Memes @lemmy.ml

8mo ago

This company is the laughing stock of gaming right now

165 comments

IMO once you delist a game and shut down servers where people cannot play anymore then it should become open source and not protected IP.
- Open source is too far, but as part of a shutdown of a game and it's servers there should be a year long period where the publisher is required to release the game without DRM, including the server software, to all customers.
  I could see it going through Steam, you get a message "Delistment notification: The Crew is being delisted, get your permanent copy now!"
  
  Worse solution, but I would accept if publishers were forced to clearly display the exact date when the game will stop functioning at the point of purchase and all advertising materials.
  
  I think the company should also be required to clearly state the amount of time they'll keep supporting the game and will operate the servers for. If they decide to shut them down early, everybody should be given the choice to either receive a full refund or the non DRMd version of the game + the server software like you suggested.
  In general I think all paid games should be required to clearly state the amount of time they'll keep providing feature updates for, as well as support for new hardware, major bug fixes, and minor bug fixes. Although games that aren't online and just reach EoL are still playable for quite some time, eventually there'll be some breaking operating system or hardware change that will force the use of a virtual machine, compatibility software, or other types of emulation to keep playing. That might not happen for 50 years, at which point you probably don't care, but still. I'd give more leniency to indie Devs and games made as passion projects, though.
  Although obvious once you think about it, I don't think most people realise or even think of the fact they will eventually not be able to play the game they're buying. And these mega companies need to stop making games they dump 6 months after launch.
- Full refunds would be reasonable, if they wanted to protect their IP

Ubisoft has done a fantastic job of convincing me to never buy a Ubisoft game ever again.
Not sure that's how a company is supposed to work, but they sure seem to think so.
- Well, they aren't alone. Blizzard and Activision is on my blacklist. As well as pretty much any studio own by Microsoft at this point... Oh, and Sony! Can't forget about them.
  The list is long.
  
  Nintendon't!

Here's a neat tip:
You can go to most publisher or developer pages on Steam and "ignore" them to prevent Steam from ever showing you their slop again.
Example:
Go to: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/Ubisoft
Click the "Settings" cog.
"Ignore this creator"
You can do the same with EA, 2K, etc. Don't even give these parasites microseconds of your time when they release their next slop title.
- LEMMY GOLD!!! 😳
- Unfortunately this doesn't seem to apply to publishers or developers that don't have a landing page
- 2k? What'd they fuck up?

I purchased Rayman Legends on a big Steam sale because it is a great game and I wanted to play it again. I installed it. I hit play. It tried to install the Ubisoft launcher. I uninstalled it and refunded.
Fuck off, Ubisoft.

There's a great initiative going on right now trying to hold Ubisoft and other game publishers accountable for shitty practices like this by trying to petition governments from a few different nations to create legal protections for people to continue to have access to their games they purchased after the publisher decides to abandon a game. If you live in an EU country especially, you might be able to help sign a petition still: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
- The petition doesn't seem to be active, i.e. signable, right now.
  
  There's a bunch of petitions and actions possible on various parts of the world. It's not just one meaningless online petition but a comprehensive plan to bring this to attention of various governments worldwide. Keep an eye out, there might be something you can help with in the future depending on where you live.

My dream is an "internet archive" for all video games, modded to run offline. If the game becomes unavailable for purchase, the archive opens that game and makes it available for all.
The next step is for this kind of release to become law, and supported by manufacturers.
- Do this with books too. How much we've lost.
  
  Anna's Archive seems to be doing a good job of that
- That sounds like a great plan for all types of media. We would better document our history and make so much human creativity accessible to those who cannot afford to indulge in what’s currently for sale.
  Why do we not do this? Oh wait, it’s MONEY? Pfft, it will never happen.
- Libraries are communist or something and ESA fights hard for games to stay out of them.
  
  Education? Sounds very communist!
  
  Translations of big text from left to right: "Our country should be most educated and cultural country", "Study and work! Work and study!", "To have more you should produce more, to produce more you should know more".
- Underdogs was such a great site
  
  I really hate what it's become. Bit of a hollow shell of the glory days
- The next step is for this kind of release to become law
  You mean legal deposit?

