On the one hand, yes, this is both stupid and really dickish behaviour from Ubisoft. On the other hand…
This should be illegal.
No. Full stop. no. No one should be compelled to continue selling something they don’t want to sell anymore. If it has social value, it should be reproduced and superseded by something owned by society as a whole. The seller shouldn’t, under any circumstances, have the right to disable the things you bought outright from them, but that’s about it.
We have channels we can use to access things that are no longer supported or sold by the developer (and selling something implies – and should imply – support from the developers). It’s absolutely messed up that those channels are themselves illegal, but believing that you should be able to compel someone else to do what you want, against their will, just because you want them to do it is just an authoritarian hissy fit.
I mean...they're removing it from sale because they have a more egregious business model to sell you instead that no one wants. And that last qualifier you added about alternative channels being illegal is the problem, because we have no measures to preserve things like this.
If it’s any consolation, Ubisoft removed Denuvo sometime in the last couple years, and the UPlay sign in screen is annoying but can be bypassed fairly simply.
Selling or licensing IP should be a hard requirement for maintaining ownership of it. That doesn’t require compelling anyone to do anything; it’s merely withdrawing privilege of IP ownership from someone not using it for its intended purpose, which is, to quote the US Constitution, “[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Any microphone or better yet audio interface with an “instrument in” jack will work with the game. I’d personally rather not rely on a single use type computerized cable from a game company that doesn’t support the game anymore.
Of course, Ubisoft is going to replace this 40 CAD game with a subscription service model called Rocksmith+ which is 20 CAD per month and not available on Steam. On the other hand, RS2014 works without the need of a Uplay account and can be played offline (Just press Esc twice at the signin screen).
More likely the music license expires and they can’t distribute the game without one.
You would think licenses for a game hardly anyone buys anymore would be incredibly cheap to renew. OTOH I know the music industry is run by greedy fucks who make Ubisoft look like a charity, so I don’t expect reasonable license terms to be offered.
Nah its more that they don’t want to further canibalize there own customers. New customers will/are steered towards the subscription game. However old players may or may not have all content so if they want new dlc for their current game they are out of luck and will be funneled twords you guessed it the subscription model.
I bet they will probably launch a massive mail campaign for old and new players and update the game as well so they can insert a pop up with a message like "want more and better experience " or “want to continue the journey…” I fear they will alter the game a bit nothing major just slightly to steer you
You do know how exploitative the record labels can be, right? Those license fees will not be small. This is part of the reason games like Guitar Hero stopped being made.
Oh no, they're interested in making money. The problem is the record labels have formed an oligopoly on a massive part of our culture, so there's nowhere else to go.
At least you get to keep the DLC titles you purchased, which probably wouldn’t happen with a SaaS title
Precisely. This is why I’m giving people a heads up that this is the last opportunity for this game with the “buy it, keep it forever and do whatever with it” model.
Since I’m not aware of CustomDLC for Rocksmith+ or if there will ever be, you’d be entirely at the mercy of what songs Ubisoft has the license for you to play, even if their catalogue is sizable.
Because it’s a 10 year old game with few players and even fewer that are going to buy it new….
Music licenses are expensive as a hell and it doesn’t make sense to pay for a license when you’re only gonna have a few hundred/thousand people using it.
You’re probably correct, they’ve already delisted some DLC songs due to license expiry…
But if they are or will be relicensing many of the songs for their subscription service Rocksmith+, why couldn’t they use those same licenses to keep distributing Rocksmith 2014 and its DLC in stores? Unfortunately I’m not too thorough with music licensing.
My guess is the record companies refused to renew the perpetual license for a cost that Ubi could justify in order to keep the one time purchase model. Everyone wants subscription model from the top to the bottom.
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