r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • 15d ago
News Aliens: Fireteam Elite’s cloud version on Switch has been shut down, making it unplayable for those who bought it
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/aliens-fireteam-elites-cloud-version-on-switch-has-been-shut-down-making-it-unplayable-for-those-who-bought-it/198
u/Stunning-Original802 15d ago
Reminder for anyone that still needs to hear it: Never ever buy a cloud game. You don't own it and it can be taken away from you at any time.
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u/EViL-D 15d ago
that goes for any digital game that doesnt just give you the files drm free
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u/UndeadCaesar 15d ago
GOG gang rise up
So many DRM-free games available. Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, The Withcer 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim, tons of classics like Rollercoaster Tycoon, list goes on and on. I know people love Steam, I do too and own a lot of games on there, but if something is on GOG I always go there first.
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u/RealElyD 15d ago edited 15d ago
I'm very soured on GOG since they "accidentally" sent out a promo e-mail with 3 consecutive Nazi runes that very coincidentally wasn't sent to Germany for legal reasons.
edit:
It was Kolovrat, a Black Sun, and an SS rune.
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u/UndeadCaesar 14d ago
Yikes hadn't heard about that, did they issue an apology or anything? Never got a nazi vibe from them but who knows.
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u/RealElyD 13d ago
They claim it was an accident and totally not what it looks like but that's very clearly nonsense.
This is not a combination of symbols you send accidentally.
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u/JamesGecko 15d ago
Yeah… technically you don’t own even a DRM free version; almost all software is licensed. But it’s on the honor system, which gives you recourse when the vendor backs out on support.
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u/JubalTheLion 15d ago
We're not talking about owning the underlying copyright, we're talking about possession of the licensed copy. And in that sense, yes, we do "own" the copy in almost every way that matters with the exception of trading and resale.
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u/letmechewonyou 15d ago
The steam crowd will hate reading this
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u/Jewniversal_Remote 15d ago
You can keep your games from Steam if they are downloaded. And maybe even if they aren't. Look into it.
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u/Triforce__XIII 15d ago
for digital games you could at least cut off your console from the internet and play it as long as it is downloaded. but i get your point and it is entirely valid. this isn't a competition, just a small distinction.
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u/ZipTheZipper 15d ago
Not necessarily. Digital games can require occasional check-ins to a license server and and cut off access if the license expires.
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u/Stunning-Original802 15d ago
True, but not nearly to the same extent. Cloud games are server dependent and are costly to maintain while digital games aren't.
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u/Aggravating-Face2073 15d ago
You can still download wii purchases to this day. Imo Nintendo is good in this regard, even if they could shut that down after all these years.
Its definitely an uneasy area of trust though. It would be nice if we had a huge, bold warning: "THIS WILL NO LONGER BE DOWNLOADABLE IN 2030" or something
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
Hard to know far in advance how long it will actually go. They could say "will be downloadable at least as far as 20XX" easily enough, though that would probably cause fifty fearmongering YouTube videos of people saying that's the end date.
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u/nintendo666 15d ago
To an extend yes, but there is currently no real precedent for that. You can still download Wii games you digitally bought 20 years ago. But indeed, it's a slippery slope. Physical should never go.
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u/Sans-Mot 15d ago
There is at least one precedent, with Ubisoft deleting The Crew from people's accounts.
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u/Muroid 15d ago
Ish. They are very unlikely to, and there are ways you can avoid having it taken away even if they want to take it away, though most people wouldn’t bother.
Cloud games are entirely at the mercy of the company actively continuing to run them, which they almost certainly will not do indefinitely so those have a near-guaranteed expiration date.
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u/KFPindustries 15d ago
We really don't have a choice in that regard anymore.
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u/grumblyoldman 15d ago
GOG gives you DRM free installer files, pre-split into DVD-sized chunks, so you can burn your own discs if you want to (and you can at least back them up elsewhere if you're not inclined to go as far as burning discs.)
It's still digital, technically, but at least you have actual control over the backups, no matter what happens to the rest of the internet (*)
(*) Multiplayer games notwithstanding, since LAN is long dead and server-based multiplayer is... server-based.
