We've all been there right? You paid for a game, it required an active internet connection and a couple of years later the publisher decided they're done with it and shut it down leaving you with a broken game. Annoying.
Very annoying. It repeatedly happens, mostly AAA publishers that do it and their games are often quite expensive too. One of the most recent is The Crew from Ubisoft, a game that until late December last year cost £25.99. The developers at Ubisoft Ivory Tower announced on December 14th that as of March 31st, 2024 the servers would be shut down and so it will no longer be playable for anyone. The Crew 2 is still online, and Ubisoft are about to launch The Crew Motorfest on Steam on April 18th.
So now YouTuber Ross Scott of Accursed Farms, has launched the Stop Killing Games campaign to try and better highlight the issue. As noted on the campaign website: "An increasing number of videogames are sold as goods, but designed to be completely unplayable for everyone as soon as support ends. The legality of this practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media. We are pursuing this in two ways:"
Direct Link
It's definitely an interesting and often frustrating issue, especially for games that could seemingly continue to let you play offline without too much trouble. It's a complicated issue though, and the campaign might not end up going anywhere, but it's certainly going to be interesting to watch.
Unquestionably a campaign I can get behind though, because I've said for years it's a really poor situation for consumers to have your purchase suddenly stop working forever that you've not just put money into but often a ton of your time. It's a question of preservation too, the games are just — gone. I miss the days where you could just host your own server.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: EhvisIt's something I see with a lot of "smart home" stuff. I stayed away from all of it for now because it's not really necessary. But I would apply the same logic as I do with games. Can I 100% self host the system if I want to? Yes, then ok, no means I won't get it.Honestly, I don't understand what a person could possibly get out of connecting appliances to the internet...
Quoting: CatKillerFull automatic refunds for every copy when a company kills the game is much simpler, and removes most of the financial incentive for that undesirable behaviour (you've still given them an interest-free loan, after all).I like this solution - it's simple and elegant.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: PenglingMy thoughts are that when you buy, say, a kettle, that kettle is yours to keep. If someone from the company that made the kettle were to come into your house a few years after you buy it and take away the kettle that you bought and paid for, that would be illegal. It should be the same for video games. It's very simple, really.But this does happen, with all these "smart" products. See news all the time about features removed, suddenly subscriptions needed to keep certain features going and so on. It's not just gaming it happens. Sadly.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: PenglingMy thoughts are that when you buy, say, a kettle, that kettle is yours to keep. If someone from the company that made the kettle were to come into your house a few years after you buy it and take away the kettle that you bought and paid for, that would be illegal. It should be the same for video games. It's very simple, really.But this does happen, with all these "smart" products. See news all the time about features removed, suddenly subscriptions needed to keep certain features going and so on. It's not just gaming it happens. Sadly.
Indeed, I have been making shopping decisions based on:
Oh it's smart, eh? Can I use all its capabilities without ever connecting to your services or creating an account?
On a different note, I see the UK petition hit it's maximum of 20 user limit, and now has to go through "approval". Sigh.
Quoting: CatKillerLegislators getting involved in what you can and can't include in your game, and how a company runs their online infrastructure years after the fact is going to get quite messy, with companies still pushing boundaries and finding edge cases.
Full automatic refunds for every copy when a company kills the game is much simpler, and removes most of the financial incentive for that undesirable behaviour (you've still given them an interest-free loan, after all).
That sure will make any kind of games where players can't host their servers financially unsustainable. Not necessarily bad thing, though will cause major changes in the market.
I'm not sure if that kind of change is easy to push through.
Just knowing when the support ends might help like with phones. If you know that you get two years of support, you know not to buy phones that area close to end of their support period unless you know you can replace the stock OS with something with longer support.
With games things can be bit fuzzy, but at least some kind of minimum support period would be good. Especially with multiplayer and games with mandatory online component. With single player games if DRM allows, there are more workarounds.
Quoting: CatKillerLegislators getting involved in what you can and can't include in your game, and how a company runs their online infrastructure years after the fact is going to get quite messy, with companies still pushing boundaries and finding edge cases.
I can't imagine legislators doing the right thing since they'll more like side with the game companies over consumers but I do agree with you about the messiness this will entail with their involvement.
Quoting: PenglingHonestly, I don't understand what a person could possibly get out of connecting appliances to the internet...Exactly my thoughts but it gets worse... we had a new boiler installed and only after the fact I became acutely aware of this problem. To program or alter the time clock for MY boiler in MY home I have to have an online registration with Bosch and allow the thermostat on MY wall in MY hallway to connect to Bosch's server online! Where's the furious emoji?
I have a few cheap IP cams from a few years ago that I use as security cams and record constantly to my server via RTSP. Trying to buy such cams now is near impossible as they all use an app and record to the cloud via subscription. No thanks.
Sorry for the "off topic", as regards Ross'(s?) issue, I'm all for the refund idea (Catkiller) or an outright ban on singleplayer online access required.
Quoting: PenglingHonestly, I don't understand what a person could possibly get out of connecting appliances to the internet...
They can get hacked!
It seems to me that if you know what you are paying for, the disappointment is less.
Quoting: fabertaweQuoting: PenglingHonestly, I don't understand what a person could possibly get out of connecting appliances to the internet...Exactly my thoughts but it gets worse... we had a new boiler installed and only after the fact I became acutely aware of this problem. To program or alter the time clock for MY boiler in MY home I have to have an online registration with Bosch and allow the thermostat on MY wall in MY hallway to connect to Bosch's server online! Where's the furious emoji?
I have a few cheap IP cams from a few years ago that I use as security cams and record constantly to my server via RTSP. Trying to buy such cams now is near impossible as they all use an app and record to the cloud via subscription. No thanks.
Sorry for the "off topic", as regards Ross'(s?) issue, I'm all for the refund idea (Catkiller) or an outright ban on singleplayer online access required.
I spent some time to make the new house's boiler (which uses a Hive device) to be local only. At least that uses Zigbee and you can run it locally, albeit you can't adjust the schedule, but that's fine as I would rather then manage the schedule from HomeAssistant.
But it's a pain that I even need to do that to get it to work at all.
Re cameras, I've started using RTSP cameras that allow to integrate with a 3'rd party NVR, so the more expensive corporate things. On the cheaper end of that is Reolink/Dahua and my Reolink cameras are working great. But it's a pain that everyone is pushing for cloud-first these days.
!Grumpy-emoji!
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