Wiping a game from existence to a point where it's removed from players' digital libraries or physical copies are disabled without refund opportunities is as good as being broken into and having that game and product stolen. Companies should have to face repurcussions for this kind of disregard for paying customers. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea TOP PATRONS [BIG BOSS] - Devon B [BOSS] - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond - Phil [PRETTY LEGENDARY] - azalea
And unlike copyright infringement, which is not theft in any real or legal sense of the word, this nonsense, on a practical level, IS. On a legal level it is bad and misleading licensing terms. For reference, you Always bought a license and method of access, even when you bought the game in physical form, the same was true of books. The difference was the Physical model used to mean your license and access method were transferable and (functionally) non-revocable outside of particularly extreme violations (and even then, they didn't tend to revoke the license, just levy what amounted to substantial penalty fees via legal procedings), while the digital version is non transferable and can be revoked unilaterally. There is no distinction between 'buy' and 'license', because you Bought a License (and the physical object that facilitated access) to the content. The actual difference, and problem, is that the licensing terms for the physical item are essentially 'you own the object, and your license to the content is perpetual so long as you possess the object", and the licensing terms for the Digital item are very strongly implied to be the same terms, because that is the Default Contract for such license sales in the absense of an Actual Contract you Actually Signed BEFORE purchase that outlined other terms and no such alternate contract is ever presented... and yet the terms actually Enforced are: If the Rights Holder (not creator, VERY IMPORTANT distinction when discussing the nature of copyright) loses the rights to some sub part of the content due to not having the forsight to ensure those rights were perpetual... you lose the license you purchased, with no compensation. If the Rights Holder decides they don't like you, you lose the license you paid for with no compensation. If the Rights Holder decides they no longer wish to provide a service which is required in order to use some part or all of the content, you lose your license you paid for with no compensation (losing access to that part that they needed to actively provide upkeep for, such as multiplayer servers, where they were providing an actual Service, is fine. Losing access to the single player game that required no up keep from them in order to function because they turned off a DRM server (which is somewhere between malware and sabotage at the best of times) without patching out the part where software won't run if it can't check with the server, is NOT.) If the Rights Holder decides that you should be paying them more money to buy a defective remake of the game you currently have a license to? Under this model the only thing stopping them from revoking your license to the existing version without any compensation is not wanting the reputational damage... except most of them have proven time and time again that they don't even understand the concept of reputational damage, if sales don't meet targets they consider it a piracy problem. And on and on it goes. Note, at no point are you Renting the license/game either (except in those cases where you absolutely Are renting it and the terms of payment are very clear on that, you pay a much lesser amount of money to have acess to it for a specific duration of time (renewal options may or may not exist). That's a diferent matter). You are Buying a license. One time payment to get the thing. Fundamentally there is a problem with how things are done, and there's a solid case to be made that there is some wrongdoing on the parts of many companies who do not act in good faith (A reasonable customer fully expects their digital game to be tied to the platform they bought it on and go down with that platform unless it is explictly designed and advertised otherwise... but that's the Platform, in the role of Retailer, that's the trade off they've actually Agreed to for the convenience of digital access. That is not the Publisher/rights holder, who the customer expects not to be interacting with at all and does NOT, except by way of extortion via the terrible licensing terms, agree to grant access to their machine (outside of patching of the game, with said patches being expected to either fix defects or provide additional content, NOT sabotage/destroy it, and especially not, as has happend from time to time in the past, tamper with anything Outside of the game itself). But it's not buying vs licencing.
There are quite a few that don't deserve our money. We're the only ones that can make it happen. We hold the future and looking the other direction and paying anyways got us here in the first place.
"b.B.UT Gem x Iz Lit hurur DuRr BuRh" - literally every zoomers or turbotards that support them. they vene said at some point that MAYBE they would find a way to let you the play the crew 2 offline but we know how it ends when they say "MAYBE"
Steam still allows me to download/install games no longer allowed to be sold because of IP/copyright BS such as the first James Cameron's Avatar the game which IS an UBI title. No online play but who cares?
Remember everybody, this is our only one chance to make it right for everyone who likes videogames. Games are another form of art and need to be preserved.
Well you best buckle in and prepare for the worst, because this is is very likely to be a loss for you guys, terms of service is pretty clear and they can quite easily cite the literal hundreds of other live service games that died compared to a few people getting upset about a game that didn't even have that many players On steam the crew had less than 1000 people playing it since August, of 2018, and saying less than 1000 is me being generous because it never went above like 380, and for the majority was sub 100, game was suuuuuper dead on steam Even the followup game isn't doing all that hot, it peaked at 55k concurrent in september and in that short time has dropped to a PCU of 3000 So i'm genuinely curious how you think anyone really has a case when they don't even play it anymore
@@shanematthews1985 Thanks for the info. I understand other people's concern and complaint regarding the matter, but I was leaning more in favor of Ubisoft on this (I'm not biased against Ubi just because of their recent screw-up). But I was refraining from finalizing my opinion because I lacked info, context. You provided plenty. Simple search seems to suggest the game came out quite some time ago? And it's a always-online game? If the answer is both 'yes', I am finalizing my opinion that Ubi is more in the right. It takes money to maintain a server. People can't force companies to keep the server open when they may be bleeding money. It's not like they're shutting down server on a newly release game. If the game is always-online playable, it's up to the player to decide whether the purchase (eh... rent) is worth it. Refunds to people who bought the game couple of months before server shutdown. That's all I think is required.
Video games are the thing I like the most in life, and I am completely against users going back on the terms they explicitly agreed on. Why did you accept that a company could at any time take your game away, and then be shocked when it happened?
Ubisoft KNEW when they released the game in 2014 that it only had a 10 year license from the car manufacturers for the car models. NOWHERE did it say either on Steam, U-Play or the physical box art that the game had a fixed end of life date of 2024.
Add James Cameron's Avatar the Game to a list of expired IP's which STEAM still honors and I can play now if I want. Ubi didn't step in it, they belly flopped.
They should make it illegal to sell a physical product that requires a digital download to use. Talking to you Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Halo Infinite, and Starfield
@@WevilShortcrestThey insisted and still insist they're selling and you're buying a product. They said it's a sale but it is, in fact, a licensing agreement sold under the pretense of ownership. We bought and they said "Well, actually no and we're taking it from you now." The moral response, summed up, to that is *"If buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing."* *You will not steal what had been sold to me under the pretense that I own my purchase when you (the original seller) decides to revoke my ownership.* The legal response is *"Make it abundantly clear you are licensing the product, not buying it."*
@@probablythedm1669 While I by no means want to defend the acts of corporations and hate how little protections there are for consumers, I'm really annoyed by this phrase because it's a perfect example of false equivalence. Piracy isn't theft because buying isn't owning, it isn't theft because it was never theft. That's why it's called piracy and not just theft. We have a separate word for it because it's a different thing. Theft is taking away something from someone, Piracy is the unlawful copying and distribution of something, or owning/obtaining an unlawfully distributed copy. If anything, piracy is closer to forgery than it is theft.
@@WevilShortcrest THEY called it buying. Then they said you didn't own it. So they said that buying isn't owning. So yes, someone is saying buying isn't owning. They are.
@araonthedrake4049 I... agree, it really should be something along the lines of "If buying is not owning, then copying what we bought is not copyright infringement." 🤓 As is, it's putting words to peoples feelings and the moral perception, rather than trying to make a legal claim, and the feeling is *"If you won't let us to keep what we paid for, STFU when we do so anyway."* ☠️
Thats fine, just buy it on sale then, thing is a LOT of people will continue to buy the game on day 1 and the only person who misses out is you because if its a multiplayer game the playerbase will drop by the time it goes on sale
Don't worry if you don't buy. Millions of generic gamers will. They don't have idea what's going on they just watch a trailer and buy games. We are a minority.
@@zayteer1657wouldn’t really consider the TH-cam community a minority when bad youtuber reviews have literally been killing games on launch recently 😂😂
Amazon should be next. They "sell" you digital books and movies at full price but can then just decide to retract that purchase and either remove the product from their library or force you buy the product again. Do you get any refunds if that happens? No.
The instant a publisher removes a game from my library is the instant I am removed from the customer pool permanently. I already was with ubisoft since For Honor year 1 pass released. I learned that lesson.
"We can't allow our games to be preserved in a publicly accessible format, like a library. People would just play them recreationally, for fun!" my brothers in christ your games are LITERALLY IN LIBRARIES.
They are not games, they are milking devices for gamers and we all know gamers aren't exactly the brightest tools in the shed when it comes to spending money. If anything, we deserve this treatment, I would even say we deserve a lot worse since we are begging them to treat us this way. Money is the language they understand and we're showering them with it.
@@rellikai945 Funny you said that since in my country games are officially recognized as art (still no effort is made to protect them) and demos are usually featured on museums. I remember the first time i played Mirrors Edge Catalyst, Half Life Alyx and Superhot was on a museum in Stockholm. The graphics were awful on the cheap public system so that inspired me to buy the full version so i could see it for how it was meant to look like. With how reluctant companies are to even let customers share games, im mindblown the national museum of science and art managed to get EA's permission. But it shows its not a bad idea as it makes more people exposed and interested in your game.
the copyright office excuse for not allowing preservation of games is so stupid, thats like if libraries who archived old books are mad at you for enjoying reading those books? like "hey! dont enjoy these books. these are for research only, so dont enjoy reading them!"
If the game already has a single player function then it really wouldn't be. But 'online only' games would require a lot of effort to convert into offline games.
Taking The Crew away from people's game libraries, not just shutting down the servers, feels like they were acting with sheer contempt for their own customers. I hope they are now in the "find out" phase of "fucking around".
The game was only in your library while you held a valid license, your license was revoked with the shutdown of the servers, even IF they had left you the game files, what were you going to do with them when the game is dead?
@@shanematthews1985Even IF the game server is closed, it was found out that it did in fact have a built in offline mode that was just disabled, even if that wasn't the case, someone is already working on a server emulator for The Crew. I can understand taking it off sale on platforms, but deleting it from your library after you paid for it is ridiculous.
