I’m glad. But don’t get your hopes up because of this. Commission could (and probably will) just say “we have considered it and we are going to do nothing”.
I think the commission will take action in some form. The worst case scenario in my mind is that they will only require clear labelling. Similar to what they did with smart phones recently. While this not exactly what I am hoping for, having “This game will at least be playable until XXXX” on the package or store page would still be a massive improvement over the status quo.
I dont understand how such a broad requirement would work. They just have to pick some arbitrary date, and then after that they can continue as things currently are? Can you give an example of a game where this type of labelling would have helped?
‘The Crew’ by Ubisoft was sold for several months before they decided to shut it down. This would have at least forced them to communicate that before taking peoples money. I am also pretty sure that publishers don’t want to put this information on the package because it could seriously hurt sales. So the effect of this labelling requirement might be that publishers build the game in a way that enables self-hosting.
If you are saying they knew it was closing and they sold it for months anyways, that sounds like fraud. Has there been proof ubisoft decided to do this anyways?
Yes, I think calling it fraud is a fair conclusion, but what do you mean with “they knew it was closing”? This decision is completely in the hands of Ubisoft. Something doesn’t stop being fraud just because someone only decides to defraud you 2 months after they sold you something.
For all we know when the decision to pull the game was formalized, they pulled it that day. It depends what they did after they decided the game was being pulled. Did they leave it up for a few months to get some stuff in order beforehand, but kept selling it? I’d have a tough time accepting a reasoning from Ubisoft for that.
Thats why I asked for any sort of comment or reporting on it.
On December 14, 2023, Ubisoft delisted The Crew and its expansions from digital platforms, suspended sales of microtransactions, and announced that the game’s servers would be shut down on March 31, 2024, citing “upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints”.
People who paid around us$40 for the game on December 13 were being sold a lemon.
Given that it was released in 2014 it seems likely that their licenses were given a 10 year duration and they always intended to shutdown in 2024 at the latest (of course if its user base failed to reach critical mass they could have pulled the plug earlier).
Does selling a game in 2023 when you plan to kill it in 2024 legally qualify as fraud?
Thats not what I’m asking. You just have me evidence that they didnt sell it as soon as an EOL date was announced. Are you saying they should have stopped selling it before they publicly announce the EOL? Should they have announced and removed it as soon as the board meeting ended? How much earlier would that be in this case?
Should they have announced and removed it as soon as the board meeting ended? How much earlier would that be in this case?
My unsubstantiated theory is the the licences they signed for all the vehicles and real world content had a 10 year lifetime.
Usually those contracts would just require that they stop selling the game, but they may have included something about the servers in the contract too.
Either way they new something was going to change in 2024 and realistically they knew which of these possibilities were viable:
sign new deals with all licensors and continue business as usual
sign new deals with cooperative licensors and modify the game to remove the others
remove the game from sale and keep the servers running for current customers
remove the game from sale and kill the servers - tell people to buy the sequal
I’d they waited until December of 2023 to have that meeting then that feels negligent.
If they had that meeting earlier and continued to sell the game (until ≈100 days to EOL) without warning customers that feels fraudulent.
I think its a bit ridiculous that you think you have enough information to say they should have acted sooner.
Its also ridiculous that your arguments rely on what feels wrong.
The game was 10 years old and people are salty it went EOL. How have this many people not played an online service game before to realize that 10 years is a fantastic run, and nothing lasts forever. Move onto a new game or help build one, this effort to make games live forever is absurd, entitled, and shortsighted.
Yes if we would have known that Concord only lasted two weeks then those that bought the battle pass wouldn’t have bought them. Know eol timing help consumers.
They didnt know it would only last two weeks. They probably knew it was a possibility but I doubt they planned for it.
This is what I mean though, if concord had to say the game would be live for a guaranteed amount of time, why wouldnt they just say something low like 6 months. Why wouldnt every company do that unless they knew for sure it would be successful? Its too risky to choose longer periods of time, and we just have the same situation as now.
They didnt plan for it to last two weeks, the game failed. How do you expect them to guarantee a certain uptime when they have no idea if anyone will even play it.
They are supposed to meet with the seven people who first put the initiative forward. It won’t change their minds if they’re already against the initiative but if they don’t care it may sway them to hear it explained to them. I have zero expectations since EU bureaucrats live in a parallel dimension but there’s some hope something happens.
It’s messy. Making a balanced law around it is sketchy. Consumers deserve to own the games they buy, straight up. Businesses deserve to be able to sell their assets when they fold and have them continue to be worth something so they can live on to make new games and their old games can go to new companies to keep development rolling.
There’s obviously low-hanging fruit. If your game is single-player and you’re just doing an online piracy check, and you go out of business, you leave the check servers running in a trust for like five years with the code to remove the check from escrow. Tick Tock, you either relight the game in time somewhere, or it becomes free to play.
But when you have something like Clash of Clans, where you need battle servers. Those assets are useless once you open that code and 100% support a community-run game. The game could otherwise be passed to another studio, and development could continue. Selling and moving games to other companies and publishers with breaks in the middle happens a lot. How long after a game collapses should they wait for it to become worthless to the market? The obvious answer to the consumer is immediately, because they bought it, they own it. Maybe you have to keep a certain amount of money from the proceeds and use it to refund the users. It still sucks for the you don’t own it anymore concept.
Developers and publishers aren’t fair to consumers without guardrails (and there are none), but those rails should also be reasonable to companies.
If the commission does nothing, it’ll probably be wrapped around this clusterfuck.
I do have a worry that the studios will just stop selling games and everything will go subscription if they are required to provide servers and source on game shutdown. It’ll just push more piracy, less sales, less games and everyone loses.
