A game’s onlineservices being pulledis one of the most heartbreaking stories in the industry, and sadly, it’s becoming increasingly common. Although it’s technically inevitable for every multiplayer game to eventually go offline, it feels like the games on this list are growing every day.
Assetto Corsa, a fairly popular racing game, is the latest addition to this list, as ithas been reportedthat itsPlayStationservers have recently gone offline.What’s even worse, however, is that little to no warning was actually given to players before the plug was pulled.
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Although the gameremains availablefor the base price of $30 on the PlayStation store, no warning on the page indicates that the game’s online features are no longer accessible. This means that, yes, people can buy a game that falsely states to have online functionality.
Although this PS4 racing game has likely dwindled in playerbase in recent years,planned server expirationdates are nothing new. So the sudden cancellation likely feels like a swift stab in the back for dedicated fans.
Assetto Corsa Pulled Offline With No Warning
So far, the only warning that has been spotted online regarding the servers going offline is on theJapanese PlayStation storefront, where it states, “Online service for this game has ended. Please note that content using network functions is currently not available.”
The best theory for why this warning is given on the Japanese storefront but not anywhere else is that, in Japan, it was released under a separate publisher. The leading publisher, 505 Games, has yet to release a statement or explanation regarding the game’s sudden online deactivation.
To be fair, we shouldn’t expect multiplayer games to remain up for all eternity. After all, running servers costs money, and it’s unreasonable to keep them up when there are close to zero players actively playing the game.However, grace is usually given to games when they’re facing their end-of-life treatment.
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The recent global movement, Stop Killing Games, is an excellent example of this, with the European petition receivingover one million signaturesfrom gamers who are upset about games being “killed” by companies suddenly delisting them or pulling their servers.
Although games like Assetto Corsa may still have functional single-player modes, having no offline functionality still significantly limits the product’s functionality.Stop Killing Games explains that once you buy a game, it should be the developer’s responsibility to reasonably allow players to continue playing, or at least provide feasible alternatives.
More importantly, the game’s PlayStation page has still yet to be updated. Even if the company wants to take a game’s servers down and even if they want to do so without warning, they should at least make it public that those parts of the game are no longer functional.
Luckily,Assetto Corsais still available on other platforms (at least for now), and fans seem to already have methods to set updedicated servers on PC. That said, it’s always sad to see a game go offline, especially when no warning is given to fans who may want alast-minute celebrationof a game’s life cycle.
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