Ubisoft will disable online features in 15 games, gamers will lose access to paid DLC

[Tudor Cibean]

In a nutshell: Ubisoft will decommission the servers of 15 games in the next two months, including some of the most popular entries in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Most of these titles are about a decade old, so there are likely not that many people still playing the multiplayer components. However, users also won't be able to download DLCs they previously bought for these games.

Ubisoft has announced that it plans to decommission the online services for 15 games on September 1. Users won't be able to play the multiplayer and co-op modes in these games anymore, linking accounts and online features will stop working, and worst of all, players will outright lose access to DLC they bought.

Here's the full list of affected games:

• Anno 2070
• Assassin's Creed 2
• Assassin's Creed 3
• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
• Assassin's Creed Liberation HD
• Assassin's Creed Revelations
• Driver San Francisco
• Far Cry 3
• Ghost Recon Future Soldier
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Rayman Legends
• Silent Hunter 5
• Space Junkies
• Splinter Cell: Blacklist
• ZombiU

The online components of these games will stop working on PC, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. The remastered editions of both Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 will continue to work just as before, although you'll have to purchase them if you only own the original versions.

While most of these titles are about a decade old, Space Junkies is a notable outlier, as it launched three years ago. It's a multiplayer-only VR game, and for some reason, Ubisoft is still selling it (for as much as $20) without even mentioning that it will become completely unplayable in two months.

It isn't the first time Ubisoft has done this, either.

Earlier this year, it disabled online functionality and unlockable content, such as maps and skins, in other 90+ games. It will be interesting to see if the company's titles containing NFT-based items will suffer a similar fate. These kinds of practices explain why Ubisoft is one of the most hated brands in the gaming industry.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/95177-ubisoft-disable-online-features-15-games-gamers-lose.html

 

[Hooda Thunkett]

I haven't played one of their games before any of those were published. But it does seem Ubisoft is doing it's absolute darnedest to be hated by their current customers.
Would it really be that difficult or expensive to just have some virtual servers available to spin up if someone logs into one of those games just to download DLC?

 

[Uncle Al]

Just another great reason to abandon Ubisoft ..... regardless of contracts, as long as the games have active players (which they can easily identify) they should maintain it.

 

[George Keech]

This needs a lot more attention - I knew about the online services - fine I get that online games die. but your telling me if I bought the addition of Anno 2070 that includes all the DLC that I will no longer be able to use is as good as theft.

 

[yRaz]

This needs a lot more attention - I knew about the online services - fine I get that online games die. but your telling me if I bought the addition of Anno 2070 that includes all the DLC that I will no longer be able to use is as good as theft.

Dude, I run games servers in my house for practically nothing. The idea that keeping servers active for dead games is going to save Ubisoft any measurable amount of money is absurd.

 

[Dimitriid]

Right, but I assume they will accept quick or even automatic, unconditional refunds for these items right?....Why are you laughing Ubisoft rep?...

But seriously a bit of a related side story: I am a fan of city builder games and of course through the years, the Anno series has come up in my list of recommended games to try to well, build them cities.

Except I've never actually bought any of them or played them because at that time Anno 2070 was the latest and greatest on the franchise with one catch: It had always online DRM (that they got rid off) along with a maximum number of "allowed installations"

I of course decided I didn't want to give money to a company that flat out told me from the get go "You can only install this game X number of times before you don't have the right to" Because well I could fight them, I could demand a refund, etc. But regardless it was the attitude of treating a potential customer as a potential criminal for the crime of upgrading computers or operating systems that I decided "I'll stick to Simcity 4 (best available at that time) thanks"

So if you already got any of these games or their DLC demand a refund, loudly when (not if) it is declined. But for the future well, just don't buy Ubisoft games. Like, none of them but specially not anything you plan on using with multi player and never buy any DLC from them if you must play some of the single player ones although I honestly don't even know why: If you play any of them since Farcry 3 or Asscreed 3 (So about 10 years ago) you basically played all of them since as nothing has really deviated from that formula: You are quickly thrown into a wide open world where you locate and capture enemy bases, collect things and climb some form of tower to unlock new areas to do the exact same 3 things all over.

If you care about the narrative good for you: watch a let's play or a few streams of them instead of giving Ubi any money.

 

[Nobina]

Is it too late to ask for a refund?

 

[Geralt]

I never buy anything from them, thank God.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

And this reinforces what I said to my friends years ago - if there is any sort of DRM on these games, never pay launch price, because you dont own them. The only place I pay MSRP for games is GoG.

I paid a total of $12 for watch_dogs if you include tax, and that included all the DLC. Also bought the assassins creed double pack on switch for $15, but that is A) two games and B) a collection, so all DLC is included. That's the most I've paid for an ubi game.

 

[SirDigby]

I get sunsetting the servers kn xbox 360, ps3 etc but why PC?

 

[rmcrys]

Is that allowed / not a crime? So I buy the product X (dlc for example) and then I am not able do use it, the company still lives and... they don't have to give me the money back?!

 

[mgwerner]

Last one of theirs I bought was one of the Anno titles, that required you to be online in order to start a game, and there was no multiplayer. I spent $60 for that, and was on the way to a job overseas. No way to login from the middle of the desert. Needless to say, no way to get a refund, either. That was 15-18 years ago, they have not nor will ever see another penny from me.

 

[Rocky4040]

Yep back in the day when all this online crap was getting started I said over and over again this is all not going to end well for the customers and that all the money spent on these games at some point will just be wasted as they stop supporting the games and make them go offline. It got even worse when they kept on selling all that DLC content making having you invest even more money into games that would at some point become dead and non playable.

There should be laws to protect the consumers from this happening but of coarse there isn't anything in place that protects the consumer. What they should do for any of these games that are going to go offline but all they do is hand shake with a server and you play the single player content is release patches that cut the required online hand shake and let the games become totally offline and playable for as long as the player wants to.

