Epic kills Online service for all Unreal Tournament games next month :(

[Philnemba]

Literally the most depressing news I've heard and Epic could've at least released the source code for their older UT games so the UT community can continue to support and play the older games online :(

 

https://t.co/4aLoMYFACh

[MemeMind]

Thats it, no more fortnite.

[RastaManGames]

They didn't cared about latest UT game and they can't kill UT'99 and UT-2004 with their custom servers that was made by pure fans.

[vyruss]

:(

 

I guess it was to be expected at some point but it's still kind of heartbreaking to see it finally happen - can't tell how many hours of my teenage years I spent playing the Unreal/Tournament series of games.

[Quasar]

What a trash fire.

[Herr Dethnout]

This is all Tencent's fault!

 

I don't have any proof, but any doubt too.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Herr Dethnout

[Midnight_00]

Even worse, the games are getting delisted. Might want to get them while you can.

[Mr Masker]

Just for this... they better bribe me with FIVE free games next month, or I'm never using Epic Launcher EVER AGAIN!!!

[TheShep]

A lot of things have been swirling the drain for a while folks. This isn't the end of the swirling.

[Somniac]

The only time I've ever joined a clan was for UT. They can kill the game, but they can't take the memories. 

 

Bastards.

[The BMFG]

man i hate to see unreal tournament go like this R.I.P.

[Dimon12321]

I don't understand why developers shut down servers when enough people still play their games. Are they expensive to maintain? Like, c'mon! You buy a server once and it works for several years. Electricity? There are plenty of countries around the world where energy prices are low. What else is wrong with it?

Edited December 14, 2022 by Dimon12321

[TJG1289]

Glad I was able to get Unreal Gold off Steam when it was free a while back. Man, I have lots of fun memories playing UT in computer class in high school and our teacher being amazed we were all playing against each other. He was more old-school with tech and definitely not a gamer so he didn't understand how that worked. Supposedly UT3 multiplayer will come back at least. Never played it, so idk if it's good or not.

 

Also, personally, I'm more upset about the Rock Band games going down. At least RB4 is still going, which is good for my Rivals crew, but losing the RB4 companion app is a big blow for some of us. I used it quite a bit to help build setlists. 

[Murdoch]

It's the risk you take getting into an online game. You cannot expect them to work forever. Servers cost money to run, and businesses like to make money. Fans and businesses have opposing takes on these things but ultimately the money is going to win out in the end. If the cost/benefit shrinks to the point of unfeasibility, the plug is going to get pulled. I may not like it, but I can understand the reasoning from a business perspective. 23 years is a hell of a run for an online game in UT's case. Given the hackers and coders of the Internet have made it so I can still play 30+ year old arcade and console games if I feel so inclined, I feel there's a good chance someone will create a workaround.

 

25 minutes ago, Dimon12321 said:

I don't understand why developers shut down servers when enough people still play their games. Are they expensive to maintain? Like, c'mon! You buy a server once and it works for several years. Electricity? There are plenty of countries around the world where energy prices are low. What else is wrong with it?

 

Running and maintaining servers costs money. They mention in the article they are wanting to streamline maintenance by not having to maintain multiple online systems. They would have run the numbers and compared it to the number of copies of the game they are still selling and decided it's not worth it.

 

1 hour ago, Midnight_00 said:

Might want to get them while you can.

 

I think it's pretty safe to say that anyone likely to want a copy of these old games already has one.
 

Edit: hmm interesting to note they are going to bring back UT3 at a later date. That game tanked hard here in New Zealand and Australia and most people went back to UT2004.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Murdoch

[DannyMan]

End of the era.

[D4NUK1]

Sad, but reasonable for their games without Master server's.

 

But I don't understand the deal with remove UT'99 with their fan base server's. 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

I understand what @Murdoch is saying but this is still quite sad. To quote T.S. Eliot:

 

This is the way Unreal Tournament ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

[banjiepixel]

Lan and splitscreen play keeps on winning.

[magicsofa]

17 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

It's the risk you take getting into an online game. You cannot expect them to work forever.

...

I feel there's a good chance someone will create a workaround.

...

Running and maintaining servers costs money.

 

It costs NOTHING to release source code, and maybe a day's work (maybe less, maybe no work at all) to give players the option of running their own servers without hackery. How can you take a "buyer beware" attitude given how easy it is for companies to hand over the reigns instead of just cutting the cord completely?

 

17 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

I think it's pretty safe to say that anyone likely to want a copy of these old games already has one.

 

It has nothing to do with copies. It has everything to do with the copy I own becoming non-functional for no reason other than the company wants to force you to buy something else.

 

Please watch Games as a Service is Fraud and as many of the Dead Game News videos necessary for you to realize what a massive infringement this is on consumer rights.

[No-Man Baugh]

Quote

We also removed the Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from storefronts today

I'm not expecting anyone here to give a shit about a pigeon-themed parody dating sim from a decade ago, and I'm sure these are antiquated ports that don't work on currently maintained hardware or os, but even in that context this just seems like a mean way to ignore a branch of non-windows users

Edited December 14, 2022 by No-Man Baugh

[Dumpster_Kitty]

what a bummer, maybe things will change in the future and fans can take over running it. 