Fully agree with it, but they're still extremely popular, and people will gladly keep handing over their money.
For me, I say "Ok" to them wanting us to get used to not owning our content - followed with "Then I'll pay rental prices. Which means I'm not buying at $60+ dollars, if all I get to do is rent it then I'll pay <$15 going forward."
- Alternatively: 🏴‍☠️
  
  Do what you want cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate! ☠

It’s sad how consumers have zero rights when it comes to digital content. Companies can retroactively make changes, removing content legitimately bought by consumers with no repercussions. I get “not owning” but for a company to collect money for services provided and not actually provide those services will never not astound me.
- If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing.
  
  Yarr, matey.
- idk how madden players can put so much time and money into ultimate team only for the service to end after 2 years. and they do it every single year
  
  Same way FIFA players do and have been doing, to the tune of over 1 billion dollars since 2018.
- Right? Call it what you will, changing terms of sale or use after taking someone's money is wrong.
  
  Yeah I can’t even comprehend how that just passes as totally normal these days. Make it all make sense…
- This is basically why I don't buy anything that I don't think I can protect from being fucked with.
  That's all ownership is really.
- Because the FTC is toothless when it comes to EULAs. You can sign your rights away by agreeing to it (which is required to play the game).

It's better than what Bungie did with Destiny 2... just gutted 1/2 the content from the game, including all the story missions and the first several paid expansions.
They wanted to attract new players with a smaller download size, but the new players come in and go "WTF is going on?"
- Whoa, wtf? How did I miss that drama, haha holy shit. I definitely remember downloading it a few years ago and being aghast at its absurd size (think it was around 120GB? which nowadays that's pretty par for the course because fuck optimization). But gutting half your content just to save space... have they not heard of compression? Like what the hell were they thinking haha
  
  They didn't just remove story missions and quests and things, they removed entire PLANETS from the game. It was crazy!
- That's the most baffling MMO decision I've seen, tbh. WoW has plenty of issues but at least they aren't just deleting the continent of Northrend to save on install space or anything
  
  Bungie's problem is they don't really want to make a story based looter shooter, they want a free to play PvP gacha engine.
- Both of those things are shitty; it's just one of them is worse.

And lots of gamers praise Microsoft for GamePass, because it’s cheap. When Microsoft’s goal with GamePass is the same as Ubisoft’s. Ms would love that you rent your games from them indefinitely. Wouldn’t surprise me that in 10-15 years you can’t buy the games made by Microsoft anymore only rent through GamePass and the subscription fee would be five times higher than now
- I mean depending on your gaming style it might be cheaper.
  If you play a game for a few hours and then buy the next new shiny 3A game then the game pass is cheaper.
  If you buy one game and then send thousands of hours into it then obviously it is not cheap
  
  I hear about people getting Minecraft on game pass. Those people don't play Minecraft like I play Minecraft
- The single most problematic thing where you should start to notice how bad gamepass can be is when you unsubscribe and decide to buy one of the games you've played only to have your savegames in gamepass gulag.
  
  Is that true? PC, Xbox, or both?
  
  You are really making a mountain of a mole hill, to get my save from Outer Worlds gamepass to use on steam's version was as easy as just copy pasting the files in another folder
  
  You can't move the files?
- It's already becoming low quality crap. The GamePass model doesn't work well with expensive games since they are going for quantity. Hi Fi Rush's devs have been taken down along with a couple more studios. I wonder if that will make a difference, though. Gamers want it cheap, companies want max profit. I'm imagining shovelware in 5 years and many games taken off of it.
  
  I don't mind paying full price for a game, as long as I own it in the end and that the game is not ridiculously short.
  Paying 70 euros for a game with less than 7hrs of playtime to get to the end, and artificially padded with collectibles around a open world is a ripoff especially when the game requires licensing servers to be online to play, even for single-player.
- Make it 5 years.

I legit haven't bought a game anywhere but steam in over a decade. I simply do not trust the motives or responsibility of any other publisher. And at this point, I'm too afraid of them yoinking their game after I've paid for it that I'll likely never change.
- GOG is good too.
  
  We all should be hitting GOG up more often if we want the legit ONLY good competition for steam to not die out one day. They are as good as steam in many ways.
  
  As soon as GOG has linux support at least 80% as good as steam, I'll jump right over. I used to always prefer GOG over Steam but I've really felt that they don't care about supporting my platform at all unless that's changed in recent times so I'm happier giving Valve my cut.
  