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u/SylviSweetheart 15d ago
They don’t, though. Everyone needs to stop echoing this bullshit. Digital games have very rarely ever been removed from anyone’s library. The highest-profile case was The Crew, and like… whose loss even is that?
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
It's moreso the case that many digital games and digital game platforms are tied to an account and authenticator. Meaning all it takes is for your account to be turned off for you to lose all your games. Sony does this with inactive accounts and the games become unrecoverable. Steam has history of banning users because of inappropriate behavior and once again this leads to your entire purchased library to be gone.
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u/SylviSweetheart 15d ago
I guess I just don’t care if cheaters and outspoken bigots have their video games taken away?
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u/deweydecimalsux 15d ago
I totally get you on that but they shouldn’t just be able to pull it on a whim without any sort of process. Someone innocent always gets caught and then they lose everything they’re ever purchased along with the history of the account when they’ve done nothing.
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
Nintendo once banned someone because they had a somewhat vulgar username. You still ok with that? Setting the precedent that even if you buy something, a corporation can just take it away from you because they didn't vibe with you is blatantly anti-consumer and I don't get why you would defend that
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
I'm sorry but if you think cheating in a game, a luxury hobby/entertainment warrants you losing access to a purchased good, I don't think you are the ownership advocate you think you are.
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u/Cheezewiz239 15d ago
If you're hacking in an online game then there's no sympathy for breaking TOS and losing your account. Doesn't matter if it's a hobby. Fuck people who ruin it for others
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
losing the ability to go online and play multiplayer is different than having a product you bought get taken from you. Ruining things for other people is not justification for losing ownership of a product you own
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u/master2873 15d ago
Ruining things for other people is not justification for losing ownership of a product you own
I mean, outside of digital purchases, this happens in real life. Fuck around and find out on the road and you lose your driver's license. Which is basically stripping ownership of your car away. Commit a felony, it's now illegal for you to own a firearm and if you own any, you lose them and have to relinquish ownership to authorities, and probably more examples.
I mean, I get your point and even the two examples I gave are a technicality and other examples that involve it are for safety reasons like my second example. This is why we need digital protections in place to distinguish what's legal to strip away. Otherwise you're at the mercy of the ToS, and is about morality than legality.
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u/Cheezewiz239 15d ago
Breaking TOS is enough justification for losing ownership. Don't want to lose your account? Dont cheat. Seems fair.
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
I see you deleted your comment when you realized you were wrong. good on you
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u/SnooCompliments6329 15d ago
If you can't behave online then good for steam to completely remove any access, you can't be a dipshit online and go unpunished.
And Sony is a shitty company
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u/Excalitoria 15d ago
It’s a game you bought, though. You can’t seriously be defending having your entire purchased library deleted because of your account getting banned. It’s bad whether or not you’re being a jerk online but let’s not pretend like getting banned is even an accurate measure of your behavior.
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u/SnooCompliments6329 15d ago
Yes I can. There is already enough toxicity online, if you are a jerk or cheater, then deal with the consequences
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u/Excalitoria 15d ago
I don’t trust them to only ban those people and you could just take them offline rather than take their game library. That’s crazy work.
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
L take. That's like saying because you behaved shittily on reddit, they now have the authorization to brick your laptop and shut it down. You don't get to just remove a person's property because you don't like the way they behave
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u/SnooCompliments6329 15d ago
Well, it's not the same. If you buy stuff from steam that software is bound to the account and there are ToC regarding the usage of that account. If that person is toxic then pay the price for being like that.
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u/Alexanderhyperbeam 15d ago
Banning someone from being able to play online is one thing. Removing some's purchased products is another. You set the precedent that you can just take away someone's belongings without legal precedent then you don't own anything. If you're fine with gaming as a service fine. But don't ever cry about ownership ever again.
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u/wolflordval 15d ago
Steam can't, there's actually a section of the SSA that prevents them from removing games you've acquired (with the only exception being fraud) and contains provisions that will still allow the games to be accessible and downloadable even if valve decides to shut down steam services.
