Ubisoft Just Shut Down Online Services For 91 Games

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xCLAVEx

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To all the folks still playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 on Xbox 360, I’ve got some bad news: Ubisoft has turned off online services for that game and 90 other titles, including Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell, Just Dance, and more across multiple console and PC platforms.

On April 22, Ubisoft announced the end of online support for those 91 games via a blog post. The company explained that all in-game news, updates, player statistics, and online multiplayer features would no longer work in any of these titles. Also, any of the 91 games that use Ubisoft’s Connect platform can no longer earn its ”Units” points to unlock in-game rewards. Weirdly, Ubisoft explained that PC players will lose access to previously unlocked content, but console players will be able to keep it so long as they keep their old game save.

Many of the 91 Ubisoft titles are quite old and some exist on platforms that are already long dead, like the defunct OnLive streaming service and even the PS2. However, not all of the games affected by this massive shutdown are ancient. Many are Xbox 360 games and there are some PS4 and Wii U titles, too. For example, I hope you didn’t want to play Just Dance 2014 or 2015 online via your Xbox One, because Ubisoft has shut those both down.

And of course, if you haven’t unlocked any multiplayer achievements or trophies in these games already, well, more bad news. All of that stuff is now unable to be legitimately earned as of last week.

While many of these games were very old and likely not played by many people in 2022, it’s still sad when games lose their online multiplayer, especially when big publishers like Ubisoft are typically unwilling to release information or tools to let fans keep playing via, for example, private servers.

For those curious, you can find the full (and long) list of Ubisoft games that as of April 22 no longer support any online features, modes, or multiplayer in the official blog post.

https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-online-game-server-shutdown-xbox-ps4-list-splin-1848843389
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RIP.
 
Musing on an adjacent topic: It's interesting to see how older multiplayer games, their communities, and their online support ages over long periods of time.

90s online shooters like Quake & UT basically live on forever, as users can host their own servers and they don't rely on central services. As long as there's a sufficient volume of players, they'll last forever.

I've been particularly intrigued to see what's happened with certain communities like Quake 2 or Tribes. Their communities have gotten too small to sustain permanent servers, but they're very enthusiastic and have shifted more towards scheduled events. You won't necessarily find a good multiplayer game on a tuesday afternoon, but if you pay attention to the community sites you can find the friday-night frag events.

Games with bot support are even better. Someone can jump into a quick bot-match without ever having to worry about online overhead of any kind, and also bots are wonderful for filling out rosters in a small lan party.

It's sad that the introduction of centralized services like leaderboards & persistent user profiles will cause the eventual death of multiplayer games. Look, I know nobody plays Far Cry 2 online anymore, but it's tragic that nobody ever can again.

I think alot of this is also tied to the console-nature of alot of these games. Of course console gaming needed more centrally-hosted servers and services, and that ends up impacting the architectures of the PC versions of the games as well.

Maybe there ought to be some kind of open protocol for the most basic kinds of central services. Imagine that basic features like server lists, user profiles, etc., could be handled in a way that's game-agnostic. Throw Quake2 and Modern Warfare server lists into the same database. Eventually you get to a point where there's only 2 Tribes servers left on the planet, but you can keep the server lists going because they're just lines in a database rather than needing their own separate server infrastructure. You'd end up with something that feels like the old GameSpy services... of course it needs to be open-source so it can't be bought out by IGN. Then as long as studios release distributions for the game servers themselves, the community can keep things running as long as there's demand.

Sure there's games that couldn't be saved. MMORPGs, for example, that require massive centralized server infrastructure. Although even then, we've seen the community build out reverse-engineered WoW servers to run older versions of the game. It's possible, as long as Blizzard's lawyers stay out of the way.

Another great example of the community resurrecting online services is the Dreamcast Live community. This one is amazing, as the community has both reverse-engineered ancient game servers, as well as designed new hardware to allow Dreamcast modems to connect to modern home internet.

Anyways, lots of rambling thoughts. I remember hearing one of the blizzard guys talking once about how he had run the original battle.net server on a box under his desk in his cubicle for 2 years. In the modern era of docker & kubernetes, it seems like we should be able to engineer multiplayer services to be able to live on forever.
 
Isn't there a rumor that Ubisoft are going to be bought out? Probably makes sense to dump a lot of maintenance if that is the case.

