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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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I won't take that answer even if Gabe told me in person and he can have mine by taking a pitchfork in his butt and so can Yves.
I'm not being a shill. Its the reality of digital media.
Good luck convincing Gabe to refund your game.
But I already know all of these arguments, no use in bringing them up.
If an offline community patch becomes available, then you'll need a copy of the game to play it.
What they should know better? Should they read the lifetime of a game from stars or something? Demand game servers to be run for ever if publisher want to sell their games on Steam? Steam can´t be responsible for products out of their controll. This is the same case as Battleborn, TDU2, Day before or about to be with Suicide Squad KtJL in few months. None of this is under their controll.
This is the case, I'll say steam can explain it to the judge, they took my money, they host the game, they act as the middleman for ubisoft, they can act responsibly for just once.
But like I said I've heard all of these arguments before, it's not relevant and I'm not interested in holding this discussion.
We might be long dead by then and because litererally no one can play this game atm I wouldn't be surprised that when the time comes to redownload and install the game its gone or totally broken.
So just so you're aware, all games, including physical ones from back in the day, were considered "licenses". If you bought and registered a boxed copy of some software, that was your license to the software.
This isn't anything new, even with the rise in digital content, the same rules have always applied. A copy of software of any kind, digital or physical, is a "license". You don't own the rights to the game itself, the company does. That's the real reason why it's called a "license". Because you're not buying the game, you're buying a copy of an instance of that game. So you don't have rights to the game because that's copyright/IP-related stuff. But you do have rights to your copy/to that license of the game that you purchased.
But more importantly, it doesn't matter if it's a license, because it's still a PERPETUAL license. PERPETUAL licenses, just like when you bought CD-ROMS back in the day, DO NOT EXPIRE. It doesn't matter if it it's a license, because it's still a license that shalt not expire, unlike a F2P, rented, or subscription-based "Game As A Service", which The Crew series is not. Especially because it is not sold or marketed as such. It's marketed and sold as a good that you purchase outright to own a copy that's yours to keep and yours alone. The terms of service don't even state a shutdown date, just that it'll happen at some point in the future. And the only way people could even find out about this date was when Ubisoft announced on their website. The terms of service never changed to reflect this new date, allowing you to agree to the shutdown date, and nothing was mentioned in-game that the shutdown would happen at a specified date. So if you never saw that announcement nor news articles on it, you'd have no way of actually knowing. Even when the game finally shut down, you just got a generic error code and not "The game's servers are shut down, thanks for playing!"
When you purchase a game, you are given a CD to install the game, and that CD that has a CD key. That key is registered under your information and grants you access to your copy of the game. Either that, or you have proof you own the key of that game, and then the key is how you get access. And you own your copy, because the key and information tied to it, as well as the receipt of purchase, are your proof of ownership. And that is your "license" to the game.
It's no different than buying a car. If you go to a dealer and purchase a vehicle in the US, it comes with a title. That title is a document that has information; VIN number, license plate (if applicable), make, model, year, issue date, etc. And all of that information is tied to your name and address. And that documentation is your proof, or "license", to own that car. You don't own the rights to the Chevrolet Impala branding, namesake, and manufacturing process. You just own the specific instance of a red Impala that you bought from your dealer. And the title would be your proof of ownership of that specific Impala and its VIN number. Not any other Impala, just that specific one you drove off the lot.
The same rules from back then still apply today. Which means that revoking access to your copy would be considered illegal. The only real reason they can legally revoke access is if you were using your copy to commit a criminal offense, primarily distributing/sharing it and/or making copies of your copy for others to use.
So it's stupid when people complain that you're buying a license, because this has ALWAYS been the case and isn't anything new, and it's still illegal if that gets taken from you.
Still, Steam was the champion of anti-piracy back in the day by making games easier to purchase and accessible but in this case they stole our money and act like pirates themselves.
And yes, this should not happen, that companies can simply stop customers having 'access to' stuff they bought without reason other then maintaining the required services is to expensive. Maybe they should have thought about that before even making the game with online components. But in reality they don't care, it all about making money, as much as possible. Valve is no different, they get a percentage of each sale, not during the life-cycle of the games on their platform. They also like to see more sales and games that stop working isn't going to effect their revenue, so who cares.
The only way to stop this is never buy online-only games. When sales drop significantly publishers will notice,. especially when projects become unfeasible because of that. When having a lot of employees it is vital to generate a huge cash flow in order to be able to keep paying everyone' salaries. The people that create games need to understand that whenever they release games that are unpopular (online only), they can loose their job. In the end, they are the ones making the decision to create them in the first place. And investors should be forced to even consider in investing in these publishers, taking the wrong decisions and risk loosing their money when companies go bankrupt.
Personally don't expect much of the legal route but who knows. It might set a precedent for future games to have a mandatory offline mode. But in the end, publishers are also likely to find ways around that so they can continue doing what they are doing. Oh and patch, not going to happen. There is a reason the studio is called Ivory Tower.