This is all well and good, but what of all those MMORPGs that got shut down?
The Crew is a bizarre game to do this kinda treatment for, since the sequel is very similar to the first, less terrible crime syndicate story, more planes and other nonsense. It’s also pretty middling, car handling is really weird, and the lack of rear view mirrors looks pretty weird nowadays.
I’m guessing it’s car licensing that’s causing the shutdown. It’s what happened to Forza Horizon 1 and 2. If that is the case, this game isn’t going to get open sourced ever. Also: why didn’t this guy go after Microsoft to make them playable again?
It’s because MMOs were sold as subscriptions (most of the time) so they’re legally covered in being allowed to end their service. The crew however was sold as a full game with no subscription. They didn’t make it clear that the game could cease to exist even though you paid for it outright.
Sadly, I feel like a lawsuit line this won’t have the benefit we’re all hoping for (open sourcing on closure of services) but will instead just make all subsequent games free-to-play, which would make them more exempt to the same scrutiny. And we’re already seemingly heading that way too, warts and all.
For the future maybe. For games that were sold one day, they would have to either keep supporting it, or release server software.
It is up to the gamers to keep supporting this practice in the future.
I can still play Unreal Tournament '99 and 2004 even though the servers are offline. I can even still play it online with the server ip and even use the server browser with fan mods.
You can’t say the same for the crew when it goes offline.
The reason you can still play UT99 and 2004 is because those games were never hosted by epic on a central server. The game shipped with the server hosting tools, and it was designed to allow you to host your own server (if your connection was fast enough) or to rent your own server from a third party.
They’re also very different types of games from the current crop of live service games that this youtuber is targeting.
I am aware it’s different. All I’m trying to say is either make it single player, release dedicated server software or keep supporting it. You sold it as a product. Don’t remove access to a product.
For the last few years, most MMOs have been, or become, Free to Play, with (a lot of) microtransactions. The only subscription MMOs I can think of off the top of my head are FFXIV, WoW and Eve. Then you have the buy to play, with no sub (or optional sub, but not required to play), games like New World and Elder Scrolls Online. Making the vast majority F2P.
All of those games can become EOL and be removed from sale for any number of reasons, and they’ll have the same terms in the EULA that the crew would have. There is literally nothing different legally between The Crew and something like Elyon. Both were paid for up front, no subscription with some optional microtransactions.
Since legallly there is nothing different between all these live service games, it makes this youtubers campaign all the more odd. Car Licensing is notoriously well enforced, so why is this guy, a Half Life youtuber of all things, thinking he can go after Ubisoft on this when it’s pretty obvious that it’s the license agreements that are the likely cause of the shutdown.
Since it’s free they were never sold to you as product, their asses are covered on this one, you can make an arguement for Elder Scrolls Online, Black Desert Online (I bought this one, I have the receipt to prove it) and Guild Wars 2 since they use the b2p model with an optional subscription. Car licensing can only prevent ubisoft to sell the game, it’s not required for them to shut it down and render your copy unusable.
It’s all about how they’re sold and marketed rather than what’s in a EULA. They can’t be used the same way as a contract upon purchase and have been shown just as such in law cases in the past. FFXIV, WOW and Eve have always been sold under the pretence you need to keep paying to keep playing.
You just made it look even worse for Ubisoft since the first 3 Horizon games work offline and everyone that bought them can still play it just fine, you just can’t buy them right now.
I got the game for free, and I’ve been playing it since every three months for a few days, just driving around. I bought the sequel, but it sucked.
I never used the multiplayer component, I treated it like a single player game. And now it’s going to vanish? This whole world? They can’t be serious. This isn’t a multiplayer only title, it’s single player with an optional mp stacked upon it. At least put an offline patch out… Assholes!
But that’s the crux with only buying licenses. Or games with always online requirements. I hope fans find a way to crack the online code!!
Yeah, no one is arguing games shouldn’t have online, just that they continue to work after the devs are done with them, have an End of Life plan like the late Avengers game, or the gacha Megaman X Dive that got an offline version sold on steam and consoles.
I’m all for improving consumer rights in the videogame industry, but I’m more than a little amazed anyone’s willing to put up a fight for The Crew of all things.
Seems more to do with the way things line up–it’s a perfect example of a physical and digital game getting permanently shut down without any sort of refund or compensation to the buyers of the game. It sounds like it’s about setting precedent so people will have a better idea of how this kinda stuff is going to work in the future.
He just likes driving around and nothing more, it’s his podcast/tourism game, but also the perfect one since it happened after he started this fight for preservation and it’s not sold as service but as a product, unlike MMOs.
That aldo happened to Bomberman. To play locally, it needs to connect to a server. The servers are no longer active, and as a result, the game isn’t playable.
Now also make it illegal to sell physical copies of games that need day 0 patches/downloads to make them work.
