Join The Effort to Stop Publishers Destroying Games!

TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 18:23
Last edited 25/04/2024 - 18:26

Recently, a youtuber named Ross Scott (Accursed Farms) has set up a campaign to take action on game publishers killing games after they deem that they no longer wish to support them (read: no longer profitable).

As part of his effort, he is encouraging us in Australia to help the campaign, as our customer protection bodies like the ACCC have shown that they are able to make changes to how corporations operate as a whole under our laws, like when they forced Steam to implement a refund policy that complies with our Consumer Law.

Ross wants to do the same thing — his angle is that video games are a good that when purchased should remain functional because it is owned by you, and failure to keep games functional while the company keeps the money you paid for it is goes against consumer protections. For this, he is specifically citing Ubisoft's The Crew, which Ubisoft have recently rendered unplayable this month (https://www.engadget.com/ubisoft-is-deleting-the-crew-from-p…).

There are several actions that we can do to help the effort, all of which is detailed in his campaign website https://www.stopkillinggames.com/:

  • First, and most important: If you own The Crew by Ubisoft, you can directly report the game's shutdown to the ACCC. You will need to contact Ubisoft first (who will inevitably ignore/not solve it) before reporting it.
  • Second: You can sign the government petition to bring the issue before parliament, here: https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN6080. A government petition means that it must be discussed in parliament. If you have contacts with your local government Senator, I'd also encourage you to talk to them about the effort and explain to them why it's important. You do not have to own The Crew to sign the petition!
  • Third: Similar to the first point, you can also contact the French (Ubisoft is based in France) consumer protections body about The Crew, and explain to them that Ubisoft is taking the game offline without any chance of reimbursement. It doesn't matter if you are not a French resident, anyone around the world can contact them.
  • Fourth: Spread the word about Ross' efforts. To fellow gamers, especially those who bought The Crew.

Detailed step-by-step instructions on how to do all the above can be found at this link: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/countries/australia. Ross' full video explaining the history of the movement and why it's important can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE and should be watched if you have any questions as to how effective his efforts will be.

Good luck everyone, and let's hope for a future where publishers will no longer kill our games!

Gaming Video Game

Comments

  • Loot N Plunder on 25/04/2024 - 18:42
    +11

    You'll own nothing and you'll be happy

  • AustriaBargain on 25/04/2024 - 18:48
    +3

    How is it possible when a lot of modern games are necessarily live service? Helldivers 2 servers must cost a fortune to run, you can't expect the devs to keep paying for it forever. The Crew is an offline game though? So it should be yours forever.

    • ldd-mn on 25/04/2024 - 18:56

      People complained because Ubisoft pulled the game from accounts that owned it. The Crew is (was?) an online only game, requiring the servers to be up for the game to work.

    • TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 19:32
      +2

      Idd-mn is correct, one of the major issues is that Ubisoft is making The Crew completely inoperable, and is even pulling it from game libraries of people who purchased the game legitimately

      In terms of what to do for live service games, I believe Ross addresses that in his video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE). Broadly, the ideal situation would be to allow those who own the game to set up their own servers to host the game so it can still be played, just not using Ubisoft's infrastructure. Even if that's not possible, Ross argues that a refund is the bare minimum that should be provided, since this situation means you no longer have the 'good' that you paid for. Ubisoft actually did do this, according to this article: https://www.engadget.com/ubisoft-is-deleting-the-crew-from-p…, but only for recent purchasers (i.e. it secludes the vast majority of those who had the game already).

      • AustriaBargain on 25/04/2024 - 20:19

        I guess publishers could set up like a kickstarter or something and let fans of the game fund the servers at cost. Even then they wouldn't want to do that, why would you buy a new Ubisoft game if you're happy playing The Crew every night.

        • TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 23:14

          They don't do anything because no one and no law is forcing them to do anything. Just like how shops wouldn't take refunds on faulty items unless they were forced to by consumer protection laws.

          • AustriaBargain on 25/04/2024 - 23:53
            +1

            @TheLaserSonic: What about a law that makes it so live service games must state a minimum period they will run for and if they are shut down before that stated period then you are entitled to a refund for the game and for any micro transactions made in it.

            • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 00:05
              +1

              @AustriaBargain: That's one possibility.

