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Not sure how many people on the forum are familiar with the problem of games-as-a-service, but generally it seems that people aren't aware of how big of a problem it is. Spoiler alert - game preservation is in a really poor state, and online-only is largely the reason why. If a game's locked behind DRM, chances are it's got a shelf life.
Some people will say it's not as big of a deal and they're just games. Games are a valid piece of media, and besides that, they're a product people paid for. Some people will say it's not that big of a deal. Over 90% of games made before 2010 are no longer playable. Some people will say there are no solutions. There are totally solutions, the companies just don't want people to think there are. There is nothing stopping them from making games playable after official support ends. Local server hosting is a thing. Just give people the tools and if they want it bad enough, they'll do it. But they don't have any incentive to do that. Yet. There's one man hoping to change that, though.
Ross Scott is a man on a mission. When he's not producing episodes of his review series Ross' Game Dungeon and the hit machinima series Freeman's Mind, he's devoted himself to ending the now industry-standard practice of games-as-a-service and destruction of video games. He's one of the most vocal advocates of game preservation on the internet, and because it's a subject that receives very little exposure online despite how prevalent the practice is, he's inadvertently set himself up as the leader of the movement. He's been waiting for a while for his chance to do something about it, and he may have just found it.
At the end of March, Ubisoft is shutting down servers for The Crew. As you're probably aware, The Crew is an always-online game, so doing this will make the game totally unplayable. This includes the singleplayer. Now, Ross believes that this is a violation of consumer laws based on the fact that The Crew was sold to customers for a one-time payment instead of a regular subscription fee, i.e. they sold it as a good rather than a service. This sadly isn't the case in the US due to the ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg lawsuit which basically set the precedent of giving the companies total gratis on how they write their EULAs, so the long and short of it is that consumer laws regarding digital media basically don't exist in America because in the overwhelming majority of cases, EULAs do not guarantee ownership of the actual data of the game. So Ross is mainly focusing his efforts on the European Union, where consumer protection is considerably more robust.
Now, generally when you buy something as a good, it's yours for life or until you sell it on to somebody else. But this doesn't seem to apply to online-only games, because in those cases, the company has put themselves between the game and the player and can decide at any time, for any reason, to stop providing the service, and customers who've bought the game are led to believe they have no legal recourse because they agreed to the EULA when they started playing.
Except... EULAs aren't legal documents (except in the US, sort of, because of ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg). Look at it this way. Imagine you buy a car from a dealership and they make you sign a form that says at any time, they can activate a remote kill switch in the car that will melt it down and render it unusable. You can't use it again, you can't sell it on, it's basically just so much molten slag, and the company says that's fine because you signed the document. I don't think that argument is going to hold up in court, do you? You can't just say consumer rights don't exist because they entered into an agreement that is clearly counter to the law. If you sell something, it's no longer yours. You can't just decide at a later date that you want it back or that you're going to break it so the new owner can't use it. And The Crew 2 doesn't count, because that essentially its own entity and was sold separately, as in players of the first game still had to buy the second.
This has been his argument for a very long time, but he's never had the opportunity to legally challenge the practice until now because in most cases, games being shut down have mostly been subscription-based. The Crew is the first case in a long time where a game is being killed that was unambiguously sold on a perpetual license. This still doesn't help US-based players, but there's still a lot of other players in other parts of the world where the law is on their side.
Well, he put the word out that he wanted people to get in contact and kind of crowdsource a legal strategy, and the community delivered. He's got a fairly solid start to a plan of action, but he still needs more input, and what's most important is that this gets as much exposure as possible to try and reach as many people as possible. We've never had a better chance than now at ending this practice for good, and this might be the last shot we'll ever have, so it's got to be worth trying. I'd encourage everyone to share this around, because every little helps.
Some people will say it's not as big of a deal and they're just games. Games are a valid piece of media, and besides that, they're a product people paid for. Some people will say it's not that big of a deal. Over 90% of games made before 2010 are no longer playable. Some people will say there are no solutions. There are totally solutions, the companies just don't want people to think there are. There is nothing stopping them from making games playable after official support ends. Local server hosting is a thing. Just give people the tools and if they want it bad enough, they'll do it. But they don't have any incentive to do that. Yet. There's one man hoping to change that, though.
Ross Scott is a man on a mission. When he's not producing episodes of his review series Ross' Game Dungeon and the hit machinima series Freeman's Mind, he's devoted himself to ending the now industry-standard practice of games-as-a-service and destruction of video games. He's one of the most vocal advocates of game preservation on the internet, and because it's a subject that receives very little exposure online despite how prevalent the practice is, he's inadvertently set himself up as the leader of the movement. He's been waiting for a while for his chance to do something about it, and he may have just found it.
At the end of March, Ubisoft is shutting down servers for The Crew. As you're probably aware, The Crew is an always-online game, so doing this will make the game totally unplayable. This includes the singleplayer. Now, Ross believes that this is a violation of consumer laws based on the fact that The Crew was sold to customers for a one-time payment instead of a regular subscription fee, i.e. they sold it as a good rather than a service. This sadly isn't the case in the US due to the ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg lawsuit which basically set the precedent of giving the companies total gratis on how they write their EULAs, so the long and short of it is that consumer laws regarding digital media basically don't exist in America because in the overwhelming majority of cases, EULAs do not guarantee ownership of the actual data of the game. So Ross is mainly focusing his efforts on the European Union, where consumer protection is considerably more robust.
Now, generally when you buy something as a good, it's yours for life or until you sell it on to somebody else. But this doesn't seem to apply to online-only games, because in those cases, the company has put themselves between the game and the player and can decide at any time, for any reason, to stop providing the service, and customers who've bought the game are led to believe they have no legal recourse because they agreed to the EULA when they started playing.
Except... EULAs aren't legal documents (except in the US, sort of, because of ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg). Look at it this way. Imagine you buy a car from a dealership and they make you sign a form that says at any time, they can activate a remote kill switch in the car that will melt it down and render it unusable. You can't use it again, you can't sell it on, it's basically just so much molten slag, and the company says that's fine because you signed the document. I don't think that argument is going to hold up in court, do you? You can't just say consumer rights don't exist because they entered into an agreement that is clearly counter to the law. If you sell something, it's no longer yours. You can't just decide at a later date that you want it back or that you're going to break it so the new owner can't use it. And The Crew 2 doesn't count, because that essentially its own entity and was sold separately, as in players of the first game still had to buy the second.
This has been his argument for a very long time, but he's never had the opportunity to legally challenge the practice until now because in most cases, games being shut down have mostly been subscription-based. The Crew is the first case in a long time where a game is being killed that was unambiguously sold on a perpetual license. This still doesn't help US-based players, but there's still a lot of other players in other parts of the world where the law is on their side.
Well, he put the word out that he wanted people to get in contact and kind of crowdsource a legal strategy, and the community delivered. He's got a fairly solid start to a plan of action, but he still needs more input, and what's most important is that this gets as much exposure as possible to try and reach as many people as possible. We've never had a better chance than now at ending this practice for good, and this might be the last shot we'll ever have, so it's got to be worth trying. I'd encourage everyone to share this around, because every little helps.
