The Crewâs servers, scheduled for Sunday March 31, represents a âgray areaâ in videogame consumer law that he would like to challenge.
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I think the argument to make is that The Crew was sold under a perpetual license, not a subscription, so we were being sold a good, not a service
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the seller rendered the game unusable and deprived it of all value after the point of sale.
Goddam right, thatâs not a grey area IMO, that shit ought to be illegal. Maybe there should be a term, like letâs say 90 years maybe?
My personal favorite is the âcompanies are obligated to support it forever, or open source the server software hosted by a third party, hosting paid for up front for at least a year.â
They get to keep my money forever donât they?
While I love the spirit of this idea, it gets complicated fast. Worlds adrift is a great example. The gameâs server was created using some closed source libraries with a paid license. So when the owning company (Bossa Studios?) went under, they were unable to open source it.
A law like this would effectively kill all licensed software that isnât a full product. I do agree though; we need a solution
When the initially licensed the library, they shouldâve included distributed binary copies. That may have allowed them to release the source for their game alongside the binary of the library.
A law like this would effectively kill all licensed software that isnât a full product
What Iâm hearing is: this law needs to be a constitutional amendment.
IIRC Bossa tried to open source it but they used a license for Spatial OS, which provided the backbone of their game. They were unable to make a stable game without it and opted to not open source it. But they were also in an early access that would probably provide an exception for a game closing down.
Bossa did leave the island creator active and has spun up Lost Skies on the same engine, which wouldnât be possible if they open sourced WA.
Ultimately the issue should be GaaS and MMOs are offerings service while other games are goods which have an artificial expiry date. This is a good test of software judication.
Iâm fine with that, wanna keep it out of public hands, nut up and sell your stuff
I just expect a popup in the game which says something like âCould not connect to server, some multiplayer features will be unavailable. Continue offline?â
Or, maybe donât force online requirement, and allow p2p. Or, better yet, open source the server now that itâs shut down and release a patch to specify where to connect.
Blacklight Retribution did this for their console version. Wish they woulda did it for the PC version but whatever.
Imagine buying a T-shirt, and the manufacturer, without your prior knowledge or consent, could somehow render your shirt unwearable â thatâs effectively whatâs happening here. The only âgray areaâ might be that ultimately you donât own a copy of the game anyway (since digital copies are effectively leased â a whole other issue unto itself), but regardless: more power to this lawsuit. Seriously shady shit getting tacitly accepted lately.
âImagine everyone moves to electric vehicles, gas stations close down, and people start sueing Ford for releasing a gas car 30 years agoâ is the better analogy.
I got the game for free, and Iâve been playing it since every three months for a few days, just driving around. I bought the sequel, but it sucked.
I never used the multiplayer component, I treated it like a single player game. And now itâs going to vanish? This whole world? They canât be serious. This isnât a multiplayer only title, itâs single player with an optional mp stacked upon it. At least put an offline patch out⌠Assholes!
But thatâs the crux with only buying licenses. Or games with always online requirements. I hope fans find a way to crack the online code!!
Iâm all for improving consumer rights in the videogame industry, but Iâm more than a little amazed anyoneâs willing to put up a fight for The Crew of all things.
Seems more to do with the way things line upâitâs a perfect example of a physical and digital game getting permanently shut down without any sort of refund or compensation to the buyers of the game. It sounds like itâs about setting precedent so people will have a better idea of how this kinda stuff is going to work in the future.
Donât forget we have to get comfortable not owning our games guys⌠This is Ubisoft showing us how that worksâŚ
This would be a huge precedent for video-game preservation. IANAL but this would mean one of these two:
- service cannot be shut down without release of server source code
- whole game need to be reclassified as software service
Seems like the latter would be an easy loophole tbh.
Also NAL, but it seems like they arenât arguing for server functionality but rather just the ability to play offline at all, which opens up the third option of requiring games to be patched to remove sever requirements if being shut down, in any case this will be a fascinating case to follow, and I hope they go through with the lawsuit.
True though thatâs a bit of a potato/potatoh probpem as the easiest way to patch-in offline would be to run server locally rather than have 2 different architectures of offline and online plays. Thatâs already how many games work today actually - singleplayer is just a server with only you on it.