But of coarse they most likely will not do that because that would be the right thing to do. Heck I play Destiny 2 and I used to buy the DLC content which gave new player missions and new places to explore but I noticed the bought and paid for content I had was getting removed from the game in favor of new content that they want you to pay for.

Some of the removed content I had not even finished yet but hey I paid for it but can not play it because it's gone. This is the new gaming frontier and all of those new Eula's they keep emailing to with changes to the terms of service probably state all of this and that when you agree to it you are agreeing to let them screw you over for content you paid for because they don't want to invest in more server power to run the old content as well as the new content also. I still play the game but I will no longer be investing in any new content for the game and most likely will not for any other old or new game I decide to play in the future. The only game I still play from time to time is The Division 2 and bought the new content for it when it came out but even that game at some point will go offline and the money spent will be lost as well.

The companies are openly screwing over their customers and then they wonder why people pirate their games and play them for ever without worries of the game ever going offline.

 

[ddferrari]

Class-Action lawsuit, anyone?

 

[RudyBob]

What was promised? What was implied? I will bet it wasn't for as long as you want. They cancelled my favorite TV show 20 times or more.

 

[MaestroIT]

I don't understand the part for DLCs, when I buy a DLC it is downloaded from the store that I use to download the game itself, so turning off the online games should not affect that. Unless they want to delete also the database that say what games and DLCs that person owns, which is stupid...
Solution, give all DLCs to everyone for free and allow them to continue playing

 

[ypsylon]

Well EA gets bad rap every single time because they deserve it fair and square, but...

In this instance Ubi$cam should take notice. Take the only game I really care. Mass Effect. Original ME3MP was released in 2012 and it still going. EA keeps servers running for 10 years now. All on-line DLCs in ME3 were free. There are tons of mods adding on-line assets into off-line campaign. Legendary version has no multiplayer but modders working out how to turn OT multiplayer DLCs into assets in Legendary version, which is amazing.

How the f Ubi is allowed to do this with new titles - 3 years is new. I never played any of those and never will touch anything from Ubi because their "reputation" precedes them.

 

[DSirius]

Right, but I assume they will accept quick or even automatic, unconditional refunds for these items right?....Why are you laughing Ubisoft rep?...

But seriously a bit of a related side story: I am a fan of city builder games and of course through the years, the Anno series has come up in my list of recommended games to try to well, build them cities.

Except I've never actually bought any of them or played them because at that time Anno 2070 was the latest and greatest on the franchise with one catch: It had always online DRM (that they got rid off) along with a maximum number of "allowed installations"

I of course decided I didn't want to give money to a company that flat out told me from the get go "You can only install this game X number of times before you don't have the right to" Because well I could fight them, I could demand a refund, etc. But regardless it was the attitude of treating a potential customer as a potential criminal for the crime of upgrading computers or operating systems that I decided "I'll stick to Simcity 4 (best available at that time) thanks"

So if you already got any of these games or their DLC demand a refund, loudly when (not if) it is declined. But for the future well, just don't buy Ubisoft games. Like, none of them but specially not anything you plan on using with multi player and never buy any DLC from them if you must play some of the single player ones although I honestly don't even know why: If you play any of them since Farcry 3 or Asscreed 3 (So about 10 years ago) you basically played all of them since as nothing has really deviated from that formula: You are quickly thrown into a wide open world where you locate and capture enemy bases, collect things and climb some form of tower to unlock new areas to do the exact same 3 things all over.

If you care about the narrative good for you: watch a let's play or a few streams of them instead of giving Ubi any money.

True, I will not buy Ubisoft games from now on. Disclaimer: did not buy in the past too (almost 2 years)

 

[thelatestmodel]

I will always denounce this practice. You owe the customer a way of keeping all their DLC, and a way of running a private multiplayer server. You don't get to just toss all that in the bin with no regard to customers and fans.

I get it, maintaining infrastructure isn't free. I'd be OK with decommissioning older, hardly used multiplayer servers, if control was just handed over to the players. Keep all the DLC, run your own server if you like.

It's this attitude of just screwing everyone over and removing features forever that annoys me. De-listing stuff from stores for whatever reason as well, like Rockstar with the GTA remaster. So shady.

 

[terzaerian]

Ross of Accursed Farms vindicated once again

https://www.youtube.com/user/chilledsanity

 

[terzaerian]

I will always denounce this practice. You owe the customer a way of keeping all their DLC, and a way of running a private multiplayer server. You don't get to just toss all that in the bin with no regard to customers and fans.

Tell that to Blizzard, the bastards.

 

[Phylop]

What was promised? What was implied? I will bet it wasn't for as long as you want. They cancelled my favorite TV show 20 times or more.

You can still find copies of old TV shows and watch them. This is different as it removes access to the product you already paid for. This is more akin to buying a movie on Amazon Prime and them removing your access to watch it.

 

[terzaerian]

You can still find copies of old TV shows and watch them. This is different as it removes access to the product you already paid for. This is more akin to buying a movie on Amazon Prime and them removing your access to watch it.

Spoiler alert: the latter scenario you mentioned is also bound to happen eventually.

In crypto we have a saying; not your keys, not your coin. The same principal applies to media: unless you've stored it locally, whether as a file or as a physical media, and there are no DRM-related restrictions to playback, you've only rented it.

 

[Diwiak]

Far Cry 3 Remastered??? Never heard of that, there was only some 3rd party mod afaik.
FC3 co-op multiplayer was great, will miss it.

 

[RudyBob]

You can still find copies of old TV shows and watch them. This is different as it removes access to the product you already paid for. This is more akin to buying a movie on Amazon Prime and them removing your access to watch it.

Valid point. Good job