Ubisoft says you "cannot complain" it shut down The Crew because you never actually owned it, and you weren't "deceived" by the lack of an offline version

Deny. Defend. Depose.

Ubisoft cannot complain when gamers "pirate" their games then.

If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't theft and all that.

Ubisoft you can't complain if I pirate your games, because I never actually bought them and you weren't deceived by a lack of purchase.

Ubisoft cannot complain if I pirate their games, because they never actually sold them. And I'm not deceiving them with my intention of never, ever, give them a dime.

i say ubisoft can eat shit

have not purchased anything from them in over a decade

Let's see if the physical disc once said anything about needing an online connection for single play. Oh look, it did not, the subscription required was only for 2-8 players network play.

Let's compare with Destiny 2's back cover, a game that is a MMO and thus "cannot be owned" by the players. Hey, a "Online Play (Required)*" sticker that is not present on The Crew! The fine print has a bit that states that "Activision makes no guarantee of regarding availability of online play or features, and may modify or discontinue online services at its discretion without notice."

FF14 also had a "Online Play (Required)*" sticker on its back cover. It clearly states on the rectangular bit above the T Rating: "Users are granted only a limited, revocable license and do not own any intellectual property in the game or game data"

You deceived consumers, Ubisoft. "Online Play Required" is not there, so the game should remain playable offline.

If buying isn’t owning then sharing isn’t stealing…

By principle I avoid “online required” games.

It may be legal, but it certainly ain’t ethical.

If you never actually own a Ubisoft game that logically pirating them isn't theft right? Right?

Ubisoft can't complain that I wont buy their games if I don't really own their games.

Don't like this? Sign the EU petition Stop Killing Games.

When does Ubisoft realize that "you never owned it" and "you can't complain" are arguments for not buying their next game?

If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

Sweet. Just giving me more reasons to not buy Ubisoft’s garbage.

They can't complain when I never actually give them money but still play then

I've been avoiding Ubisoft games for quite some time. And blizzard. And a handful of other studios because of these bullshit shenanigans.

If you have to buy it, you own it. Make it free to play but have in game purchases. Everyone knows free games can shut down any time. I play lot of mobile apps until I get tired of playing it, then delete.

I avoid buying games that requires online connection. It means the game is unplayable without it.

It's sickening what companies can get away with just because it's legal. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

That's why I boycott video games from Ubisoft. I loved and am nostalgic of their previous outstanding games from when it was great - think of Beyond Good and Evil, the original 3 Prince of Persia games and the assassin's creed games until odyssey(I'm hesitant to include Valhalla, but I'm at witt's end here as Einar Selvik sang and composed the ost of the game for goodness' sake). I even paid a (🤮) connect+ subscription that they threatened at some point that some accounts may be lost as per a number of days of innactivity.

But enough is enough, Ubisoft be better prepared to not own a company and be manned by Tencent. As much as I hate even the latter, Ubisoft is a scummy company and needs to be properly grouped in the scummy companies even by allegiance.

I hope the European Citizen's innitiative for video games passes, in the end. The source code/maintenance of discontinued/stopped projects ought to be maintained by the players and its community.

"Nobody reads those EULAs, and the Defendant knows that. Therefore, the Defendant cannot hide behind the EULA as a shield because the Prosecution, having clicked Agree without being required to confirm that they read through the terms, could not have possibly known what they were agreeing to."

"If you are what you agree to, your Honor, then my clients are an unknown spaghetti of legal mumbo jumbo."

"No further remarks, your Honor."

Literally just let people host private servers. It worked fine for decades, and still does.

Although ubisoft is a shit company, don't think it's the only one. Every game you bought on Steam, Origin and Epic aren't your property either. You just bought the right to play their game for as long as they allow you to.

If you truly want to own your products, buy on GoG (you will get the offline installer as a download) or pirate. Because when you pirate, you have more rights and benifits than a paying customer.

Companies don't even care anymore, it's just a money grab with the newest bug simulator. As soon as the first purchase bubble ended, the project is abandoned and people are stuck with a piece of junk they do not even own.

In the exceptional case a dev truly delivers, like indie studios or Larian studio, the game dev world goes mental as it shows how corrupt and fucked up they are.

Support the few proper devs, pirate the rest. I pirate everything these days and when the game is good I'll buy it.

Technically they're right, which is why pirating Ubisoft games is ethical.

Edit: Pirating Nintendo games is ethical too, of course.

Definitely deceived into thinking you are purchasing a game though.

🏴‍☠️

EU cutizens can sign European Citizens' Initiative that aims to prevent publishers using killswitches to permanently disable games. If it gets 1M signatures, it will be discussed in European Comission.

I have the fucking disc to prove I do own it, you arseholes.

When Ubisoft introduced always online DRM with AC2, I was out. It's nice with the Internet how much being anti-Ubisoft has become common enough to be unsurprising

Looks like I'll be pirating Black Flag for my next replay.

I think there is an implication that if you buy a game which is online by nature (e.g. an MMO) that the servers can and will shut down eventually. My cupboard is filled with defunct MMOs. And people do not "own" any commercial software per se, they run it under licence.

So I don't see that Ubisoft has any legal obligation here. But as a good will gesture they really should put the server code in escrow, or open source chunks of it so that games can continue to enjoy life after the company itself has no economic incentive to continue running it.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

If they don’t sell the game but a long term rental license, then they should not say “we’ve sold 1234557890 copies of <game>”.

Oh look. Yet another reason to continue my Ubisoft boycott.

Things like this make it really easy for me to not buy anything from Ubisoft.

You're right, Ubisoft. I CAN'T complain about not owning the game. I never bought it. You know.....because it's an Ubisoft game!

