Ubisoft To Shut Down The Crew Servers On March 31st 2024 Deeming the Game Unplayable.

[Splinterdog]

The Crew 1, including all its editions, and virtual currency packs, will be delisted from all online stores. The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew 1 owners. After this date, the servers will be shut down, which means that the game will not be accessible anymore on any platform, including PC / Xbox 360 / Xbox One / PlayStation 4 / Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+.

I enjoyed playing The Crew but what I didn't realise is that I never really 'owned' the game, but purchased a license to play it, obviously not ad-infinitum.
What worries me now is the state of my other favourite games like The Division which, although not ostensibly designed as single player, it's the way I play it. I never play multiplayer by choice and I was always under the impression that The Crew was mainly single player , but perhaps I was mistaken.
Ubisoft, in its announcement, then bangs on about how much The Crew means to the company, blah, blah, but we all have to move on and will never be able to play it again.
There are mutterings of an offline patch, but frankly I'm not hopeful.

An Update on The Crew

In December 2014, we launched The Crew, our beloved first game of the franchise and one of the most ambitious racing games of its time. Nine years later...

www.ubisoft.com

 

[Vayra86]

Yeah the harsh reality kicks in when you meet it face to face right?

Ive played these games too but I kinda avoid them now and frankly also never really manage to get attached to them anymore. It just works that waywhen you dont control your content anymore. Fallout 76 was the last one I spent money on I think, and it just confirmed all fears I had about online gaming and/or any game that logs you into a games' servers before you can actually play. It could be gone tomorrow.

Its a shame, really, because I like games like The Division et al for many of the same reasons I like single player games. Heck I played MMOs as a solo'er lots of the time too. But between just vanishing overnight and the constant push to make you open your wallet.. I just cant anymore.

Oh shit no actually last game spent on was Darktide... another such game I cant truly fall in love with, so much potential and yet...

 

[MarsM4N]

They dream to turn gaming into "Games as a Service". Shutting down games whenever they want. Here's some literature:

Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off - IGN

An executive at Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft has said gamers will need to get “comfortable” not owning their games before video game subscriptions truly take off.

www.ign.com

‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Studio CEO Refutes Ubisoft’s Subscription Model Comments

Larian's CEO says that less games like Baldur's Gate 3 will get made if the industry keeps chasing subscription models for new releases.

www.forbes.com

 

[thesmokingman]

2K does this with all their MP franchises too. Bought NBA 2K, you will be guaranteed screwed in a few years after that year number version is pass the sale date. It's the biggest scam that isn't really talked about much.

 

[Double-Click]

^ Which is even more BS since most sports games are just glorified roster updates (looking at you Madden)...

 

[AsRock]

And all because they want control, as the one thing that would solve this would to make games with dedi servers that the user could run.

They don't want to do this of course.

 

[Vayra86]

2K does this with all their MP franchises too. Bought NBA 2K, you will be guaranteed screwed in a few years after that year number version is pass the sale date. It's the biggest scam that isn't really talked about much.

Its not a scam though, people know this by now.

The power of peer pressure and tiny minds. You can't fix stupid. We could regulate a bit better though.

 

[Onasi]

Honestly, at this point I feel like it should be somehow mandatory for the devs of such “live service” games to either release an offline patch before shutting down the servers, or being obligated to release the code for the server structure so that community can run their own. You know, that thing Ross Scott is always harping on about.
Not going to happen, obviously, but this is such a goddamn waste in terms of game preservation. And people wonder why I refer to AAA games as disposable products.

 

[thesmokingman]

Its not a scam though, people know this by now.

The power of peer pressure and tiny minds. You can't fix stupid. We could regulate a bit better though.

Ofc its a fkn scam. They don't print anywhere on the ads or any literature that the game is going to poof disappear in a few years. There is no warning ppl from buying DLC that all that is again going to poof before they buy it. Not everyone knows lmao. SCAM!!!

 

[Splinterdog]

YouTuber, Accursed Farms is considering taking legal action against Ubisoft over this and has asked his subscribers to email him in order to gain more plaintiffs for the lawsuit.
How this will transpire is anyone's guess and he maintains that it's a legal grey area.

