Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft facing lawsuit for shutting down game
gamingbible.com
gamingbible.com
AFAIK, anyone with an old disc of Assassin's Creed 2 for Xbox 360 will still be able to play the single-player this Thursday. A disc for The Crew will become just junk when the server is killed.
I don't know what the solution is because a lot of these functions would require complex DRM systems to make a digital product behave anything like a physical one. So legislating to enforce digital consumer rights is effectively legislating for DRM everywhere. The crypto dream of tying every digital good to a token or NFT was effectively an implementation of this kind of DRM using blockchain. However many digital storefronts already implement complex DRM systems, so perhaps at least enforcing some kind of right to return digital goods (including game MTX) would be beneficial.
Because LAN (and dedicated servers, by effect) allows people to bypass the publishers servers, and makes it easy to still play multiplayer even though the game is "cracked" (DRM bypass).
Most game publishers do whatever they can to avoid making it feasible to play cracked games, even if some of the techniques they use hurt players who actually bought the game legally.
Also, LAN parties.
They couldn't play a multiplayer game because right at release, the servers were overloaded and the new version did not have a LAN mode at launch.
The whole purpose of the event was to have a kind of LAN / multiplayer gaming with the community and stream it.
It's broken and they don't seem to care, which is a huge shame.
There is absolutely zero incentive to add LAN to a game early, mid, or late stage. It does nothing but cost money and reduce profit margins.
As such, you will almost never see it on any large scale service oriented multiplayer game.
Ultimately, for business reasons:
1. A good LAN-play UX requires game/host discovery; solutions involving network broadcast will only work in small (i.e. home) LAN environments where everyone is in the same broadcast-domain - but this won't work in larger networks, which then means players will need to manually type-in IP addresses (which is acceptable for IPv4, but less-so in IPv6). Using an internet-based matchmaking and host/game directory service eliminates this problem when, and thesedays it's incredibly unlikely that a user will have a LAN available without Internet access. Internet-disconnected LAN-parties haven't really been a thing since ~2005 (excepting military/naval/antarctic scenarios) so the business-case just isn't there.
2. Providing technical support for games costs money; speaking from my second-hand experience with a major console game publisher: when a (console) game features LAN-play (with discovery/broadcast/manual-IP-addresses) it's inevitable the company will receive support calls/tickets from people having issues with their home networks that the company can't really do anything about; even if there's an explicit warning to users that the game's technical support team won't assist with local network problems they'll still receive those calls and need to triage (and reject) them, which all costs money.
3. The vast majority of a game's players aren't interested in such a feature; so when a game has a dev budget, it's just good business-sense to spend that budget on things that bring the most revenue, such as fixing bugs/glitches (which directly lead to bad IGN review scores and purchases legitimately demanding costly refunds) instead of netplay features (and omitting LAN-play isn't going to lose them that many potential customers; I suspect no-one already in the market for a AAA game is going to not buy it solely for that reason alone).
> But as people embrace [the model of subscription video games], they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you'll be able to access them when you feel like. Thats reassuring.
-- The Ubisoft director of subscriptions just the other day.
What is going on at Ubisoft? Is it incompetence? Like, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?
They do understand how terrible this looks, right?
Right?
/s
Anyway, I kinda get the point of view even if I dislike it. People really do continue to buy the newest CoD and sport franchise games despite the predatory monetization. Those are the people who are predicted to "embrace" their business model. And Ubisoft may actually keep some services running, though I suspect it will be only after they've sufficiently perfected the ~gambling~ ~Skinner box[0]~ ~money-grabbing~ gaming experience.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
Netflix frequently removes shows from their collection. Maybe they don't want us to pay for - and own - specific games. Maybe the idea is to convince us to pay $10/month for access to Ubisoft's "complete" collection of titles, with new games coming out regularly and old games being retired at a steady rate.
That would surely mean, not paying sticker price for a new game, right Ubisoft? Riiight?
