How Ubisoft learned its lesson after stopping the online racing game “The Crew”

It’s no fun when a game you love becomes unplayable. It’s frustrating when you can’t legally buy a game anymore, or when the hardware is old and hard to get. But what’s even more puzzling is when a publisher shuts down a perfectly good game, just like Ubisoft did The crew.

Why was Ubisoft shut down? The crew?

The crew It was the first entry in Ubisoft’s open-world racing series, and was unique in many ways. For starters, the map was a miniature version of the United States with several major cities and lots of streets to explore. The various biomes mirror those of the real country, such as the sandy Mojave region around Las Vegas or the swampy Everglades region near Miami.

The first entry is arguably superior to the second in many ways, as it has a good story, an amazing car tuning system, the police roaming freely, and a lot of things that you will love. The point is, The crew It was great, and a lot of people loved it.

However, Ubisoft shut down the game’s servers for good in early 2024. Since it was an online-only game, players lost access forever. The most likely reason is that the game’s servers cost a lot to run, as the game did not have a large player base. Simply put, it was no longer profitable to keep running servers, so Ubisoft’s decision was to simply pull the plug.

There was anger

Fans were rightfully angry when they heard they would lose access to a beloved game permanently. Many of them paid the full $60 when the game was first released, and also purchased additional downloadable content, only to see the game they owned disappear without any refund. A friend and I got the game for free, but we were still upset when we heard the news. We have lost the opportunity to revisit the game that defined our late adolescence.

Although the game has a core multiplayer component, most of the content can be enjoyed in single player. This means there’s no reason you need to be connected to the internet to enjoy the map and cars or race against AI opponents.

The crew It highlights a big problem with the online-first game model, where players can lose access when the developer wants them to, and there’s no way to stop them. I would go so far as to say that online-only is Ubisoft’s preferred design option because it allows the publisher to recycle and Selling players the same game.

The most terrible part of this story happened next The crew Went offline, as well Ubisoft began canceling licensesPerhaps in an attempt to prevent players from creating alternative ways to play the game.

This hostile approach to its player base highlights a worrying trend, whereby companies prioritize short-term profits over long-term player retention. The good news is that an enthusiastic group of players called The Crew Unlimited has been able to find workarounds and is working on them The crew Backup and playback with the help of server emulator.

Ubisoft will (hopefully) not repeat the mistakes of the past

Let me preface this by saying that Ubisoft has not announced this The crew You will get no official offline mode or server resurrection, at least at the time of writing. Instead the company Announced on X (Twitter) Which Crew 2 and Al Crew Car Festival Offline modes are available. Although we won’t be getting the original back, at least we won’t lose access to later racing games in the series.

After the announcement, Ubisoft offered a 98% discount for two weeks Crew 2 And 70% for Al Crew Car Festival Steamed. I managed to crash Crew 2 For one euro. It is not a substitute for The crewBut that’s okay.

The biggest problem is that it looks too much like a “gacha” game, unlike the original entry that was released before microtransactions took off. The game is cheap, but packed with different things that you can buy for real money if you want to speed up progress.

Status matters more than you might think

If Ubisoft wanted to keep players happy, it could have done one of two things The crew. The first option was to add an offline mode. The other two entries are also online only, and are getting an offline mode, so I can’t help but think it could have been ported over to the older game as well. Maybe Ubisoft is too proud to reverse course, or maybe they lost the source code (this has happened before).

The second option was to continue running the servers at a loss. This may sound crazy, but if the player base is small, it is possible to reduce server costs to match active players and reduce losses. This is what Blizzard did Heroes of the Storma MOBA game from 2014 You still get maintenance patches Although it stopped for a long time. Blizzard will likely lose money due to this decision, but the game’s small community appreciates it very much.

However, Blizzard is not a role model when it comes to video game preservation. the Warcraft III: Remastered The modified version has been corrected over the original version Warcraft IIImaking the original unplayable. Remakes and remakes of video games should be treated as completely different games, as they usually provide a different experience from the games on which they were based.

It’s also worth noting that older games are generally easier to run. The crew Much less demanding than Crew 2. You You’ll probably be able to play the original on the underpowered laptop you take with you when you travel, giving you something to play with while you’re away.

Thanks to pressure from gamers, Ubisoft takes The crew The franchise is offline, but that’s about more than a few mediocre racing games. This may set a precedent for other video game companies to follow.

We know that the Internet won’t last forever, so it’s essential that we preserve our old video game collections with offline access and storage on physical media.