@@shanematthews1985 Good thing I still have older Ubisoft games with me, discs even. Same for at least hundreds of physical games with me which I rightfully and legally bought. If Ubisoft tries to break into my house, then there's going to be serious legal repercussions, which in turn will result in them having to lose even more millions of dollars in damages. This also applies to bigger gaming companies who will try and pull the same idea like Ubisoft's.
This was actually tried in the DVD movie industry, a thing called DivX. You rented a DVD and returned it, or you could "purchase" the DVD and could "keep" it. Of course, as soon as DivX dissolved, none of these discs would ever play again. Toshiba was one of the few companies that fought it, and along with a large public opposition, it failed quickly. The video format XviD was a poke at the DivX format.
Its crazy how in a single-player game you needed to be logged in to play.. I get that it had online features... if they cannot be bothered to pay for the servers anymore, then fine disable that, but don't freaking take down the entire game, that's such a brat mentality... "you can't have all of it then"
And you know what’s crazier? People who are at most times not connected to the internet wont be able to play games from ubisoft because it would by chance say that it needs internet to “verify” sht.
Sure, but then you couldn't login anyway as the game requires those servers, so disabling that renders it unplayable, they aren't going to go back and waste time and money updating a game for the whopping sub 100 that were playing that game for the last 6 years lol
They want people to buy the new game so they take away the old one. They don't want players to own the games they buy, they don't want players to use them for "recreational purposes"
Years ago I was called an idiot for refusing to support games that were online all the time the crew vindicated me i don't want to buy a game only for years later for it to shut down,
Same thing for me with DRM. When Denuvo eventually goes bankrupt and the vast majority of Sega's games on Steam stop working, I really won't be all too affected, but everyone else is going to be in for a real shock
It was and is the same with physical movies and TV against streaming services. They laughed until the things they wanted to watch were removed from streaming services.
Oh I've been saying what the problems of this stuff is since around when Disney Plus was announced, thankfully the snobby execs are making my arguments incredibly easy to prove.
My friend, we are a crushing minority that can see the blatant scams, most gamers even today think Ubisoft is giving them a great deal and are more than willing to pay all their services"
@@cloudshifter Ubisoft would'nt be in crippling debt right now if people were'nt wising up to their bullcrap. The internet's got a far bigger reach than you think right now.
Ubisoft should learn from Polyphony Digital, where they implement an offline patch, allowing the game to be playable offline without an internet connection needed. Like Gran Turismo Sport, after their online servers were shut, the single player stuff is still playable. Rather than just destroying all copies of a game.
@@Pri11-k7l Wouldn't be possible to share liveries anyway. But liveries that have been created prior to the shut down may still be used, but can't be shared.
But sadly people will keep buying their garbage games. No matter what happens. Literally none of the common folk out there seems to care about anything but whats in front of them anymore.
Been watching YongYea for awhile now for game news and this is completely unrelated, but I like that his background just progressively gets heavier and fuller with gamer stuff overtime, like he's slowly sinking into a pool of gamer merch and products LOL it's weirdly funny to me. Thanks for the news, YongYea! Down with Ubisoft.
It's surprising how a few years ago i got into an argument with someone because of the constant need for Internet to play games, SINGLE PLAYER GAMES, and now we are here. How things can evolve.
It's best to keep in support of indie games. At least the ones who aren't corrupted by the late stage capitalism that has infected and destroyed so many beloved franchises and media.
@@Overlord598 Easy, The Crew Unlimited. It’s a community emulated re-release of TC1 for PC that is slated for later this year, with Modding included, Factions re-activated, and afaik, Online multiplayer servers starting up later on. 😀
@@Overlord598 Easy, The Crew Unlimited. Some of the community has completely revived the game on PC via Emulation with a full PC Launcher, Offline mode, Modding support, some Pre-Wild Run expansion restoration, and further down the line a revival of Online multiplayer with third party servers (Kinda like what happened to NFS World when EA shut it down). They plan to release it either next month, or more realistically, in January.😁
Wow. This combined with Nintendo actually suing for a legit reason (a streamer boastful and prideful of his streams of pirated versions of their games) what a crazy week for video game lawsuits. What's Next? Is Phoenix Wright going to show up?
For everyone hoping for class action lawsuit, as someone who has "benefited" from one: its pointless. Bank of America stole around 5k from me, due to overdraft fees in conjunction with a malfunctioning ATM machine that made several hundred withdrawals within a matter of seconds. I get paid $35 of my stolen money back every year. I will not see the entirety of my money in my lifetime. Corporations get away with EVERYTHING
Yep, the land of the greed. This won't change anything since the US or really the entire world is so money hungry. Plus there's so many people that continue to give terrible companies money despite the morals of doing so. Gambling?, the blizzard harassments?, literally time crunch torture for employees and devs? If people actually cared, these companies would've been bankrupt a long time ago. But here we are. Still complaining about the same companies everyday, nothing will change. We've lost.
@@diegoaravena423 they didn’t get away the lawyers in the class action lawsuit take it all. That’s how it always goes down. The companies still have to pay. This is lawyers being pieces of garbage like they are.
i seen more then a few times when i was informed that companies as part of a settlement agreed to pay out to anyone that can prove they were impacted from certain dates, and all i would have been able to claim is like a few dollars. not even worth the ink to sign it.
Unless they change the law, Ubisoft would win. A court ruling made in 1995 that software is owned by the company, not the customer. That's why Stop Killing Games is working outside the US. The only lawsuit that could beat Ubisoft is the one in Brazil, but that is a big if.
France (where Ubisoft is based) has much stronger protections for the customer. If the lawsuit were to take place there Ubisoft would be absolutely cooked.
I'm not sure what ruling that is about. Is it in regards to ownership of an instance of software or copyright? Because owning an instance of software is pretty much equal to owning an instance to a toy. You cannot use it to redistribute more copy's and sell them but you do rightfully own that single instance of that toy. Same 'should' apply with software. Of course leasing terms and contracts really bungle the discussion up which is where details get complicated.
@@TheLuceon yeah, that's why they're selling us the license to play the games and use the software, not own it. To use you're toy analogy, they're selling us the toy, not the blueprint for it. it's why every game has a EULA, since, to use the software we just purchased the license for, we have to sign their End User License Agreement, even if it's a Single Player physical copy with a little booklet, that booklet probly has 3 pages at the end just for that EULA to be printed on it saying something along the lines of "yes you have this data on this CD, but you don't own this data, it belongs to us to do with whenever we want without your consent." in much more verbose legalese.
@@ElderonAnalas Each case presents different details to discuss over but for your specific example I will counter that, that contract is completely void and unenforceable. For the case of a physical copy you bought at a store, you already would have made the purchase of that instance of the game and presenting you with a contract after you made the purchase in order to use it makes that contract worth less than the paper it would have been printed on. The same can even be said of digital goods that present their contract after point of sale. Also the whole 'selling a license' thing is complete BS. When you buy an instance of something, thanks to copyright, it was always you bought just that instance of it and if you tried to reproduce it then you were still in violation of the law. Licensing software still easily falls under copyright infringement if you violated it but by instituting a contract saying you wont, makes it easier for companies legal teams to go after you. Licensing games was not a thing through gaming's whole lifetime. You did not 'always' license videos games. It is a contract tool, not a fact of law.
Imagine if other artforms where treated the same way as video games. If the only way to read Lord of the Rings was to find a first print edition from the 50s, if all copies of The Thing where destroyed because it was not popular when it first released or all renaissance paintings where removed from museums because someone had made more "realistic" cgi renders of them.
This issue is so simple. Gamers boycott online only games. Governments create and enforce a law where if a game company shuts down a server and blocks access to a game, players get a refund for the full purchase price of the game. I guarantee companies would rethink their whole approach to this situation.
This unfortunately is never going to work. There are way too many people who continue to buy games who willfilly ignore everything the bad side of gaming companies do. The people who actually care about video games are the minority of people. We always have been.
The issue with this is not so simple. Most people buy it anyways, these types of games tend to have heavy MTX easily making up the cost of everyone who doesn't buy several times over.
We're on our way to a post-ownership world, where not only digital entertainment is at risk. Between home automation and the ways car companies are incorporating subscription services and online functionality, we may not really own anything without strings attached. Forget pinball, imagine you go out to your car to go to work and it won't start because the manufacturer decided you should buy a new car, or most of the devices in your house stop working because your Amazon account got suspended (Which did happen to someone).
They advertise online purchases as buying the game but they are only selling a license if anything it’s false advertisement. But by Ubisoft wording they stole from their customers.
'buying a game' always consisted of 'buying a license and method of access for that game'. The same holds true of books as well, actually, including in physical form (the book is a physical object, at it's cost set the cost of the 'access' part... and physically possessing it is the 'access'. It is, however, also the physical token representing the license: lose or destroy the book, you don't have the license anymore). And music. The difference is the nature of the license. The default sales contract (and you're never actually presented with an alternative as a condition of sale, so this Should be the one that applies) is what you get if you buy a physical copy: Your license is transferable. Your license is non-revocable. There are heavy legal penalties for abusing/violating your license. (note: the EULA is NOT the license in question. The license is basically 'ligitmate ownership of 1 copy of the work in question, and the rights, privilages, obligations, and restrictions regarding what one can and will (and can and will not) do with that, which come with that under local copyright law') Now, in practice, on most digital platforms, you give up transferability in exchage for a bunch of convenience and utility provided by the platform. The typical customer sees this as perfectly reasonable and agrees to it. Note that this does not, in any way, involve the Publisher, it is a function of the nature of the service the platform provides to the customer. However, despite the above being what you Agree To and Pay For, what you actually GET from a digital purchase is the following: Your license is non-transferable (actualy, even a physical purchase that forces the use of a digital platform for Access has this issue), your license is Unilaterally revocable Without Cause or Compensation at the whim of a Third Party (the publisher (who may or may not even be the Rightsholder as such, nevermind the Creator), who was not actually party to the sale of the license, but rather has a Seperate contract with the platform)... and your ACCESS is ALSO unilaterally revocable without cause or compensation at the whim of said third party. It's also Unilatterally revocable by the platform, and while they usually won't without cause (though the nature of the cause varies a lot, and isn't limited to contractual violations on your part), at least, though that one, at least, people generally agreed to when they signed up with the platform and USUALLY isn't unreasonable (Usually, sometimes it's handled VERY badly). So, yeah, there's a major problem here, but it's Probably not false advertisment.