[Artman2004]

The Unreal games (even Gold, a singleplayer game) have become unbuyable on Steam. A damn shame.

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, magicsofa said:

It costs NOTHING to release source code, and maybe a day's work (maybe less, maybe no work at all) to give players the option of running their own servers without hackery. How can you take a "buyer beware" attitude given how easy it is for companies to hand over the reigns instead of just cutting the cord completely?

 

OK, don't talk to me like I am a fucking moron. Of course it costs nothing to release source code (I seem to recall some did get access to it at some point for some reason?). Never said they shouldn't either so I really am struggling to get where you are coming from. But yes, online games are buyer beware. You cannot expect a company to support a service that costs them money to provide, without appropriate recompense, forever. That's naive in the extreme. Some may chose to do so if other areas of their income support it. I AM NOT SAYING I SUPPORT THIS DECISION. I literally said "I may not like it, but I can understand the reasoning from a business perspective." Lose the attitude. If you are not going to reply with respect, either don't reply or at least don't get shocked when I return the favour.

 

1 hour ago, magicsofa said:

the company wants to force you to buy something else.

 

How is the company forcing you to buy something else here? There's literally nothing in their current lineup that matches UT. The other games, I don't know, so maybe there's a bit of that. But if this is some backhanded attempt to force people to play Fortnite then they are idiots and it's not going to work. I see no reason not to take the article at it's word - maintain multiple online servers and associated software takes money and man hours, and they decided it's not benefiting them enough to keep it going. That's what companies do. They exist, first and foremost, to make money.

 

1 hour ago, magicsofa said:

Please watch Games as a Service is Fraud and as many of the Dead Game News videos necessary for you to realize what a massive infringement this is on consumer rights.

 

Again with the talking to me like I am a moron. First, UT isn't games as a service and never was so I completely fail to understand why you are bringing it up in a discussion about it. Second, yes actual games as a service sucks.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Murdoch

[Endless]

They didn't even flinch. The series has already been removed from the Steam store.

 

 

GOG still has them, at least.

 

Well, can't say I'm surprised. Videogame companies, heck, almost any media company nowadays cares very little about actual preservation. IP and copyright are a tight noose that's really meant to just exert maximum control on what the consumer can and can not do. There's no reason not to release the source-code other than extreme zealously. I'm no ''big brain CEO'', but shit, the more I try to look at the details, I honestly can not find any con against helping the community preserve the game. Sure, it's not producing an inch of what glorious Fornite makes in a single hour, but how BAD does it hurt you to keep a game on a store? Does it cost millions to keep Unreal on Steam for a week? Even then, Epic had a 6 billion revenue this year alone, so I GUESS money is not the problem.

 

Ironic how the actual creator of an IP has very little say when it comes to their own intellectual property, like how Doom is off hands from the original id founders, and that even when Romero was forbidden from releasing Doom beta and alpha stuff.

 

Heck, we are lucky compared to Unreal fans.

[The BMFG]

this is so fucking scummy. really what do they gain from removing all the unreal games from steam? fucking nothing from what i can tell

[TasAcri]

Now imagine when streaming becomes the standard and local game files are no more.

 

Publishers will have the power to make games vanish from existence or appear whenever it suits them. They will have full control of what's playable or not. Even single player games.

 

So good luck to future gamers.

Edited December 14, 2022 by TasAcri

[TasAcri]

2 hours ago, Dimon12321 said:

I don't understand why developers shut down servers when enough people still play their games. Are they expensive to maintain? Like, c'mon! You buy a server once and it works for several years. Electricity? There are plenty of countries around the world where energy prices are low. What else is wrong with it?

 

Why let you spend time playing an old game that turns no big profits anymore when they could make you play a newer one with microtransactions and loot boxes for you to buy?

[Biodegradable]

27 minutes ago, Endless said:

They didn't even flinch. The series has already been removed from the Steam store.

 

Removing Tournament makes sense since the servers are gone, so there's no point selling people a dead game. But why the fuck did they remove Unreal and Unreal 2? They're single player games! There's no servers to maintain and people will still pay for and play them! You don't throw the baby out with the bath water, Epic, what're you doing?!

 

[INfront95]

4 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Removing Tournament makes sense since the servers are gone, so there's no point selling people a dead game. But why the fuck did they remove Unreal and Unreal 2? They're single player games! There's no servers to maintain and people will still pay for and play them! You don't throw the baby out with the bath water, Epic, what're you doing?!

 

And to be fair. UT 2004 and UT Perfectly works in singleplayer with mutators, TONS of community maps and High range of Bots AI. There is NO reason to unlist UT. Hell half of my Childhood was spend in offline UT matches. Person has a right to come home from a busy day and boot few offline matches.

Edited December 14, 2022 by INfront95

[kinker31]

For anyone playing the original Unreal or UT '99, I've actually got some good news:

Unreal (Tourney 99) still has community servers (seen here!), and those seem to work much better than Epic Games' Servers.

 

Edit: Oh, and Unreal Gold, Unreal 2, and UT '99 are still available on GoG, at least for now.

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by kinker31