I still kick on my original nes every now and then. 20 years from now when you dig out your old copy of borderlands 3 and there’s no longer a download available, you think you’ll get to play through the game?
This is why his videos about this issue are great, he dismantles every single argument against it like “just buy physical”, The Crew has physical versions, they won’t work just like the digital one.
yeah, but how rare is that compared to today, where almost every bloody game is ridiculously broken and needing major day 1 patches… an day 2 patches, and day 7 patches.
Let me guess, you haven’t written a single line of production code in your life?
Writing code is hard, writing bug-free code is neigh impossible. To give some perspective: the seL4 kernel is a formally proven microkernel, meaning they can actually prove is conforms to it’s specification. It took 3 years to write and prove this. It comprises 8,700 lines of C code and 600 lines of assembler. 9,300 lines or code in 3 years.
It is only feasible to do this for small bits of very critical code, like a microkernel. Even NASA doesn’t write code in this way.
If you wanted to do this, a game like Super Mario Bros. would probably not even be for sale, as they would still be working on it. It would probably sell for a couple of million dollars per copy.
Commercial software has in average 1 to 5 bugs per 1000 lines of code. Very critical and well tested software (think the software controlling aircraft) has maybe as little as 1 bug per 10,000 lines (and this will cost an absolute fortune to write and test).
Games have millions of lines of code and are certainly not critical. The idea that games can be bug-free is beyond absurd. Even a low number of bugs is a ridiculous ask. Or are you saying you’re willing to pay $10,000+ for a game?
Ah yes, the Corporate White Knight twisting the argument and defend the poor downtrodden multi-billion dollar companies from the horrors of deserved criticism.
. 20 years from now when you dig out your old copy of borderlands 3 and there’s no longer a download available, you think you’ll get to play through the game?
Yes, games often come with bugs, but a game that comes out unplayable or unbeatable on disk is extremely rare.
This is, of course, discounting the fact that as part of community preservation efforts, updates are preserved along with the games.
Also NAL, but it seems like they aren’t arguing for server functionality but rather just the ability to play offline at all, which opens up the third option of requiring games to be patched to remove sever requirements if being shut down, in any case this will be a fascinating case to follow, and I hope they go through with the lawsuit.
True though that’s a bit of a potato/potatoh probpem as the easiest way to patch-in offline would be to run server locally rather than have 2 different architectures of offline and online plays. That’s already how many games work today actually - singleplayer is just a server with only you on it.
That was just the assets he purchased, but yeah even if we are being generous in terms of salary how did someone put together a better game with like 1% of the time and resources?
Why anyone would spend 1500 dollars and 300 hours on a parody is beyond me but it’s impressive work nonetheless for a solo dev.
The gameplay was fun to watch, but mostly just because the characters steps sounded like their shoes were sticky after they stepped into some spilled cola or zombie guts or whatever.
I don’t believe that even without DRM the game would’ve been pirated that much… i mean people usually pirate games they actually want to play lmao.
But let’s see how long it takes the industry to realize that games like bg3 and palworlds, that don’t have any DRM, are still money making machines… hmmm
Maybe, but when people talk about “cracking” a video game, they mean removing the telemetry parts of the .exe that might phone home and tattle on you. So often a cracked version of a game will have most online features removed. If it’s a game with a single-player campaign, it might still be totally playable.
Perhaps, but the devs have now said that offline single player mode is a feature coming "soon after launch", which says to me that perhaps it's more coupled to a server than just a bit of telemetry, or they'd be far more reactive to the public response about the online requirement. Not to say that I know for sure; it's just a gut feeling.
Yeah we’ll only know for sure after it comes out, and after we see what the pirates are able to do. Pirating online-only games is also possible, it’s just more difficult so it’s less common. Maybe the pirates will wait until the single player mode launches.
Never underestimate how much people want to see a trainwreck up close. Of course, pirating is free, I doubt many people want to pay money for a trainwreck, so not sure if Denuvo is really going to save them from losing actual sales
Seriously “#1 sold game on steam in 2024” ah yes, because that’s a good metric when it’s been only one month and the biggest titles have a tendency to drop in December
This seems like EXACTLY the type of game I would pirate, if I was still a teenager pirating games. Something without online play (or with online play that I don’t care about) that looks kinda dumb but maybe it could be funny, and I don’t feel like it’s worth full price. So I would just pirate it, play it halfway through, get bored, and delete it.
I’m too old for that shit now, I don’t want viruses on my PC because I store things on there that are actually IMPORTANT, instead of just porn and video games. But back then, I’d risk a virus for this mediocre-looking Suicide Squad game.
Oh, pirating movies/TV/music is a totally different story, the risk of a virus is near zero if you’re careful, because you’re not running random .exe’s. I said that I was done pirating video games, not that I was done pirating completely. 😄
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