Fan wants to sue Ubisoft for shutting down online-only game The Crew

A YouTuber is hoping to file a lawsuit against Ubisoft over a legal 'grey area' regarding the shut down of racing game The Crew.

metro.co.uk

 

[thesmokingman]

YouTuber, Accursed Farms is considering taking legal action against Ubisoft over this and has asked his subscribers to email him in order to gain more plaintiffs for the lawsuit.
How this will transpire is anyone's guess and he maintains that it's a legal grey area.

Fan wants to sue Ubisoft for shutting down online-only game The Crew

A YouTuber is hoping to file a lawsuit against Ubisoft over a legal 'grey area' regarding the shut down of racing game The Crew.

metro.co.uk

It's gonna be a helluva mountain to climb, but I wish that tuber and his army of 330k followers whom I assume to have bought said game are able to turn this into something that gains traction.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

Its not a scam though, people know this by now.

The power of peer pressure and tiny minds. You can't fix stupid. We could regulate a bit better though.

That's the worrying part - even pure cringe for Non-NPC humans: It looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck... but it's not a Duck, anymore... simply because it's something that was stipulated in the EULA (End-user license agreement)/TOS (Terms of Service) - and nobody reeds those - just smashes the Accept button to play their game. For the time being at least - cause the EULA/TOS clearly says something like: "If you're stupid enough to spend money on our Games... Services - we can't help but laugh in your face - while reminding you that it's within our legal rights to end your account - just because we woke-up in the wrong side of the bed and feel like hurting someone that day."

Wish this was just a meme/joke but almost every EULA/TOS actually says that - even tho the wording is sugarcoated.

 

[kapone32]

YouTuber, Accursed Farms is considering taking legal action against Ubisoft over this and has asked his subscribers to email him in order to gain more plaintiffs for the lawsuit.
How this will transpire is anyone's guess and he maintains that it's a legal grey area.

Fan wants to sue Ubisoft for shutting down online-only game The Crew

A YouTuber is hoping to file a lawsuit against Ubisoft over a legal 'grey area' regarding the shut down of racing game The Crew.

metro.co.uk

Good luck. I would like to play Marvel Heroes, remember that ARPG? It wasn't even like people were not playing it. Then it had no direct sequel either so good luck on that one.

 

[Vayra86]

Ofc its a fkn scam. They don't print anywhere on the ads or any literature that the game is going to poof disappear in a few years. There is no warning ppl from buying DLC that all that is again going to poof before they buy it. Not everyone knows lmao. SCAM!!!

But so many online games have come and gone. You can't not know this if you played online at least once. And even if it was printed, you can't really imagine what the feels are like unless you've experienced it once. Another big thing about online games vanishing is the way and the timing of them going out. Some go gracefully. Others are literally ripped out of your stomach.

They also don't print that they will use patches to keep the game 'interesting'. Whichever way that works, but mostly its just rehashing stats a bit so people play something else in the game for a while.

Still I get what you're saying. But where do you stop? I do agree with you, some disclaimer / some fat bar under every ad saying the game is a temporary thing wouldn't hurt.

That's the worrying part - even pure cringe for Non-NPC humans: It looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck... but it's not a Duck, anymore... simply because it's something that was stipulated in the EULA (End-user license agreement)/TOS (Terms of Service) - and nobody reeds those - just smashes the Accept button to play their game. For the time being at least - cause the EULA/TOS clearly says something like: "If you're stupid enough to spend money on our Games... Services - we can't help but laugh in your face - while reminding you that it's within our legal rights to end your account - just because we woke-up in the wrong side of the bed and feel like hurting someone that day."

Wish this was just a meme/joke but almost every EULA/TOS actually says that - even tho the wording is sugarcoated.

Yep they truly do say that. Luckily we already know the EULA isn't worth a whole lot when it encounters actual law.

 

[Onasi]

But so many online games have come and gone. You can't not know this if you played online at least once. And even if it was printed, you can't really imagine what the feels are like unless you've experienced it once. Another big thing about online games vanishing is the way and the timing of them going out. Some go gracefully. Others are literally ripped out of your stomach.

They also don't print that they will use patches to keep the game 'interesting'. Whichever way that works, but mostly its just rehashing stats a bit so people play something else in the game for a while.

Still I get what you're saying. But where do you stop? I do agree with you, some disclaimer / some fat bar under every ad saying the game is a temporary thing wouldn't hurt.