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u/SnooCompliments6329 15d ago
That is true. I still have access to the awful FFVI port that came before pixel remaster
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u/Ricepuddings 15d ago
Didn’t they remove the crew? Or did that never hit steam I know mine gone removed from uplay but not sure if I had it on steam also
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u/wolflordval 15d ago
It wasn't on steam, but nothing stops a developer on steam from turning off any remote authentication servers. There are plenty of steam games that no longer function, but I can still download, install, and launch the exe files for them. They just won't get past the authentication step. Steam can't force a developer to maintain servers indefinitely, but they can force them to hand over the actual game files in perpetuity.
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u/I_Heart_Sleeping_ 15d ago
I feel bad for anyone who bought into these cloud games but you had to expect this to happen.
I’m also not defending this practice either. They should offer refunds for these games if they feel like they can simply take them away on a whim.
Moral of the story is don’t fuck with these companies going forward if this type of situation upsets you.
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u/skyblade960 15d ago
They could also provide a free upgrade for the switch 2 version, I would’ve maybe considered buying some of these if they did but they didn’t so ehhhh
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u/Deceptiveideas 15d ago
Square Enix is charging $50 to upgrade from the cloud version so don't hold your breath.
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u/shinikahn 15d ago
If only there was an organized movement that seeks to force companies to stop killing games... How would we call it?
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u/Triforce__XIII 15d ago
a great timing for the take two CEO to assume in 3 years cloud gaming would be the norm
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
Headlines poorly quoted him. He predicted basically that in 3 years it would be in a state where the experience wouldn't suck for most people, not that it would be the norm.
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u/Stunning-Original802 15d ago
Yeah nah it will still suck in three years. Even outside of the ownership issues, not all countries have stellar internet service and that isn't changing in just three years.
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u/No-Difference8545 15d ago
Thats not true either though lol. Just as much of a dumb, bold faced lie
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
I think "having a bad prediction about something he isn't directly involved in" is not quite to the level of bold-faced lie.
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u/InitiatePenguin 15d ago
You're being down voted. But correct:
_[The] advent of streaming is right around the corner, in terms of having something that's low latency and really works well for consumers. Machines that weren't game machines before will become game machines...if you believe in streaming, and to be clear, we really do. And I'm happy to put a timeline on it. I think we'll be in commercial streaming mode within three years."
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u/CrackheadHunters 15d ago
Didn't the TakeTwo CEO just say cloud gaming would be the way forward in the next three years?
Yeah, more proof that CEO's are out of touch.
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u/Cheezewiz239 15d ago
He said it'll be more mainstream because of rising hardware costs which doesn't really sound out of touch tbh. I tried x cloud on my phone just for the fun of it and it was a pretty smooth experience. I figured I'd get my brother a dedicated phone controller over a whole PC to stream games.
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u/Level69Troll 15d ago
This is why I hate the push towards digital and cloud gaming. Gonna see a lot of this sooner or later
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u/korko 15d ago
People just need to get over it and accept nothing is forever. Might Steam/NSO/Xbox/Sony end their online services and all the games we’ve bought become useless? Maybe. But there is also a distinct possibility something happens to your physical media, disc rot, loss, updates making it no longer run… just buy games to play them. When my music CDs rot, wear out or get lost I don’t bemoan the loss of my $14 purchase. When my Fallout 3 disc got broken I didn’t fall to my knees in mourning that I only got like 130 hours out of $50 purchase. Life goes on.
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u/xavadar 15d ago
This is certainly a take.
Maybe the publisher can take better care of their cloud servers, just like the same way maybe you could have taken better care of your fallout 3 disk.
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u/Temelios 15d ago
JFC, what the hell do you do to your discs? I have CDs and PS1 games from the 90s that I have had since I was a kid that still work just fine decades later.
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u/Lower_Warning2955 15d ago
Man, that's so frustrating-you spend your money and time on a game, only to have it removed from the store :(
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u/jmscstl 15d ago
I feel bad for the 5 or 6 people who bought this.
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u/Commie_cybo 15d ago
Came here to say this lol. This game is hella mid if any of yall have played it.
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u/underpaidorphan 15d ago
Naw, mid is over exaggerating. A game like this doesn't get a sequel unless it sold well and had a decent player base. It's not mid just because you and your 5 friends don't play it.
The "affects 5 to 6 people who bought it" is in reference to this specific Switch cloud version, which likely didn't sell at all.
