had a huge impact one way or the other on Ubi's earnings, unfortunately.
And I agree they just haven't been making as good of games as they used to lately, other than Assassin's Creed 2. The funny thing is they keep modifying franchises like Splinter Cell, Farcry, Rainbow Six, and others to appeal to a "wider audience" but then the sales do not show they are reaching a wider audience, they just pay a lot more money to get the same people to buy it.
If I were a videogame publisher I would be lowering budgets across the board and sticking to the core principles of each franchise. Lowe the budget of Splinter Cell and concentrate on gameplay, then make it the best damn stealth game it can be. Every stealth gamer will buy it, which should cover a lower budget, and then every other person who grabs it is profit.
But what do I know.