[HN Gopher] Assassin's Creed Liberation delisted, unplayable eve... ___________________________________________________________________ Assassin's Creed Liberation delisted, unplayable even to owners starting Sept 1 Author : josephcsible Score : 115 points Date : 2022-07-10 21:58 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (mp1st.com) (TXT) w3m dump (mp1st.com) | tomc1985 wrote: | I think this is unprecendented with Steam. I have heard of games | being delisted but I can't recall Valve ever removing them from | peoples' libraries. | | If I owned a copy of this game on Steam I'd be requesting a | refund immediately; they have been known to make exceptions to | the standard 2-hours rule under special circumstances. | | Also, Steam has a game files backup feature, it might be a good | idea to use that and wait for someone to figure out how to | disable Steam DRM | Shank wrote: | It's not Steam's DRM -- the game relies on a server system | hosted by Ubisoft, which is being shut down on September 1st. | You'll still technically be able to download and execute the | game binary on Steam but it won't connect and won't let you in | to actually play. | LegitShady wrote: | its not steam, its ubisoft DRM servers | smileybarry wrote: | This is almost definitely because Ubisoft shipped this with | some SecuROM-alike DRM and doesn't want to keep paying | _pennies_ for activation servers. If we're lucky, they probably | even opted out of offline machine keys (because "piracy") so | that the game will stop running because reactivation will fail. | ConstantVigil wrote: | What will likely end up happening is the more dedicated fans of | the series will do what others have done with old MMO's and make | their own servers and such to ensure the game stays playable. | | There may be some legal issues, but once Ubisoft does this on | Sep. 1st, there are some technicalities surrounding vaporware and | such that make it legal to 'own' the game without ever paying for | it, etc and so forth. Running servers to make it playable again | as well would also be fair-game as well as I understand it. | | But I am not a lawyer, so if anyone knows better please by all | means say so; but keep in mind I speak from the Canadian side of | the law. So there may be differences that matter. | keyle wrote: | What annoys me about this the most is the message from Steam, | that sort of plays along with this. | | "This game is no longer available for sale on Steam". No big | deal, right. | | Ok, fine, but it doesn't imply the servers going down and the | title becoming unplayable... | | Then 2nd message: | | "Please note this title won't be accessible from <date>..." | | Once again, accessible doesn't imply "the game won't start, | thanks for the monies". | | It's a bloody shame that I can start any games from the 90s on an | emulator and they run just as fine, even content heavy. While | these titles are completely riddled with DRM _and_ screw you over | after X years. | | Publishers need to come clean, and after years of milking the | cow, they must have a plan allowing _paying_ customers to play | the title they 've been enjoying all these years. Otherwise, they | _should be forced_ to include the verbiage at release date "This | title will stop working as of <date in the future>". | | This kind of nonsense only promotes cracked games. | Victerius wrote: | Games were already cracked before companies like Valve started | pulling them from players' libraries. If games are cracked | anyway, why would studios and publishers care one way or | another? | the_af wrote: | I think in many cases, movies and video games piracy is a | matter of convenience. If pirated media is more convenient -- | not just as in "free", but because it's less encumbered and | doesn't pull this crap on you -- then paying for legal media | will become less appealing. | | There's a baseline of piracy, sure, but there's also making | the lives of paying customers more difficult so that piracy | becomes the preferred option. | givemeethekeys wrote: | Whats the matter? Don't you like interpreting PR-speak? \s | everdrive wrote: | Don't buy Ubisoft games, clearly. Games which require servers to | work at all (vs. just the mulitplayer components working) are | also a big no. This is likely a good thing: it will educate | gamers about unnecessary DRM. | lousken wrote: | That's why games like these should have dedicated servers as an | option. Why is this acceptable in the cloud era where everyone | can spin up their own server for a few bucks? | cmckn wrote: | I think it's a nice idea, but it just won't happen. | | The game companies won't offer managed game servers, because | it's a totally new, small-market line of business outside their | core competency. They won't open-source the server and let | users run it themselves, because myriad licensing/IP/legalese | reasons. Even if they did open source it, the stack likely | isn't designed to scale down to a few bucks a month on the | public cloud -- most users interested in running their own | server wouldn't be happy with the actual cost of doing so. The | handful of folks willing to pay for it won't move the needle. | josephcsible wrote: | You make it sound like this is a hard problem that studios | don't know how to solve, but it's been solved for decades. | There's still a bunch of third-party Quake III Arena servers | you can play on, for example. | toyg wrote: | There should be a law: if you sell an entertainment experience | with significant online elements, and you shut down such | elements, you should be forced to opensource the server. Just | like that, dump the code wholesale on the internet somewhere. | Victerius wrote: | Source code is often reused in other products. Corporate | studios would balk. | toyg wrote: | And? They'd figure it out. Millions of businesses have to | deal with changes in law every day. | | In fact, there is a good chance this would result in | standardising the most basic aspects of online activity | (license checks etc) into free opensource libraries, saving | such corporations a decent amount of money in the long run. | josephcsible wrote: | We'd need a way to handle all of the companies who'd say "oops | we lost the source". | pseudalopex wrote: | Escrow. | the_biot wrote: | No, there should not be a law that forces anyone to give away | their property. That's just complete nonsense. | | You should draw your own conclusion as to what you spend your | money on, and possibly you might conclude that "buying" online | games that can be taken away from you at any time is a waste of | money. But you can't go from there to "we must take away | intellectual property from these capitalist swine!". | toyg wrote: | Is patent expiration "taking away IP from capitalist | swines"...? Obviously not. IP itself is not a natural right - | it's a legal construct with clear limits. | | The nonsense is thinking that requiring certain interests to | follow rules that benefit society, is "taking away | intellectual property". Any such law would obviously not be | retroactive, so any publisher could decide whether they want | to produce any such online element going forward. If they do, | they will know their work will have to be disclosed on a free | license at the end - effectively working in the same way as | patents. | the_biot wrote: | I think the solution to this terrible behavior by Ubisoft, | EA etc is what I said -- people need to stop putting up | with it by not buying these games in the first place. You | can't throw a law at every shenanigan these companies throw | at their customers. | toyg wrote: | Oh yes, you absolutely can. Commercial law is so vast | precisely because people have always misbehaved in | pursuit of profit. | | _> people need to stop putting up with it_ | | What I'm going to say might sound paternalistic to you, | but it's the truth: most people don't really think that | hard, generally speaking, and certainly not when it comes | to satisfying their entertainment needs. That's why we | have laws to protect the general public from predatory | behavior in finance, hospitality, etc etc. | | This is predatory behavior, and it's now enacted at a | scale that makes it parasitical - fleecing more and more | money from the general consumer. A public response would | be absolutely justified, in the same way it's absolutely | justified what we're currently seeing going down with | Apple's and Google's appstores. | | Otherwise we will continue to sleepwalk in the cyberpunk | dystopia where corporations own our lives in practice, | while being 'free to choose' purely in theory. | josephcsible wrote: | Right now, the law forces you, the consumer, to give away | your property, the copy of Assassin's Creed Liberation that | you bought. (Don't believe me? Go ask a lawyer if it's legal | to crack your copy's DRM to keep it working after they do | this.) | dbetteridge wrote: | https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/full-federal-court-con... | | Sounds illegal if anyone is based in Australia and feels like | giving the ACCC a nudge. | | "This case sets an important precedent that overseas-based | companies that sell to Australians must abide by our law. All | goods come with automatic consumer guarantees that they are of | acceptable quality and fit for the purpose for which they were | sold, even if the business is based overseas," | Apocryphon wrote: | Hm, sounds as ironic as when Amazon was taking away ebook copies | of _1984._ | toyg wrote: | RMS had predicted all this, as usual. | sylware wrote: | We know ubisoft has been a sidekick of microsoft (in my country | they are the same ppl). But removing that big game from PC, very | weird: maybe they don't want to maintain technically the game | anymore, or go to epic. | [deleted] | zac23or wrote: | That's theft. The theft pure and simple, ancient, which has been | around forever. Nothing new. | shbooms wrote: | Unfortunately, per Steam's TOS, you do not own anything you | "purchase" on their platform. Instead you "subscribe" to access | of whatever games/other content you've paid for: | | _...the rights to access and /or use any Content and Services | accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as | "Subscriptions." | | ... The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your | license confers no title or ownership in the Content and | Services._ | | https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement | | To me, that's their business if they want to operate that way | and folks can choose to accept that and be a customer if they | so desire. I think what's really wrong is that nowhere on their | store pages do they use the word "Subscription" and instead | they use the word "Purchase". This should not be allowed and is | false advertising, plain and simple. | donatj wrote: | Given how decent a company Valve is, and the rules they put on | things for sale in their store, I'm honestly surprised that Valve | even has store terms that allow this kind of shenanigans. | | If I was them I would lock that down, because this is a bad