  Yes.
- I've also been avoiding playing games that involve some third party launcher or login. I'm not perfectly consistent with this and have bought some games before realizing they had this, but even steam games can be subject to a company deciding they don't want to support their game anymore (which IMO is fair) and just killing the game off entirely, which isn't fair. I'd like to see a requirement that other steps be taken to keep it going without their active support. Like opening the source and relinquishing all copyrights on that code. If they want to keep parts of it, then pull it out into a library that they continue to maintain.

Meanwhile someone somewhere is having issues with steam taking too much profit. Do note that even if a game is DELISTED from steam, you still can download the game on steam. Of course it is a different story with license revocation and that is a whole different can of worms. I don't even know if steam allows the publisher to revoke a license for a game that the player already paid for just because the game is not supported anymore (a different case with breaking ToS/EULA).
- Steam requires others to keep the game downloadable if its in your library, but they can't do anything if ubisoft decides to shut the servers down. You keep your license but it's useless.
  
  Well, yeah for multiplayer only games. Hence why I don't get the appeal of paid multiplayer only games without dedicated server software available.

Ubisoft has been trash for a long time now. It’s a shame that they control some good IP, but the company’s too far gone to ever be trustworthy. Save your time and money and just play something else imo.
- If they die, other companies will buy that IP
  
  Fingers crossed

They're sure giving EA a run for their ~~money~~ universally despised revulsion...

I wish people were THAT passionate about REAL life/world problems/ injustices and make fun of the real people in power, who allow Ubisoft to do such things…
- But they're not even that passionate about this. Shitty game companies continue to be rewarded by players.
  
  If you try to remind GAYMURS of industry abuses after Hypernormalisation has kicked in for them, they'll call you names.

The really awful part is that there's not really any regulation that can stop this. If you ban taking away games people bought then they'll just switch to a subscription which is even worse
- If you had reasonable copyright terms like 5 years and a requirement to release code/digital artifacts for library archival once it becomes public commons?
- Except that’s not a problem in many countries so I don’t know why it has to be this way. US media ownership laws are among the worst in the world in that they are basically non-existent. It’s always been like this because we lack imagination and the companies are greedy as hell.
  Like people act like this is a new problem with digital media, but it is actually the case with physical media too - there are all sorts of restrictions about what you can and can’t do with it. We basically don’t own anything media-wise, we never have. The difference is now they can enforce it more strategically and effectively with digital downloads.

I wish more people would buy stuff on GOG, although some games there still have some sort of DRM, Kalypso published games come to mind.
Still, way, way better in terms of ownership than what other platforms offer.
- I thought they had on several occasions dropped games from the store because they had DRM. Which DRM titles does GOG still have?
  Last game I paid good money for was on GOG. Everything added to my steam account in the last few years has either been part of a humble bundle or a freebie from somewhere.
  
  GOG sometimes fails to keep some offline installers up to date with what Galaxy installs, some people consider that a DRM, I consider it a service failure.
  You can also find some reports checking this thread - the post in question says Beat Hazard 2 won't run after a clean offline install on a computer without internet. Not DRM per se, as that check only happens once and it creates a savefile

Any company that tells you to 'get used' to something has massively overstepped the mark.
People you buy things from are not your boss.
Unless you are addicted to them, in which case they are.

i hate them because they remove anything that makes their games unique and make all their games have the same features until they're all completely interchangable gray sludge.
- The depressing thing is that this grey sludge is exactly what most people want. It's the same for any form of entertainment. Pandering to the lowest common denominator is what's most profitable.
  
  Ubisoft is the CBS of the game industry.
  
  Yeah, the problem is that game publishers are trying to reach the broadest audience possible, which means niche games with unique features and gameplay are dying out. Why bother spending millions of dollars on developing a unique game which might not sell well, when you can churn out another open world lite-RPG with grassy stealth spots and counter/parry based combat which you know will sell well.

Ubisoft of 2010 (ish) had some real great games. Shame they've become what they are now.
- 2010ish?
  They've had some shoddy shit, but they also have some solid titles in their backlog. The Rayman series, P.O.D, Gex, Splinter Cell, the original Rainbow Six titles, Beyond Good and Evil.
  I'll take my pills and go sit down now.
  
  RIP Red Storm Entertainment.
  
  The recent Prince of Persia game was actually pretty good. I definitely acquired it on my Switch thru alternate methods, but I almost felt bad because I do wish for them to return to that kind of game design on the regular versus a one-off with that title.

