In January 2014 I bought Might & Magic X : Legacy for €29.99. I played it for 24 hours, wrote a small blog post about it, and then forgot about it. On June 1st 2021 Ubisoft shut down the online services for Might & Magic X : Legacy and a bunch of other games. And while they were at it, they also shut down the DRM servers for the game. Which the game needs to get past chapter 1. So, unless you "hack" the game to not check ownership anymore, Might & Magic X : Legacy is now effectively unplayable, even for people who legally bought the game.

I wouldn't say that this is a big loss, but there are more unhappy people about this than you would think. Because it drives home some very unpleasant truths about game "ownership", that everybody had been trying to forget. You don't ever own a game, you are just buying a limited license to play it. And while in some cases the actual owners just forget about that and just let you play your old games forever, that is more by accident than by some legal right of yours. With DRM, the accident can happen in the other direction: Without even thinking, a company can cut your access to the game you bought years ago. My guess is, that this won't be the last case.

- posted by Tobold @ 6:30 AM Permanent Link