look. | chrysoprace wrote: | Wouldn't be surprised if the ACCC (Australian Competition & | Consumer Commission) went after them. This is almost certainly | breaking the ACL, and all customers would be eligible for a | refund. | smileybarry wrote: | > Do note that this doesn't appear to be affecting the Remastered | rerelease, though keep in mind that would require an additional | purchase as the original release does not grant you access to it. | | Ah, great. So poor little Ubisoft doesn't want to pay for the | activation servers of Liberation HD _and_ Liberation HD++. How | nice of them to drop just the older, original version and not | even offer the working remastered version to existing owners. | lelandfe wrote: | > not even offer the working remastered version to existing | owners | | I can't believe they're not doing this. The remastered version | is frequently on sale for just $20, and revoking access is | clearly a PR nightmare. | | If Ubisoft so dearly needs to shut down these servers, why not | just gift existing owners the upgrade? | toyg wrote: | Probably because the cost of the PR nightmare is either not | easily quantifiable, or simply an acceptable loss; wheras the | potential "forced profits" by people having to buy the | remaster are fairly easy to predict. | olodus wrote: | When something like this happens they should be required to hand | over the server software. Even better would be to have to open | source the code but atleast give out the server. Then the company | would have a choice; either you pay for the server but can keep | the game harder locked down for Intellectual property reason or | whatever. Or you can cut the server cost but risk loosing a bit | of your control over it. | yomkippur wrote: | so there's no way to get a refund???!! | layer8 wrote: | Maybe with more punctuation there will. | jrh206 wrote: | Why? | hatsuseno wrote: | Publisher is financially incentivized to kill the servers, | maintenance, and bugfix time for this title since single | purchase licenses and long term online infrastructure | requirements are financially incompatible. | tomc1985 wrote: | There is a whole single-player game in there that doesn't | need online connectivity. | goosedragons wrote: | Yeah. It's bizzare and insanely cheap of Ubisoft to not at | least patch the game to work single player offline for | people that already bought the game. | | I'm pretty sure my older Vita cartridge of Liberation will | keep on trucking too... | toyg wrote: | Ah, but if you're playing offline, obviously you're a | filthy pirate. | pseudalopex wrote: | Ubisoft will disable online services and paid DLC for other games | too.[1] | | [1] https://www.techspot.com/news/95177-ubisoft-disable- | online-f... | glotchimo wrote: | > To play the solo campaign, you will have to set your console | into offline mode. | | I'd like to think this would be an easy patch to at least let | people down easy, but I don't know much if anything at all in | this context. | | Why couldn't they just release an "flick a switch off" update? | And why would this be required in the first place? | yomkippur wrote: | think their office in Quebec is losing talent too after they | enacted that bill mandating French language. English speaking | engineers are leaving Montreal. | mikl wrote: | Is this even legal everywhere? Can they just pull the game people | had paid for, without providing a refund in countries with | consumer protection laws? | oblak wrote: | EA has been routinely shutting down game servers for almost 20 | years now. Legal or not, I cannot say. | | In any cause, the usual targets seem to be games with annual | releases. Apparently, people love buying the same games over | and over. While it sucks, this is clearly not on the same level | as Blizzard shutting down StarCraft battle-net servers. Lots of | people would be rightfully furious. | the_af wrote: | Game servers require a cost to operate (in money and people) | and I don't expect them to stay up forever. | | What's the excuse for forcibly shutting down the single | player experience though? | pseudalopex wrote: | Shutting down servers is 1 thing. Breaking the single player | game is another. | oblak wrote: | Your biases may be showing here. I think shutting down | servers is just as bad as removing single player games from | people's libraries. The end result is quite the same for | the customers: they can no longer use the products they | paid for. | | In my case, the last Ubi game I purches, and played, was | released back in 2003. Hopefully that clears my stance on | this particular company | shbooms wrote: | Steam's TOS pretty clearly states that everything you | "purchase" is basically just a licensed subscription to that | content. | | [0] _...the rights to access and /or use any Content and | Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this | Agreement as "Subscriptions." | | ... The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your | license confers no title or ownership in the Content and | Services._ | | [0] https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement | alexklarjr wrote: | pffft, just download it from torrent, as you do for any | abandonware and Nintendo games, it had been cracked for 10 years, | what you are expecting, windows backward compatibility or | respecting your rights by Steam, created by former Micro$oft | employee? | bnj wrote: | If platform licensing arrangements don't protect customers from | losing access to purchases, they should be forced to advertise | them as rentals