The administrator is anti-DRM, and this campaign is a big/small stepping stone towards that, judging by his previous videos. Just that going for the main reason, the king of gaming issues, DRM, will dilute everything again.

And as t-elos mentioned, Ubisoft being company with HQ in France, seems to be the opportunity like no other to start with something.

This campaign currently being laser focused on The Crew might have to do something with the scope of the problem - I imagine the (winnable) options are limited when there are no laws regarding gaming DRM in the rest of the world.

That one a court case in the USA from 1999, that helps companies be pro-DRM in such all-in mode of operations seems to be unopposed to such an extent that making "DRM out of our games" campaign and winning probably has no chance until something in the law changes.

I think the campaign is somewhat poorly organized. There's way too much discussion elsewhere on the internet where the people discussing it seem to disagree/misunderstand the fundamental goal of the campaign. Casts a lot of pointless ambiguity on their movement/goals.

I have some sympathy though, because it seems to be just one youtuber and a small group of unpaid volunteers.

It's easy to shoot the messenger, but I think the "naysayers" real point is that the site's FAQ comes across as "sort of but not really" caring about DRM as long as it works:- Always online DRM isn't a "lifeline" (talked about like it's some positive feature), it's a killswitch. Reading through the whole FAQ twice, the only issue the author seems to have is "the practice of a seller destroying a product" but is apparently perfectly fine with layer upon layer of DRM in both single and online-only multi-player games "whilst they're supported". I'm not seeing any meaningful "we're anti DRM" stance there on that website at all regardless of what he might have said in another video.

The "naysayers" other point is that as mentioned above in post 56, even ignoring server closures, The Crew wasn't just online-only, didn't just have 3x layers of DRM in (inc Denuvo-like VMProtect) for over a decade, it had its whole underlying save system cloud-only by design. Had the servers not closed, many of the same currently outraged fanbase would be happy with that (as they previously were for the preceeding decade). I remember when the game launched 10 years ago, I was interested, took one look at the DRM and said "Hard no. It's literally the racing equivalent of Diablo 3..." That's what "not supporting the problem" looks like in practise. Buying it then issuing "just make a simple patch to make it run offline" demands as if it were the equivalent of just a simple "NoCD" crack isn't really accurate as half the game's backend code would need rewriting (the whole save / online profile / achievement / cloud save, server netcode, lobby, etc, systems). And realistically they just aren't going to do that vs just making another game (as they already did with The Crew 2).

So you can't really blame "naysayers" for pointing out the obvious - these 'games' absolutely are services by design. And "The Crew's" DRM problem that enables all this isn't a game specific problem, it's a publisher problem, ie, look at the wall of single player Far Cry 6, Watch Dogs 2, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, etc, and they virtually all have the same "All versions require Ubisoft Connect, Denuvo Anti-Tamper, and VMProtect DRM" (which piracy aside, is also what renders them user unmoddable). The only way of putting a dent in that is to not keep throwing money at the publisher in the first place, not just carry on rewarding The Poster Child of Denuvo then beg for a workaround but only for already abandoned multi-player ones whilst remaining quietly happy with all the other DRM "as long as it works / whilst its supported"...

principle not principal

Right you are. Me am dumb.

The the crux of the argument is that we can't just rally to end DRM outright, as great as that would be, it's not a feasible avenue to pursue without greater support and awareness and there are too many casual consumers buying things without understanding the ramifications for 'vote with your wallet' to truly work against online-locking of content, but if there's no logistical reason why a game that was paid for cannot be preserved after official support ends, then there there should be legislation in place to prevent the senseless destruction of it.

While this is anecdotal as I don't have any coding skills, from what I have read, people who do have done significant dives into the game and determined that within the code are simple command toggles that would enable it to function entirely offline, these are however not accessible for modification by the end user due to robust encryption. People following this for a long time say the game can be fully functional offline, and the only reason it isn't, is because Ubisoft does not care enough to allow it.

The Crew has one of the most complex and beautifully realised open worlds ever concieved, with the sequel actually scaling back in a number of ways. This much work put in by talented people who clearly cared about what they were making should not be allowed to die just because some disconnected suits don't give a shit. Regardless of how hopeless it may seem, no matter how slim the chance, everything needs to be tested in regards to preserving content.

Unlike America, where rights to ownership are currently FUBAR, countries like Australia have comprehensive laws against companies pulling anti-consumer crap like this, and there are untested legal grey areas here that are worth investigating. Any headway here or somewhere such as France with similar laws could have a knockon effect for the industry as a whole.

And at the end of the day, even if the entire campain is a failure, we'll at least have some definitive knowledge about where we stand versus industry, and how to treat it going forward.