When the license is created to protect the product from being copied and resold, it isn't the same as being a custodian of said product for private use.
Well thats not how it works anywhere but GoG, so you might want to stick to there, although with more and more games becoming live services you're just going to end up the proud owner of a file that doesn't do anything
@@AfutureV Guess what? No one likes of the idea of losing something they bought with their money just because certain game publishers like to act like conartists. Stop defending these criminals.
Next thing we should do is sue Gaming Studios and Platforms like Steam that sell "licenses" as if its a "full price physical" game. There is no logical explaination why a license should costs as much as the full physical product which i as the one who purchased it "OWNS" now. If we can make that legally happen the discussion about Digital games would end real fast because there is no money in it.
"There is no logical explaination why a license should costs as much as the full physical product" actually, there is a logical reason, profit. people still buy it at that price, and the profit still coming in, why bother lowering your profit when you don't have to? if quadruple A is not making a massive backlash (which thank god, it did), other companies will start calling their game a quadruple A game, and increase the price.
@@lilia-ai Stupidness is not a "reason" its a sickness that needs cure. What developers do there is "abusing" mentaly weak people thats not "logical" its disgusting.
if we are only buying a license to use a product through platforms like steam for example, then it should be illegal for games to cost as much as it is right now.
If that were the case nothing would change; a hypothetical physical release in that scenario would cost even more than it's digital release (even if that digital release already costs as much as a physical release from a decade or two ago), claiming either increased development time, inflation, price of tools, etc. or a combination of these factors is why games "simply cost more to make" today.
This is a lot like if Bandai-Namco deleted and removed all of their Ace Combat games from your library because the licenses of the Fighter Jets expired for those games.
Bandai-Namco actually suffers from licencing issues, it's the reason why some old Tekken and SoulCalibur games aren't available in modern consoles. Since those games feature guest characters, they would have to renew the licenses for these characters in order to resell the games.
@@96Vladek Another example is that absolutely despised and hated Fast & Furious Crossroads game. It was also delisted because I believe they lost the license to the Universal series.
I always thought purchased digital media *never breaking down like physical copies is kind of a fair trade because publishers no longer have to invest on physical infrastructure to manufacture physical discs. But then, I realize publishers can outsource that process so there is minimal investment on their part. And then the thought that the price is exactly the same as the physical version(at least at the beginning), it just seems to me that this is all proactive greed, and we're all used to it now.
I hope these brave individuals win. I hope it becomes a class action lawsuit as well. It's wrong! Especially wjen they did not openly disclose you don't own a game which you pressed 'Buy' or bought it at a store only to have your merchandise you bought be taken away.
It was disclosed to anyone paying attention and actually reading, why do you think its called and End User LICENSE Agreement, the L un EULA isn't there as a joke The lesson is ALWAYS read the contracts you sign
@@shanematthews1985 The EULA dont override the law. Games are still sold as goods and throughout history goods has always meant "a single instance transfer of ownership". If you buy a apple or a painting your ownership dont suddenly expire. Even if you think ownership is just a temporary lisence, the EULA still dont tell you the expiration date at launch. All the EULA is eligble to is to remind you that "you may not sell this as your own craftsmanship", "you may not break our terms while the game is supported" and "we may end support at any time" all of which are already established by law. "Removing your ownership when we feel like it" is not covered by law.
Now that you mention it as a steam user I always wondered why I can’t just download all my games to a hardrive for later use just to realize I’ve tried that before only to be meet with a you need to update to play warning message. I don’t understand why that’s even a thing even if the current version has a flaw I should still be able to install and play regardless.
Yep, they're a rich company, they can afford to ignore this. Same with every other stupidly rich game company. It's so frustrating when people try to talk to companies like these in civil talk and hope something changes. No, nothing will ever change, they're run by greedy scumbags. Probably by all the exact same shareholders too. They won't listen to reason, or morals. Only the quickest and faster way to earn the most money in the short amount of time.
@@shiguriyamamo6730 They're not nearly as rich as they were a few years ago. Their stock crashed HARD, they lost MILLIONS from failing games. And funny enough, Ubisoft Ivory Tower announced an Offline Mode for The Crew 2 amidst the drama so clearly their loss in funds is shaking them up. A lawsuit would surely be another wake-up call to Ubisoft.
Ofcourse, as it always has been, people whistleblow and cry out and yet do no real action about it, all bark no bite. In a few weeks nobody will even remember it ever happened and will continue to buy their shitty games and subscriptions
Companies ought to be required to send customers physical FULL copies of any game they've paid for, including any updates (not dlc) that ever got made for it.
a differentiation should be made here between digital only games, and server reliant online games. Peglin is a digital only indie game. that's fine. Spore had an online service, that is now defunct, but you can still play the game. that's fine. The Crew is a game that cannot work fundamentally without the online server hosted by Ubisoft. That's where it gets iffy.
But it could and should have an offline mode, nothing in that game needs online they just made it that way to make piracy more difficult. It didn't stop piracy ofc but isn't it embarrassing that pirates made a more consumer friendly version by cracking your game and removing all the online stuff?
If were only "renting" a game, we shouldn't have to pay as much as we do. What makes things worse is that in the UK, we pay more for products in general. For example, in the UK we would pay £80 for a new game today, US would pay $80. Its a rip off!
Should watch Ross's Game Dungeon on Darkspore. He was vocal in his series when comes to a central server bit. Lot of his gripes was related to EA. Even his The Crew episode he voiced in it.
"You're just buying keys." Yep, this is what I was telling people for years who were still obsessed with owning every game on a disk, when 99% of games for the last five years have had nothing on the disk they were buying. No, I was told I was wrong and that the whole game was on there despite things like a day one patch, or anything else of any kind similar.
Is the effort really worth the 2 dollars you would get from a class action suit? Class actions are a total joke. The only people that make money off of them are lawyers.
@@stefankroon4615 "Is the effort really worth the 2 dollars..." Yes, by having a larger class to define by the penalty against the company grows. Class actions certainly has its down sides but it also fulfills a hole that the cost to litigate creates. The consumers may not be made 'whole' but in cases like these the monetary damages are so minor its absolutely not worth pursuing in court, so companies face no recourse to fix their mistakes.
@@stefankroon4615 a win sends a message to ubisoft and other companies that they need to do better. the reward isn't monetary, it's a chance for change.
If buying games isn't owning games. Then pirating games isn't stealing games..... period.....they should make up their mind which they prefer, or, dont prefer....
Oh no, you can *definitely* have the cake and eat it all, you just need to find someone stupid to buy you another cake when you ate the previous, in this case gamers who buy them endless amount of cakes.
See, you have consumer rights where you actually "own" the product, in this case you didn't own the product and were only paying for a license to access the product, a license which was revoked in lines with the terms of service YOU agreed to when you purchased the license Unfortunately for you its pretty cut and dry and the same is likely to be the case for this lawsuit
@shanematthews1985 I get it. But if we make enough noise and stop buying their games maybe they'll do something about it. Not likely, but maybe. Better than just accepting it.
@@shanematthews1985 In certain countries like Australia and EU perpetual licenses of software are equal to goods, and TOS / EULAs are invalid if they go against consumer laws. One time Valve tried to argue that they sell licenses and thus customers are not entitled to refunds, ACCC pressed charges, and Australian Federal Court found Valve guilty of breaching consumer laws for reasons I listed above.
@@shanematthews1985 Terms of service is not always enforceable when it comes to consumer rights, especially in EU. Maybe get better rights in your country.
I think it was 2002 that steam updated to say you don’t own the game, that they reserve the right to remove it from your account at anytime. You had to agree to it to make or access your account. The recent update was adding it to more menus.
It can become a class action lawsuit since it's closure effected everyone who bought it, it especially effects those who they were removing the game from peoples library's which is basically theft. Pray they slap a billion dollar fine on Ubisoft, a fine that size is an adequate start for these mega company's. The Crew could have kept going but they wanted to canonicalize the servers and force everyone to "The Crew 2" or their garbage "The Crew motor sports".
Except its not basically theft, its part of the ToS you agreed to, once the license is revoked you lose access to the game, the files don't work without the servers anyway, so if you're upset that you lost some digital files you could no longer even use then i suggest rethinking that
And why would I need to read a very long legal page just to know that what I'm getting is something that can be revoked? Why don't put the disclaimer upfront right before you buy the game?
@@ElysiabikhaTOS is for the customer and the company. The company sure knows their rights and what they agree to, so why would the customer not want to be informed too?
I don't see how a warning that you only purchase a license is a step in the right direction for customers, to me it seems like the opposite, now the publishers can say we explicitly told you it's just a license so we can shut it down whenever we want and you can't say nothing
@@shanematthews1985 The EULA on its own dont overpower the law. No matter whats stated in the EULA it didnt stop valve from being sued and forced to change in australia. The only reason they can keep do this is because in the US private companies can pay politicians to change laws to what suits them.
The problem is as the laws stand this legal action is gonna fail. People dont read the EULA or TOS which says "we can shut down and remove the product from you at anytime for any reason" paraphrasing a bit. Very likely this will end with the gamers losing because they signed the legal documents by playing the game
Between this and Assassin's Creed Shadows bringing dishonor to the creed, Skull and Bones the first quadruple a game flopping and Star Wars Outlaws bombing. Ubisoft is failing quite hard.
