Ubisoft is killing off a game millions have bought (The Crew)
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ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg
If you don't vote with your wallet, no one else will do it for you.
Of course, one could also get a discless PS5 slim/xbox. All games will cease to work in 2033, but that time will never come, so why not.
It’s more like “you DON’T get what you pay for”.
In actuality all that you paid for is "protection" money to copyright mafia enforcers.
I feel like it’s very silly to expect every single game to have a single player mode. Yes, multiplayer games cost money, and yes, most of them shut down at some point. The trade off is that you can get a lot more hours out of them than a typical single player experience.
My feeling is that lot of people who don’t really understand gaming and are coming from the open source community come out on threads like this to express shock and disgust at practices that are basically industry standard, completely reasonable practices that most players expect.
It would be like if a Blu-ray enthusiast came to a movie theater and pulled the fire alarm because all the patrons didn’t get to keep the movie forever.
How about people who aren’t born yet who would love to play this game? Should we also burn all books that are older than 10 years because enough people read them?
> I feel like it’s very silly to expect every single game to have a single player mode. Yes, multiplayer games cost money, and yes, most of them shut down at some point.
We are not talking about single/multi player games. No, multiplayer games don’t always cost money.
What we are talking about is people buying a software thinking they will be able to use it forever, but 10 years later seller destroying what people have bought.
There are 2 correct solutions to this problem:
1. Let people know the shut down date at the time of purchase.
2. Allow people to play game without of having to rely on a server that people don’t control. For example, Ubisoft could open source their The Crew server (or at least release binary) so that people could run that server themselves to be able to play the game.
As far as the shutdown date, there’s no way to predict that at time of launch. Companies can only promise what is financially viable. A mediocre selling game of this type going for 10 years of working online is considered pretty decent in the gaming world. Many game studios don’t even last 10 years.
It would be nice to get a dedicated server but not every multiplayer game type is suited for it and Ubisoft has to pay someone to develop that free product that doesn’t make them a dime. A game like Fortnite would be difficult to offer as a dedicated server product. You need 100 players just to play a match, and the game’s multiplayer infrastructure is built with a huge player base in mind. It is not likely something that can be practically offered as a simple executable that can be run on a consumer system without major changes.
(What I meant by saying that multipayer games cost money is that despite having a purchase price for the license it’s generally understood that they’re not guaranteed to be “open forever” types of experiences. People who buy call of duty know that that year’s version of the game will not have a player base forever and will eventually be shut off. Like I’ve pointed out in other comments, there’s a literal disclaimer on the box that says that much).
Would you be ok if dealership repossessed your car that you fully paid off?
with all the disgusting things ubisoft actually do, we don't need to be making things up to get angry about.
1. > which flopped, wasn't very good, and which zero people actually care about
Speak for yourself.
2. > wasn’t very good
That game has the entire map of USA. It’s a driving game with one of the biggest maps in existence. I think it takes about an hour of real world time to drive from SF to NY. I feel myself silly having to explain this to you.
3. > has been running for 10 years
How about people of the future who would want to play this game? How about all the hard work developers put into developing this game? All their work is gone and nobody will experience their creation? Using the same logic: should we burn all paintings ever made after 10 years because enough people looked at them?
If you want to extend the logic to art then you’d have to compare multiplayer games to performance art. A multiplayer game without a player base basically isn’t a game just like a piece of performance art is ephemeral.
I know that online-only games will stop working at some point. This is not the problem.
The problem is that Ubisoft didn’t let people know that game relies on a server they don’t control and they didn’t give us shut down date of March 2024 all the way back in 2014 when they released the game.
Step back and think about how ridiculous this ask is. Most new businesses don’t even last 10 years never mind guaranteeing a service being rendered for a decade. Imagine if Netflix was to predict a shutdown date for their DVD service the day they started offering it.
This was a free multiplayer server being run for a 6/10 game that was averaging less than 50 players a day on Steam.
Maybe it would be nice of them to provide a dedicated server on their way out but they don’t really have any moral or legal obligation to do so.
Ever heard of LAN parties? Ever heard of people hosting their own servers to play with their friends?
But many live service games like Fortnite aren’t something that can be easily be operated that way.
It’s possible someone may make a custom online server for this game but probably not considering its mediocrity and small player base.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/[username]/games/?tab=all
that you own none.
Zero
You own a license which can be revoked and you - currently - have no recourse.
https://gog.com is one alternative, I am sure others here know more.
Correct.
In USA it’s all thanks to ProCS v. Zeidenberg:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD,_Inc._v._Zeidenberg
As far as I understand based on reading that wiki if company writes in that license that they can take away your ability to use software then you don’t own software that you buy.
People need to boycott online only, server dependent games.
However, in other countries this may be illegal and needs to be challenged.
I didn’t get that at all? The ruling just states that a company can put a license in their software that you have to open first, and you accept once you start using the software. It doesn’t say that licenses that arbitrarily revoke the software are enforceable.
Specifically this part:
“it could require customers to agree to its terms on how to use the product”.
Since Ubisoft invested money into developing a game they can legally say in their license “at some point you won’t be able to use this software”, which basically translates to “you don’t own software”.
Well famously there is one recourse, it's just that things like Steam are more convenient. If that changes though, well...
...Arr.
This is why I won't pay money for a product that I can't have in my physical control. It's just not worth it.