Another video that answers some questions and clears some things, hopefully all:

The largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games
https://youtu.be/w70Xc9CStoE?feature=shared

Right but the comparison with "well it's thanks to Australia that Steam were forced to introduce refunds, so we're arguing for the same thing" that the site makes is a bad analogy as most developed countries already had pre-existing statutory refund laws in general (and pre-existing gambling advertising laws vs lootboxes), etc, and digital stores just needed "reminding" they weren't above the law. But no countries have laws where a government minister gets to micro-manage games developers on *how* to make a game, what online features / what cloud save systems to put in, how and when they should patch their games, etc. Such "threatening fines" realistically aren't going to happen. At best you might force more prominent "Buyer beware : This game has a limited lifespan" pre-purchase warning banners, the same way some of those late 2000's physical boxed games that bait & switched out an expected disc for a slip of paper with a Steam key were forced in some countries to have "This version contains no disc. A Steam account is required" sticker placed on the front cellophone. But that's realistically it. "Governments can sue developers for designing old games wrong decades later" laws are more wishful thinking than anything else (even for Australia & France).

Also, most statutory "expectation of lifespan" consumer laws in general have reasonable time limits, ie, you buy a fridge-freezer with a 12 month warranty and it dies after 13 months, repair request gets rejected for being out of warranty = you'd probably still stand a good chance at winning in a small claims court of "I think we can all agree it should last longer than that regardless of the official warranty". Sue them because a smart fridge fails 10 years later because of the way it was originally designed to rely on the Internet, and you probably won't win in any country purely because it's 10 years old. And The Crew (2014) is now exactly the same 10 years old though whose level of support far exceeds the support (patching timeframe) of most video games in general. It's as old as Alien Isolation, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Five Nights at Freddy's, etc.

The only thing that makes some of these 2014 games naturally playable offline & preservable decades later along with 20 year old 2004 racing games (Colin McRae Rally 2005, GOG Version) along with 30 year old 1994 DOS racing games (Micro Machines), along with 40 year old 1984 C64 racing games (Pitstop 2), along with 50 year old 1974 arcade racer cabinets (Speed Race), etc, whilst The Crew (2014) refuses to even start without the Internet is ultimately DRM. That is the ultimate bottom-line issue. Creating a website that tap-dances around one symptom of the issue instead of addressing the underlying cause directly isn't going to change much of substance either. Most video games aren't "supported" for decades on end anyway as an "industry norm". Those that continue to work decades later, do so because they are DRM-Free, not because of legal threats. "Yo, continue putting 3x layers of DRM but I want you to promise to remove only half of that years later and hopefully you won't go out of business or sell the IP onto a 3rd party based in another country with different laws in the meantime" isn't quite my idea of actually serious game preservation.

no, principal also means "the first" or "the most important" or "the main point", so a principal point is the most important point.


edit - just to clarify: A prinicple is a fundation in a belif system, you belive this to be true because of these principles.

A principal has several meanings, it can either mean "the most important" point among several (as above). or it can mean a position something or someone can have, usually a key position.

You can have a principal principle.

Breja used it wrongly, he was talking about a principle. But without more context, the way EverNightX used the term, it could be correct. the phrase "weather you should be able to tell others what they can and can't do with things they own" could be seen as either the most important point, but it can also be seen as the fundation of a belif system.

langauge and words!

Nope, nope and nope. Did I remember to mention nope?

I love killing games, and I want to play them more and more also in the future so I don't want to stop them. I have fond memories of e.g. Doom 1-2.

principal is also an adjective so you can't say "the principal is"

Not having a go, it's a difficult word to get right and I wouldn't usually bother pointing it out except that two separate people said it.

It's really not :D I just spelled the wrong word because I type fast and click "post" even faster.

Indeed. Making a crime out of not being a museum is "legally optimistic" to put it politely. Many countries also have laws against "retroactive laws", ie, any new laws passed can apply fines only to new infractions occurring from that date forwards. So even if such a law did pass, it still won't "bring back" The Crew (2014) via legal threats as some people naively think any more than it will bring back many early 2000's flash games that first had their activation servers pulled then later had flash support itself deprecated. Or magically fix all SafeDisc games that were broken by W10 with legal threats. A lot of people getting falsely smeared here as "Naysayers" for seeing large holes in the "This will bring back The Crew!" campaign really just have a better understanding of the law beyond the current "Shock Therapy" based outrage reaction currently doing the rounds.

I have been actively campaigning against DRM since 2004, and spent the last decade developing anti-DRM software. I think this gives me some legitimacy when I disagree with the fundamentals of the campaign discussed here.