383 people found this review helpful
16 people found this review funny
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Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 56.1 hrs on record
Posted: 14 Apr @ 8:43pm
Updated: 16 Apr @ 6:05pm

Warning, this game and its DLCs are protected by Uplay\Ubisoft connect, and Ubisoft may remove your license to run this game and DLC at any time as it happened with The Crew! Do not buy any game and DLC tied to Ubisoft connect launcher\drm and refund every Ubisoft game and DLC you got that has this launcher\drm until they took away your game and DLC from you and shut down servers!

Now the Full story:
You bought game on Steam, but because it relies on Ubisoft Connect (Uplay) third party DRM and Launcher - Ubisoft has full control over game on their side, and they not just pulled the server plug without releasing offline patch or releasing server software binary and server and game sources to let users continue to run the game and maintain it unofficially, they also removed license to run The Crew via Uplay\Ubi (dis)connect without removing DRM from game, which is 100% illegal and literally a thievery, and it also goes against Steam rules.

This leads to next conclusion - Valve should not allow any company to push third party DRM and Launchers on steam, and all the DRM and Launch must be 100% steam controlled with Valves ability to release a steam wide patch that will allow to play all steam games forever offline if Steam servers will ever goes down and even online with unofficial servers.

Any existing game with third party online DRM and Launcher must be forced by Valve to get patched out of these launchers and DRMs and until its done entire catalogue of games from such publishers that has it should be temporary blocked from sales until they will meet this needed technical requirment with all previously released games.

Third party publishers may keep their launchers\server side integration only via DLL, but not the stand alone exe launchers (same way as old GFWL and current Xbox integration did it long time ago) which should be optional and should provide online features such as achievements, and stats and MP, that mirrors Steam features but not replaces them, but this should not serve as DRM that prevents launching game on Steam and that can controls licenses besides Steam own license control implementation.

Additionally Valve must force all new and old games to use Steam's own cloud saves feature for every game to prevent cases like The Crew where all the progress was stored server-side and we lost even our progress when they shut down servers, as no local copy or Steam cloud copy of save exist.

If third party launchers provide cloud saves this feature - they may remain and may act as secondary copy in case someone would want to launch this game outside of steam directly from third party launchers (that may allow to launch their non steam versions but should be removed from Steam version), and it should be implemented via online services shared DLL, not the separate exe launchers.

Also every game with online services that is sold on steam, new or old should be patched to provide steam online services as alternative to publisher's own servers for all the online features, and additionally all the dedicated and master servers binaries and sources must be provided with every online game old and new they must be patched out to get option which allows to change master servers and to connect directly to ips of servers dedicated or p2p.

This must be done with all the old games and must be forced to new games. This should give steam users warranty that whenever official servers will be shut done, all online features will remain working with Steam or custom user servers as backup to which users should be able to switch easily with in-game options (ot at least inside some ini or cfg file or CMD argument).

We should demand Valve to enforce this policy and to ban publishers and developers who refuse to update their games according to this "game preservation policy". If Valve will deny this request we should force Valve to eforce this policy to third parties with help of courts and goverments of our countries and all sorts of customer protection services!

Besides this - Ubisoft should be the 1st company to get banned by Valve from selling games on Steam until all the old and new games will be patched to remove Uplay launcher\drm and allow 100% offline and Steam only launch of every game, and until Ubi will restore all online features of all released games with release of user operatable backup servers which software should be provided with game distribution, and until games updated to have option that would allow to change to custom backup master servers adress and also to connect directly to dedicated servers and p2p servers of other cliens of games to play online with them.

Lan, direct ip, change of master servers adresses, release of dedicated servers and presence of alternate p2p connection without any third party servers all must be 100% forced technical requirement for any game with any online feature, ever released on steam.

And we should never trust Ubisoft again and should stop buying any Uplay\Ubisoft connect protected games until this protection will removed from every game, and we should demand refund for every Ubisoft game that uses Uplay or that has Ubi online features disabled, because part of features we paid for are gone and because Uplay proved to be unreliable service that may take away any of your games even if you own them on Steam, so to prevent another act of thievery from Ubisoft we must refund every game that is tied to their servers and Valve must allow this after what Ubi did to The Crew and many other games, like Splinter Cell Black list which is now 1\3 of game it was after coop and versus servers was shut down, making more thant half of game broken and unaccessible!

One more thing we should all do - we should not trust any other publisher which pushes their own launchers and drm, including DENUVO with its online activation, and any of games that has third party launchers, their own DRMS and Denuvo should also be boycotted or refunded if such games was already purchased. And we must demand Valve to enforce removal of those third party launchers and DRMs and online only dependency from all existing games on Steam!

We must also demand our goverments to make a law that forces all of this and restricts companies to use online DRMs and to shut down any servers without proving offline drm free patches and providing server side software and option to change adress to make it possible for user continue to run servers unofficially and also without providing entire source codes of discontinued\unsupported\shut down games and their server side software.

