Ubisoft to Decommission Online Services for Several Older Games in January 2024

[T0@st]

Last year, we posted an article on decommissioning online services for some older games. Today we have an update for you, as some additional online services will be decommissioned across several platforms on January 25, 2024. Decommissioning such services for older games is not something we take lightly, but is a necessity as the technology that drove those services has grown obsolete.

Below, you can find a list of the games and platforms affected. For a detailed breakdown of the effects of this decommissioning, please refer to our updated self-help article. Rest assured that the decommissioning of online services will only affect certain online functionalities; if you purchased these games, you will still be able to play them.




Ubisoft's List of Affected Titles:

• Assassin's Creed II - Xbox 360
• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - MAC
• Assassin's Creed Liberation HD - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
• Assassin's Creed Revelations - PC
• Ghost Recon Future Soldier - PC
• Heroes of Might and Magic VI - PC
• NCIS - PC
• R.U.S.E - PC
• Splinter Cell: Conviction - Xbox 360
• Trials Evolution - PC

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[ZoneDymo]

I keep saying this, decommissioning is fine, we dont expect to devs to keep supporting and thus investing money in older titles....

BUT, just make it open then, if its content based: give everyone everything and if its a service based: open it up so people can host their own stuff and host the service on their own servers.

 

[FierceRed]

I keep saying this, decommissioning is fine, we dont expect to devs to keep supporting and thus investing money in older titles....

BUT, just make it open then, if its content based: give everyone everything and if its a service based: open it up so people can host their own stuff and host the service on their own servers.

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

 

[evernessince]

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

All the more reason to stay away from games with forced online components and micro-transactions.

Might as well be flushing money down the toilet.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

And yet it is/was sold as a product with that function as part of it, they are taking functions out.
I get that a LOT of things would be different if companies could just do whatever is best for them, personally I say this actually should be illegal and protected under consumer rights.

If you make a game with online components (which very well might be good for sales) then you are obligated to eventually leave it still usable for the consumers that bought your product, calculate in that cost.

 

[Vayra86]

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

Depends how you code it, right?

Smart devs make always online not integral to the game, if you do this smart you can flip a switch and be done.

Corporations aren't doing it because they don't like ownership. Better to keep consumers on your leash. You're right, the interests do not align, and that's pretty telling.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

Hence why we need some sort of regulation for this, at least give people access and modders/crackers can do the job.

It doesn't cost them anything, not only making copies of software costs nothing, but anyways they won't be selling the game.

 

[Shihab]

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

It's true that opening up EOL games to the community has costs attached to it. However, such actions would not be without gains. The marketing/PR effect from them would be significant. And corps do have funds for these kinda things.

But Ubisoft isn't exactly known to be nice to their consumers...

Hence why we need some sort of regulation for this, at least give people access and modders/crackers can do the job.

It doesn't cost them anything, not only making copies of software costs nothing, but anyways they won't be selling the game.

Even the [seemingly] simple act of freeing up the license would require legal man hours. In some cases it might be downright impossible (dev/publisher doesn't own all rights to all materials in the game).

I do believe copyright lengths should be slashed to no more than a decade though. Obligatory "f*** Disney!"

 

[Random_User]

Not to appeal to anyone, or argue... but....

I keep saying this, decommissioning is fine, we dont expect to devs to keep supporting and thus investing money in older titles....

BUT, just make it open then, if its content based: give everyone everything and if its a service based: open it up so people can host their own stuff and host the service on their own servers.

If they are not going to have any further commercial benefit from it, they should make it open to the community. Publishers cut game's support, like their shelf life has expired, or have rotten.

Spoiler

There's one game, it's very old, and it suffer from bad business decisions. It's name is Dawn Of War: Soulstorm. The problem is, that the game requires always online, because SEGA can't get their head from their arse. It's problem, because a lot of people want to play different mods with LAN, and steam servers s*ck ass. Especially with something like Ultimate Apocalypse Mod. This is also the bigger problem, since the DoW1 recently has been released on GoG, and the problem is the same.

Not to mention there multithread support could already be added by community, if not the SEGA's draconian rules. They are not going to fix this game. They don't give a single cr*p about it, or community. But at least let the still lively community to fix their trash. And this is just one small example.

All the more reason to stay away from games with forced online components and micro-transactions.

Might as well be flushing money down the toilet.

The absolute majority of all games being published nowadays, require always online connection, even for single-player only games. And how many content in these games rely on DLC, that are server dependant?

Smart devs make always online not integral to the game, if you do this smart you can flip a switch and be done.

Might be not the best example, but that was partly true for some games, e.g. TDU2. Where even with server shutdown, the game was still had solid offline single player working.
The whole always online, can be mitigated, by making encrypted local save-game, progress, stats, etc, which would upload to the server each time there's online connection.
This is no problem at all.

It's true that opening up EOL games to the community has costs attached to it. However, such actions would not be without gains. The marketing/PR effect from them would be significant. And corps do have funds for these kinda things.

But Ubisoft isn't exactly known to be nice to their consumers...


