The future of Anno 1800

[Primigenia]

I'm sorry to bring this topic up, but someone has to ask, since Ubisoft's future is not exactly certain to put it mildly, can we please have an update that removes denuvo and the always online to be able to play in singleplayer?
It would be sad if one day Ubi will be just gone and our beloved Anno series with it.

[Frequens]

Remove denuvo? That computer molestation malware would be the last thing they would part with, LOL

As for their future, I guess we'll know soon what to expect but things don't look bright. And knowing Ubi and their customer-hostile conduct, they will certainly go for the Samson Option and just take everything down with them. The only thing you can do now is just hurry up and complete your achievements while you still can. Other than that, if you still have your dvds of older Anno titles such as 1404 and 1701, you can at least continue to play those.

[Primigenia]

I only have the physical copies up to 1701, then started buying on Steam and Ubisoft store sadly, I would have bought it on GOG for having it DRM free with the offline installer and play but the History editions aren't on there nor 1800

[Frequens]

Originally posted by Primigenia:

I only have the physical copies up to 1701, then started buying on Steam and Ubisoft store sadly, I would have bought it on GOG for having it DRM free with the offline installer and play but the History editions aren't on there nor 1800

yeah must of been the time around 2006/2007 when dvds were slowly rotated out and digital distribution took over..

Sadly, you won't get later Anno titles on GOG store. Only up to 1404 if I remember correctly. All later releases are either Ubi store or Steam. Ubi in particular is pathologically pro-denuvo and won't remove that malware even years after release, which is utterly ridiculous. That's the reason why I'm playing my Assassin's Creed titles and Anno 1800 on my old Win7 rig. No way I will ever allow that denuvo crap on my new Win11 machine!

[YoYoStevo]

When Ubi goes under and lots of people are left with games that don't work because they are no longer able to surgically remove the cancer they deliberately put into the games it'll be a wakeup call for a lot of gamers that they desperately need.

[Present]

yeah it's very unclear at this moment. I just hope Blue Byte goes on despite ubi getting wrecked.

[Ranix]

it has no future, ubisoft is scuttled you're going to find it at the bottom of the ocean soon

[Wolfsun]

Yeah... Well.

Ya know what they say. Go Woke, Go Broke. Just as true for Euro's as it is in the USA.

[Wolfsun]

Surely Steam will do something to make the UBI games they've sold all these years still work even if Ubi goes down in flames????

[Ranix]

yeah ubisoft pulled my version of anno 1404 and they won't let me buy a copy so a friend can play with me but I can still download and play singleplayer if I want because steam makes it available. It still sucks that I have to go wade through viruses and find a copy off some torrent if I want to play with a friend though.

[captain403]

Originally posted by Wolfsun:

Surely Steam will do something to make the UBI games they've sold all these years still work even if Ubi goes down in flames????

What would you propose steam do? They don't own the rights to the game. They can't legally remove the need for the game to phone home. They can't legally bypass any copy protection. If Ubi goes bust and does nothing about the customers loss of their games, they're gone.

Just take a look at Fable III. When GFW was shut down, the game lost a large part of it's functionality. You can't download DLC without some dubious work arounds.

[Wolfsun]

What would you propose steam do? They don't own the rights to the game.

Not right they don't. But if UBI goes bankrupt and the company ceases to exist then what happens to the rights? Gotta be some legal precedent about that?

[captain403]

Originally posted by Wolfsun:

What would you propose steam do? They don't own the rights to the game.

Not right they don't. But if UBI goes bankrupt and the company ceases to exist then what happens to the rights? Gotta be some legal precedent about that?

Somebody will still own the rights. They don't just vanish if Ubi goes bust/disappears. Probably either a spin off company or a creditor will hold the rights to a bunch of Ubi software. They may or may not keep the required servers up for the games. If they don't, there is nothing anyone can do about it. So you would still have the game in your steam account, but you won't be able to use it.

[Wolfsun]

Originally posted by captain403:

Originally posted by Wolfsun:

Not right they don't. But if UBI goes bankrupt and the company ceases to exist then what happens to the rights? Gotta be some legal precedent about that?

Somebody will still own the rights. They don't just vanish if Ubi goes bust/disappears. Probably either a spin off company or a creditor will hold the rights to a bunch of Ubi software. They may or may not keep the required servers up for the games. If they don't, there is nothing anyone can do about it. So you would still have the game in your steam account, but you won't be able to use it.

Open AI Chat-GPT 4.0 agrees with you. Creditors, or someone buying up UBISoft and a whole other list of possibilities that I do not recall will end up with the licenses. One thing it did mention is that individual users could setup up their own servers for themselves and others to use. In addition it mentioned that games that do have to phone home or stay connected (even if single player game) probably won't work. It also mentioned that there's a lot of expertise out on the internet that could figure out how to patch out the phone home/need the internet or a server to play thing.

So Steam may not be willing to buy up the licenses but even so odds are someone will be able to figure a way to make the Ubi games playable.

That said: all moot anyway until Ubi goes belly up in which case in my opinion someone will buy up their assets if a profit is to be made.

[captain403]

Originally posted by Wolfsun:

Open AI Chat-GPT 4.0 agrees with you.

Not really relevant. I tend to think for myself.

Originally posted by Wolfsun:

So Steam may not be willing to buy up the licenses but even so odds are someone will be able to figure a way to make the Ubi games playable.

Steam wanting to buy (or not) may have little to do with it. As for 'someone will be able to figure a way to make the Ubi games playable', That may or not be true. The real question is, will it be legal.

[Gafwmn]

Or they might do what they did for anno2070.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/48240/discussions/0/3425571923618672690/