Two gamers who seem to be avid fans of Ubisoft’s racing gaming ‘The Crew’ are now suing the company. This comes after Ubisoft decided to shut down the server for the game back in March, leaving the players with a shell of the game as it required a constant internet connection to play the game.
The lawsuit was filed on November 4, 2024, by Alan Liu and Matthew Cassell, alleging that the players were misled at the time of purchase in two ways. First is that players are purchasing the game and not the licence to play, which is the case for most games. Secondly, Ubisoft “falsely represented” that the game files were on its physical disks rather than the key for activation.
“Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed,” the argument said.
“Turns out the pinball machine manufacturer decided to come into your home, gut the insides of the pinball machine, and remove your ability to play the game that you bought and thought you owned. Even though you paid full price to receive this game, you never knew that the manufacturer could come in one day, and, without your control, leave you with the skeleton of what you thought you paid for,” if further added.
The company has already received a lot of backlash for its actions. So much so that they announced an offline patch for the games’ sequel ‘The Crew 2’ and ‘The Crew Motorfest’, however, people with the original game are left hanging.
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A highly ambitious task
This lawsuit comes after a campaign led by YouTuber Ross Scott, ‘stop killing games’ which now has almost 400,000 signatures. The current cause seeks monetary relief for those affected, but in actuality, this raises a new question regarding the ownership and preservation of video games.
Video games nowadays are being turned into a service rather than a fun activity, and companies are now reserving the right to refuse service. At the moment, it seems unlikely that the lawsuit will bode well for gamers for several reasons, but it should make them aware of where to spend their money on gaming.