Ubisoft sued by players over The Crew's controversial shutdown
Two fans of The Crew have filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Ubisoft, accusing the publisher of violating California's consumer protection laws by pulling the game's online services offline.
The details:
Last year, Ubisoft announced that The Crew's online servers would be shut down on March 31, 2024, rendering the always-online title completely unplayable, with the publisher also removing it from player accounts. Fans were outraged as the game could be played perfectly fine without interacting with its multiplayer features, raising questions about why an offline mode was not included in an update.
As reported by Polygon, two players affected by the game's server closure have filed a lawsuit against the publisher. The pair have accused Ubisoft of misleading customers "by telling them they were buying a game, when in fact, all they were renting was a limited license to access a game that Defendants choose to maintain at their own noblesse oblige."
The plaintiffs also claimed that digital downloads and physical disc copies of the game were "more akin to a key" that players could use to access the servers to play it, despite its packaging allegedly implying that "The Crew itself was encoded onto physical disks consumers could buy or the digital files consumers could pay to download." It's argued that if players hadn't been misled, they would not have purchased the title.
The two players are now seeking court approval for a larger class action suit, which could result in monetary compensation for original owners of The Crew.
The filing also states that Ubisoft previously provided offline modes for older releases despite the closure of their online services, and that similar modes have since been added to The Crew 2 and Motorfest.
More gaming news:
Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against a player who allegedly streamed multiple pirated Switch games prior to their official release while also taunting the company following multiple bans.