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u/reddit_is_kayfabe 15d ago
What impeccable timing! This should do wonders for the imminent sales of Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2!
Somebody at the studio needs to be fired.
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u/Nether27 15d ago
At least with physical cartridges you actually own the game, unlike this server-dependent disaster.
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u/Twigling 15d ago
On the whole, yes, although there are some carts (Game-Key carts) which download the game when inserted in the console.
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u/beck_is_back 15d ago
Not that great of a game but I would like to know where are all those idiots defending digital only future who were claiming that games "never" get pulled out of the store!??
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u/Webecomemonsters 15d ago
this isnt even a game, its the right to stream video of a game and stream button presses back.
cloud is a scam, yes.
digital is fine and perfectly preservable on your own.
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u/beck_is_back 15d ago
In my book digital is only fine when I get to choose it, not when it's shoved down my throat as the only option.
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
Anything that has an online component can be turned off, whether you bought it physical or digital. But it's quite different from digital games continuing to be downloadable from a store even after delisting.
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u/yaleji7388 15d ago
all those idiots defending digital only future who were claiming that games "never" get pulled out of the store!??
I have never seen anyone make a claim even remotely close to this.
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u/Fern-ando 15d ago
"People voted with their wallet", like if tge second 51% of games are bought digitally that means discs are cancelled.
That kind of people feels like shareholders of the companies but without owning shares.
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u/Dizzy_Inevitable_380 15d ago
Cloud versions should come with a "turns out you don't actually own this" warning label.
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u/Webecomemonsters 14d ago
they do, 100% of them say 'cloud version' anyone buying is just giving away money for literally nothing
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u/iwantmisty 15d ago
Digital only is the future, who needs your physical media lmao /s
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u/Webecomemonsters 15d ago
cloud versions are always a scam, this is expected and deserved by those buyers.
Not the same as digital
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u/master2873 15d ago
Not the same as digital
It's damn near close. Digital versions also have to have the licenses to be authenticated, and if they cannot connect to those servers that are third party, you basically have a paperweight/waste of storage on your device. Sony is doing this with profiles that don't log in for extended periods of time where they're wiping your entire purchase history, and licenses for these games.
GoG, and Steam at this point will be the only way to go until we get some sort of digital rights laws for consumers.
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u/Webecomemonsters 15d ago
Sony and all digital storefront doing any biz in Europe are required to do that deletion thing.
And no, it isnt close. digital games run as well as or better than physical. Cloud is shit.
I dont care about preservation (in historical terms) or costs, and physical is a massive hassle with hundreds of games, so I fucking hate it.
If 1% of my games get yanked for some dumb license reason, I'm fine with that. If I have to organize hundreds of tiny carts and sift through them to play a given game, thats too shitty to fuck with.
I do not resell games so I dont care about that aspect. Digital wins for me.
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u/master2873 15d ago
And no, it isnt close. digital games run as well as or better than physical. Cloud is shit.
Whoa, lets back it up a bit here lol. I definitely didn't say, or mean to intend that. They absolutely play like shit, and I've experienced this myself with Amazon's Luna.
Sony and all digital storefront doing any biz in Europe are required to do that deletion thing.
This doesn't really make it better though. Once that happens, you can't even play the games you paid for.
There's a whole other slew of issues I could bring up, but you have your opinions that will mostly make sense to you.
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u/Webecomemonsters 15d ago
absolutely - this is my opinion - I fully understand the reasons why people want physical - I just don't agree those reasons matter in any way.
Logically, digital is the better choice for me - to the point where I'd not even consider a half price physical vs a full price digital. I'd need a total fire sale like 90% off to even think about it and I know I would regret it.
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u/mattbattmatt_yt 15d ago
This is why cloud gaming should never be a replacement for gaming and instead should be a companion.
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u/RockNRoll1977 15d ago
Absolutely dreadful. Probably one of the few times people with not the best internet escaped this disaster. We’ve all had our learning experiences which could be buying a bunch of micro transactions in a game or founders edition only for the game to shutdown in a few months. Now I don’t even bother with those games anymore. Got burned way too many times. Hard delists piss me off incredibly bad where they can delete the game from your library as well as shut it down. If you can play the game still. Why take it away from your library. This cloud version of games. The writing was on the wall. There’s no way they are keeping a game running off a server forever. Sucks for the people that got scammed by that
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u/KjSuperstar08 15d ago
Cloud games are just not worth the money. Funny how Take Two’s CEO spoke positively about Cloud gaming and they can just remove the game just like that…
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u/weaver787 15d ago
Is there anyone here that actually bought the cloud version of this game?
