[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Has Ubi actually said that? I think not. If I remember properly, the question was directly put to them, "if you turn off your servers, we're out of business. What assurance do we have that you won't do that?" Ubi's reply was a weasely "well at this time we have no plans to do that and we would certainly hope to issue a patch if that ever happened."

Wishful thinking is no basis to enter into a contractual arrangement with a company who has the right to shut you down for no reason and with no warning. Ubi has that unquestioned and unlimited right.

There is no language in the EULA requiring the patch to happen. Therefore any legal action would be laughed out of court. EA did disconnect the servers for two games less than a year old and it stuck. No judgments against EA. No apologies from EA. Just "in your face bubs." Corporations can get very cold and hard-hearted. We need to expect it and govern our behavior responsibly.

You wouldn't buy a house if the seller had the right to bulldoze it without warning at any time in the future, would you? Or would you say it was OK because China could nuke us all into talcum powder anyway? No, you would insist that your rights be protected in the contract or you wouldn't enter into the agreement.

So unlike the bad analogy with China, where there is no historical evidence of China ever going to war for the purpose of conquering even close neighbors (Tibet is arguable either way). They are not and never have been an imperialist nation. They do not have a European outlook on the glory of conquest.

However game companies regularly engage in the behavior of cutting their losses by withdrawing support for a game, and in the case of servers, eliminating them to save money. It is no stretch to predict that Ubi would do the same. Already, silence says that we will see no future patches, there is no dev team, no work is being done on their part to give SH5 a future. SH5 is dead. The only life it has left is right here at Subsim.

Isn't it ironic that Jagex has over 150 servers for a free game and Ubi has 3 for a formerly premium priced one? It says something about commitment. It's essential that someone work on the private server angle without implementing it so that when those three switches move to the off position owners of the game have recourse.

The problem here with this RR is UBI has much more invested in other games requiring DRM and these games are revenue generators. These game share the same server as SH5.