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The Crew has been delisted from all digital storefronts | Servers will close on March 31, 2024

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
The notice was posted on the game's Steam page. As of now, there hasn't been an official tweet from Ubisoft regarding the delisting and the impending server shut-down.
Notice: The Crew™ is no longer available on the Steam store.

Notice: All editions and additional content for The Crew are no longer available for purchase.
The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew owners. After this date, the game servers will shut down, which means the game will not be accessible anymore.
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Elysium44

Banned
Digital =/= Online only.

Many here are fine with digital.
You'll be hard-pressed for people who welcome online only, at most a few that dismiss concerns.

Indeed, and the servers will have been up for nearly ten years by the time it goes offline. I don't think too many people can complain about that really, I wouldn't.
 

Gambit2483

Member
Digital =/= Online only.

Many here are fine with digital.
You'll be hard-pressed for people who welcome online only, at most a few that dismiss concerns.

True, but all-digital also leads to the death of game preservation. You will eventually forever lose access to the game in both scenarios. Jump Force may not have been an amazing game but if it were digital only it would essentially be lost to the world forever. Even bad games deserve to live on.
 

Elysium44

Banned
So If let's say i come over and just take your 10 year old furniture,PC,monitor,tv and all your other 10 years old stuff you wouldn't complain then? What's your adress? 😂

Servers for old games get turned off, it's not unreasonable when the player base has dwindled and there are still ongoing costs. No different to Forza or Gran Turismo.
 

FeralEcho

Member
Servers for old games get turned off, it's not unreasonable when the player base has dwindled and there are still ongoing costs. No different to Forza or Gran Turismo.
Yes but games becoming unplayable because of said server shutdown should never become the norm which is why this shit shouldn't be acceptable and WE Should complain.Companies will stop at nothing to step on your rights as a consumer as has been shown time and time again and we should never stop telling them to fuck off when they deserve it.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
but all-digital also leads to the death of game preservation. You will eventually forever lose access to the game in both scenarios
Not really. As long as the game itself doesn't require an online connection, it can be preserved even more easily than physical ones, as you can make as many backups of it as your heart desires.
 
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Gambit2483

Member
Not really. As long as the game itself doesn't require an online connection, it can be preserved even more easily than physical ones, as you can make as many backups of it as your heart desires.
Personal backups, sure but what about everyone else?
 

Elysium44

Banned
Yeah, insane it’s just… gone

It hasn't gone yet, you just can't buy it any more. There is an offline mode within the game, if they want to enable it next year when the servers are turned off, which remains to be seen.

 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Welcome to always online gaming, lads! Kinda sucks since I have the game on disc (PS4 version) which will become a coaster if they don't patch in an offline mode.

image.png


Also media outlets like IGN has picked up the story.

 
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YuLY

Gold Member
You'll be hard-pressed for people who welcome online only, at most a few that dismiss concerns.
"yOu dOnT HaVe InTeRneT iN 2023 ????"

This is why i never buy always online games. I prefer to never experience something, than to play it, love it and then never be able to experience it cause the servers are down. Ignorance is bliss. At least with digital only, you have the crack options if authentification/authorization/denuvo shit hits the fan in a few years.

I buy games, not rent them.
 
All-digital isn't the problem. Requiring a game to be always online even when it has a single player mode is the problem. Once the servers are gone then "poof" so is your game. GOG, Steam, and Microsoft have never taken away my digital games. I wonder whether this affects the Crew on Xbox or Playstation?
 
Is this game unplayable without the servers active (no offline single player)? That's always such a poor design decision when they build the single player modes like that.
 
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This is larger than just 'all digital future'. This specific issue has been an ongoing issue with games about cars, popular music, movies, anime, etc. for a while now. Licensing is the problem. Always has been. Look for older Forza/Forza Horizon games and you'll see most of them are not downloadable even though they are backwards compatible.
 