Even the [seemingly] simple act of freeing up the license would require legal man hours. In some cases it might be downright impossible (dev/publisher doesn't own all rights to all materials in the game).

I do believe copyright lengths should be slashed to no more than a decade though. Obligatory "f*** Disney!"

There's no issue in copyright. The copyrighted part can be being cut out of the game easily, like it's being done many times before.
And marketing.... EA along with Ubisoft, have broke the bottom with their head, long time ago. Surely they are not alone, and the list is... infinite.

I even say, prepare for the worse, as µ$ recently sold Activision's the cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, since streaming was the long-time wet dream of Yves Guillemot.

 

[Shihab]

There's no issue in copyright. The copyrighted part can be being cut out of the game easily, like it's being done many times before.
And marketing.... EA along with Ubisoft, have already broke the bottom with their head, long time ago. Surely they are not alone, and the list is... too long.

Sure it can be cut, but then it wouldn't be a "simple act of freeing up the license" now, would it?
That said, not all licensed parts of a game could be cut. And those that could be are always concluded to be so by legal dept.

The absolute majority of all games being published nowadays, require always online connection, even for single-player only games.

List of games using Always Online DRM - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

 

[evernessince]

The absolute majority of all games being published nowadays, require always online connection, even for single-player only games. And how many content in these games rely on DLC, that are server dependant?

Looking through my Library of 200+ games, there's less than 10 that have always online requirements. I'm not sure where your statistic comes from but I'm not seeing it.

 

[RayneYoruka]

Just as I was about to do a playthru of Assassin's Creed Revelations in PC... I hope I don't take too long... I'm doing them in order, AC2 goes next...

 

[Noci]

If Microsoft was about to decommision Solitaire, well my universe would collapse. I've to confess I'm an addict since the early nineties .

 

[Deleted member 185088]

It's true that opening up EOL games to the community has costs attached to it. However, such actions would not be without gains. The marketing/PR effect from them would be significant. And corps do have funds for these kinda things.

But Ubisoft isn't exactly known to be nice to their consumers...


Even the [seemingly] simple act of freeing up the license would require legal man hours. In some cases it might be downright impossible (dev/publisher doesn't own all rights to all materials in the game).

I do believe copyright lengths should be slashed to no more than a decade though. Obligatory "f*** Disney!"

Not if it's a regulation, as it would be an automatic thing.

 

[MarsM4N]

Just bought a key for "Trials Evolution". In case it is getting delisted.

It's true that opening up EOL games to the community has costs attached to it. However, such actions would not be without gains. The marketing/PR effect from them would be significant. And corps do have funds for these kinda things.

But Ubisoft isn't exactly known to be nice to their consumers...


Even the [seemingly] simple act of freeing up the license would require legal man hours. In some cases it might be downright impossible (dev/publisher doesn't own all rights to all materials in the game).

I do believe copyright lengths should be slashed to no more than a decade though. Obligatory "f*** Disney!"

Not as easy as it sounds, I guess. Games nowadays are heavily integrated in a ecosystem with achievements, rewards, cross play, etc. With each new Windows Update a game can become incompatible. They could rewrite the (server) code and make it P2P or open source. But bigger (shareholder controlled) publishers never do that, because it's costs & no profit. Also there are often no dev's around anymore (high fluctuation) to rewrite a code for a 10+ year old game based on a engine they got no experience with.

 

[Pumper]

Not defending, explaining.

There is effort required in making something open, just like there's effort required in making something run properly on an emulator.

Effort that is measured in FTE hours. FTE hours that do not lead to new revenues or maintaining operating costs.

Corporations are not making things open and giving it to people because it isn't a good idea.
Corporations are not doing it because their measurement model doesn't account for what you and I think is important.

Corpos are doing forced online shit in single player games to make more money, so they should be obligated by law to invest part of the extra profits into future support of these forced "features".

 

[lexluthermiester]

This complete twaddle is why I:
1. Only buy from GOG.
2. Generally avoid Ubisoft crap.
3. Curse greedy business tactics like these.

@Ubisoft

 

[MrNobodyHD]

and this is exactly why online only games are a waste of money. once servers get shut down years down the road... game is rendered 100% usless

 

[Icon Charlie]

and this is exactly why online only games are a waste of money. once servers get shut down years down the road... game is rendered 100% usless

I've been saying this for years. An entire generation (actually 2+ decades) bought into Convenience and gave up their right of ownership.
This is what happens when you lease games. Eventually they will go offline and you lose.

 

[BlaezaLite]

Trials is 1 of the best/worst/most infuriating games ever. I love it and have all of them.

 

[Vayra86]

List of games using Always Online DRM - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

A mere 261 titles, of which a whole lot is absolute junk.
There are also blockbusters in there, but its striking to see where they come from too.

I think the simple fact is corporate / big publishers can't ever create enough titles that are both always online and good enough to keep online. Those games are rare. There is a cost aspect to it as well, its a train that must be kept moving, and if it loses momentum, it'll likely also lose player counts, and then the business model falls apart and it gets axed. Offline games don't suffer that problem. They're just a product you can install and play.

 

[KLMR]

Don't worry, their NEW remastered version will be available soon.