Ubisoft’s Decommissions and Why People Are Angry

If you don’t frequent gaming topics on social media or weren’t using too much social media over the weekend, you may have missed the anger-fueled criticism pointed towards developer and publisher Ubisoft. Although a part of the issue seems to have been implied as a miscommunication and has currently been rectified, plenty of people are still mad.

I followed all of this over the past few days and even I was scratching my head at points. To make it a bit more digestible for anyone else confused and to shed more light on why this has caused the reaction it did, I’ve broken down each major element of the situation.

We will be deactivating online services on some of our older titles on September 1st, 2022. You can find the list of titles, platforms and impacts here. 👉 https://t.co/WB9R0g4BFw

— Ubisoft Support (@UbisoftSupport) July 1, 2022

Decommissions

It all started at the beginning of this month on July 1st when Ubisoft announced through Twitter that they were going to be decommissioning more games at the beginning of September. What this means is that they’re essentially retiring and closing the online services and offerings from older games. This isn’t new, as they have been doing this from as far back as 2013 which can be seen on their general support page about the matter. The list of affected games can be seen below and aside from the three-year-old multiplayer VR game Space Junkies that’s being taken completely off, the rest came out around a decade ago:

Anno 2070
Assassin’s Creed II
Assassin’s Creed III
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD
Assassin’s Creed Revelations
Driver San Francisco

Far Cry 3
Ghost Recon Future Soldier
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Rayman Legends
Silent Hunter 5
Space Junkies
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
ZombiU

For a majority of these games, this includes taking down the function of online multiplayer modes as well as any unlockable content such as skins or maps. The diehard fans who still enjoy these modes are never thrilled about support being lost and there is an argument for locking out any offline content instead of going in and figuring out a way to make it available for everyone. With how old most of these titles are, many won’t see any of this lost content as vital.

The Small Issues

There likely wouldn’t have been an issue if this was a typical decommissioning. Unfortunately, there is bigger content being removed for seven of the games on PC. Those games mention the following under the changes to functionality column: “Additionally, the installation and access to downloadable content (DLC) will be unavailable.”

This unsurprisingly did cause some grumbling on both forums and Steam reviews. If it specified that any online/multiplayer DLC wouldn’t be available or any parts related to that in a DLC would not be available, that would make sense. If it specified stopping purchases of the DLC, that would also make sense. The general wording used instead seemed to suggest that all DLCs for these games would simply no longer be available.

Considering that some of the DLC for these games include single-player content that players would have purchased with their money, having that taken away is unheard of. Even games that have been delisted from the Steam platform can still be made available to install and play for those who bought them prior.

Many are assuming it has to do with how these games and their DLC interact with the Ubisoft Connect service. It is speculated that it may be seen as too much of a hassle to update them to work without it. Whether that’s the case or not, it’s not surprising people would be mad from this alone.

Some other issues people had were with the transparency of the situation and the timing. Nothing on the Steam page for the games said that online features and DLC would be unavailable in just two months. For those who don’t follow the Ubisoft Support Twitter account, the only way to find out this important information was because of the outpour of negative reviews coming in.

In regards to timing, July 1st was also right in the middle of the Steam Summer Sale. Having these games on sale only two months before you’re making part of them unavailable isn’t the most consumer-friendly gesture.

The Bigger Issue

Conveniently, these pages did update with notices right after the sale ended. Most of them were given a single paragraph to inform potential buyers that DLC and online services would be shut off starting in September. Developer posts on the Steam discussion boards for the games would be posted a day or two after and doubled down on this by saying players would be unable to “Access/install/play DLC.” Those have since been edited, but the message remains the same.

Four of the games had two wholly different notices though. The first was that the game was no longer available to purchase on Steam at the request of the publisher. Every other game remained on the platform except for these. The second and much more alarming notice said “Please note this title will not be accessible following September 1st, 2022.” Without mentioning DLCs and since it obviously couldn’t still be talking about being unavailable for new players because that would make the first notice redundant, this absolutely read as saying that the entire game would no longer be available for anyone.

Ubisoft is making a precedent on Steam as Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD will not be accessible following September 1st, 2022. Even if you already bought it, a bar new low for consumers. pic.twitter.com/hRmmb2yM3w

— Nors3.eth (@Nors3) July 10, 2022

Although these games are mostly older and may not be bringing in as big of an audience as they did when they launched, this didn’t skate by without attention. For Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD in particular, there was a Steam discussion topic that went up within a couple of hours after the Steam Summer Sale ended and the Steam store page changed. This issue would end up gaining a lot more traction on July 10th when Twitter user @Nors3 posted about it in the tweet above. It caught on quickly and by Monday morning it was being covered by everybody.