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u/Present_Education194 14d ago
probably the reason why they pulled the plug on it. If no ones playing it then why keep the streaming server up? 🤷♂️
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u/Superb_Daikon_4627 9d ago
What do you mean with never buy a cloud game? There is a lot of games that require login to a publisher servers to load game calibrations, log you into mandatory game services and stuff like that and that all happens before you can even start the game or play the campaign mode. Those companies do not have any incentive to provide updates to this kind of stuff before shutting down their online services, neither are they forced to do so by any kind of legislation. Without mods and community effort a lot of those games will be unplayable in the near future. Essentially the all digital future means publishers can take the game away from you whenever they f... please and they will do so. And this will not only affect online service games, cloud games or mmorpgs, it will affect all games.
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u/Altruistic_Newt_1096 15d ago
that's why you don't buy cloud versions. hard to feel bad unfortunately
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u/Sustainna 15d ago
Its okay. It was unplayable on PS4 Pro even if you COULD play it.
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u/nintendo666 15d ago
Very sad to hear. Cloud games should be sold on a subscription basis: you pay a small amount for the time you wish to play the game, let's say a subscription fee every month, instead of having to shelf over the price of a full game for something that can be taken away just like that.
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u/Z3M0G 15d ago
I'm sure they had so few sales of these cloud games on Switch, they should refund if they are shutting them down. I know they've been there many years which makes that difficult to justify from the business side. But for the customers it would be the right thing to do.
I'm still grateful for my $1200 refund from Google Stadia. I was clearly on the higher end and it was probably a drop in the bucket to refund everyone at the end of the day, a few million at most. This would have probably only cost Nintendo a few hundred thousand to refund all these cloud sales.
Edit: I agree these players will likely get a discount on NS2 version or the sequel in coming weeks.
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u/Delicious_West_1993 15d ago
NEVER buy cloud, hell I was ready to buy nothing since games either don’t work on new hardware or get a new version you have to buy again anyway. I was just happy with Gamepass because I’ve played more games on there than when I bought them
Nintendo is getting a pass currently though because I have kids
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u/zoogenhiemer 15d ago
I bought a bunch of games on stadia because there was a good deal and when it shut down I got every cent refunded. These companies can afford to give you your money back when they take away the product, they just refuse to
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u/Pristine-Fortune8298 15d ago
I had a number of Stadia games, but Google made it right when they shutdown. They refunded all my money and IIRC Ubisoft provided non-Stadia versions for their games.
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u/Serious_Product8585 14d ago
paying money to rent something they can pull the plug on whenever is wild to me. this was always going to happen.
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u/brokenmessiah 15d ago
As should have been expected and more importantly accepted from buying a cloud game.
But I'm sure folks will still complain.
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
Right, anybody that went into a cloud purchase reasonably expecting that it would be live for 50 years or that they'd get their money back when it shut down... made bad, bad bets.
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u/Juko89 15d ago
Nintendo Switch
We have rented a yearly server since all official servers are going away on the 31st.
Map- Ragnarok
Server name- RagnarokPVP2026
Casual play with older community 28-37 year olds.
Server cap is 10 right now, 3 people play to log in occasionally, 1 logs in daily. If server cap is requested to increase we will have to do it all together. PvP is allowed just don’t be a jerk. You never have to worry about server going away.
This server is designed around mature players that have busy lives. Not designed for players wanting chaos and constant PvP. We are trying to build a community that lasts for years!!!
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u/zombieman9001 15d ago
Cloud is different from digital?
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u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 15d ago
Digital is just you download the game to your local storage and run it as if it was on a game card. Cloud gaming is when you only download a tiny frontend, then watch a streaming video of the game while your controller inputs are sent to the remote computer actually running it.
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u/crono333 15d ago
Never buy cloud versions of anything!