What will happen with my Ubisoft games after it goes bankrupt?

[Onyx Rexxar]

I am pretty sure its last, or second to last year Ubisoft still exists as a company. I am wondering what will happen with all my games I have from them after it goes down, since it requires secondary launcher for playing them. Should I start looking to "acquiring" backup installs or Steam will make games I bought still available after inevitable Ubisoft demise?

[McDaniel]

I doubt that ubisoft connect is earning them money. Especially if you consider howmany potential customer are not buying their games specifically because of ubisoft connect.

[RiO]

Първоначално публикувано от Onyx Rexxar:

There should be some kind of worldwide entertainment/art/music preservation law which in case of companies shutting down save the thing for the future for people to use/read/listen free of charge (or with minimal price to keep service going).

In the EU and its member states there already is.
The Copyright Directive and its implementations in national law contains provisions whereby copyright holders are legally required to work with preservationist organizations to allow them to archive their works and for a nominal fee make them available to the public. Where copyright holders refuse to play ball, member states are allowed to step in and on a case-by-case basis may declare the copyright holder's rights void for purposes of preventing acquisition and redistribution by appointed preservationist organizations, which means they would also be legally entitled to crack and/or bypass any form of DRM.

I vaguely recall that the US has something similar, though has to be declared by Congress which exact pieces of media are allowed to be copied and preserved this way - which happens once every Nth year?

The main problem is that these rights are almost never called upon for video games, because they're generally not considered culturally relevant or defining.

Every washed-up and high druggie can splash two buckets of paint on a white canvas, get it displayed at a gallery and have it be considered art worth of preservation; every scam artist can duct-tape a banana to a wall, call it art and be lauded for it; but beautifully crafted video game telling a compelling story that involves relevant societal issues, well -- that's 'just nonsense for kids,' of course ...


(Which isn't to say Ubisoft's slop is actually culturally relevant in any way. Because it isn't.)

[Onyx Rexxar]

Well, I could argue about Ubisoft older games having actual cultural value. Like first Assasins Creeds (1,2, Black Flag), Farcry 1 and 3, Rayman, these hilarious rabbits etc. Oh, And Beyond good and Evil is amazing.

[xBCxRangers]

Can't they just shut the servers and still play it SP? Games like Ghost Recon, and the AC series, and even The Division should be able to be played without connecting to a server. The MP or Coop will go away, but at least you still have your game.

That's on console though.

[Hammer Of Evil]

This is something i haven't considered.

thankfully, i have few games on the platform.

and judging frrom how many employees they have, and the quality of the games created, this theory the op has might not be too far in the future 💀💀

[wasabi™]

There are already some extremely talented people working on a major mod for "The Crew", under the name of "The Crew: Unlimited", which will open it up and allow for it to even be played online once again. Not to mention offline mode will be fully available as it had been in the past and with no Uplay launcher of any kind needed as well and it has already been tested and apparently works perfectly fine with no Uplay required at all.

It's launching first quarter of this year and they have been quite active on their discord, here it is for anyone who is interested: https://discord.gg/7JnyvrBZ

If they are able to mod the game to improve it significantly and even bring back online mode, let alone bypassing uplay and all of Ubisoft's heavy handed attempts at revoking paying customers access to the game (including with how ubisoft literally revoked customers licenses), then that really opens up the doors to what's possible down the line.

I'd imagine if they truly went bankrupt and a number of their big IP's that needed the launcher will eventually get an "offline" mod that will be safe and easy to use in order to play it without Uplay. If they can do it for "The Crew" and from what I've hard people have already done it for games like "Assassins Creed Valhalla" and Watch Dogs Legion", then it can be done for the rest of their games.

That's if there is no actual way to access the game and they shutdown and revoke everyone's license and you already own it on Steam. Just a little bit of optimism if that does in fact eventuate. Ubisoft's future honestly isn't looking too good right now, this year could be make or break for them and it's all from their own doing.

A lot of people in the Removed Game Collectors group don't particularly see a risk to Ubisoft games being removed or them going bankrupt but stranger things have happened in the industry and Ubisoft have already delisted a significant amount of popular games in the past including for franchises they have the full rights to use still, (Ghost Recon Warfighter 1 & 2, CSI games, OG Avatar, Tom Clancy's HAWK 1 & 2, Call of Juarez Gunslinger and that's only naming a few off the top of my head.

With the sale going on now i almost would say that it wouldn't be a terribly bad idea to pick up a couple that you may have wanted to get for a while, it's a very deep sale. You can certainly tell they are panicking right now and again, they did this to themselves.

Ubisoft's future in jeopardy as financial woes deepen[www.msn.com]

[Subsonic]

Първоначално публикувано от rawWwRrr:

Ubisoft will get bought out by someone else.

Yeah probably tencent, or epic (backed by tencent).

[Frequens]

Първоначално публикувано от D. Flame:

Knowing Ubisoft, they will remove them from your library without offering a refund.

That may be so for titles people bought on the ubisoft store. If you purchased your games via steam, they aren't going anywhere. The only thing that could happen is their games being delisted with future users unable to buy them but they will still be in your library.

Just set the annoying ubi launcher to start in offline mode and you no longer need to bother yourself with it. Some of the features will be missing such as the daily Reda quests in AC: Origins or the orichalcum missions in AC: Odyssey or the multiplayer lobby in Anno 1800 but at least you're still able to unlock all your missing achievements.

[Frequens]

Първоначално публикувано от McDaniel:

I doubt that ubisoft connect is earning them money. Especially if you consider howmany potential customer are not buying their games specifically because of ubisoft connect.

Exactly. That's why many of us boycotted ubi couple years ago when they cut their ties with steam. We just refused to buy anything on their store and in the end, it proved to be the right decision.

[CatLover]

Most Ubisoft games are garbage anyway.

[BigCunggus]

theyre about to file bankruptcy soon

[Onyx Rexxar]

Indeed...

[Vamp]

>Ubisoft goes bankrupt
>IPs get sold off
>Ubisoft Connect gets removed
>Vamp can finally play Zombi/FarCry/Crysis games on Linux directly via Proton instead of having to jump through special Linux launchers
>Maybe even buy them on GOG to use with old retro offline pc.

The future is looking good.

[Start_Running]

Първоначално публикувано от rawWwRrr:

Ubisoft will get bought out by someone else.

Or at least the ip's will be purchased by various interested parties.

From or perspective we'll likely just see a diffferent pub/dev listed on the game store page.
Woprst case they fold and no one picks it up, then the the store pages go poof.

The games will remain in libraries but any games that required anything external to steam will basically stop working.

[ReBoot]

Is there ANYTHING solid pointing at Ubisofts soon'ish demise or is it the usual "source: trust me bruh" we've seen countless times? Hell, if I had a penny every time someone proclaimed Steam's decline over the years...