There must a law that forces release of full (even if it includes commercial middleware, it should remain intact in sources and law should be above its licenses, but license may restrict commercial use of such sources, so you can only modificate and release such source in non profitable attempt to keep discontinued game or software operational and up to date) source code and source assets package of any game and software when its getting discontinued and unsupported and its servers getting shut down, so that users can keep them functional and operational unofficially. Also law must force release of source in 2-4 years since initial sales, when sales become unsignificant, even when official support not yet finished, to let users fix games and maintain them even if publisher did not officially discontinued game. Law should also invalidate time limited licenses for music and other third party insertions and make them lasting for infinity as integral part of original game, expired licenses should not prevent games from being sold, and should prevent them from being patched for sake of removal of expired content, this should not allowed!

All of this needs to be forced by laws for sake of game preservation!!!!!!!
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25 Comments
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 9:10pm 
Even if publisher has to cut expenses for server maintainance, they must release server side of game for user's own maintainance, and this must be done at day one, because keeping game hostage tied to remote online servers is like selling you a car without wheels but letting you to demand delivery of wheels while you need to dtrive your car and then removing those wheels from you again, but this on-demand wheel delivery and removal of wheels until next demand will not last forever and one day they will stop doing this, and your car will be broken and impossible to driver, which is completely illegal, so you always should have wheels parked with your car as is vital part of it to make it functional as advertised during purchase, and wheels should not be stored on vendors side, they are part of your property.
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 9:08pm 
Imagine buying a car from vendor, and then vendor coming to your garage without your permission and removing wheels from your purchased car and you cant drive it anymore, do you think its legal? No, it isnt, its a violation of your ownership rights, its an act of vandalism and robbery over your property. This is exactly what any game developer or publisher does when they shut down servers and remove online features that was part of game during purchase. Those online features a wheels, your game is a car, your computer is your garage, and nobody is allowed to delete online features from game and make it impossible to run the game or any of it features because servers was shut down.
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 9:00pm 
Basically any llocal law of every country related to ownership, purchase and advertising says that anything you purchase should have 100% advertised features, so if game advertised to have online features, removal of them post purchase is illegal and violates initial purchase terms and makes advertised features false, also laws about ownerships says that only you are in control of your pocession and since purchase nobody can do anything with it, including removal of something that was part of your property during purchase, which means that any forced updates that removes any features against your will is violation of your ownership rights and illegal and considered a robbery, and anything that was removed must be restored and given back to you.
C.hunky 12 May @ 7:41pm 
Oh ok cool cool, which law says this?
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 7:19pm 
Also while any game is sold, and publisher or developer still exist, they are obligated to release updates every year to fix anything that was broken with OS updates, they are obligated to keep your game 100% functional as it was at the moment of purchase.
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 7:19pm 
And even should be allowed for other gamers to connect to your server as its part of initial features, so other users should be also provided with copy of entire server software require to keep game functional. Since server and client OSes may be different, they should port server to same OS client runs on, and also provide full source code, to let you do your own porting for any OS of preference. Actually non of games should be tied to specific OS, as OS getting changed over time and games getting broken, so they can not be maintained 100% functional with compilled OS and even Hardware specific binary code, this is why every game should be shipped with complete source code, so in case of change of your OS or Hardware of preference, you can fix the source code and allow a new compilled binary to run on newer OSes.
v00d00m4n 12 May @ 7:15pm 
Non of agreements is allowed to strip us from basic ownership rights, those agreements has no legal power, its a bunch of BS that tries to convince you that everything they want to do is legal and that you have no rights, but when you come to court, Judge could only use license agreement as toilet paper when it violates laws. For example if terms of service tells that service can be terminated and access to all purchased product can be canceled at any time - this TOS automatically is illegal. By law you games you purchase should remain 100% functional exactly as it was at date of puschase, and even if service or your access to service is terminated, publisher should provide you a copy of server side software as this is vital split part of game, and a patch that would allow to change addresses of official servers to your own servers and let you run server local and connect your copy of game to it to let it remain 100% functional.
C.hunky 12 May @ 5:27pm 
I think it's literally BS how Valve and Ubisoft are following the rules set in the document I agreed to when I bought the game. It's like they make up their own terms and agreements of some kind. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Sleepy 12 May @ 1:02pm 
Theres this crazy little document you gotta read when you sign up for your steam and ubisoft account called "terms and condidions". You should've read it
father 23 Apr @ 4:11am 
I almost bought the game (to be refunded) just to write a review saying: If you want to own this game - Pirate it. We need to show Ubishit that they can't screw us like this. In what world is this bullshit ok. We also need to remember FAR CRY 3 DLCS. WHAT THE FUCK UBISOFT