The largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games

[Ross Scott]

Here's a campaign video to stop games from being destroyed!  While a chunk of it is focused on "The Crew" shutdown, there are other options also.  There are more legal options brought up here on what we can do stop this than I think has ever been discussed before.  Also check out stopkillinggames.com for how to take action directly!  A much shorter version (50 seconds) will be up tomorrow.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

[daisekihan]

Ross, I was wondering, even if federal law won't do anything, have you looked into state law? New York and California have economies as large some of the European countries you are targeting, and they have pretty progressive laws. 

[Im_CIA]

Ross looks like he has been getting death threats from ubisoft

[discordia]

ok so this may be a bit late, since the video is already out, and i don't think i'll have capacity to help with this, but there should be a mailing list where people can select what country they're in and if they own the crew so they can get reminders on stuff like petitions opening and reminding people to get back to the french consumer agency after waiting 2 weeks.

[Ross Scott]

 

@daisekihanYes, that's exactly what the previous Crew update video covered.  Short version is the EULAs specify which state it can be tried in.  They completely bypass state law.

[QubaHQ]

Hey @Ross Scott, first of all - thank you for doing this. Having the info so well collected and organized really gives old farts like myself no more excuses!

 

I have just attempted filing a ticket with Ubisoft. After 3 attempts with two different browsers, I concluded it is not possible. Completing the form and submitting it takes me to the page that states: "Thank you, there was an issue submitting your case".

 

This may be a genuine error or somebody at the support site pulled the switch - You can't contact us if we don't answer the phone!

I am curious to hear if I am alone with this error, or is it a wide-spread issue. If this is valid for everyone, I wonder what would be the revised procedure of contacting the DGCCRF?

 

Keep up the good fight!

Edited April 3 by QubaHQ (see edit history)

[Jon4963]

Hey @Ross Scott, have you tried getting in contact with Louis Rossman for the US side of things? 

He's pretty vocal about erosion of ownership, GaaS included, and even has a non-profit called repair preservation group which fights for similar stuff. 

If you haven't, it might be worth it giving him a call. Maybe he could help or give you some legal pointers and worst case you still get the extra reach. 

[daisekihan]

Damn, I must have missed it. 

 

I just hope that if this is successful, Ubisoft and companies like it don't decide to double down and keep killing games in the U.S. and elsewhere just to assert that they have the prerogative to do as they please with their intellectual property even if it makes no financial sense.

[Ross Scott]

@QubaHQ

 

There's probably one of two things going on:

1. It's ignoring all complaints for The Crew due to the volume of complaints.

2. It's having a server overload.

My recommendation is try again, but just select The Crew 2, and put the same message in.  If it gets through, then we know it's probably intentional.  If it doesn't, then it's an actual server error.  In that event, you can use that as evidence that Ubisoft is unable to maintain communication with the customers.  It's probably worth waiting a few days to see if it resumes though.

[Jay]

Hi @Ross Scott,

 

As I was submitting to the ACCC I wanted to add Ubisoft's URL and noticed they have taken the article down:

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-au/help/the-crew/connectivity-and-performance/article/decommissioning-of-online-services-for-the-crew/000106399

 

It now displays 404 Article not found.

[Rarefoil]

Hey, I noticed today that there aren't any subtitles on this video yet. Are those coming soon? I would also prioritize getting subtitles in multiple languages.

[Zabeus]

@daisekihan Yes Louis Rossman can tell you all about how "progressive" the laws in NY are. ;)

 

@Jay Good catch. Here are a couple of similiar articles:

• https://archive.is/wlsHT
• https://www.ubisoft.com/en-au/help/the-crew/purchases-and-rewards/article/availability-of-the-crew/000107591

[QubaHQ]

After a suggestion by one of YouTube comments, I attempted to submit the Ubisoft ticket - this time using a private browser window (A.K.A. Incognito Mode). It seems to have fixed the problem.

If you are experiencing errors, I can recommend this method.

[RocketDude]

I finally managed to get through the other day, so now all I gotta do is wait a week.

[Constantine]

Hi Ross, appreciate the work your doing here!

