From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
While it wasn't the first game to be yanked out of the hands of paying
gamers, Ubisoft's shuttering of "The Crew" is probably the best known
example of that happening. Probably because the game itself never
really _needed_ its multiplayer component; it was quite good just
being played in single-player. So when Ubisoft shut down the servers
without allowing gamers to keep playing the game, it was a pre-eminent
example of how publishers are effectively robbing gamers of their
property and our culture of part of its heritage... just to save the
company a few bucks.
Defenders of the action pointed out that the EULA (and legal
precedent) permitted this, and anyway, it's not like there was any
alternative, right? If the game wasn't profitable, surely we couldn't
expect a company to keep financing the servers forever. But others
suggested that the publishers could, instead of just shutting down the
servers, make the code available to their customers so THEY could keep
using the product they'd paid for even after Ubisoft was no longer
interested. "No," said the naysayers. "It's too expensive; it's too
much work!"
To them I point at "The Crew Unlimited", a fan-led project* that has backward-engineered the server code and made the game playable again.
A project that they finished in about a year, despite not having
access to the source-code or the resources of a triple-A publisher.
It's probably something Ubisoft could have whipped out in a week...
but instead decided wasn't worth the effort despite upsetting huge
numbers of gamers and almost single-handedly spurring the formation of
the "Stop Killing Games" movement.
True, not every game that gets killed by a publisher could be so
easily transited to a single-player (or player-run server) model. "The
Crew" stands out _because_ it was, in many ways, a single-player game
forced into an MMO framework 'for reasons'. But that's all the more
reason Ubisoft shouldn't have been so obstinate about its shutdown,
and instead worked with the fans rather than just giving all the fans
the middle-finger.
Currently, TCU isn't actually publicly available; it's official
release date is later this month (15 September, to be precise). It
will be a server emulator that will allow you to run it locally or in
an online mode (the former to play the game entirely single-player,
the latter if you want to invite a select number of friends to race
with you). It will require you own the original game, but as the
modders have no way to confirm that (since that would require access
to the cryptographic keys that verify the game code/serial numbers)
it'll have to take things on trust.
I actually enjoyed playing "The Crew". It wasn't the greatest
arcade-racing game around, but it was fun to race coast-to-coast
across its virtual rendition of the United States of America. The game
did suffer from a lot of the usual Ubisoft nonsense --lots of
pointless collectibles and repetitive side-quests, and the usual
terrible story and characters-- but the cars were varied and there was
a lot of territory to explore. It certainly was head-n-shoulders
better than the 2018 sequel. The shut-down of the original was
disappointing; it wasn't a game I played a lot, but I liked knowing
that --if I wanted to-- I could do a continent-wide cannonball run
anytime I wanted.
Or so I thought. Until Ubisoft did their thing.
So kudos to the fans who are reviving the game. And fuck you, Ubisoft,
for shutting down the game and so transparently lying about how that
was your only option.
* website here
https://thecrewunlimited.com/about/
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