In November 2024, two gamers from California sued Ubisoft over the company's decision to shut down servers for The Crew. The two argued that Ubisoft shutting down the servers was equivalent to buying a pinball machine, then years later, the pinball manufacturer storms into your house, removes the pinball paddles, bumpers, balls, everything that makes it playable and leaves an empty shell.
They alleged that Ubisoft "misled consumers by telling them they were buying a game, when in fact, all they were renting was a limited license to access the game." The plaintiff's pinball comparison also came from one of them having bought a physical disc for The Crew, which was rendered useless plastic once the servers shut down.
Following player backlash, Ubisoft announced that The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest would receive an update that added offline modes for each game. This would allow players to continue to enjoy both games even after the servers for each were shut down in early 2024. The same effort has not been extended to The Crew, which was taken offline entirely in March 2024, another point of issue the prosecuting players took up with Ubisoft.
Spotted by Polygon, Ubisoft has responded to the lawsuit, firmly telling the prosecuting players that they should have known they were never buying a game to own when they each purchased a copy of The Crew and that it was clear they were buying a license.
"Frustrated with Ubisoft's recent decision to retire the game following a notice period delineated on the product's packaging, Plaintiffs apply a kitchen sink approach on behalf of a putative class of nationwide customers," Ubisoft wrote in its response.
Ubisoft also argued that the plaintiffs had gotten more than their fair share of use out of The Crew, playing the game for years before the announcement of its shutdown in December 2023 and the actual closure in March 2024.
"After making their purchases, Plaintiffs enjoyed access to The Crew for years before Ubisoft decided in late 2023 to retire and shut down the servers of the ten-year-old video game. Plaintiffs received the benefit of their bargain and cannot complain now that they were deceived simply because Ubisoft did not then create an offline version of the discontinued video game."
Following Ubisoft's response to the lawsuit, the prosecution amended several of their complaints, including a particular rebuttal against the claim that the players got their fill of The Crew. The plaintiffs claimed they had no reason to believe the servers would ever be shut down.
Late last year, before this lawsuit was filed, Valve issued a new warning on Steam telling players that they were only purchasing a license for the games they bought and did not directly own the game. This was the first time a digital storefront had been directly clear about players purchasing a license to play the game, not the game itself.
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