The pinball analogy is on point. Reminds me of those ads discouraging people from downloading music illegally, "you wouldn't download a car." We need to send Ubisoft and others the message that they wouldn't steal our cars. The whole warning thing is BS anyway, because anything you buy should be owned. Otherwise it's called renting, and it should be much cheaper.
Something else, may be mentioned in the video but I haven't finished it yet, MMORPGs that get shut down should be required to make the files to run private servers free to all so that people can choose to run their own servers if they want to keep playing the last version of the game.
I don’t know if he’s reached out to you yet , but Ross Scott, the guy who’s leading stop killing games has mentioned that he would like to have a conversation with you specifically and discuss this… I’m sure he’d appreciate you guys getting one going.
@@shanematthews1985 Of course it would. All you'd need is a law to the effect that licenses which are not presented with a defined end date (which cannot be changed, only renewed by a process that requires a new transaction) are assumed to be perpetual and, if broken, must result in a refund plus interest.
I think Capcom should be an example on how to preserve online game that goes defunct Mega Man Xdive is an online Megaman game released in 2021. When the game goes defunct in September 2023, with the global version followed in July 2024, instead of simply shutting down the server and be done with it, Capcom released the official offline version titled Mega Man Xdive Offline, with the entire progression of game's content being remade for offline play. That includes for example, removing co-op multiplayer features, cash currency being replaced by points gained through completing in-game challenges, removed the gacha features and instead, put all gacha characters in in-game shop that can be unlocked by simply progressing through the story mode and removed online connectivity requirements (the only thing absent from the offline version is collaboration/ crossover content that requires license)
nintendo is doing the same with the mobile version of animal crossing. shutting down the server, but selling an offline version that can import progress from the online version.
So buying games on GOG is fine, because "no matter what happens to the publishers, or, you know, what happens to the services that support these products, or, you know, what licensing issues there might be, so long as you have that installer, you can install the game, play it, access it, whatever you want, as long as that installer is protected." That is the exact same thing as buying a physical copy of The Crew. You can still install and start that game, but you won't have access to most of its features because something happened to the services that support this product. The issue isn't the license model, it is the way these games are designed. They're not entering your home to delete your pinball machine high score. You bought a pinball machine that stores its high scores in someone else's building, and they won't let you enter anymore.
I would say nothing would come from this but Ubisoft can't exactly afford those big fancy lawyers right now... this might finally be the nail in their coffin.
And here Nintendo is planning to charge Pocket Camp players $20 to back up their save data when they discontinue the game. These kinds of lawsuits are important for the future of ownership
am i the only one excited for the pocket camp thing. Granted I've never played the f2p version but I feel like it's something half-decent nintendo have done in this case
@@guguy00 It's definitely better than just deleting the game for sure, but it would be better to just let the players download their island for free, or maybe for like $5, since it would cost Nintendo nothing. But that's just my opinion.
@@clovis_the_spook Yeah fair. I think there should be a discount proportionate to how much you spent on the F2P model tbh. But as an AC fan who has played like 2 hours total I'm happy to restart. Ninty selling it at half price for a month is okay though
Ubisoft shut down Space Junkies, a VR zero-gravity arena shooter as well after they charged $40 for it, dropped the price to $20 after a year, and then put it on sale for $5 after they announced that they are shutting down the servers and nobody complained about that similar shit happening a year earlier until The Crew got shut down. Pretty much stole $40 from me (and a lot of other people) and never even gave a partial refund for that shit. Even Valve wouldn't give me a refund, so I don't even buy multiplayer-only games for that reason alone.
I don't get it why licenses run out. It's made for a video game or a movie that's going to be around indefinitely the licensing for the project itself should last forever
@YongYea I'm glad you are covering this. I don't know too many people covering this! I bought this game years ago. I wish they had an "offline mode." I felt like I got cheated, theft by Ubisoft. Can't play the game i bought! I pray this turns into a class action lawsuit!
It's Crazy, we have Libraries for Books and film media, but games companies don't understand the History or culture surrounding gaming. We need a big push towards preservation of gaming alongside computer science.
Thanks, Yong, for keep showing Ross's Stopkillinggames campaign. You and many others I've follow on gaming keep echoing this. Must keep this pressure going for preserving our games. There is so many games I want and get a chance due they are into the dark void of nothingness. It's not just games. Also, Movies and Music. So, this isn't just gamers only. Everyone Benefits this topic.
Wiping a game from existence to a point where it's removed from players' digital libraries or physical copies are disabled without refund opportunities is as good as being broken into and having that game and product stolen. Companies should have to face repurcussions for this kind of disregard for paying customers.
PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea
TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea
TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea
TOP PATRONS
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
[BOSS]
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
- Phil
[PRETTY LEGENDARY]
- azalea
,
First
Thanks for the update, Kiryu-chan!
Best comment of the day
made a video on the dragon age game or on how Space Marines 2 is still going strong!
Ubisoft should get used to not owning their company
Tencent will buy them out.
i don't own my existence? 😭
@@D4rkKn1ght311No! Anything but that! I’d rather Sony/PlayStation will buy Ubisoft!
Even tencent doesn't want that dumpster fire 😂😂
I cannot wait for their bankruptcy announcement
Remember those old "You wouldnt download a CAR?" ads about piracy.
Little did we know, it was the corporations who were the real pirates all along.
Fun fact, that ad used pirated music.
And unlike copyright infringement, which is not theft in any real or legal sense of the word, this nonsense, on a practical level, IS.
On a legal level it is bad and misleading licensing terms.
For reference, you Always bought a license and method of access, even when you bought the game in physical form, the same was true of books. The difference was the Physical model used to mean your license and access method were transferable and (functionally) non-revocable outside of particularly extreme violations (and even then, they didn't tend to revoke the license, just levy what amounted to substantial penalty fees via legal procedings), while the digital version is non transferable and can be revoked unilaterally.
There is no distinction between 'buy' and 'license', because you Bought a License (and the physical object that facilitated access) to the content.
The actual difference, and problem, is that the licensing terms for the physical item are essentially 'you own the object, and your license to the content is perpetual so long as you possess the object", and the licensing terms for the Digital item are very strongly implied to be the same terms, because that is the Default Contract for such license sales in the absense of an Actual Contract you Actually Signed BEFORE purchase that outlined other terms and no such alternate contract is ever presented... and yet the terms actually Enforced are:
If the Rights Holder (not creator, VERY IMPORTANT distinction when discussing the nature of copyright) loses the rights to some sub part of the content due to not having the forsight to ensure those rights were perpetual... you lose the license you purchased, with no compensation.
If the Rights Holder decides they don't like you, you lose the license you paid for with no compensation.
If the Rights Holder decides they no longer wish to provide a service which is required in order to use some part or all of the content, you lose your license you paid for with no compensation (losing access to that part that they needed to actively provide upkeep for, such as multiplayer servers, where they were providing an actual Service, is fine. Losing access to the single player game that required no up keep from them in order to function because they turned off a DRM server (which is somewhere between malware and sabotage at the best of times) without patching out the part where software won't run if it can't check with the server, is NOT.)
If the Rights Holder decides that you should be paying them more money to buy a defective remake of the game you currently have a license to? Under this model the only thing stopping them from revoking your license to the existing version without any compensation is not wanting the reputational damage... except most of them have proven time and time again that they don't even understand the concept of reputational damage, if sales don't meet targets they consider it a piracy problem.
And on and on it goes.
Note, at no point are you Renting the license/game either (except in those cases where you absolutely Are renting it and the terms of payment are very clear on that, you pay a much lesser amount of money to have acess to it for a specific duration of time (renewal options may or may not exist). That's a diferent matter). You are Buying a license. One time payment to get the thing.
Fundamentally there is a problem with how things are done, and there's a solid case to be made that there is some wrongdoing on the parts of many companies who do not act in good faith (A reasonable customer fully expects their digital game to be tied to the platform they bought it on and go down with that platform unless it is explictly designed and advertised otherwise... but that's the Platform, in the role of Retailer, that's the trade off they've actually Agreed to for the convenience of digital access. That is not the Publisher/rights holder, who the customer expects not to be interacting with at all and does NOT, except by way of extortion via the terrible licensing terms, agree to grant access to their machine (outside of patching of the game, with said patches being expected to either fix defects or provide additional content, NOT sabotage/destroy it, and especially not, as has happend from time to time in the past, tamper with anything Outside of the game itself).
But it's not buying vs licencing.
And I absolutely would download a car
Insert, _always has been,_ meme
The truth is WEF is behind all of this "you own nothing" agenda.
Ubisoft should get comfortable not owning our money
There are quite a few that don't deserve our money. We're the only ones that can make it happen. We hold the future and looking the other direction and paying anyways got us here in the first place.
I don't think your money will matter in the long run
Normalize piracy, these companies have millions.
Serves them right.
"b.B.UT Gem x Iz Lit hurur DuRr BuRh" - literally every zoomers or turbotards that support them. they vene said at some point that MAYBE they would find a way to let you the play the crew 2 offline but we know how it ends when they say "MAYBE"
"You will own nothing and be happy" - We cannot ALLOW them to push for Cashless society!
Steam still allows me to download/install games no longer allowed to be sold because of IP/copyright BS such as the first James Cameron's Avatar the game which IS an UBI title. No online play but who cares?
Remember everybody, this is our only one chance to make it right for everyone who likes videogames. Games are another form of art and need to be preserved.
after what they did nothing can make it right.
Well you best buckle in and prepare for the worst, because this is is very likely to be a loss for you guys, terms of service is pretty clear and they can quite easily cite the literal hundreds of other live service games that died compared to a few people getting upset about a game that didn't even have that many players
On steam the crew had less than 1000 people playing it since August, of 2018, and saying less than 1000 is me being generous because it never went above like 380, and for the majority was sub 100, game was suuuuuper dead on steam
Even the followup game isn't doing all that hot, it peaked at 55k concurrent in september and in that short time has dropped to a PCU of 3000
So i'm genuinely curious how you think anyone really has a case when they don't even play it anymore
The same can be said for films, shows, books, and comics. Digital purchases & online only options are just glorified rentals
@@shanematthews1985
Thanks for the info.