              But in truth, I think the potential benefits are better targeted towards games that are single player but are reliant on company servers. Many sandbox games these days have links to a transaction shop of some kind, but it's not like they're absolutely necessary for the functioning of the game the same way that it might be for, say, World of Warcraft.

              • AustriaBargain on 26/04/2024 - 00:35
                +1

                @TheLaserSonic: Yeah they could release one final patch that turns it into an offline game before shutting the servers down. But what are you going to do, run around the Fortnite island by yourself? Modern games tend not to support split screen or direct network play.

                • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 09:58
                  +1

                  @AustriaBargain: The benefit for leaving games offline will vary on the game, of course (assuming self-hosted servers aren't set up).

                  For The Crew specifically, which is the focus of this petition, there's an open-world single-player component to it that even has a story which some may want to revisit. And yet, the game is now unplayable because Ubisoft decided to axe the servers.

                  • AustriaBargain on 26/04/2024 - 16:58
                    +1

                    @TheLaserSonic: Sounds like they should have patched the game to remove online stuff, renamed the game "The Crew: Campaign" or whatever, and then lowered the price and just let it earn them tiny amounts of money.

            • ginormousgiraffe on 26/04/2024 - 10:11
              +1

              @AustriaBargain: Should be the law unless you run a subscription based model like wow or runescape

  • JIMB0 on 25/04/2024 - 19:21
    +2

    I've got games on CD/DVD from 20+ years ago that still work fine.

    • TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 19:25
      +1

      If only every game could be like that. Hopefully this movement will bear fruit in that direction.

    • AngoraFish on 25/04/2024 - 19:55
      -5

      Weird. As far as I can recall, all of my 20+ year old games barely ran at launch and had fatal bugs that made it impossible to complete them without tracking down a sequence of executable patches, each of which needed to be installed in correct order, and that could only be found on separate cover disks of different computer gaming magazines no longer available for purchase from newsagents.

      • brendanm on 25/04/2024 - 20:35
        +4

        Not sure what sort of crap you were playing, my games on Commodore 64 worked just fine, then so did the dos based ones, then most of the windows ones after that. The only ones that are full of bugs are the ones released recently, where the focus is on getting it out as quickly as possible to make as much money as quickly as possible, then just patch it afterward.

    • AustriaBargain on 26/04/2024 - 17:48

      Eh, with extensive patching and tweaking from fans. I still have my NOLF and NOLF2 disc and they would be unplayable on modern machines without the community behind them. I did not keep my 20+ year old Windows 98 machine around, maybe I should have, haha.

  • brendanm on 25/04/2024 - 20:33
    +1

    This is what happens when everyone accepts steam/ubisoft streaming etc. This can't happen with physical media.

    • ldd-mn on 25/04/2024 - 21:58
      +2

      Yes, it can. Because of the size of some newer games, either most of the game or some of the game won't be on the disc, and still needs the rest downloaded. This applies to Xbox One/Series games at least. Servers go down, game won't work properly, if at all. The disc basically acts like a licence for the game.

      • brendanm on 25/04/2024 - 22:25

        Have more than one disc. You also don't need updates to be able to play a game.

        • ldd-mn on 25/04/2024 - 23:46
          +1

          You do if you buy a game like Cyberpunk 2077 day one, which needs updates to make it playable.

    • freefall101 on 26/04/2024 - 01:50

      Yes it can. I still have my physical copy of Star Wars Galaxies kicking around somewhere, it would make a useful coaster because, as an MMO, it's dead.

      People are up in arms about The Crew solely because Ubisoft aren't letting people download it anymore when the download is completely useless. It's a moot point to be angry about. The day will come when a perfectly fine offline game doesn't work anymore because the publisher is a pile of dicks but preemptively getting angry doesn't really help anyone's cause. Nor does blaming "streaming".

      People who want to play games forever should not buy online games. It's also probably a decent investment finding DRM cracks, because most games will at least require a few of the updates that come out after release.

  • askbargain on 25/04/2024 - 20:43
    -1

    publishers getting greedy, gamers choosing to buy it anyway.

  • Magnus Awesome on 25/04/2024 - 21:38

    Purchased: Nov 26, 2014 @ 7:58pm
    The CREW Gold - $84.99
    Subtotal $84.99
    Total $84.99

    and this was in USD T-T

    Was hoping to play it this long weekend!