Or, you know, the developers can just stop locking down the bloody online infrastructure to their proprietary MM services and make dedicated user hosted servers at least an OPTION. Hell, give the users an option of hosting an offline instance to experience all the content that isn’t directly tied to live updates and make it clear. I remember goddamn Blizzard explaining how Diablo 3 cannot possibly be offline since all the loot drops are server side. Like… nobody forced you to do it this way? Hell, you YOURSELVES acknowledged that it can work perfectly fine with the console release that had a full offline mode. That you never ported to the PC version because… reasons.
It might not all be a straight up scam, but it IS scummy to the extreme and hurts the hobby and the industry in the long run.

 

[jarablue]

Back the 90s and early 2000s there used to be gamespy and allseeingeye which broadcasted multiplayer games being run. They should go back to this type of setup. Why lock multplayer? Open it up and let everyone play and host whatever they want. It used to be this way. The industry should go back to it.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

But so many online games have come and gone. You can't not know this if you played online at least once. And even if it was printed, you can't really imagine what the feels are like unless you've experienced it once. Another big thing about online games vanishing is the way and the timing of them going out. Some go gracefully. Others are literally ripped out of your stomach.

They also don't print that they will use patches to keep the game 'interesting'. Whichever way that works, but mostly its just rehashing stats a bit so people play something else in the game for a while.

Still I get what you're saying. But where do you stop? I do agree with you, some disclaimer / some fat bar under every ad saying the game is a temporary thing wouldn't hurt.

True, games like Ultima Online - set an unreachable standard. I mean, that MMO was released in 1997 and just can't die. This is from last month

"12/5/2023

Greetings,
We are pleased to announce Publish 116.3 is being deployed World Wide during each shard’s regularly scheduled maintenance beginning 12/6/2023. Please review the latest publish notes and happy holidays!
See you in Britannia,"

It's even more surprising (shocking - would be a better world), that this game was bought, is currently owned and published by Evil Arts.

Never played that one (kept hearing about it - around 2 decades ago - but even then its graphics proved to be a turn off for me - especially since it required a monthly fee). I did play Linage II for quite some time - and checked its status just now (out of curiosity), and... how about that: https://www.lineage2.com/en-us

In all honesty, was expecting both of above titles - to be long gone. I'm actually among those - who can accept (even seems logical) - the death of a game that's long overdue. So, it wasn't really about that (the expectations to keep a dead horse in comma - breathing with the help of machines - just cause there's someone who's still fond of beating it). More like... you pay for something and they give you something else latter on - cause they changed the TOS/EULA. Could even be a Game (well Service or Brand) - that's still going strong and might have 10 more years of mileage - and yet - the "redefined" EUALA/TOS still says makes fun of you for pressing the Accept and still using their service. To make things worst - you're mainly laugh at for being a paying customer. At least the F2P crowd lost only time, then again... that's way way worst - cause Time is the most valuable currency. Tho, since I'm playing the game of society - i have to at least pretend that money makes the world go around. This being a practical/pragmatic debate. So yeah, you paid for a 3 star service and keep paying for years - then one day they just shut the doors to the club (while the music is still playing) - they give you a dildo and tell you to get lost (cause they sure did - lost all your info including the wallet filled with $100 bills).

Short story: They're normalizing/legalizing scamming as a practice - with the help of an EULA/TOS - and calling it a Service. And sure, an old school Judge is not buying it. But this bilion $ corps have an army of lawyers - and usually takes a mob of complaints for them to loose a case - related to one of this services.

That being said, IMO - the legal system NEEDS to be updated - to regularize this services and compel this modern scammers to actually give you what you're paying for. As in - actual ownership of that service, something you can download on a personal/private storage - even allowed "resell it" if you invested your time and money in that "service" but no longer use/want for whatever reason (another right that's been taken away by some gaming companies).

 

[Splinterdog]

Today when I opened Steam, there was a 140Mb download for The Crew which gave me the misguided impression that perhaps Ubisoft had relented on it decision to remove the game from its servers and thus make it totally unplayable.
Anyway, it turned out to be nothing more than a Ubisoft Connect update and although the game sort of launches, you have to quit because it can't locate the servers, blah, blah.
I then spotted a Steam post "Offline mode being developed by fans". It's a server emulator/revival project, so let's see how that goes!
EDIT

Community Offline Patch: Work has begun, but we need help. :: The Crew General Discussions

EDIT: This post is not relevant anymore, we are now working on something even better - an offline AND online server emulator. Please join the discord linked below to learn more. Original post: Good day fellas, some of you might know from my previous post "Offline Mode is in the game", that me...

steamcommunity.com

 

[chrcoluk]

Yeah its sad state of affairs.