I understand other people's concern and complaint regarding the matter, but I was leaning more in favor of Ubisoft on this (I'm not biased against Ubi just because of their recent screw-up). But I was refraining from finalizing my opinion because I lacked info, context. You provided plenty.
Simple search seems to suggest the game came out quite some time ago? And it's a always-online game? If the answer is both 'yes', I am finalizing my opinion that Ubi is more in the right.
It takes money to maintain a server. People can't force companies to keep the server open when they may be bleeding money. It's not like they're shutting down server on a newly release game. If the game is always-online playable, it's up to the player to decide whether the purchase (eh... rent) is worth it.
Refunds to people who bought the game couple of months before server shutdown. That's all I think is required.
Video games are the thing I like the most in life, and I am completely against users going back on the terms they explicitly agreed on. Why did you accept that a company could at any time take your game away, and then be shocked when it happened?
Ubisoft KNEW when they released the game in 2014 that it only had a 10 year license from the car manufacturers for the car models. NOWHERE did it say either on Steam, U-Play or the physical box art that the game had a fixed end of life date of 2024.
Add James Cameron's Avatar the Game to a list of expired IP's which STEAM still honors and I can play now if I want. Ubi didn't step in it, they belly flopped.
@@terrylandess6072 That game was on steam?
They should make it illegal to sell a physical product that requires a digital download to use. Talking to you Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Halo Infinite, and Starfield
Thats fine, but you'll just end up with no physical products to buy and you'll hasten the death of physical media :)
And L.A. Noire remastered
And the Switch Version of Marvel vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection.
At least Avatar is a disc, but yeah, really just a glorified key to download the game
NFS 2015
From Louis Rossman's comments: "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft."
That makes no sense. No 1 is saying buying isn't owning. They just lied that you bought it to begin with.
@@WevilShortcrestThey insisted and still insist they're selling and you're buying a product. They said it's a sale but it is, in fact, a licensing agreement sold under the pretense of ownership.
We bought and they said "Well, actually no and we're taking it from you now."
The moral response, summed up, to that is *"If buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing."*
*You will not steal what had been sold to me under the pretense that I own my purchase when you (the original seller) decides to revoke my ownership.*
The legal response is *"Make it abundantly clear you are licensing the product, not buying it."*
@@probablythedm1669 While I by no means want to defend the acts of corporations and hate how little protections there are for consumers, I'm really annoyed by this phrase because it's a perfect example of false equivalence.
Piracy isn't theft because buying isn't owning, it isn't theft because it was never theft. That's why it's called piracy and not just theft. We have a separate word for it because it's a different thing. Theft is taking away something from someone, Piracy is the unlawful copying and distribution of something, or owning/obtaining an unlawfully distributed copy. If anything, piracy is closer to forgery than it is theft.
@@WevilShortcrest THEY called it buying. Then they said you didn't own it. So they said that buying isn't owning. So yes, someone is saying buying isn't owning. They are.
@araonthedrake4049 I... agree, it really should be something along the lines of "If buying is not owning, then copying what we bought is not copyright infringement." 🤓
As is, it's putting words to peoples feelings and the moral perception, rather than trying to make a legal claim, and the feeling is *"If you won't let us to keep what we paid for, STFU when we do so anyway."* ☠️
If I am buying a license and not the actual product then I refuse to pay such high prices.
Thats fine, just buy it on sale then, thing is a LOT of people will continue to buy the game on day 1 and the only person who misses out is you because if its a multiplayer game the playerbase will drop by the time it goes on sale
@@shanematthews1985funny way to spell Pirate Bay.
@@shanematthews1985 are you really defending this?
Don't worry if you don't buy. Millions of generic gamers will. They don't have idea what's going on they just watch a trailer and buy games. We are a minority.
@@zayteer1657wouldn’t really consider the TH-cam community a minority when bad youtuber reviews have literally been killing games on launch recently 😂😂
Amazon should be next. They "sell" you digital books and movies at full price but can then just decide to retract that purchase and either remove the product from their library or force you buy the product again. Do you get any refunds if that happens? No.
Is not a win until there's consequences
Right, the threat aint enough, they need to feel it.
@@jrob4795but they won’t cuz noting is going to happen
consequences will never be the same
I dunno, I still feel pretty good that Ubisoft is having a bad day.
@elhazthorn918 always
The instant a publisher removes a game from my library is the instant I am removed from the customer pool permanently. I already was with ubisoft since For Honor year 1 pass released. I learned that lesson.
*remove from their customer pool
So you would never buy anything on a PlayStation?
If buying isn't owning the pirating isn't stealing
🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠🏴☠
Send Nintendo a letter😂
Hoist the anchor mateys! arrrr!⚓
join the Sparrow crew matey arg arg arg arg arg 😂💀
Yeah normalize pirating.
Some literal streaming sites were created and were popular since they were more efficient to use than pirating.
"We can't allow our games to be preserved in a publicly accessible format, like a library. People would just play them recreationally, for fun!"
my brothers in christ your games are LITERALLY IN LIBRARIES.
They are not games, they are milking devices for gamers and we all know gamers aren't exactly the brightest tools in the shed when it comes to spending money. If anything, we deserve this treatment, I would even say we deserve a lot worse since we are begging them to treat us this way. Money is the language they understand and we're showering them with it.
@@cloudshifterYou're a gamer so you're dumb 😂
@@rellikai945 Funny you said that since in my country games are officially recognized as art (still no effort is made to protect them) and demos are usually featured on museums.
I remember the first time i played Mirrors Edge Catalyst, Half Life Alyx and Superhot was on a museum in Stockholm. The graphics were awful on the cheap public system so that inspired me to buy the full version so i could see it for how it was meant to look like.
With how reluctant companies are to even let customers share games, im mindblown the national museum of science and art managed to get EA's permission.
But it shows its not a bad idea as it makes more people exposed and interested in your game.
This is why NFTs are BS and this is why digital blah blah is crap.
inb4 nft buyers learn about bit rot
@@oelx0 They are punching air right now, but they are armless
I mean yeah, are you arguing that it's not?
@@thatfunnykekguy6377Virtual reality
And buying digital locations. The scams selling nothing are many.
the copyright office excuse for not allowing preservation of games is so stupid, thats like if libraries who archived old books are mad at you for enjoying reading those books? like "hey! dont enjoy these books. these are for research only, so dont enjoy reading them!"
It can't be that complicated to just update an older game to stay offline. It would make its players happy.
I get annoyed with GT not being playable as it's online save only before servers shut down and game is pointless
It can be extremely complicated and costs money, its not just going to be a case of changing 1 line of code and hitting go
Happy players don't pay for the next slop game
every modern ubisoft game will be bricked if ubisoft connect stops working so its hardly just a problem with their older games
If the game already has a single player function then it really wouldn't be. But 'online only' games would require a lot of effort to convert into offline games.
Remember to not have fun when renting books from the library or the publisher will feel sad.
Taking The Crew away from people's game libraries, not just shutting down the servers, feels like they were acting with sheer contempt for their own customers. I hope they are now in the "find out" phase of "fucking around".
The game was only in your library while you held a valid license, your license was revoked with the shutdown of the servers, even IF they had left you the game files, what were you going to do with them when the game is dead?
@@shanematthews1985that's for us as consumers to decide you bootlicker
@@shanematthews1985 Mod it to turn on the fully programed singleplayer mode that was only left turned off the entire time.
@@shanematthews1985Even IF the game server is closed, it was found out that it did in fact have a built in offline mode that was just disabled, even if that wasn't the case, someone is already working on a server emulator for The Crew.
I can understand taking it off sale on platforms, but deleting it from your library after you paid for it is ridiculous.
@@shanematthews1985 Good thing I still have older Ubisoft games with me, discs even. Same for at least hundreds of physical games with me which I rightfully and legally bought. If Ubisoft tries to break into my house, then there's going to be serious legal repercussions, which in turn will result in them having to lose even more millions of dollars in damages. This also applies to bigger gaming companies who will try and pull the same idea like Ubisoft's.
You know when they say: "piracy is not a victimless crime." Killing a game people paid for is not a victimless crime either.
Ubisoft needs to go bankrupt at this point. How many controversies do they want to partake in?
Georgem: "Ubisoft how far down this hole do you plan on going?" Ubisoft: "Yes"
Even facing bankrupcy, French/Canadian governments (taxpayers) gonna bail them out. There's also Tencent interested in takeover.
I've been making that happen for years.
You can say that for a majority of AAA game companies nowadays, really.
they should not, because we need to regulate everything these AAA studio trying to do lol
This was actually tried in the DVD movie industry, a thing called DivX. You rented a DVD and returned it, or you could "purchase" the DVD and could "keep" it. Of course, as soon as DivX dissolved, none of these discs would ever play again. Toshiba was one of the few companies that fought it, and along with a large public opposition, it failed quickly. The video format XviD was a poke at the DivX format.
You are speaking of DIVX, not DivX. There is a nice technology connections that tells the story.
The tech's only legacy was being the basis for Penny Arcade's alcoholic non-human sidekick as gamer comics were want to have at the time.
Its crazy how in a single-player game you needed to be logged in to play.. I get that it had online features... if they cannot be bothered to pay for the servers anymore, then fine disable that, but don't freaking take down the entire game, that's such a brat mentality... "you can't have all of it then"
And you know what’s crazier? People who are at most times not connected to the internet wont be able to play games from ubisoft because it would by chance say that it needs internet to “verify” sht.
Sure, but then you couldn't login anyway as the game requires those servers, so disabling that renders it unplayable, they aren't going to go back and waste time and money updating a game for the whopping sub 100 that were playing that game for the last 6 years lol
They want people to buy the new game so they take away the old one. They don't want players to own the games they buy, they don't want players to use them for "recreational purposes"
they did it for drm reasons... lots of game use online drm
@@shanematthews1985if they can waste time shutting down a game then they definitely have time to update a old game
This is why GOG should get more praise
Years ago I was called an idiot for refusing to support games that were online all the time the crew vindicated me i don't want to buy a game only for years later for it to shut down,
Same thing for me with DRM. When Denuvo eventually goes bankrupt and the vast majority of Sega's games on Steam stop working, I really won't be all too affected, but everyone else is going to be in for a real shock
It was and is the same with physical movies and TV against streaming services. They laughed until the things they wanted to watch were removed from streaming services.