Ubisoft would provide an updated statement to sites that reported on it such as IGN and Polygon to voice their support for current owners and intent to update information on other storefronts. The games (except for Space Junkies) that had been taken off Steam were available to purchase again and had replaced both notices with a single new one that stated “DLC for this product and online elements and features will become unavailable, as of Sept 1st, 2022. The base game will continue to be playable.” A follow-up reply to the original July 1st tweet also reiterated that players would not lose access or the option of redownloading them.

The Worrying Implications and Further Confusion

Indirectly implying it was a communications problem and fixing the big issue that people had should mean this controversy is over. However, that isn’t the case and many are still voicing their disdain and distrust for Ubisoft. It’s certainly worth noting that some have skewed feelings about the company already.

Whether it’s due to players feeling that the gameplay for many of their titles is formulaic, their endeavor alongside other companies into NFTs, or because of the lack of progress to handle its hostile workplace, Ubisoft has garnered a negative reputation in recent years for a lot of people. That doesn’t make this recent controversy any less of an issue. I also wouldn’t chalk it all up to an overblown reaction as some are.

Now, do I believe that Ubisoft was testing the waters and planning on taking away access to these games from paying customers? The optimist in me would hope not. That being said, Space Junkies is the only one of those that understandably would be entirely lost because it’s an online multiplayer-only game.

An argument can be made for Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD as a remastered version is packaged along with Assassin’s Creed III Remastered. Ubisoft has in fact done that before with Assassin’s Creed III Remastered when they delisted the original a week after the new version came out. I’m not a fan when publishers/developers pull those games off just to redirect people towards buying a new version. However, in that case, at least access isn’t lost to those that already have it in their library.

I can’t come up with a reason for the other two games though. Anno 2070 and Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic don’t have remastered versions to fall upon. They also both have a lot of single-player content. Even with low average player numbers, removing access entirely for them doesn’t make sense.

Something interesting to note is that the developers of the former game did announce their plans to update the online infrastructure on the same day Ubisoft announced their next set of decommissioned games. On July 8th a developer also responded to a Steam discussion topic by reaffirming their plans and also mentioning that the game would be unavailable for purchase until they hopefully manage to update it.

Not having the game on sale is believable in this sense if they want to focus on fixing it and offer a whole experience again. If that same logic was tied to the other two applicable games and the teams behind them wanted to update those old systems in the hopes that PC players could keep enjoying them, I’d understand why they delisted them. What stands at odds here is that no other development teams have said anything while only one made their intentions known immediately.

Ubisoft only vaguely mentioned they were assessing options in their updated statement. That already doesn’t give much hope for the other games. Anno 2070 was also put back in the store on July 11th which goes against what the developers said previously. It comes off like there’s a disconnect between what’s being said and how it’s being handled. This also loops back to the confusion about why they were delisted and seemingly set to not be available for anyone in the first place.

All of this further brings into question the legality of it all. Hypothetically, if a publisher wanted to stop access entirely to a product that people purchased, they would likely be dragged and criticized on the grounds of anti-consumerism and morality to a lesser degree. I’m positive the reception would be negative because of all the countless comments and tweets I’ve read over the last few days saying that Ubisoft was going to make these games unplayable for their corporate greed and break the law too.

Nobody wants to buy something and have it taken back from them after they buy it. The very idea of that sounds illegal and in most cases, it would be. Unfortunately, “ownership” is convoluted with video games. There are a lot of terms and conditions that people whiz by on a new game and it’s a lot more accurate to say that we’re buying a license to play a game for as long as the publisher wants. Revoking that right to play a game definitely isn’t consumer-friendly. Calling it illegal may not be correct though.

This is still an ongoing situation and we have until September to see how things pan out. My fingers are crossed that Ubisoft does make good on their word and has their teams devote the resources and time to figuring out solutions. As great as it is to hear that the base games will still be playable, removing access from the DLC that people paid for is still not a common practice in the industry.

I hope people continue to make noise about it. No matter if you think this has just been horribly mishandled and miscommunicated or if this was an example of a worst-case scenario with a publisher attempting to test what they can do with a consumer’s purchased product, people should make their opinion known. Anti-consumer practices have to start somewhere and the best way to stop them is to call it out when it looks like it and not support who’s doing it. Part of this absolutely could have been a series of mistakes, but what everybody perceived it as isn’t outside the realm of possibility.