5 ms·

my point is geared towards in general like The Crew is not the only game getting shut down, have you seen the list? https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/connectiv

my point is geared towards in general like The Crew is not the only game getting shut down, have you seen the list? https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/connectivity-and-performance/article/decommissioning-of-online-services-for-older-ubisoft-games-january-2024/000105788 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/connectivity-and-performa... This happens every year and they make a dozen games unplayable every year. This should be ILLEGAL without providing a means

gs17 3y ago
It should be, but the argument is a lot more clear for a game sold on its single-player mode being killed entirely like this. All of that list is "You will be unable to play multiplayer, link Ubisoft accounts in-game or use online features." There's no more multiplayer, and then there's no game at all. AFAIK, anyone with an old disc of Assassin's Creed 2 for Xbox 360 will still be able to play the single-player this Thursday. A disc for The Crew will become just junk when the server is killed.
AlexandrB 3y ago
Digital purchasing has gutted consumer rights. Remember when you could sell your used games to other people? Someone buying a digital game/book/movie/album usually has few rights besides consuming the content in question, and even then only until the seller decides they don't want to host the content (or sometimes DRM servers required to run it) anymore. Returns on digital purchases are often impossible (Steam being an exception) as are typical retail niceties like price matching against sales within the return period (e.g. you buy something and it goes on sale the next day). I don't know what the solution is because a lot of these functions would require complex DRM systems to make a digital product behave anything like a physical one. So legislating to enforce digital consumer rights is effectively legislating for DRM everywhere. The crypto dream of tying every digital good to a token or NFT was effectively an implementation of this kind of DRM using blockchain. However many digital storefronts already implement complex DRM systems, so perhaps at least enforcing some kind of right to return digital goods (including game MTX) would be beneficial.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Just make it conditional: if you use DRM, then the customer also benefits:)

gs17 3y ago

It should be, but the argument is a lot more clear for a game sold on its single-player mode being killed entirely like this. All of that list is "You will be unable to play multiplayer, link Ubisoft accounts in-game or use online features." There's no more multiplayer, and then there's no game at all. AFAIK, anyone with an old disc of Assassin's Creed 2 for Xbox 360 will still be able to play the single-player this Thursday. A disc for The Crew will become just junk when the server is killed.

AlexandrB 3y ago

Digital purchasing has gutted consumer rights. Remember when you could sell your used games to other people? Someone buying a digital game/book/movie/album usually has few rights besides consuming the content in question, and even then only until the seller decides they don't want to host the content (or sometimes DRM servers required to run it) anymore. Returns on digital purchases are often impossible (Steam being an exception) as are typical retail niceties like price matching against sales within the return period (e.g. you buy something and it goes on sale the next day). I don't know what the solution is because a lot of these functions would require complex DRM systems to make a digital product behave anything like a physical one. So legislating to enforce digital consumer rights is effectively legislating for DRM everywhere. The crypto dream of tying every digital good to a token or NFT was effectively an implementation of this kind of DRM using blockchain. However many digital storefronts already implement complex DRM systems, so perhaps at least enforcing some kind of right to return digital goods (including game MTX) would be beneficial.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Just make it conditional: if you use DRM, then the customer also benefits:)