I really wish companies would just have pride in their stuff and be fair to their users and users could just bear a fair price for good games.
I’m glad. But don’t get your hopes up because of this. Commission could (and probably will) just say “we have considered it and we are going to do nothing”.
I think the commission will take action in some form. The worst case scenario in my mind is that they will only require clear labelling. Similar to what they did with smart phones recently. While this not exactly what I am hoping for, having “This game will at least be playable until XXXX” on the package or store page would still be a massive improvement over the status quo.
I dont understand how such a broad requirement would work. They just have to pick some arbitrary date, and then after that they can continue as things currently are? Can you give an example of a game where this type of labelling would have helped?
‘The Crew’ by Ubisoft was sold for several months before they decided to shut it down. This would have at least forced them to communicate that before taking peoples money. I am also pretty sure that publishers don’t want to put this information on the package because it could seriously hurt sales. So the effect of this labelling requirement might be that publishers build the game in a way that enables self-hosting.
If you are saying they knew it was closing and they sold it for months anyways, that sounds like fraud. Has there been proof ubisoft decided to do this anyways?
Yes, I think calling it fraud is a fair conclusion, but what do you mean with “they knew it was closing”? This decision is completely in the hands of Ubisoft. Something doesn’t stop being fraud just because someone only decides to defraud you 2 months after they sold you something.
For all we know when the decision to pull the game was formalized, they pulled it that day. It depends what they did after they decided the game was being pulled. Did they leave it up for a few months to get some stuff in order beforehand, but kept selling it? I’d have a tough time accepting a reasoning from Ubisoft for that.
Thats why I asked for any sort of comment or reporting on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crew_(video_game)
People who paid around us$40 for the game on December 13 were being sold a lemon.
Given that it was released in 2014 it seems likely that their licenses were given a 10 year duration and they always intended to shutdown in 2024 at the latest (of course if its user base failed to reach critical mass they could have pulled the plug earlier).
Does selling a game in 2023 when you plan to kill it in 2024 legally qualify as fraud?
Thats not what I’m asking. You just have me evidence that they didnt sell it as soon as an EOL date was announced. Are you saying they should have stopped selling it before they publicly announce the EOL? Should they have announced and removed it as soon as the board meeting ended? How much earlier would that be in this case?
My unsubstantiated theory is the the licences they signed for all the vehicles and real world content had a 10 year lifetime.
Usually those contracts would just require that they stop selling the game, but they may have included something about the servers in the contract too.
Either way they new something was going to change in 2024 and realistically they knew which of these possibilities were viable:
I’d they waited until December of 2023 to have that meeting then that feels negligent.
If they had that meeting earlier and continued to sell the game (until ≈100 days to EOL) without warning customers that feels fraudulent.
I think its a bit ridiculous that you think you have enough information to say they should have acted sooner.
Its also ridiculous that your arguments rely on what feels wrong.
The game was 10 years old and people are salty it went EOL. How have this many people not played an online service game before to realize that 10 years is a fantastic run, and nothing lasts forever. Move onto a new game or help build one, this effort to make games live forever is absurd, entitled, and shortsighted.
Yes if we would have known that Concord only lasted two weeks then those that bought the battle pass wouldn’t have bought them. Know eol timing help consumers.
They didnt know it would only last two weeks. They probably knew it was a possibility but I doubt they planned for it.
This is what I mean though, if concord had to say the game would be live for a guaranteed amount of time, why wouldnt they just say something low like 6 months. Why wouldnt every company do that unless they knew for sure it would be successful? Its too risky to choose longer periods of time, and we just have the same situation as now.
Sony actually issued full refunds to all customers that bought Concord.
The game still died. One that was in development for five years, and it lasted two weeks.
They didnt plan for it to last two weeks, the game failed. How do you expect them to guarantee a certain uptime when they have no idea if anyone will even play it.
Call me crazy but I expect businesses to guarantee their products.
We’ve done nothing and already completely ran out of ideas!
At least we will have an official position, instead of the legal void we’re currently in.
They are supposed to meet with the seven people who first put the initiative forward. It won’t change their minds if they’re already against the initiative but if they don’t care it may sway them to hear it explained to them. I have zero expectations since EU bureaucrats live in a parallel dimension but there’s some hope something happens.
It’s messy. Making a balanced law around it is sketchy. Consumers deserve to own the games they buy, straight up. Businesses deserve to be able to sell their assets when they fold and have them continue to be worth something so they can live on to make new games and their old games can go to new companies to keep development rolling.
There’s obviously low-hanging fruit. If your game is single-player and you’re just doing an online piracy check, and you go out of business, you leave the check servers running in a trust for like five years with the code to remove the check from escrow. Tick Tock, you either relight the game in time somewhere, or it becomes free to play.
But when you have something like Clash of Clans, where you need battle servers. Those assets are useless once you open that code and 100% support a community-run game. The game could otherwise be passed to another studio, and development could continue. Selling and moving games to other companies and publishers with breaks in the middle happens a lot. How long after a game collapses should they wait for it to become worthless to the market? The obvious answer to the consumer is immediately, because they bought it, they own it. Maybe you have to keep a certain amount of money from the proceeds and use it to refund the users. It still sucks for the you don’t own it anymore concept.
Developers and publishers aren’t fair to consumers without guardrails (and there are none), but those rails should also be reasonable to companies.
If the commission does nothing, it’ll probably be wrapped around this clusterfuck.
I do have a worry that the studios will just stop selling games and everything will go subscription if they are required to provide servers and source on game shutdown. It’ll just push more piracy, less sales, less games and everyone loses.
I really wish companies would just have pride in their stuff and be fair to their users and users could just bear a fair price for good games.