Ubisoft killing their games Image Source
Hello there! Usually, I don't deal with news about games when I write, but this week a disastrous precendent is being set. It's been everywhere in the news, but if you haven't heard about it yet, Ubisoft is shutting down the servers for several older games, effective 1st of September this year. Of course, they blocked replies.
You can look up what games are affected by this shutdown, I will not mention them here, because the games themselves are besides the point. Their fate however, is what I'm interested in.
What does it mean?
Firstly, it means that the multiplayer components of the games will basically cease to exist, which ahs come to be expected, even though it still isn't really acceptable from my point of view. Somehow, things get a lot worse, as all DLC in Ubisoft games is also linked to the servers, needing to be activated before it can be used, which means that any DLC for the games they announced they are going to shut down will be rendered unusable. This also includes singleplayer DLC. This is a huge problem, since it sets a precedent that singleplayer content, which the player theoretically enjoys at their leisure, can be taken away at the whims of the game's publisher. This is, sadly, completely legal, since when you install the game, you accept the EULA for that game, which, among other things, always states that you do not own the software, you only have a license to use the software and that license can be voided.
The Big Picture
The games industry is already terrible at preserving games, seemingly on purpose, with all the DRM systems they implement and storing chunks of the game logic on servers. Now, DRM can be ripped out of games, cracking groups having this whole purpose, which, funnily, makes them the main authority in games preservation. The sticking point comes with the games with server-side logic. They can, theoretically, be saved, but that requires reverse engineering the server-side functionality, which takes a titanic effort, making it not very realistic. In short, the current way the industry is working, without piracy every few years games would vanish, people wouldn't be able to go back and play them for the first time or even replay them if they so wished. So, my advice is, if you want to play a game which was rendered unplayable through official means, and there is some unofficial way to play it, like a pirated version or a reverse engineered server, you should go for it without any remorse, since the company publishing it already decided that they don't want your money for that game.
The bottom line is, I can only feel sorrow when looking at this situation, watching publishers trying to simply erase from existence. I'll leave you with Ross Scott's brilliant video explaining what is wrong with the concept of games as a service, since it is pretty apropriate for the theme of this post:
GamingHD Discord: https://discord.gg/CZSXJwy
Part of me wonders if they are pulling them before putting out "remasters" in a few years to try and milk some easy money.
Some of the games already have remasters, like Far Cry 3 Classic Edition or Assassin's Creed III Remastered which includes Liberation, so this theory holds water. Still, hacking away parts of games feels disgusting.
This is a big wedge for games as a service. It has its good parts, but we tend to forget the downsides. This will be what makes people pick, probably for good. It's a really sad, but maybe we needed a reminder that they're not really on our side.
In my opinion, the downsides really outweigh the positive aspects, like cloud computing and ease of content deployment. I tend to call these games as being on life support, because as soon as someone pulls the plug, they're gone.
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So terrible...All hail the developers of good emulators for continuing/preserving our gaming passion!
Indeed, emulation and piracy are good for preservation, but as stated, some online-only games are not really salvageable.
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The gaming industry is so far from perfect in its current state. Most problems are centered around the big publishers though, like Ubisoft. This doesn't affect me in any way but it still sucks.
Yeah, indies tend to be very straightforward with how they deal with stuff, at least when relating to the sale of their games. The business part of game development really became cancerous, though.
This is a big wedge for games as a service. It has its good parts, but we tend to forget the downsides. This will be what makes people pick, probably for good. It's a really sad, but maybe we needed a reminder that they're not really on our side.