Meanwhile there are plenty of games I have the CDROM for that won’t work because of hardcoded compatibility requirements, key authentication servers being offline, or multiplayer being tied to a defunct service like MSN zone or GameSpy.
In a world where Steam revokes my licence to a game I have absolutely no ethical concerns about using piracy to retrieve a backup.
But you mentioned gog. AFAIK gog does not sell games you can’t own.
It’s ok for a game to rely on a server if you can run that server locally on your computer, or be able to host server in general anywhere YOURSELF.
Do you mind finding at least 1 such DRM game on a gog, please? I want to look in to it to understand better what you mean.
If I cannot run it without the blessings of a company which will inevitably stop hosting a service, that is not DRM free. I should be able to store the bits on an archival DVD which is playable in N decades without the approval of anybody.
A quick skim, I pulled out a few:
- Beat Hazard 2 - online DRM. The game can't be started at all without being online. It is fully DRM-ed!
- F.E.A.R. - arguably a bug that stays unfixed. Securom remnants weren't removed and can cause the single player game not to start. See post 41
- Prison Tycoon: Under New Management - the main game is DRM free. The add-ons require Galaxy. They don't show up in game after an offline installation on an offline computer.
- Spellforce 3 - Skirmishes against the AI require an online connection.
- Two Point Hospital - part of the single-player content is gated through online connectivity. I.e. one has to register online and be online to unlock. Plus: core gamplay mechanics (staff handling, diagnostics) are bugged in offline mode.
Edit: I was going to add Cult of the Lamb which I previously did not buy from GOG because the developer retained DRM that would progress lock the game. Evidently that block has been removed. Conflicted if I can now buy it- they did correct their bad behavior, but it shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place.
Beat Hazard 2.
I never played it, don’t know what it’s about, but here is what I see on the gog page:
https://www.gog.com/game/beat_hazard_2
GOG has this label:
“DRM FREE. No activation or online connection required to play.”
So, gog THINKS that it is DRM free, but you say it’s not, so I go to comment section and see that pinned, “OVERALL MOST HELPFUL REVIEW” says:
> ... has secret DRM. It's using SOAP to login a user and has bugs that error out if you disconnect during certain actions in the game. Either way the developer has turned to scum by putting secret backend monitoring software inside his 'drm free' game.
Aha! So it’s not GOG’s fault, it’s DEVELOPER’S fault. It’s just that GOG doesn’t know about yet, or doesn’t want to deal with it or whatever. So, yeah, technically gog should remove this game from their store. But the point is gog is not the one acting in bad faith here. The DEVELOPER is.
(I’ll look at other games later. Thank you for this list!)
PS. I think GOG should do a clean up of DRMed games to live up to their words. I am disappointed they are dropping a ball on this one. They should visit that forum page and check those games. But, like I said: gog is not initially acting in bad faith, developers who implement DRM into their games do.
That is a distinction without a difference. I have a business relationship with GOG. A relationship predicated on their pitch that games are DRM free. Knowingly selling games with restrictions is fraud.
They do not get to pretend they are ignorant of the complaints listed on their own web forum.
> AFAIK gog does not sell games you can’t own.
> I am disappointed they are dropping a ball on this one. They should visit that forum page and check those games. I’m not trying to defend gog. “afaik” stands for “as far as I know”. It sucks, but in a world where everybody is trying to prevent people owning software they purchase gog is better than nothing. Beggars can’t be choosers.
> Knowingly selling games with restrictions is fraud.
I agree. Somebody who has money should sue them. In the meantime, if there is a better, more ethical alternative to gog let me know (and I am not being sarcastic when I say “let me know” - I genuinely want to know a reliable, ethical place where I can buy games without DRM).
Ubisoft didn’t tell us they’re going to shut down servers in March 2024. They didn’t tell us they are going to shut down servers at some point in the future AT ALL. They should have let us know the shut down date up front if they knew they won’t run servers forever and/or they should have clearly labeled game as “requires server you can’t control”.
The box was clearly marked with "ONLINE CONNECTION REQUIRED". It also said "SCEA may retire the online portion of this game at any time." and "UBISOFT MAY CANCEL ACCESS TO ONE OR MORE SPECIFIC ONLINE FEATURES UPON A 30-DAY PRIOR NOTICE PUBLISHED AT thecrew-game.ubi.com." (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/718281-the-crew/boxes/6071...)
Plus, you should be smart enough to be aware that purchasing a copy of an online-only game is not a guarantee they will run the servers forever.
How can you predict a shutdown date 10 years ahead of time? That’s ridiculous. No business can be held to that standard. They have no way to predict whether it becomes the most popular game of all time or flops like crazy. Hell, in 10 years dozens of game studios have gone out of business entirely. It’s not like they intended to. I’m sure Ubisoft would have loved it if The Crew became the most popular racing game of all time and was the biggest e-sports tournament game on the planet.
If you want a forever experience you don’t buy a multiplayer game at all. Heck, you don’t buy anything.
If you expect every product you own to last forever you’ll never actually find a product that satisfies your needs. When you buy a car does the manufacturer tell you the exact date when it won’t be financially worth fixing anymore? When you buy a pair of jeans does the company tell you how many years it’ll last before they fade or rip? Hell, my last water heater didn’t last 10 years and that cost a lot more than a game license, and I need that to survive.