They just need to come out and “lease” the game.
“Buy” should no longer be on any selection as far as live service games go, or any game dependent on developer servers to operate.
- I'd love for some big regulatory body forcing them to word it better and more clearly.

Thats exactly why i only buy from gog now, and steam only when it comes to multiplayer games.
I bought mass effect collection on the ea store 'cause it have 45% discount when it came out, only for me to find out a year later a silent notification about a game which has being revoked from my library. Reason? Ur guess is as good as mine. Tried to contact ea support, the answer? take it or lose all ur other games too (bf1, bf5 worse purchase ever, and plants vs zombies because they gift it to me). So i told them to go f themselfs and now i can't play neither mass effect nor bf1.
So yeah, fuck that shit about they "lending" us a license, its either mine or it belongs to those who navigate the sea.
- EA is practically begging people to pirate their single-player experiences.
- Move your installs, people. They can't take anything away if it's not where they think it is. (For now)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy

Man I was so sad when Ubisoft bought Blue Byte. I always held out hope that they'd switch publishers eventually but they never did and then they got bought. Now I know I'll always have to put up with Ubisoft bullshit to play Anno, one of my all time favourite franchises.

Right now? Brother, they've been on my shit list for over a decade.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

They know people are making a private server so revoked everyone's license so that even when they finish it, everyone will have to pirate their own game to play it.

Wish someone cracked the game with modded p2p online servers.
- Okay.
  (Work in progress)
  https://discord.com/invite/gUczTkphGE
  
  Wow this is great! There is similar online server emulator for this old amazing game, Blur.
- That does happen sometimes, but doesn't fix the underlying problem.

who's laughing?

This is probably a big reason I don't buy/play newer multiplayer games, especially ones that are mp only, and a big reason why I buy everything on steam and avoid other platforms.
I've heard of games being dropped by steam, but those that already own it, still own it and can access it on steam as normal. In the situations I'm aware of, those games eventually returned to steam later, but still.
I prefer games that are either peer to peer mp, or you can self host a server for mp. I'm not saying that I'll always self host, but if the option is there, then I'll never lose the ability to play the game with friends, since I only need to set up a server to play on. Since I have a homelab, setting something like that up is trivial for me, and I can shut down and delete the server afterwards when it's no longer wanted or needed.
Everyone going crazy for the latest version of whatever battle Royale type game, laying down premium money to play on day one, and spending a lot to get buffs and cosmetics.... It just seems stupid to me. No thanks.
Free to play multiplayer with the option to buy cosmetics is less bad, but still not great. You can play, enjoy some time with friends while playing the game and if it goes offline tomorrow, who cares? You didn't pay anything for it and I'm certain there's other options in the same vein. As long as you're having fun, enjoy.
If I'm paying for a game, it's probably because of the single player experience. Anything multiplayer is icing on the cake, but not motivation to buy it.
- Would you play mp-focused opensource game?
  This comment was brought to you by Xonotic
  
  Very yes. Thanks.

How's the lawsuit in Australia doing by the way?

I wonder how long it'd take until they take down STEEP. I suppose it's even less popular than The Crew, but I liked it that much I'd pay once more if someone would keep it alive after Ubi does the Ubi thing. Extreme sports are rarely portrayed in games, and for me it would be a huge loss even though I feel like I enjoyed every penny I spent at least thrice.

The third item, while it fits the narrative, was a quote directed more towards the option of subscription services. It wasn’t really directed to gamers, but to shareholders to explain low Ubisoft+ numbers, basically saying people may need time to warm up to the idea.
Considering how many interesting indies I’ve played on Game Pass (and, ever since Tango was murdered, PS+) I think there’s merit to that (just not on Ubisoft’s platform). There’s probably dozens of old PS1 classics we never would have tried out if our local Blockbuster hadn’t had them available for rent. I mean heck, $60 was a LOT back then for those polygons.

Always has been

I can't wait for Ubisoft to die. Out of the big ones, they seem the most likely to eat shit in the near-ish future.

Is there a source for Ubisoft wondering why they are a hated company or did you just make that up
- Pretty sure it's just a figure of speech, bud
- Dude there's literally an entire article about them saying that gamers should 'get comfortable with not owning their games', a lot of Ubisoft Connect accounts that had 'The Crew' have had their licenses revoked, and the game has been shut down since April 1st.
  
  Okay but my question was specifically if Ubisoft was asking that question at the same time they are making these decisions. That last panel would be funnier if it were true.
  
  Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE

165 comments