In spring 2024, Ubisoft has a strange story: Ubisoft is withdrawing The Crew (2014) from players without refunding them, while the servers are already down, not offering offline mode to players, and the game has been removed from player libraries, without the money being refunded.
This action by the French publisher sparked a wave of indignation, and today two people from Florida filed a lawsuit against the company.
Here’s what we know
Relying on consumer protection law, players are calling on Ubisoft to acknowledge its actions and return money to everyone who purchased The Crew. They claim that the French company deceived buyers by hiding from them that it was only selling a temporary license to access the game, and not the product itself.
The plaintiffs also seek compensation for moral damage and request that the action be qualified as a “class action”.
Imagine you bought a pinball machine. A few years later, you look again in the room where it is and see that the machine has lost its fins, ball and bumpers, and that the screen on which your unbeaten record was displayed has been removed. It turns out that the pinball machine manufacturer had decided to break into your house and rip out the components, thereby depriving you of the ability to play the game you had purchased and thought you owned.
Additionally, outraged gamers in Florida said Ubisoft’s deception began with physical editions of The Crew, as the discs do not contain the entire game and are essentially just download keys from the servers of the company, useless without an internet connection.
Sure, it’s expensive for developers to keep their older games’ servers active, but a company at Ubisoft’s level hardly cares about adding an offline mode. Note that after the racing game scandal, the studio announced that Ubisoft has heard the wishes of players and will add offline modes to The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest..
Source: Polygon Polygon
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