or leases and not something the consumer is | buying. | Shadonototra wrote: | France tried | https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-09-19-french-cou... | | Then steam said you don't own the games they are selling to you | | So you buy games that you don't really own with a 30% tax on | the developer's paycheck on top of his local taxes, thanks | Valve! | convolvatron wrote: | its really puzzling how a technology so perfect for lowering | cost of entry and promoting disintermediation has done the | exact opposite. | tuxie_ wrote: | The tech did its part, the costs are lower, just that the | margins of profit are much bigger now. | choward wrote: | They keep using this word "own" throughout the article. I do not | think it means what they think it means. | rvz wrote: | You will own nothing and you will be happy. All your digital | games gone like I said before. [0] | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31970488 | sergiotapia wrote: | This is why I purchase all of my games physical. | | Edit: To clarify I have stopped buying any big titles on PC. I | may splurge $2-5 on a key site but that's about it. I own console | games because I want to leave my grandkids something. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I do not understand focus on digital delivery platform. Seems a | red herring. | | If you bought this very same game on DVD, would it not still | require same activation servers? It's my understanding this is | ubisoft the publisher activation thing, not steam the delivery | platform thing. | throw7 wrote: | My "moment" came after purchasing Batman Arkham Asylum and | being hit with a request to create a Games for Windows Live | Account. You could skip the GfWL account creation and I did. | Soon thereafter was an update. I updated and found all of my | save games were lost. Ohh, you didn't create a GfWL account, | too bad you didn't create a GfWL... that's the supported | configuration. | | I stopped following and playing most AAA games at this point, | but I was already getting older anyway. I still play video | games, but I'm much more careful about the above such things. | smileybarry wrote: | GfWL tying your saves to a profile was extremely mean | spirited. They justified it by "you need a profile to save | games" as if you're on a Xbox 360 designed with that | requirement. Which amounted to a folder with your account ID | + saves encrypted with your account key. | | Offline profiles were added at some point to alleviate this | but, they could've just started with null profiles and saved | all that, clearly GfWL adoption was more important. | tenryuu wrote: | Assassins creed games as far back as AC2 on PC had uplay | bundled on their game discs. Physical copies don't get around | DRM, only distribution | cardanome wrote: | Physical games can still have DRM. | | The best way is to buy at https://www.gog.com/ | | They offer lot's of DRM-free games, even newer titles so you | can actually own the games and back them up wherever and | however you want. | smileybarry wrote: | On PC you're actually at a disadvantage if you do. At best it's | just the same as digital (boxed Steam key), at worst it's some | alternative DRM that stops working _much_ before Steam | /Origin/uPlay does, e.g. SecuROM, Games For Windows LIVE, etc. | josephcsible wrote: | That doesn't help though. Consider the Orange Box (HL2, TF2, | and Portal). You could buy this on DVDs from a brick-and-mortar | store, but playing it required you to set up a Steam account | and activate it there. | nibbleshifter wrote: | I distinctly recall buying HL2 from a store named "Game" | shortly after release, only to find it required some shit | called Steam, and the Steam key had already been redeemed. | | Eventually got a working key after returning to the store and | complaining vigorously, and then had to wait approximately a | million hours for the game to update itself over our shit | tier dialup connection and eventually become playable. | brians wrote: | That's a good start! But it doesn't always help; I have plenty | of physical copies of games that won't work without Ubisoft | servers. | scoot wrote: | If only it were that simple. A physical DVD simply reduces the | download time. It typically still copies onto the console HD | (the DVD being used as an annoying proof of ownership.), and | still depends on online services. | trentnix wrote: | Does it? I had an 80+ GB practically-day-one-download waiting | when I bought Forza Horizon 5 for my XBox. The disc might as | well have been a blank. | scoot wrote: | Which is why I said typically. It's still an annoying | dongle though. | klyrs wrote: | DVDs can hold up to 8.5GB of DRM client software. | the_af wrote: | > _" This is yet another reason why owning digital games is | frowned upon by some consumer groups, as you technically never | own the game themselves given this thing can happen."_ | | I think things like GOG or Humble Bundle are better, because they | don't "phone home" when you try to play games you bought there | (unless, of course, they are actually Steam keys). | | They could get delisted, but if you backed up the game you can | still play it. | | That said: what a crappy situation. Are they at least giving the | money back to customers? | Shadonototra wrote: | looks like there are some people at ubisoft willing to do | everything to lower the stock price | | looks like they'll get purchased soon, microsoft behind the scene | perhaps? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-10 23:00 UTC)