Costa Rican guy :/

yes, I’m u/N00b22 on reddit

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Cake day: June 3rd, 2023

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  • Zeebo

    The Zeebo is a video game console that was released in 2009, primarily targeted at emerging markets. It’s price was 499 Brazilian Reals in Brazil and 2499 Mexican Pesos in Mexico, equaling to around 89 US Dollars.

    It had remade versions of games from mobile phones and other consoles, such as FIFA 09, Resident Evil 4, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, etc. It also had several exclusive games, these being the Zeebo Extreme, Boomerang Sports and Zeebo Football Club franchises and the game “Un juego de huevos”, an action game based on the Mexican film “Una película de huevos”.

    Preinstalled games were different in both Brazil and Mexico:

    Mexico: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, Pac Mania, Tekken 2, Zenonia and Zeebo Family Pack

    Brazil: FIFA 09, Need for Speed: Carbon Own the City and Brain Challenge

    Some characteristics of the Zeebo included a 3G connectivity and low-cost gaming. When you bought the console you would get 1 hour of free Internet, and you would recharge by buying “Zeebocreditos” (that were used to buy games in the storefront as well)

    The console had failed because of it’s limited game library, the competition, perception of quality (the console was made with bad quality materials, and the graphics were comparable to a PSX) and technological limitations.

    The Zeebo flopped so bad, that on 2011, Zeebo announced they were going to cease all operations in Brazil and Mexico, and that the online storefront was going to shut down.



  • Ubisoft sued for shutting down The Crew

    The issue is, once again, about the difference between buying and licensing games

    Two Californian gamers are suing Ubisoft in a proposed class action lawsuit over the developer and publisher’s recent shutdown of racing game The Crew. Ubisoft released The Crew in December 2014 and shut down its servers after a decade due to “server infrastructure and licensing constraints.” After the servers shut down, the game became totally unplayable due to its lack of a single-player, offline mode. When the shutdown was announced on Dec. 14, 2023, Ubisoft did offer refunds to people who “recently” purchased The Crew, but given the age of the game, a lot of players were unable to participate in the offer.

    “Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed,” lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 4 in a California court and reviewed by Polygon. “Turns out the pinball manufacturer decided to come into your home, gut the insides of the pinball machine, and remove your ability to play the game that you bought and thought you owned.”

    The lawsuit alleges this is “exactly” what happened when Ubisoft shut down its servers for The Crew in 2024 — suddenly leaving consumers unable to access something they purchased and assumed they owned. The lawsuit says players were duped in two ways: First, by allegedly misleading players into thinking they were buying a game when they were merely licensing it — even if a player bought a physical disk. Second, that Ubisoft “falsely represented” that The Crew’s files were on its physical disks to access freely, and that the disks weren’t simply a key for the game. Ubisoft is violating California consumer protection laws, the lawsuit alleges.

    Both plaintiffs purchased the game well into its lifespan, in 2018 and 2020, respectively, on physical discs. The lawsuit says neither would have purchased the game “on the same terms,” i.e., price, knowing the game’s servers could be taken down, rendering The Crew totally unplayable even in an offline mode. The lawsuit also covers the backlash to Ubisoft’s decision to shutdown the servers and not include an offline version of the game; it cites several games that turned servers off but patched in an offline option, like Knockout City and two of Ubisoft’s own games, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed 3. Ubisoft responded to the criticism and vowed to include offline versions of its existing games in The Crew franchise, like The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest — but the lawsuit says this does nothing to amend the problem of The Crew’s server shutdown.

    The plaintiffs are looking for the court to approve the lawsuit as a class action, meaning other The Crew players may get involved. They’re looking for monetary relief and damages for those impacted by the server shutdown. The lawsuit follows a campaign from YouTube creator Ross Scott to urge companies to “stop killing games,” a movement that kicked off after The Crew announcement was made. The Stop Killing Games movement is petitioning the European Union to force game companies to keep games in playable states. It currently has more than 379,000 signatures.

    As media continues to go more and more digital, the issue of owning vs. licensing — especially in video games — becomes more of a problem. While some people are taking games into their own hands (like with the player-created The Crew Unlimited), the onus is largely on companies and what they do to preserve their games and servers. But in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill into law that requires companies to tell consumers they’re buying licenses, not games themselves, in online storefronts. The law itself, introduced by California assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin, is actually partly inspired by Ubisoft’s shutdown of The Crew. The law, however, doesn’t do anything about the fact that games are licensed and not purchased outright, nor does it stop a company from rendering a game unplayable, but it does, in theory, offer transparency on the issue.

    Ubisoft declined to comment.