Oh I've been saying what the problems of this stuff is since around when Disney Plus was announced, thankfully the snobby execs are making my arguments incredibly easy to prove.
My friend, we are a crushing minority that can see the blatant scams, most gamers even today think Ubisoft is giving them a great deal and are more than willing to pay all their
services"
@@cloudshifter Ubisoft would'nt be in crippling debt right now if people were'nt wising up to their bullcrap. The internet's got a far bigger reach than you think right now.
Ubisoft should learn from Polyphony Digital, where they implement an offline patch, allowing the game to be playable offline without an internet connection needed. Like Gran Turismo Sport, after their online servers were shut, the single player stuff is still playable. Rather than just destroying all copies of a game.
But unfortunately the livery editor , mileage exchange store are closed
@@Pri11-k7l Wouldn't be possible to share liveries anyway. But liveries that have been created prior to the shut down may still be used, but can't be shared.
Ubisoft keeps falling deeper and deeper down the hole
Down the rabbit hole
And they’ll keep falling down even deeper the rabbit hole
The _Rabbid_ Hole.
More like, 'down the toilet'.
But sadly people will keep buying their garbage games.
No matter what happens.
Literally none of the common folk out there seems to care about anything but whats in front of them anymore.
Been watching YongYea for awhile now for game news and this is completely unrelated, but I like that his background just progressively gets heavier and fuller with gamer stuff overtime, like he's slowly sinking into a pool of gamer merch and products LOL it's weirdly funny to me. Thanks for the news, YongYea! Down with Ubisoft.
It's surprising how a few years ago i got into an argument with someone because of the constant need for Internet to play games, SINGLE PLAYER GAMES, and now we are here. How things can evolve.
It's best to keep in support of indie games.
At least the ones who aren't corrupted by the late stage capitalism that has infected and destroyed so many beloved franchises and media.
If buying isn't owning...
…then Ubisoft should get used to not owning their company!
No wait, I crossed the streams
Then stealing isn't pirating
And how are you gonna pirate a game that doesn't have an offline mode and won't work without connecting to Ubishit's servers?
@@Overlord598 Easy, The Crew Unlimited. It’s a community emulated re-release of TC1 for PC that is slated for later this year, with Modding included, Factions re-activated, and afaik, Online multiplayer servers starting up later on. 😀
@@Overlord598 Easy, The Crew Unlimited. Some of the community has completely revived the game on PC via Emulation with a full PC Launcher, Offline mode, Modding support, some Pre-Wild Run expansion restoration, and further down the line a revival of Online multiplayer with third party servers (Kinda like what happened to NFS World when EA shut it down). They plan to release it either next month, or more realistically, in January.😁
Wow. This combined with Nintendo actually suing for a legit reason (a streamer boastful and prideful of his streams of pirated versions of their games) what a crazy week for video game lawsuits. What's Next? Is Phoenix Wright going to show up?
God, I love Capcom.
*OBJECTION!*
There is no objection. I just saw Phoenix Wright being mentioned and the gears in my head started turning. Lol
GOG.
Although if anybody deserved to have their games pirated it would be Nintendo
@@xrayghost133 That could happen. Doug Bowser vs Gary Bowser literally exists.
I love that the language of theft is being used in this lawsuit; it gives this a better chance of being taken seriously.
For everyone hoping for class action lawsuit, as someone who has "benefited" from one: its pointless.
Bank of America stole around 5k from me, due to overdraft fees in conjunction with a malfunctioning ATM machine that made several hundred withdrawals within a matter of seconds.
I get paid $35 of my stolen money back every year.
I will not see the entirety of my money in my lifetime.
Corporations get away with EVERYTHING
No one went to jail?
How much do they own you?
It dosen't transfer to a family member if you die?
Yep, the land of the greed.
This won't change anything since the US or really the entire world is so money hungry.
Plus there's so many people that continue to give terrible companies money despite the morals of doing so.
Gambling?, the blizzard harassments?, literally time crunch torture for employees and devs?
If people actually cared, these companies would've been bankrupt a long time ago.
But here we are. Still complaining about the same companies everyday, nothing will change. We've lost.
Just rob Bank of America, then. It's not stealing since it was yours to begin with.
@@diegoaravena423 they didn’t get away the lawyers in the class action lawsuit take it all. That’s how it always goes down. The companies still have to pay. This is lawyers being pieces of garbage like they are.
i seen more then a few times when i was informed that companies as part of a settlement agreed to pay out to anyone that can prove they were impacted from certain dates, and all i would have been able to claim is like a few dollars. not even worth the ink to sign it.
Unless they change the law, Ubisoft would win. A court ruling made in 1995 that software is owned by the company, not the customer. That's why Stop Killing Games is working outside the US. The only lawsuit that could beat Ubisoft is the one in Brazil, but that is a big if.
France (where Ubisoft is based) has much stronger protections for the customer. If the lawsuit were to take place there Ubisoft would be absolutely cooked.
I'm not sure what ruling that is about. Is it in regards to ownership of an instance of software or copyright? Because owning an instance of software is pretty much equal to owning an instance to a toy. You cannot use it to redistribute more copy's and sell them but you do rightfully own that single instance of that toy. Same 'should' apply with software. Of course leasing terms and contracts really bungle the discussion up which is where details get complicated.
@@TheLuceon yeah, that's why they're selling us the license to play the games and use the software, not own it. To use you're toy analogy, they're selling us the toy, not the blueprint for it. it's why every game has a EULA, since, to use the software we just purchased the license for, we have to sign their End User License Agreement, even if it's a Single Player physical copy with a little booklet, that booklet probly has 3 pages at the end just for that EULA to be printed on it saying something along the lines of "yes you have this data on this CD, but you don't own this data, it belongs to us to do with whenever we want without your consent." in much more verbose legalese.
@@stefankroon4615 Yeah but French gamers are barely sentient so I don't think this will ever happen.
@@ElderonAnalas Each case presents different details to discuss over but for your specific example I will counter that, that contract is completely void and unenforceable. For the case of a physical copy you bought at a store, you already would have made the purchase of that instance of the game and presenting you with a contract after you made the purchase in order to use it makes that contract worth less than the paper it would have been printed on. The same can even be said of digital goods that present their contract after point of sale.
Also the whole 'selling a license' thing is complete BS. When you buy an instance of something, thanks to copyright, it was always you bought just that instance of it and if you tried to reproduce it then you were still in violation of the law. Licensing software still easily falls under copyright infringement if you violated it but by instituting a contract saying you wont, makes it easier for companies legal teams to go after you. Licensing games was not a thing through gaming's whole lifetime. You did not 'always' license videos games. It is a contract tool, not a fact of law.
Imagine if other artforms where treated the same way as video games. If the only way to read Lord of the Rings was to find a first print edition from the 50s, if all copies of The Thing where destroyed because it was not popular when it first released or all renaissance paintings where removed from museums because someone had made more "realistic" cgi renders of them.
The only version of dune you can find is the 1980s film, because "the later books didn't market well with focus groups"
This issue is so simple. Gamers boycott online only games. Governments create and enforce a law where if a game company shuts down a server and blocks access to a game, players get a refund for the full purchase price of the game. I guarantee companies would rethink their whole approach to this situation.
Yeah GL getting enough gamers to boycott, most of us already know how licensing works, welcome to 20 years ago
This unfortunately is never going to work. There are way too many people who continue to buy games who willfilly ignore everything the bad side of gaming companies do.
The people who actually care about video games are the minority of people. We always have been.
offline online capable games are too easy to hack, there is no winning
It actually is simple, only there's way too many morons who just accept the way it's going instead of actively boycotting for a better future
The issue with this is not so simple.
Most people buy it anyways, these types of games tend to have heavy MTX easily making up the cost of everyone who doesn't buy several times over.
We're on our way to a post-ownership world, where not only digital entertainment is at risk. Between home automation and the ways car companies are incorporating subscription services and online functionality, we may not really own anything without strings attached. Forget pinball, imagine you go out to your car to go to work and it won't start because the manufacturer decided you should buy a new car, or most of the devices in your house stop working because your Amazon account got suspended (Which did happen to someone).
They advertise online purchases as buying the game but they are only selling a license if anything it’s false advertisement. But by Ubisoft wording they stole from their customers.
It’s not false advertising though if it’s in the ToS and you didn’t bother to read it. Just like it is on pretty much every digital platform.
'buying a game' always consisted of 'buying a license and method of access for that game'. The same holds true of books as well, actually, including in physical form (the book is a physical object, at it's cost set the cost of the 'access' part... and physically possessing it is the 'access'. It is, however, also the physical token representing the license: lose or destroy the book, you don't have the license anymore). And music.
The difference is the nature of the license.
The default sales contract (and you're never actually presented with an alternative as a condition of sale, so this Should be the one that applies) is what you get if you buy a physical copy:
Your license is transferable. Your license is non-revocable. There are heavy legal penalties for abusing/violating your license. (note: the EULA is NOT the license in question. The license is basically 'ligitmate ownership of 1 copy of the work in question, and the rights, privilages, obligations, and restrictions regarding what one can and will (and can and will not) do with that, which come with that under local copyright law')
Now, in practice, on most digital platforms, you give up transferability in exchage for a bunch of convenience and utility provided by the platform. The typical customer sees this as perfectly reasonable and agrees to it. Note that this does not, in any way, involve the Publisher, it is a function of the nature of the service the platform provides to the customer.
