DriveClub Owners Deserve a Refund And an Apology

DriveClub’s launch will remain in the history as one the most troublesome launch we’ve ever seen on a next-gen consoles. But, why? If you don’t already know this, you are most likely living under a rock, or not really that into racing games. So, let me take you back a few months, maybe years in time so we can make things clear. When DriveClub was announced, the game was supposed to be a launch title for PlayStation 4, but it wasn’t. Not only that the game missed its original release date, but it was also supposed to be released as a free title for those with an active PlayStation Plus subscription.

Delaying the game for an entire year was surprising, but maybe the developer felt that they needed a bit more time with the game. With only a few months before the game’s release, we also found out that the game is not free, as the PlayStation Plus version of DriveClub is limited (similar with a demo), only giving you a few cars and tracks to venture on. The developer broke their promises twice, but we weren’t upset, and we were still waiting for the game to finally pop up and amaze us.

We received DriveClub with our hearts opened, but the game only managed to disappoint us. Let me be clear on something, the game’s single player mode is excellent, and there are only a few complaints I can think of regarding it. But DriveClub’s biggest issues lies within the lack of multiplayer. The game was intended to be a multiplayer driven title, hence its name “DriveClub”. Every player has to join a club, and progress in the game alongside with their friends.

From day one the game’s servers were broken, and they still are to this day — with almost two-week after DriveClub was out. We don’t really know what happened behind closed doors, or what is behind the terrible server performance, but one thing is clear: nobody can play DriveClub as it was intended, online. The servers were completely off in the first few days, but after some updates, a few players managed to log in and play online, but not without constant waves of crashes. The game was and still is simply unplayable online, and at this point we’re kind expecting for it not to be fixed a long time from now.

It’s beyond our understanding how an entire developer team couldn’t manage to fix the game’s servers in this insanely big time frame. and that’s a problem that only affects the customer. Frankly, anyone who bought DriveClub, either digital or retail, is entitled to a full refund and a set of apologies. It’s not acceptable in 2014 to have such insanely huge issues with online play, and even if problems do occur, they should be fixed as soon as possible — not in weeks, or months.

Frankly, my trust in this developer has been diminished to the point that I won’t be buying their next game (if there will ever be a next one), since we can’t really know if it will WORK or not. We should cross a line, and ask for what we deserve: our money back!