Never listen to those fucking asses.

The pirate something guy was the only one I saw and he's a fraud anyway

Sadly I doubt this was thanks to the petition itself. More likely ubi is trying to claw back some goodwill ( and make some cash too, by promoting the title that was full of mtx instead of the retired one ). They've also done this offline fix thing in the past ( with anno 2070 for one ) and also after a healthy dose of player backlash.

Looks like Ubisoft didn't get enough pressure.

While Ubisoft likely isn't going to make that happen, some dedicated fans are working on it

Well, and because 2 is fucking abysmal as a game. The starter car shouldn't feel like it's on rails regardless of speed, mostly - it's a fucking racing game, get it right. (modern nfs is in the corner giggling but that piece of shit is always trying to force me to drift, again with an un-upgraded starter car with like 150hp, so it's no better)

I was a closed beta tester for 1 and 2, and was very excited for both, but going from 1 to 2 is a huge step backwards in handling alone. Whereas I pre-ordered 1 and got several others to as well, I told everyone I know to avoid 2, bought it on sale a while after launch, was immediately disappointed they never addressed this, and it sits with... 13 hours on the clock. As a reference, I have 4,048 hours played in Forza Horizon 5.

I have no idea how they fucked up so badly. It's a travesty.

(I play with keyboard/mouse out of preference but also because of physical disabilities, so while I /could/ use a controller and maybe mitigate this, grab a controller and try playing with one hand, see how great that experience is x_x) .

I haven’t even played my copy of The Crew. Seems like now I won’t ever be able to.

You worded it incorrectly. It should be any single player game that requires online to start to game should be fined. They can have multiplayer option. But single player should be able to be played even offline.

While I like and appreciate the campaign, the issue IMO is bigger. IoT devices for example even have environmental impact when services behind them get discontinued.

I would therefore like a more general rule: whenever a product is discontinued for whatever reason, all necessary documents, sources, etc need to be released to allow third parties to take over maintenance (that also includes schematics for hardware repairs).

Who preserves historical artwork? Who makes sure it is available for all to enjoy?

I think governments and nonprofits (like museums) need to consider that archival of an interactive artwork means allowing it to continue being accessible and interactive. That'd be the real preservation.

Laws that say if you create something like this and it reaches some metric, then you are required to turn over all resources regarding it to open source public consumption once you are done actively maintaining it.

Wouldn't be surprised if stop servicing/selling a game came with a tax write-off (small due to deprecation). If that were the case, I strongly believe they should, at least, release the server and remove all DRM. Let the community make it work again.

Whats funny is that most 20 year old multiplayer games today (at least on PC) are still perfectly playable because the server tech was given to the community, at launch. Battlefield 2 hasn't been available for purchase anywhere officially in well over a decade, there's still a dedicated, albiet small community.

I understand that with large, persistent worlds, it's hard to release that server tech, but at least some form of it should be published. Ie, a smaller variant that maybe just lets a couple people join up as a co-op party, rather than dozens of people running around a large map at random, like in The Crew.

even for MP, allow people to host their own. not hard, even Minecraft offers it lol

Same. And you can also purchase old gems for a really low price 😅