However, despite the above being what you Agree To and Pay For, what you actually GET from a digital purchase is the following:
Your license is non-transferable (actualy, even a physical purchase that forces the use of a digital platform for Access has this issue), your license is Unilaterally revocable Without Cause or Compensation at the whim of a Third Party (the publisher (who may or may not even be the Rightsholder as such, nevermind the Creator), who was not actually party to the sale of the license, but rather has a Seperate contract with the platform)... and your ACCESS is ALSO unilaterally revocable without cause or compensation at the whim of said third party. It's also Unilatterally revocable by the platform, and while they usually won't without cause (though the nature of the cause varies a lot, and isn't limited to contractual violations on your part), at least, though that one, at least, people generally agreed to when they signed up with the platform and USUALLY isn't unreasonable (Usually, sometimes it's handled VERY badly).
So, yeah, there's a major problem here, but it's Probably not false advertisment.
@@laurencefraserThank you, it's not mentioned enough that physical releases have always been sold under a license.
@@jordanking7711 Note how no one agrees with you.
When the license is created to protect the product from being copied and resold, it isn't the same as being a custodian of said product for private use.
Everything that I bought digitally should be mine and not renting a digital license
Exactly. It's about time to companies like Ubi to start paying for all BS they say.
Well thats not how it works anywhere but GoG, so you might want to stick to there, although with more and more games becoming live services you're just going to end up the proud owner of a file that doesn't do anything
Should've read the terms you agreed to instead of hoping things are the way you think they should be.
@@AfutureV Guess what? No one likes of the idea of losing something they bought with their money just because certain game publishers like to act like conartists. Stop defending these criminals.
@@AfutureV millions of games have a sort of tos like that yet when their servers shut down they are still playable games offline
Next thing we should do is sue Gaming Studios and Platforms like Steam that sell "licenses" as if its a "full price physical" game. There is no logical explaination why a license should costs as much as the full physical product which i as the one who purchased it "OWNS" now. If we can make that legally happen the discussion about Digital games would end real fast because there is no money in it.
"There is no logical explaination why a license should costs as much as the full physical product"
actually, there is a logical reason, profit. people still buy it at that price, and the profit still coming in, why bother lowering your profit when you don't have to? if quadruple A is not making a massive backlash (which thank god, it did), other companies will start calling their game a quadruple A game, and increase the price.
@@lilia-ai I'm so glad that I always refused to pay more than 40 bucks for a Steam game.
"full price physical game" is still just a license in a box, only difference is that you get physical proof and have some files pre-downloaded.
@@lilia-ai
Stupidness is not a "reason" its a sickness that needs cure. What developers do there is "abusing" mentaly weak people thats not "logical" its disgusting.
@@Marvin_R
Some files ? Buddy i am talking about the "WHOLE GAME" as physical version. Thats not a license i own that game.
Buy at Gog, keep your games.
building up a wishlist there too bad they don't have a lot of my steam library
Gog? I'm noob.
@@damachinen online game shop like steam but they don't use drm. You buy the game, it's yours. Even if they later pull the game from the store
Good old games.
@@Jadefox32 Same. There's not many games that I want though, although there's stuff like Thrillville, Cyberpunk 2077, Crysis, The Witcher 3, etc.
if we are only buying a license to use a product through platforms like steam for example, then it should be illegal for games to cost as much as it is right now.
If that were the case nothing would change; a hypothetical physical release in that scenario would cost even more than it's digital release (even if that digital release already costs as much as a physical release from a decade or two ago), claiming either increased development time, inflation, price of tools, etc. or a combination of these factors is why games "simply cost more to make" today.
This is a lot like if Bandai-Namco deleted and removed all of their Ace Combat games from your library because the licenses of the Fighter Jets expired for those games.
I swear to God if this happens, then I swear I'm gonna lose it.
Ace combat infinity used to exist (I think it was free tho)
Ace Combat Assault Horizon is still in my Steam library.
Bandai-Namco actually suffers from licencing issues, it's the reason why some old Tekken and SoulCalibur games aren't available in modern consoles. Since those games feature guest characters, they would have to renew the licenses for these characters in order to resell the games.
@@96Vladek Another example is that absolutely despised and hated Fast & Furious Crossroads game. It was also delisted because I believe they lost the license to the Universal series.
I always thought purchased digital media *never breaking down like physical copies is kind of a fair trade because publishers no longer have to invest on physical infrastructure to manufacture physical discs.
But then, I realize publishers can outsource that process so there is minimal investment on their part. And then the thought that the price is exactly the same as the physical version(at least at the beginning), it just seems to me that this is all proactive greed, and we're all used to it now.
I hope these brave individuals win. I hope it becomes a class action lawsuit as well. It's wrong! Especially wjen they did not openly disclose you don't own a game which you pressed 'Buy' or bought it at a store only to have your merchandise you bought be taken away.
It was disclosed to anyone paying attention and actually reading, why do you think its called and End User LICENSE Agreement, the L un EULA isn't there as a joke
The lesson is ALWAYS read the contracts you sign
@@shanematthews1985 The EULA dont override the law.
Games are still sold as goods and throughout history goods has always meant "a single instance transfer of ownership".
If you buy a apple or a painting your ownership dont suddenly expire.
Even if you think ownership is just a temporary lisence, the EULA still dont tell you the expiration date at launch.
All the EULA is eligble to is to remind you that "you may not sell this as your own craftsmanship", "you may not break our terms while the game is supported" and "we may end support at any time" all of which are already established by law.
"Removing your ownership when we feel like it" is not covered by law.
Now that you mention it as a steam user I always wondered why I can’t just download all my games to a hardrive for later use just to realize I’ve tried that before only to be meet with a you need to update to play warning message. I don’t understand why that’s even a thing even if the current version has a flaw I should still be able to install and play regardless.
The only thing that sucks about all this is that in the end, nothing will change. Games will just die and that'll be it unless we emulate them.
Yep, they're a rich company, they can afford to ignore this.
Same with every other stupidly rich game company.
It's so frustrating when people try to talk to companies like these in civil talk and hope something changes.
No, nothing will ever change, they're run by greedy scumbags.
Probably by all the exact same shareholders too.
They won't listen to reason, or morals.
Only the quickest and faster way to earn the most money in the short amount of time.
@@shiguriyamamo6730 They're not nearly as rich as they were a few years ago. Their stock crashed HARD, they lost MILLIONS from failing games. And funny enough, Ubisoft Ivory Tower announced an Offline Mode for The Crew 2 amidst the drama so clearly their loss in funds is shaking them up. A lawsuit would surely be another wake-up call to Ubisoft.
@@bottomtext593 I hope so too
Ofcourse, as it always has been, people whistleblow and cry out and yet do no real action about it, all bark no bite. In a few weeks nobody will even remember it ever happened and will continue to buy their shitty games and subscriptions
@@cloudshifterWhat's your bite like? Pffft.
If buying isn't owning, pirating isn't stealing 🏴☠️
Ubisoft should get used to not always getting their own way.
Companies ought to be required to send customers physical FULL copies of any game they've paid for, including any updates (not dlc) that ever got made for it.
a differentiation should be made here between digital only games, and server reliant online games.
Peglin is a digital only indie game. that's fine.
Spore had an online service, that is now defunct, but you can still play the game. that's fine.
The Crew is a game that cannot work fundamentally without the online server hosted by Ubisoft. That's where it gets iffy.
I played The Crew exclusively in single-player, personally.
@LloydTheZephyrian So it's a bad thing that the game doesn't work anymore, because it was designed to fail without a server.
spore's online not only still exists, EA actually hired a small team to manage it recently.
But it could and should have an offline mode, nothing in that game needs online they just made it that way to make piracy more difficult. It didn't stop piracy ofc but isn't it embarrassing that pirates made a more consumer friendly version by cracking your game and removing all the online stuff?
@@joncarter3761 Yes, that is my point.
If were only "renting" a game, we shouldn't have to pay as much as we do. What makes things worse is that in the UK, we pay more for products in general. For example, in the UK we would pay £80 for a new game today, US would pay $80. Its a rip off!
Yea that is a rip off. You’ll think as the value of currency goes up, the price would drop. But I guess they’re trying to milk every penny out of us
Gonna sue EA for taking away my deluxe edition of Darkspore, imagine how much I'll earn when accounting for inflation.
You won't win alone and the class-action will give you around 25 cents, before taxes
Should watch Ross's Game Dungeon on Darkspore. He was vocal in his series when comes to a central server bit. Lot of his gripes was related to EA. Even his The Crew episode he voiced in it.
*Why did the lawyer show up in his underwear?*
*He forgot his lawsuit!*
A way to save physical media would be to.
Release physical games 1 or 2 days earlier that digital.
But that’s already the case. Preordering games physically always sees me getting them a few days before official release.
"You're just buying keys."
Yep, this is what I was telling people for years who were still obsessed with owning every game on a disk, when 99% of games for the last five years have had nothing on the disk they were buying. No, I was told I was wrong and that the whole game was on there despite things like a day one patch, or anything else of any kind similar.
I should check if I bought CREW over the past decade, maybe I could get a piece of the pie. $$$
Is the effort really worth the 2 dollars you would get from a class action suit? Class actions are a total joke. The only people that make money off of them are lawyers.
@@stefankroon4615 "Is the effort really worth the 2 dollars..." Yes, by having a larger class to define by the penalty against the company grows. Class actions certainly has its down sides but it also fulfills a hole that the cost to litigate creates. The consumers may not be made 'whole' but in cases like these the monetary damages are so minor its absolutely not worth pursuing in court, so companies face no recourse to fix their mistakes.
I didn't buy it after I saw the "Online Required" but maybe I should have. I wanna sue a scummy corporation too
@@TheLuceon That's a very long way to say "No, it isn't worth it, but we'll do it out of spite."
Carry on.
@@stefankroon4615 a win sends a message to ubisoft and other companies that they need to do better.
the reward isn't monetary, it's a chance for change.
If buying games isn't owning games. Then pirating games isn't stealing games..... period.....they should make up their mind which they prefer, or, dont prefer....
Been warning of this for years. Can't eat the cake and still have it. Either side of the isle.