What I love about being a broke bitch retro gamer is that I own my games. I have a Tetris cartridge that is older than I am and still works. The batteries on some of my GB and GBA carts have died, but that’s something I can fix. No one can send a stealth update to my Sega Genesis that forces me to create on an account to play or even bricks it somehow. There’s no room for human shit behavior, just a war against the realities of mechanical decay. (And it’s easy to rip ROMs in case of the inevitable.)

Older generations of gaming are well preserved. I don’t think the past ten years or the future will be. “Games as a service” is too big a draw - the goal is to turn everything into a subscription model because why make money once when you can make it forever?

They’re right but it would be great if companies had to allow self hosting for products they make money from

Give it another 5 years and Ubisoft will be dead, what was the last Ubisoft game without controversy/bad gameplay? I gotta go back 10 years or so

If buying isn't owning, surely that means pirating isn't stealing.

Gaslighting. That's a new strategy and a new low.

This is why I will always have some nostalgia for physical media. I still got CDs I bought in the 90s (which I've copied onto my hard drives a long, long time ago) and while they need a like coaxing to work at times, they are forever mine and no one can take them from me.

I was very hesitant to go on steam specifically for their 'you don't own shit even if you paid and followed the rules' garbage.

I think I didn’t buy or play anything Ubisoft since Far Cry 4? And even that was more of an accident.

So from my perspective Ubisoft is that one flaccid one night stand who is still screeching about stuff while I moved on years ago.

Edit: I just checked. I didn’t even buy Far Cry 4. Oh whoops.

Take them to small claims for theft. I'll bet they don't show up. Then they won't pay you, so you get a court order and sheriff to recoup your money in assets. Take anything you want and put it on eBay. Collect your money.

Tell you what customers absolutely can do: decide to stop doing business with you.

And people will still defend this company

I've been increasingly frustrated with clickbaity coverage and headlines. Credit to Polygon for being just as obviously opinionated as Gamesradar but titling and writing their piece way more professionally.

I mean, yeah, Ubisoft's lawyers are arguing that the arguments of a lawsuit against them are wrong, that's hardly surprising. Given that they're being sued for taking down an online game they would certainly argue that they had no obligation to keep the game online indefinitely.

It's an interesting case and there are... creative arguments on both sides, but being mad that Ubisoft would argue that the text of their EULA applies seems so weird.

For the record, and because I'll be hounded for this, I've signed all relevant petitions to request regulation about digital ownership that creates an obligation to provide offline versions or access to server code. I'm all for making it illegal to build planned obsolescence into software. That doesn't mean I'm not bothered with bad journalism that I happen to agree with.

The use of the words 'buy', "own" or 'purchase' in connection with DRM rental should be an international felony, and grounds for immediate break-up of businesses that use them.

“You will own nothing and like it”

I actually enjoyed the first two Crew games and probably would have checked out Motorfest by now if they didn't remove the first game from my library. But now, why should I ever buy another Ubisoft game when I don't know how long they'll bless me with the ability to play the games I've paid for? They even included expiration dates for their game keys and they're acting like those dates were completely meaningless. So, even if they try to add an end of life date for future purchases, how would I know they're not lying like they did with these original keys?

Ubisoft doesn’t have to support the game forever.

They can either open up hosting to players or give refunds but they can’t have their cake and eat it too.

I gotta thank Ubisoft for saving me money by consistently saying dumbass shit so I don't buy their crappy games. The one Elon tweet was still pretty funny though I won't lie.

Fuck Ubisoft.

If you want a good open world racing game, well Motor Town: Behind The Wheel isn't strictly a racing game.. nor technically even focused on being a racing game, it is an open world driving job simulator and there are lots of sports cars and you can do lots of jobs where you are racing against a clock.

There is also multiplayer and a custom race system (as well as actual race tracks interspersed in the world).

The reason I really recommend it though is the driving feels better then just about any other game I have ever played, especially tire grip modelling. I don't know how to describe it other than it makes me uninterested in driving cars in most other games lol.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/

The best part is they havent made a compelling game in 10 years. So i wont buy a game of them ever again either way. Its an easy life tbh.

That's one of the many reasons why I never bought it.

To think this is the same company that has to use mythic quest show to promote its propaganda as good PR, guessing it's partiall Rob's machelennys fault for being so thirsty to stay in Hollywood spotlight he had to approach something like ubisoft.

This is why I just pirate games from big developers. They’re fuckers so fuck them anyway.

They could always release the source code.

I never actually "paid" them, so they "cannot complain" when I take my money back

Oooooooooh, fuck you Ubisoft.

Fuck Ubisoft, I don't know why everyone on Reddit loves em

The way of the future....VCRs went away. DVDRs went away, replaced with DVRs and membership streaming, where you can "buy" a movie on Amazon Prime, but if they lose the rights to the movie, so do you - oh well. Your Tesla will brick, if Elon gets mad at you, and your video games will stop working if "the man" unplugs the server. Oh, and dont get caught pulling out your old dusty VCR to record the Super Bowl to watch later....thats a copyright violation. The oligarchs want to make sure the plebes eventually own nothing. If the masters can take it all away, the peasants will do what they're told, be quiet about it, and smile when in sight of the masters.

I find it so strange that people hate Ubisoft for this, but would rush to defend Valve for starting this trend.

All I want Ubisoft to do is make more Rayman games. Yet they doing things like this.

We should all start a boycot and stop buying anything ubisoft, then release a statement when they go down saying: "cannot complain" and weren't "deceived" by the lack of "access to our decade-old money".

But that will never happen.

Would be funny tho.

I reserve my right to complain.

Can't Stop Me

Lol, everyone here sucking Ubisoft toes at every negative mention of Avowed and ACS for the past few months and now y'all get outraged?

Lmao, what a performative level of virtue signaling🤣