Even with music I'm increasingly missing my old CD library. I miss knowing that I'll always be able to play my favorite songs even if some music lawyers have a fight, or my internet connection drops out. The subscription economy sure seems brittle.
in the end i think besides releasing the sources this kind of crowdfunding is the most likely way how an online game can be kept alive.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-ga... ("The new Ubisoft+ and getting gamers comfortable with not owning their games")
- "We looked at the consumer behaviour and how people were interacting with our offer and we saw an opportunity for us to evolve," explains Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft."
- "[...] One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game."
...but that's exactly what happened.
This line is really telling of our "digital feudalism" future. I get that the audience is investors and other people who regularly wear suits and that "needs to happen" is leaving unsaid "in order for this to be a viable business". Still, once upon a time the line was "the customer is always right" and here's how we'll be what they want us to be.
If it is internet facing how long will it receive security updates for?
If it uses online services how long will they be maintained for and what functionality will be lost when they shut down?
If these promises are broken the user should get a full refund (or even more compensation).
An even bigger issue is discontinued servers for hardware that winds up in the landfill. I have three perfectly good "smart plugs" that went dark about a month ago. Supposedly Matter will solve this, but I see no reason why better consumer protections shouldn't be in place.
But if I were to mandate some sort of "IoT Facts" label I would keep it simple. How long can some consumer with little to no technical knowledge keep using this device? If after 5 years they need to hack it to use a third-party server which may or may not be run by some third-party, they may have to pay extra for or run their own then I don't think they get to write ∞ on the "IoT Facts" label.
They can say 5 years + open source server code afterwards. But that is a different promise than running the server for 10, 20 or 100 years.
I run Acme Inc making IOT devices. I say 10 year guaranteed support. I go bankrupt next week, the company doesn't exist. Who is keeping the servers running exactly?
Feels like your opening up a can of hurt if they're relying on licensed services from someone else, not like they can open source that as well.
Again though given the sub licensing potential I can't see it being very effective. Maybe just a slight improvement.
When selling anything that relies on network services, companies should be forced to provide server and client source code to an authority, which will keep it in escrow indefinitely. The company is then required to renew their "IP lock" every X weeks/months; if they fail to do so, the code is made publicly available (maybe for a small fee, to cover operational costs).
Extra red tape? Maybe. A perfect system? Probably not, as companies would likely fail to upload updates after the initial market debut; and probably someone would occasionally forget to renew locks on products they still sell. Still better than the terrible status quo? For sure.
This does give some advantage to established companies but I don't think that is a major problem. If anything it gives companies a reason to build a reputation, which is something that we see a major lack of these days.
And it doesn't make the situation worse. Right now if you buy some Internet of Shit light switch from some effectively anonymous online seller that depends on their HTTP API there is a good chance that it does stop working within a few years. At least now reputable companies that don't go out of businesses do have to start behaving properly.
E.g. Pebble was sold to Fitbit due to insolvency. And the cloud services continued to run for a year.
Bankruptcy does not necessarily mean everything is gone. Deleting everything is actually the _worst_ outcome as it destroys value.
Not having any promise means it will pretty sure be gone. Having a support promise increases the chances of future support, even in case of bankruptcy.
Even in the case where it does trigger a public domain release, when the company is shutting and staff are trying to find new jobs, are they going to spend the time auditing they are able to release it?
I all seems like wishful thinking by gamers where their 'skin in the game' might be $60, or less if they got it on sale or a free to play title, or a trail of microtransactions that presumably they want to keep online but wasn't enough to keep the game going.
Because it literally isn't saying that! It is hinting at it.
Having an internet connection is a subset of the requirement to access to the developer-hosted server. If the actual requirement is "Must have access via the internet to a service that we run but may shut down whenever we feel like it won't harm our reputation too much" then that is what they should write.
If your game needs a server to be played, you also sell the server. Somebody will put it on a machine somewhere and manage it. I have no direct experience of Minecraft but it used to be more or less like that, right?
When my current 3 year old wants to learn to play a game with his dad and brother, there are many choices - and I'm sure not going to get us into one that we can't play in a few years.
[https://support.apple.com/kb/DL461?locale=en_US]
It's pretty much a paperweight at this point.
Companies should be required to release everything a costumer needs to build and use a new update for their own device or software after EOL. This means source code for relevant servers and clients, signing keys, device communication tools, the whole lot.
It's nothing controversial at all.