I think if the player base is dwindled enough then the servers could likely be ran on VPS's. The cost of hosting scales down with the player base.

Square Enix approach to their online elements if I remember right has been something like this.

Lightning returns had online content during its initial year, but they didnt keep the servers online for every long, I am pretty sure within 18 months of launch, all online stuff was turned off in game, however interestingly it does still have online DRM checks. FF13-2 still has its online DRM checks as well.

FF15 comrades was developed primarily as a online multiplayer DLC for FF15, although you can choose to play it on your own with AI, to play the DLC you have to login to the online servers, regardless if multiplayer or not. Originally the game had 3 servers for NA, EU and Asia. Now wherever you are in the world you always login to the Asia server, NA and EU were shutdown some time ago, but they didnt completely pull the plug, just reduced the infrastructure. The console version daily quest isnt accessible anymore I read (not tested), but it is on the PC.
FF15 main game allowed players to use their comrades avatars (appearance) to replace the main character Noctis in game and players hiding treasures for each other, but I never experienced it, they introduced the feature after I stopped playing it, and it was removed in the last patch before my new run. Apparently this feature caused a lot of stuttering though. I expect the feature removal tied in with the infrastructure downgrade.

I tend to try to stick to offline only games. Although is a few exceptions every now and then.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Yeah its sad state of affairs.

I think if the player base is dwindled enough then the servers could likely be ran on VPS's. The cost of hosting scales down with the player base.

Square Enix approach to their online elements if I remember right has been something like this.

Lightning returns had online content during its initial year, but they didnt keep the servers online for every long, I am pretty sure within 18 months of launch, all online stuff was turned off in game, however interestingly it does still have online DRM checks. FF13-2 still has its online DRM checks as well.

FF15 comrades was developed primarily as a online multiplayer DLC for FF15, although you can choose to play it on your own with AI, to play the DLC you have to login to the online servers, regardless if multiplayer or not. Originally the game had 3 servers for NA, EU and Asia. Now wherever you are in the world you always login to the Asia server, NA and EU were shutdown some time ago, but they didnt completely pull the plug, just reduced the infrastructure. The console version daily quest isnt accessible anymore I read (not tested), but it is on the PC.
FF15 main game allowed players to use their comrades avatars (appearance) to replace the main character Noctis in game and players hiding treasures for each other, but I never experienced it, they introduced the feature after I stopped playing it, and it was removed in the last patch before my new run. Apparently this feature caused a lot of stuttering though. I expect the feature removal tied in with the infrastructure downgrade.

I tend to try to stick to offline only games. Although is a few exceptions every now and then.

Only because that's Final Fantasy - the rest of the games? They kill them off mercilessly. Even if they're fairly successful in their own right - if they're not pulling big numbers, SQEX will shutdown and pretend it never existed. What they did to NieR Re[in]carnation is unforgivable, that game was a love letter to every NieR fan, sure it was niche, but just the Japanese whales could have kept the game afloat and profitable for years to come. Extremely passionate fandom and I loved it dearly, and no offline version was provided.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I remember the good ol days of Quake II multiplayer where you could host your own server, or join known public servers that you found listed on websites that logged known hosts. Add the IP address or URL to your config list and then pick the one you want to join. It would even show you how full each server was. To this day, you can still play MP. There might even still be active servers out there. Studio hosting services sound good, but it's a dead end if that's the only way to play the game.

 

[JWNoctis]

I don't mean to go strawman philosophical, but just maybe it would be helpful to recall that the time, itself, is limited in the end. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Doesn't stop me from limiting myself to entirely offline and DRM-free games these days, though! And none of that quite make it feel any better when they take it away, even if it's legal on paper. Not when PC gaming started for many with physical media, with no expectation from anyone to take those away after certain amount of time.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Also don't forget that killing off games gives the studios the option to "remaster" it and then rerelease it and make money off of it again. Gone are the days where these games were made by people who liked to play as much as we did.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Also don't forget that killing off games gives the studios the option to "remaster" it and then rerelease it and make money off of it again. Gone are the days where these games were made by people who liked to play as much as we did.

Hence why if it is not DRM free and requires the internet, I never pay more then rent price. $10 tops. Same price I paid to rent a game for a week as a teen.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Thanks for reminder. Don't give money to any company practicing crap like that.