    • donga100 on 25/04/2024 - 22:25
      +3

      lol, just about to start playing it any day now?

    • TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 23:07

      Tell the ACCC! Don't let your sacrifice go to waste!!

    • Gareth on 26/04/2024 - 08:59

      Thanks for the perspective, this is a 10 year old game.

    • scotty on 26/04/2024 - 09:46

      Wow. Some of us got the game for free which is why it sat in my UBI Connect untouched :(

  • Ughhh on 25/04/2024 - 21:55

    should remain functional because it is owned by you

    Note that many digital platforms state that you're not actually purchasing and thus owning the game, you're purchasing a license to use the content and services.

    Sucks. Best to stick to physical copies if you can.

    • TheLaserSonic on 25/04/2024 - 23:03

      Funny you mentioned this, because Ross actually addresses this very point in one of his earlier videos, "Games As A Service is Fraud" (timecode around here: https://youtu.be/tUAX0gnZ3Nw?t=593).

      The short of it is that, no matter what little line in legalese some company sneaks into some agreement that you agree to, purchasing a game means that you purchase that game as a good (i.e. something that you own), as found by a user on the Linus Tech Tips forum (https://linustechtips.com/topic/953835-you-own-the-software-…). Scroll a little down the page of that post, and you'll find a reference to Australia's 2016 High Court battle with Steam, the result of which says very plainly that Valve supplies goods to the consumer (check point 340 of the high court judgement here: https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fc…)

      And even if they somehow overturned the judgement since then, it could be construed as misleading. I believe the ACCC will still protect the consumer even if the seller tries to protect themself via EULA.

    • Sleeqb7 on 26/04/2024 - 10:08
      +1

      Best to stick to physical copies if you can.

      When was the last time you purchased a physical copy of a game that didn't also connect to an online system to activate/install/play/etc?
      Pretty uncommon these days.

      • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 10:22
        +1

        To answer your question Sleeqb7, basically my entire Nintendo Switch game collection is like this. Sure, some of them want to update, but there's nothing stopping them from being played the moment you put the game in, and most importantly, can be played without internet.

        But to actually answer you — for PC games, I can understand the space requirements are becoming a bit too large to make physical media viable (that, and not as many PCs rock disc drives anymore). That said, I think the "new age" version of this practice is what GOG offers: offline game installers that you can download and back up so that you can install the game without any need to connect to GOG or its servers, even if the game is taken off the site.

  • plmko on 25/04/2024 - 23:00
    -2

    Never understood why people buy Digital games.

    For instance not too long ago I sold a PSP game I bought years back for $400 worth $25 in the bargain bin at the time.

    • freefall101 on 26/04/2024 - 01:58
      +2

      The Crew came on physical media. The problem is it's an entirely online game and without the servers it's not worth squat.

      This 'protest' is about somehow forcing Ubisoft to run the servers for The Crew forever, it seems.

      • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 09:53

        To be clear, the protest aims to put into law that companies need to keep software (games in this case) functional without any intervention on their parts after they decide to stop supporting it.

        To quote the government petition wording (https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN6080): "Require software sold in Australia to remain in a functional state after the end of the product’s support period, continuing to operate without any intervention from the publisher."

        • freefall101 on 26/04/2024 - 11:09

          That really isn’t clear at all.

          What do you want from Ubisoft here if not what I said?

          • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 11:26

            @freefall101: Basically, the protest is asking it to be made law that games (The Crew in this case), remain functional (i.e. still be played) even when Ubisoft decides to shut off the servers.

            This can be accomplished through some sort of update that allows the game to work without needing connection to Ubisoft's servers. No one is asking Ubisoft to keep their servers for this game running indefinitely.

            This can be done even for games that were 'built' to be "online-only" — just look at Mega Man X Dive Offline for an example.

            • freefall101 on 26/04/2024 - 14:59

              @TheLaserSonic: Mega Man X Dive is a horrible example, it's a standalone game you have to pay for. It's not very different to Ubisoft going "hey, go play our new Crew games instead" and isn't simply a patch on the existing game. I'm pretty sure Ubisoft making everyone go buy The Crew Offline again would piss even more people off at this point.

