Local groups oppose publishers like Ubisoft for ending live-service titles such as The Crew.
Local groups oppose publishers like Ubisoft for ending live-service titles such as The Crew.
Many sectors treat this as a rule where you don’t truly own what you purchase. You only get the permission to use it for the duration set by the company, all outlined in the agreement. It’s pretty confusing, but if this expands, I’d like to see it spread to other areas. Remembering my personal experience, I actually own what I buy.
Private servers have played a key role in preserving many older MMOs, highlighting the strong dedication of gamers. While it's understandable to halt updates, completely shutting down servers goes against the spirit of enjoying a game you've invested in.
When a game attracts a strong community, even if most of its development happens on the server side, fans can revive it themselves. A classic example from earlier days might help: Westwood Studios’ Earth & Beyond was a space-based MMO, similar to Eve Online. It resembled games like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and D3, where the server-side code was crucial—without it, the client would be useless. After EA acquired Westwood Studios solely to control the C&C brand, they abruptly ended Earth & Beyond. It took years, but a small group of passionate players managed to rebuild the game using whatever information they had. Now the game runs smoothly online again. It would have been better if this hadn’t happened, because the player base probably grew much larger after the official servers stopped. While some popular titles can be brought back through hard work, giving developers access to necessary code is essential for private servers or solo play. I support this approach.
It used to be a certain number of games supported, and I know a few that still do. Some older titles from around 2005 and earlier include this feature, at least from COD through COD2, and even an old one like Jane's WWII Fighters (around 1998) with it. Turn it on, let others know the IP you need for hosting the game, and proceed. After 2006 and onwards, things slowed down because Steam and Valve shifted to online services. If you wanted to stay online with friends, you had to log in and pay for the same experience you could have done yourself for free before. For MMOs or big games, having a dedicated server makes sense—it avoids the hardware costs and is now covered by the same "Pay-Rug" system we use today. If any of these still work, I don’t think so anymore since I stopped using them when Valve and Steam took over.