Don't support it myself, don't like it, don't want to see more of it. But I'm not that surprised and the reality is that most games these days are pumped and dumped after a few weeks. Killing off old games is good business.
 
Yeah most of the games are old and likely no one's playing their multiplayer components anymore. But its still a bad policy, and bad for game preservation in principle.

Its sad to think someday virtually any MP game that relies on dedicated servers being online to function will eventually be shut down and gone forever. Least these developers can do is always make sure there's a way for them to still be played in some way, either with minor community modding, player server hosting, or peer to peer connections.

I do know one example of this is the older Call of Duty games like World At War for example. The multiplayer component has issues for newly bought product keys, but you can D/L and run the Plutonium mod which is community made and maintained. CoD is of course a super popular franchise however, so its no surprise there's demand for it. Not sure this can be expected for less popular but still loved titles.
 
What I hate about companies maintaining 100% control over their servers is that there are no longer any local servers, the servers are either in the UK or Germany.

I miss the times where you could play online shooters with lan-like pings.
 
Meteor_of_War said:
Yeah most of the games are old and likely no one's playing their multiplayer components anymore. But its still a bad policy, and bad for game preservation in principle.

Its sad to think someday virtually any MP game that relies on dedicated servers being online to function will eventually be shut down and gone forever. Least these developers can do is always make sure there's a way for them to still be played in some way, either with minor community modding, player server hosting, or peer to peer connections.

I do know one example of this is the older Call of Duty games like World At War for example. The multiplayer component has issues for newly bought product keys, but you can D/L and run the Plutonium mod which is community made and maintained. CoD is of course a super popular franchise however, so its no surprise there's demand for it. Not sure this can be expected for less popular but still loved titles.
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I have a fantasy business that I've had in mind for years, and eventually might pull the trigger on. It's a lan-gaming cafe, specifically focused on playing retro titles. Then lots of focus on scheduled events. Imagine Quake2 tournaments or Splinter cell chaos theory nights.

Alot of these older games might make more sense in the context of a lan-cafe, where everything can be setup in advance, and players can just show up for an evening of nostalgic fun.

So yeah, preserving basic multiplayer functionality, even if only basic lan support, might yield opportunities to revisit these games in various contexts in the future.
 
SubCog said:
I have a fantasy business that I've had in mind for years, and eventually might pull the trigger on. It's a lan-gaming cafe, specifically focused on playing retro titles. Then lots of focus on scheduled events. Imagine Quake2 tournaments or Splinter cell chaos theory nights.

Alot of these older games might make more sense in the context of a lan-cafe, where everything can be setup in advance, and players can just show up for an evening of nostalgic fun.

So yeah, preserving basic multiplayer functionality, even if only basic lan support, might yield opportunities to revisit these games in various contexts in the future.
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I think a better company would be a gog of sorts for online support. Providing server bases in each region, and connectivity for multiplayer games. Only with older titles, the company works on to allow the games to actually work with modern hardware/software, and only on request.

Like some of those software programs have tried to do over the years, but with actual hardware and physical locations. An online worldwide internet cafe. Steam has shown you can do lan over the internet as well. So it wouldnt even be that restrictive in titles.
With a store attached to sell the titles they provide service for, and probable add revenue.

Im not sure local internet cafes work as well these days, and i am positive if they dont evolve they will eventually be a dead end service. It could take 50 years for that though. Still, may as well get in on the ground level for something unique, but wanted.
 
theshadowcult said:
I think a better company would be a gog of sorts for online support. Providing server bases in each region, and connectivity for multiplayer games. Only with older titles, the company works on to allow the games to actually work with modern hardware/software, and only on request.

Like some of those software programs have tried to do over the years, but with actual hardware and physical locations. An online worldwide internet cafe. Steam has shown you can do lan over the internet as well. So it wouldnt even be that restrictive in titles.
With a store attached to sell the titles they provide service for, and probable add revenue.