              I agree it's not impossible to do, and I would support legislation that requires EOL details supplied or a statement that the game being purchased will be shut down at a later date, but forcing a developer to update a piece of software to be offline only isn't a simple action and it definitely shouldn't be retroactively applied to existing games. It would require a whole bunch of companies to go commit millions of dollars to development because a bunch of people never clicked that buying online only games is a stupid idea.

              Pretending that just developing an update is the easy part is really misleading. And I'd rather people just stop buying Ubisoft games, they're a dickbag company run by horrible people who see gamers as cash machines - we'd all be better off if people learned the lesson to buy from other developers.

              • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 15:47

                @freefall101: I'll concede that I don't really know how hard it would be to update a game after the fact to be playable offline, in the same way that I don't really know what it takes to develop a game in the first place.

                Nevertheless, I still think there's merit to pursuing that agenda — if games were made with the understanding that they would need to cater to gamers who pay for it even after support stops, it would heavily change how they are developed which would make the idea of indefinite accessibility easier to achieve, I think.

                Whether or not Ubisoft games should be payed for or not on a moral stance doesn't really help in this situation. Plenty of other companies have their own skeletons in the closet, and yet people still buy from them because they think their games are fun. So despite the moral standing of the company, the games they publish should still be preserved.

    • Sleeqb7 on 26/04/2024 - 10:16

      Because most PC games for the last 25+ years were activated with a CD key on installation, so you could never resell them anyway. Steam just made it easier to have everything at your fingertips.

  • solidussnake on 26/04/2024 - 07:33

    Good old Ubisoft if they're not pulling shit like this, they're pricing games like the new starwars at $199 for their super duper deluxe edition.

    • ldd-mn on 26/04/2024 - 07:57
      +1

      Yes, that's because it is the deluxe version, and they can charge whatever they want. Most people aren't going to buy it. Activision, among other companies, do the same thing.

    • Nillionaire on 26/04/2024 - 14:31

      $199 for their super duper deluxe edition.

      What's wrong with that? Feel free to complain about normal edition prices but complaining about collector's editions is silly. $199 isn't even wild, there's editions that go for hundreds more, some even thousands. Check out the YouTube channel TheRelaxingEnd for examples and what they contain. The collectors can decide if they deem it good value for them or not.

      • solidussnake on 26/04/2024 - 14:42

        This was a deluxe digital edition from the PSN store with nothing phyiscal so yes it is silly unless you think a digital soundtrack and some extra skins is worth it ??

        I'm not complaining about the physical special editions as I have some of the Assassins creed ones

        • Nillionaire on 03/08/2024 - 15:28

          some extra skins is worth it?

          Yes? Skins can cost hundreds and be worth it for many even if it's ridiculous to many others. League of Legends recently released a single Ahri skin for $500 USD and it was very successful despite outrage and boycott campaigns from parts of the community.

  • Gareth on 26/04/2024 - 09:09

    How long should a publisher run the online parts of a game?

    I see this game is 10 or more years old. How long should game companies ensure the games run for? (this could also be patching bugs, fixing incompatibility issues as well as supporting a back-end). IMO 10 years seems a good run.

    This is inevitably the issue with all pay once online services. The back end costs money every day to keep it going, at some point someone has to flick the switch.

    With a long tail of very few players playing a game (not sure about the Crew) would you be happy to pay (eg) $25/month hosting a game so you can still play it?

    • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 09:51

      I agree that server costs to keep a game running will inevitably become too much of a financial burden for game publishers to upkeep. That's indisputable.

      However, the idea that a game with an online multiplayer focus can only be played as long as the publisher wishes to keep the servers running is a false one, and is especially not applicable to The Crew, which possess a strong single-player component that even has a plot attached to it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crew_(video_game)).

      As for the only-online part, I also fail to see why that'd be a requirement. Online games can be made to run offline, just look at Mega Man X Dive, which was released on Steam being fully playable offline after the gacha version was shut down.

    • 7ekn00 on 26/04/2024 - 10:03

      This is inevitably the issue with all pay once online services. The back end costs money every day to keep it going, at some point someone has to flick the switch.

      Yep, this is why i seek games with sustainable funding models!!