 

I dont know much about the legalites of service agreements and such, but that I would just put this here as common sense details to help the case, which you probably already thought out, but just in case.

 

the fact that the service agreement:

 

1) contains something that is against consumer rights laws

2) is displayed to you before PLAYING the game, not before i already paid for it by pressing "buy to OWN" (i got the crew for free on xbox live games with gold, after which on the store page it says either renew my gold or "Buy to own") Likewse if the game is bought physically, cashiers arent going to explain that you are buying a license, not a product, that can be pulled by the publishers whim. 

3) is accpeted by pressing a button, not by signing my name. They cant ensure that I, the buyer, was the first one to open the game and read the agreement. (my kid, if i had one, could have logged into my account, press play and skip the agreement.) If they want to make it a contract service rather than a product, they need to handle this the way Fido handles my phone contract, and make me sign.  

4) is tied to a game that runs completely fine without the need of other players. (Gamers understand that game publishers dont have to support an online only game forever, but the crew is "online only" because they decided to do that either for piracy reasons or too lazy to incorporate an offline mode: which since the game is designed to work without would be very easy)

 

And Ross, could you also shed some light (sorry if you already did elsewhere and i missed it) but do you know why ubisoft is doing this? what is their gain to make millions of customers enemies when the solution was to do one final patch to make the game playable offline after server shut down? As i said, i cant fathom how that would be a lot of work since I finished the game without interacting with a single person.

Edited April 15 by Constantine (see edit history)

[Constantine]

sorry point 3 would make more sense and a stronger argument if you bought it for the child. Parents would buy it for kids and never see the service agreement as the buyer. Also, a kid should not be able to accept these agreements. The agreements should be presented on the purchase page when you insert your credit card, like netflix or other streaming services. 

[Apetivist]

Hey Ross, I shared your video on BlueSky. Thanks for your hard work!

[polymerize-finale]

@Ross Scottyou have said previously that you're not going to ask people for money for this campaign, unless you have some specific purpose you want to achieve (like a lawsuit which you think might succeed). While I support that in general, I have to ask: could you use money?

 

Obviously all of us could use some more money, but I mean: are there any specific things you would like to do, which you believe would be impactful for this campaign, and which you could do if you had some specific amount of money? For example, maybe you know someone who would be a good part-time assistant, and you could hire them for $10,000. Or maybe there's some specific software tool that would be really useful for running the campaign, but the account/license would cost $1000/yr, or something along those lines.

 

I ask because I know people who are rich, generous, and like video games. In my experience, they tend to be much more attracted to donating to concrete objectives that they can see the value of ("Buy Ross a Salesforce Marketing Cloud subscription*") than to vague future possibilities ("Help support Ross's campaign"). Thus, if you have a wishlist, I'd be interested to hear it. Feel free to message me privately about this if you like.

 

IF YOU ARE NOT ROSS feel free to brainstorm ideas. Perhaps Ross has not thought of something. I would advise brainstormers to consider primarily things where the solution is money, not time and effort (mostly). For example, I suggested that if Ross *ALREADY KNEW* someone who would be available and effective as a part-time assistant, then this would be a good use of money. But stopping other work in order to search for, vet, and hire such an assistant could easily be a inefficient distraction.

 

*I am not in any way suggesting that Salesforce Marketing Cloud is something that Ross ought to consider using. I have no experience with it. I just tried to think "What's an expensive software product that someone might use in connection with a publicity campaign?"

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

Working on English subtitles for increasing reach. I can add (permanent) annotations within them if so desired, as that feature was discontinued by YouTube.

[BlueTemplar]

Hi, I've been impressed by this article about an online space, Polis, to discuss political issues :

 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/08/21/240284/the-simple-but-ingenious-system-taiwan-uses-to-crowdsource-its-laws/

 

Especially, about the claims that it promotes consensus-building and finding out what the right solutions are even when they are different from the question as formulated first !

 

Now, this is much more of a long-term thing, and perhaps too late, considering where you are in this political campaign, but maybe something to keep in mind (especially if, sadly, it fails), since I would assume this is far from the only political issue you care about...