Roni

Member
Wonder if HITMAN will have a similar fate in the future; it's a good game, they just never bothered to make an offline version with unlockables.
 
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This is larger than just 'all digital future'. This specific issue has been an ongoing issue with games about cars, popular music, movies, anime, etc. for a while now. Licensing is the problem. Always has been. Look for older Forza/Forza Horizon games and you'll see most of them are not downloadable even though they are backwards compatible.

At least you can still play the delisted Forza games if you own them.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I dont know how much it costs to pay and maintain servers, but love or hate Activision at least their servers seem to stay on a long time.

Every once in a while I play World at War. It's still online even though the Xbox community is down to 500 people online. If you google it, people test out to see if COD 2 online is still accessible. It is even if there's only one guy looking for a match.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
This sucks. They should've made the game playable in limited singleplayer-only form, like Polyphony is planning to do with Gran Turismo Sport or like Driveclub that's still working without the servers and all the social stuff.

The first game is way superior - you actually get a cool story instead of some bullshit cutscenes and dialogues you want to mute. Plus exploring the map and doing various challenges was more fun. I've finished The Crew 2 in less than a week and never had the urge to come back to that game.
 
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Digital =/= Online only.

Many here are fine with digital.
You'll be hard-pressed for people who welcome online only, at most a few that dismiss concerns.
There are examples of digital-only games that have been removed from online stores so people who've bought them couldn't download them again if they needed to though.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
There are examples of digital-only games that have been removed from online stores so people who've bought them couldn't download them again if they needed to though.

I don't know a single example of game like this on Steam. Can you name some (Steam or not)? Interesting.
 
I guess having to update server security stuff for all games forever is not feasible.
But making your previous games kinda disappear seems just weird. As though the newer Crew replaces this older one. Makes not even sense with Fifa and Madden etc.
Kill the online portion once player count is too low anyway, okay, but some revenue must be generated also from older or ancient stuff too. Why not just leave the rest up for new generations to discover and try it? There were not tons of people online, but I platinumed recently Split Second or Nfs MW since those still worked and they provided fun even though kinda outdated.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
There are examples of digital-only games that have been removed from online stores so people who've bought them couldn't download them again if they needed to though.
Honestly don't know any case of such, at least on PC.

But either way, if you make a proper backup - which i assume people worried about preservation would - or you have no issues sailing the seven seas to obtain abandonware, the game will still be available to players 🤷‍♂️.

Keep in mind i'm still talking from a PC player perspective. I know console makers are much scummier with the way they handle digital.
 
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Dr.Morris79

Member
Digital only future sucks... if you're not on PC. Scary.
The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew owners. After this date, the game servers will shut down, which means the game will not be accessible anymore.

I don't think having it on the pc will help here chief 🤔

I can safely say that from here on out I will never buy another UBI game again. I'm done

Fuck this company.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew owners. After this date, the game servers will shut down, which means the game will not be accessible anymore.

I don't think having it on the pc will help here chief 🤔

I can safely say that from here on out I will never buy another UBI game again. I'm done

Fuck this company.

If the game is worth saving (and I don't know, I never played it), community will save it. Mod/community patch will do the trick.

Example? Test Drive Unlimited 2. A game that actually was worth saving. So yeah, 'chief', PC is the place to be in all digital future.

 

Dr.Morris79

Member
If the game is worth saving (and I don't know, I never played it), community will save it. Mod/community patch will do the trick.

Example? Test Drive Unlimited 2. A game that actually was worth saving. So yeah, 'chief', PC is the place to be in all digital future.


TDU 2 was never online only? What's your point?

I can still play TDU 2 and still do on my deck, The Crew is reliant on UBI servers. Good luck trying to play it offline

I've just stuck in a refund request to Steam for the crew. I bought it in April, only played 44 minutes on PC. Played it to death on the Xbox and PlayStation

Let's see if Steam refund. Fuck UBI.
 
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