Im not sure local internet cafes work as well these days, and i am positive if they dont evolve they will eventually be a dead end service. It could take 50 years for that though. Still, may as well get in on the ground level for something unique, but wanted.
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I do think a lan-cafe could work as a business today, but not in the traditional model. Actually I've put a ton of thought into this, and I think I have some great ideas for how to make it work.
  • Dramatically de-emphasize open-play time. For most business hours, people shouldn't just be wandering in off the street one-by-one and playing whatever game they want.
  • Focus on scheduled events. Every evening should be dedicated to running a tournament in a specific game, or else some other kind of event dedicated to a specific game. Monday nights are for Quake. Tuesday nights are UT. Wednesday nights are for Star Craft. etc. Consolidate focused mini-communities around specific games at specific times.
  • Run tournaments and build leagues. Offer discounts to teams who commit to dedicated practice time, especially in non-peak hours.
  • Host b-day parties and private events.
  • Allow users to rent the place at a discount for overnight events (?)... I remember doing all-night lan parties that would last for 3 days when I was younger. I doubt you'd be able to attract guys my age to do that now, so somehow you'd have to get younger guys in for events like that. You'd have to experiment and see if there's any appetite for over-night events or not.
  • Include modern e-sports in addition to retro games. This will attract a younger crowd. Host leagues and tournaments, and make the tournaments a big event.
  • Target retro games and e-sports games, rather than high-end games. You don't want to have to constantly upgrade computers with expensive parts. The appeal is in the lan-environment, not the high-end GPUs.
  • Include retro consoles on CRTs. Mario Kart 64 and Halo help balance out retro pc games.
  • Explore incorporating modern consoles. xbox and playstation are inexpensive, and there's often exciting new games on console during seasons that are a bit dry on PC.
  • Consider building this business as a component of a larger business. There's a barcade near me called "LVL Up". The bottom floor has a restaurant and arcade games, but they rent out the upper floor to several small gaming-related businesses, including a lan cafe, console cafe, a used game store, and a card/boardgame/retro-merchandise store. There's a tremendous synergy between these businesses, especially because the barcade can serve food to all customers.

I'd also like to explore including a retro-themed video rental store, and including a couple of small theaters. Customers could rent a movie on VHS or bluray, and host a small viewing party in a dedicated theater room. Include popcorn.
 
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yeah for sure, if you can attached it to another business, it will certainly be more successful. Including having an easier time with advertising. Go for it man, sounds like you really want this. I hope it works well for you!!
 
theshadowcult said:
yeah for sure, if you can attached it to another business, it will certainly be more successful. Including having an easier time with advertising. Go for it man, sounds like you really want this. I hope it works well for you!!
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:D :D

Yeah, it's been a fantasy business for me for many years now. Not sure whether I'd ever actually get around to building it. I don't know anything about building a business, and the salary from my day-job makes it hard for me to step away and do something risky. Also I'm super lazy, so that doesn't help. But we'll see, maybe some day I can make it happen.
 
SubCog said:
Musing on an adjacent topic: It's interesting to see how older multiplayer games, their communities, and their online support ages over long periods of time.

90s online shooters like Quake & UT basically live on forever, as users can host their own servers and they don't rely on central services. As long as there's a sufficient volume of players, they'll last forever.

I've been particularly intrigued to see what's happened with certain communities like Quake 2 or Tribes.
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I think Unreal multiplayer still has a couple servers up with a few players in each but it's been a few years since I've played it. Very fast to get back in it, just download & install Unreal Gold from Steam or elsewhere and bring up the servers list to see the number of players in each. DM, CTF & maps like that. And Co-Op for the full story playthrough with player vs npc.

I know I'm 99% graphics oriented just roaming around in games as if I'm in a walking sim. But around 18-24 years ago I got into Unreal, the UT series and Tribes 2 multiplayer, in addition to single player adventures like Riven and Legacy of Time series. Edit: And of course the countless hours in the single player part of Unreal & UT series gawking at the landscapes. Sry for the even more off the topic.
 
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I happen to still have Unreal Tournament installed, so I checked. It shows 542 servers and 413 players. Most of those players are concentrated in 20 or so servers.
 
There are LAN places around here in LA but it doesnt seem like any of them are super successful. But then again I have never gone inside of one because there is no need these days. :lol: Especially with the newer millennials and gen-z ers that grew up with all the **** we didnt have as older people.



A LAN center would have been great 20 years ago.
 
Crash7 said:
I happen to still have Unreal Tournament installed, so I checked. It shows 542 servers and 413 players. Most of those players are concentrated in 20 or so servers.
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Yup, UT is one of the few games from that era you can still readily find active games on. Quake3 is too.

Quake2 is a bit tougher. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Quake2 has a very active community, but it's more event-based... it's tough to find an active server at random times of the week.
 
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