OK: Some of the arguments seem a bit out-there. A proposed class-action lawsuit saying players of The Crew were "duped" by Ubisoft compared the situation to the publisher entering peoples' homes and stealing parts of a pinball machine.
Everything needed to run the game online exists player side. There are many games where people run their own servers because of this, even in WoW. They are literally taking things to disable this ability from what they purchased.
And blizzard never supported people running private servers, and yet here they are so what's the difference? I dont see why this game got so much more attention. Is it just pulling the game to sell the next one? Its scummy but its their right to pull their own product if they want to, and noone has to buy the new one.
Quake is one of the oldest ones out there. Any game where you can host the server yourself can exist forever. It used to be very common that the server code was provided to you with your copy of the game.