      I am happy to pay up to $US20/pm to keep a game server open that the developers originally designed that way …

      • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 10:28

        Or better yet, have the publishers release a patch so the game works without need to connect to the servers! (this is more achievable with games that are mostly single-player focused).

  • emblurr on 26/04/2024 - 11:05

    Think i'm concerned with physical media. Is what happens in 20+ years when someone wants to play some old PS3 game. They install it from the disc and can only play version 1.0, because patching servers have been shut off. There are unofficial work arounds to get some patches but is not ideal.

    • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 11:39

      Not the most ideal situation, but so long as the game is "playable" from disc, then it's not as bad as the games this petition is targeting.

      But yeah, maybe this can be addressed one day…

  • 2esc on 26/04/2024 - 11:32

    Ive always been reluctant in assisting my boys buying online games for this reason.

    • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 11:41

      Imagine if every game could be arbitrarily decided by publishers to just "no longer work". I don't think I would even have a gaming childhood if that was the case.

  • Nillionaire on 26/04/2024 - 14:35

    they deem that they no longer wish to support them (read: no longer profitable).

    Is this actually the case? They can't just release skins or something seasonally to generate enough money from the microtransactions to be profitable?

    • TheLaserSonic on 26/04/2024 - 14:42

      I don't think we can really say why the publishers make the decisions they do, though it probably is based on some sort of cost-benefit analysis.

      Regardless, it's hoped that one day the "lowest cost/highest benefit" option will shift over to allowing games to remain functional after support for them ends.

  • cimrak on 26/04/2024 - 18:36
    +1

    Remember the days of self-hosting PC game servers? Or ISPs like iiNet that ran game services because the back-end server software was available?

    I reckon that's what we need to get back to.

    • Game publisher provides a minimum of 5 years online services to make $$$
    • After 5 years, the publisher needs to make available a minimal backend hosting software package that includes login and patch support plus multiplayer if the game was also predominately MP.
    • The game client also gets a patch to manually specify the backend server to connect to versus the publisher's main servers.
  • YoursTruly on 29/04/2024 - 16:54

    OP, how is the personal identity data that we may supply in the petition handled? Things like Privacy, third party, etc etc

    • TheLaserSonic on 30/04/2024 - 23:54

      Can't say for certain, but considering it's a government website, you'd assume that it'd be reasonably well protected…

      All you need is your name and email if I remember correctly.

  • YoursTruly on 29/04/2024 - 17:03

    It would be nice as well for consumers to have all video game developers/ publishers regulated by ACCC - to have them not release Rushed/ Broken or Incomplete video games in the Australian market (at the very least).

    Consumers don’t buy physical or digital media movies, books or music to be expected to download patches to add things or fix things in their purchases. Developers/ publishes of those release them in a complete and functional manner. The Same treatment should be afforded with video games as well.

    It would be so so good to buy a physical media video game without day 1 massive download of patches, or patches down the line of its life to fixing things in the game that the developers/ publishers were too lazy to extensively check for, fix and/or address in the first place…

    Let consumers have full and complete games on the disc/ cart they purchase - just like in the PS2/ NGC era and prior generations. Issues of optional additional legit DLC (mind: not day-1 or shortly after main game release) may be purchased separately via its standalone physical disc/ cart to supplement the main game.

    Basically, should a consumer purchase a physical media video game and say they live in a remote area with no access to internet or doesn’t wish to connect online (an added cost), they are basically left hanging or forced to find internet to address the shortcomings of the developers/ publishers.

  • foursaken on 06/05/2024 - 13:18

    1) Some of you have no clue what you're actually paying for when you buy a game. Hint: It's not the media, which costs <$1. It's the hours of work and IP contained on the media. How a game is delivered to you makes absolutely zero difference as to your "ownership".
    2) Most developers are public companies, and this seems to be wanting public companies to do something which does not maximize profit, opening them up for shareholder lawsuits. You're seriously suggesting that a game, written 10+ years ago, should be modified by people, most of who know nothing about the development of the game, instead of writing a new game? Never going to happen.
    3) I'd guess that most back ends from 10 years ago have "programmer controls" and barely work these days. Let's not even discuss security.
    4) At no point have you seemed to consider just how many games the decision you want might impact.

    You're stumbling around in the dark without at least a basic knowledge of software development and consideration of public companies' legal obligations.

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