Oh no, you can *definitely* have the cake and eat it all, you just need to find someone stupid to buy you another cake when you ate the previous, in this case gamers who buy them endless amount of cakes.
Any video games that the seller wants to stop supporting should become shareware by law. This would included being to set up a server for online play.
It just can't all come down to "it's digital, so you have no consumer rights and this is NOT a product". Yes it is, you muppet.
See, you have consumer rights where you actually "own" the product, in this case you didn't own the product and were only paying for a license to access the product, a license which was revoked in lines with the terms of service YOU agreed to when you purchased the license
Unfortunately for you its pretty cut and dry and the same is likely to be the case for this lawsuit
'muppet' peak word use.
'twats' woulda been good too👍👍
@shanematthews1985 I get it. But if we make enough noise and stop buying their games maybe they'll do something about it. Not likely, but maybe. Better than just accepting it.
@@shanematthews1985 In certain countries like Australia and EU perpetual licenses of software are equal to goods, and TOS / EULAs are invalid if they go against consumer laws.
One time Valve tried to argue that they sell licenses and thus customers are not entitled to refunds, ACCC pressed charges, and Australian Federal Court found Valve guilty of breaching consumer laws for reasons I listed above.
@@shanematthews1985 Terms of service is not always enforceable when it comes to consumer rights, especially in EU. Maybe get better rights in your country.
I think it was 2002 that steam updated to say you don’t own the game, that they reserve the right to remove it from your account at anytime. You had to agree to it to make or access your account. The recent update was adding it to more menus.
It can become a class action lawsuit since it's closure effected everyone who bought it, it especially effects those who they were removing the game from peoples library's which is basically theft. Pray they slap a billion dollar fine on Ubisoft, a fine that size is an adequate start for these mega company's.
The Crew could have kept going but they wanted to canonicalize the servers and force everyone to "The Crew 2" or their garbage "The Crew motor sports".
Except its not basically theft, its part of the ToS you agreed to, once the license is revoked you lose access to the game, the files don't work without the servers anyway, so if you're upset that you lost some digital files you could no longer even use then i suggest rethinking that
@@shanematthews1985tos is only made for them. It’s never above the law or consumers
And why would I need to read a very long legal page just to know that what I'm getting is something that can be revoked? Why don't put the disclaimer upfront right before you buy the game?
@@Spidapida006Because you will explicitly have to agree to it in order to play? The better question is why would you Not read it?
@@ElysiabikhaTOS is for the customer and the company. The company sure knows their rights and what they agree to, so why would the customer not want to be informed too?
Makes me glad that the Fallout London mod for Fallout 4 is exclusive to GOG. I paid hard cash for it and I’m keeping it forever.
that's why I use GOG and iso files...
at least, that is close to 100% ownership...
I say this as a video game developer.
@@SkyFly19853 You say that as a free man.
EA stole all my Digital game library... Never bought another EA game after that.
If Buying is not owning then Pirating is not stealing.
Someone never saw the signs right in front of them. Should have stopped buying EA games a decade before that incident.
lol whatever helps you sleep at night but it is stealing
I don't see how a warning that you only purchase a license is a step in the right direction for customers, to me it seems like the opposite, now the publishers can say we explicitly told you it's just a license so we can shut it down whenever we want and you can't say nothing
They already can because it states it in the EULA you agreed to, the L stands for LICENSE
Yeah and we know how stupid the general public is.
Putting their money where their mouth is and ignoring everything.
Physical releases have always been sold under a license as well, the problem is moreso that for digital goods it can be revoked at any time.
it's a slight shuffle in the right direction.
doing the bare minimum.
@@shanematthews1985 The EULA on its own dont overpower the law. No matter whats stated in the EULA it didnt stop valve from being sued and forced to change in australia.
The only reason they can keep do this is because in the US private companies can pay politicians to change laws to what suits them.
The problem is as the laws stand this legal action is gonna fail. People dont read the EULA or TOS which says "we can shut down and remove the product from you at anytime for any reason" paraphrasing a bit.
Very likely this will end with the gamers losing because they signed the legal documents by playing the game
Between this and Assassin's Creed Shadows bringing dishonor to the creed, Skull and Bones the first quadruple a game flopping and Star Wars Outlaws bombing. Ubisoft is failing quite hard.
The pinball analogy is on point. Reminds me of those ads discouraging people from downloading music illegally, "you wouldn't download a car." We need to send Ubisoft and others the message that they wouldn't steal our cars.
The whole warning thing is BS anyway, because anything you buy should be owned. Otherwise it's called renting, and it should be much cheaper.
More reasons for me to continue to pirate all of the games. If buying is not owning. Pirating is not stealing.
Ubislop does it again. Stop supporting this scummy company.
ooh please like my comment ooohh please. pathetic
Something else, may be mentioned in the video but I haven't finished it yet, MMORPGs that get shut down should be required to make the files to run private servers free to all so that people can choose to run their own servers if they want to keep playing the last version of the game.
I don’t know if he’s reached out to you yet , but Ross Scott, the guy who’s leading stop killing games has mentioned that he would like to have a conversation with you specifically and discuss this… I’m sure he’d appreciate you guys getting one going.
I mean, having a discussion with Ross won't change that his plan isn't going to work unfortunately
@@shanematthews1985oh look….another contrarian
@@shanematthews1985 Of course it would. All you'd need is a law to the effect that licenses which are not presented with a defined end date (which cannot be changed, only renewed by a process that requires a new transaction) are assumed to be perpetual and, if broken, must result in a refund plus interest.
I think Capcom should be an example on how to preserve online game that goes defunct
Mega Man Xdive is an online Megaman game released in 2021. When the game goes defunct in September 2023, with the global version followed in July 2024, instead of simply shutting down the server and be done with it, Capcom released the official offline version titled Mega Man Xdive Offline, with the entire progression of game's content being remade for offline play. That includes for example, removing co-op multiplayer features, cash currency being replaced by points gained through completing in-game challenges, removed the gacha features and instead, put all gacha characters in in-game shop that can be unlocked by simply progressing through the story mode and removed online connectivity requirements (the only thing absent from the offline version is collaboration/ crossover content that requires license)
nintendo is doing the same with the mobile version of animal crossing.
shutting down the server, but selling an offline version that can import progress from the online version.
All of these shitty, greedy practices are coming around, full circle.
Not the smartest company, is it?
It's no coincidence that the Ubisoft logo is just a top down view of the poop emoji.
So buying games on GOG is fine, because "no matter what happens to the publishers, or, you know, what happens to the services that support these products, or, you know, what licensing issues there might be, so long as you have that installer, you can install the game, play it, access it, whatever you want, as long as that installer is protected." That is the exact same thing as buying a physical copy of The Crew. You can still install and start that game, but you won't have access to most of its features because something happened to the services that support this product.
The issue isn't the license model, it is the way these games are designed. They're not entering your home to delete your pinball machine high score. You bought a pinball machine that stores its high scores in someone else's building, and they won't let you enter anymore.
Ubisoft used to be a respected name in gaming.
Remember, Ubisoft told us that we should be comfortable about not owning our games, so this doesn't surprise me at all.
I would say nothing would come from this but Ubisoft can't exactly afford those big fancy lawyers right now... this might finally be the nail in their coffin.
And here Nintendo is planning to charge Pocket Camp players $20 to back up their save data when they discontinue the game. These kinds of lawsuits are important for the future of ownership
am i the only one excited for the pocket camp thing. Granted I've never played the f2p version but I feel like it's something half-decent nintendo have done in this case
@@guguy00 It's definitely better than just deleting the game for sure, but it would be better to just let the players download their island for free, or maybe for like $5, since it would cost Nintendo nothing. But that's just my opinion.
@@clovis_the_spook Yeah fair. I think there should be a discount proportionate to how much you spent on the F2P model tbh. But as an AC fan who has played like 2 hours total I'm happy to restart.
Ninty selling it at half price for a month is okay though
legalrightsguru AI fixes this. Ubisoft sued for misleading customers.
Ubisoft shut down Space Junkies, a VR zero-gravity arena shooter as well after they charged $40 for it, dropped the price to $20 after a year, and then put it on sale for $5 after they announced that they are shutting down the servers and nobody complained about that similar shit happening a year earlier until The Crew got shut down. Pretty much stole $40 from me (and a lot of other people) and never even gave a partial refund for that shit. Even Valve wouldn't give me a refund, so I don't even buy multiplayer-only games for that reason alone.
Moral arguments against piracy of old, unsupported games never had a leg to stand on.
I don't get it why licenses run out. It's made for a video game or a movie that's going to be around indefinitely the licensing for the project itself should last forever
Lets set sail boys 🏴☠️
@YongYea I'm glad you are covering this. I don't know too many people covering this! I bought this game years ago. I wish they had an "offline mode." I felt like I got cheated, theft by Ubisoft. Can't play the game i bought! I pray this turns into a class action lawsuit!
They are promoting pirating. I have archived a few of my favorites just in case they have this same thing happen.
Unfortunately I'm sure Ubisoft put something in the license agreement that let's them legally do this.
Why am I not surprised
The fact that games are supposed to be a recreational fun thing is lost on some game publishers speaks volumes.
Dump Denuvo.
Whenever I see Denuvo, I read DoNotBuy.
It's Crazy, we have Libraries for Books and film media, but games companies don't understand the History or culture surrounding gaming.
We need a big push towards preservation of gaming alongside computer science.
Yes good news for once
If the stopkillinggames movement gets enough traction we’ll see infinity blade return to IOS.
Man Yong really sidestepped that entire Veilguard fiasco 😂
- People *go to a library to read a book for free, for enjoyment*
- Corporations: "How dare you?"
Thanks, Yong, for keep showing Ross's Stopkillinggames campaign. You and many others I've follow on gaming keep echoing this. Must keep this pressure going for preserving our games. There is so many games I want and get a chance due they are into the dark void of nothingness. It's not just games. Also, Movies and Music. So, this isn't just gamers only. Everyone Benefits this topic.