The lawsuit was filed with the Créteil court, and the consumer association has said that it is (via machine translation) “unacceptable that Ubisoft considers, in its general conditions, that players only acquire a ‘license to use’ the game which would then be revocable at any time by the publisher.” UFC-Que Choisir’s lawsuit is being backed by Europe-wide consumer initiative Stop Killing Games. UFC-Que Choisir lawyer Brune Blanc-Durand called the case of The Crew “a particularly clear legal case study,” in a statement to the AFP.

Ubisoft is no stranger when it comes to lawsuits regarding the 2014 racing game at this point. The company had already been the subject of legal action in the US state of California, alleging that Ubisoft had violated consumer protection laws in the state. A lawyer for the company argued that there wasn’t a case, since the plaintiffs didn’t have ownership of the game.

“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, alleging eight causes of action including violations of California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as common law fraud and breach of warranty claims,” wrote Ubisoft’s lawyers in a statement.

CEO Yves Guillemot was asked about the Stop Killing Games campaign, having caught on quite a bit and getting well over 1.4 million signatures. He called the subject of games being killed off an industry-wide issue.

“Regarding the petition, we operate in a market,” Guillemot said about the petition. “And, whenever we release a game, we provide a lot of support for that game. We also provide a lot of services to make sure that the game is accessible and remains playable 24/7.”

He also pointed to the company’s standard terms of service, which state that “Ubisoft may cancel access to one or more specific online features upon a 30-day prior notice.” Along with this, he noted that there was plenty of “information regarding the game and how long the game can be played”. At the same time, Ubisoft had put The Crew 2 on a massive discount, which Guillemot called “a one-Euro fee proposed to all buyers of the game. For just one Euro they got to buy the next version.”

“It’s not a whole lot of money to be able to continue playing a game,” he said.

“But this kind of issue is not specific to Ubisoft,” continued Guillemot. “All video game publishers are faced with that issue. You provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point the service may be discontinued. Nothing is eternal. And we are doing our best to make sure that things go well for all players and buyers, because obviously support for all games cannot last forever.”

According to Polygon, Ubisoft has responded to the lawsuit by filing a motion to have the case dismissed. As part of the case, Ubisoft’s lawyers have released a statement arguing that the plaintiffs don’t have a case because they don’t have ownership of the game. Rather, the lawyers argue, the players simply purchased a license to access the game in a limited capacity.

“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, alleging eight causes of action including violations of California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as common law fraud and breach of warranty claims,” wrote Ubisoft’s lawyers.

The plaintiffs have since responded to Ubisoft’s argument by amending their lawsuit with pictures of the packaging for The Crew, which states that activation codes for the game would be valid until 2099. According to the plaintiffs, through this, Ubisoft “implied that [The Crew] would remain playable during this time and long thereafter.”

Last year, after servers for The Crew had been taken offline, Ubisoft had reportedly started revoking players’ access to the racing game. This is despite the fact that, since the servers were no longer available for an online-only game, there was no way for it to be played anyway. However, some players were holding out hope for The Crew to be preserved in some way through community-run servers.

Users started spotting that they no longer could even open up the game through their library page, being presented with a message reading “You no longer have access to this game. Why not check the store to pursue your adventures?”

Since the original release of The Crew, Ubisoft has further expanded the title through two sequels: The Crew 2 and, more recently, The Crew Motorfest. The latest title in the franchise, The Crew Motorfest, was originally only available on PC through Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store. The game was eventually released on Steam as well.

For more details, check out our review of The Crew Motorfest from back when it came out. In our review, we praised the moment-to-moment driving mechanics of the game, as well as its beautiful open world. Ultimately, despite questionable design choices with its progression mechanics, we still gave The Crew Motorfest a score of 8 out of 10.

MotoGP 24

Unlike many annual sports titles MotoGP developer Milestone strive for meaningful improvement with every iteration, and MotoGP 24 is the biggest leap between versions since the Italian studio took over in 2013. Principal of these changes are bike physics, especially the feel of the rear brakes into corners and the stability of the 2-wheeler as you accelerate out. Competition is fiercer too: adaptive AI and penalties dished out from stewards to any rider on track – not just the player – fosters centimetre-close, front-wheel-to-rear-wheel racing.

]]> 605140 https://gamingbolt.com/ubisoft-is-reportedly-revoking-the-crew-1-licenses-for-players-who-purchased-the-game Sun, 14 Apr 2024 22:52:57 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=584452 The games industry continues to hit us with depressing lessons of how fickle digital ownership can be, with everything from DRM to servers being taken down and more serving as constant threats to your ownership of games you’ve purchased with your hard-earned money. Another game is now seemingly hammering that point home.

Ubisoft recently shut down all servers for 2014’s The Crew, which rendered the always-online game effectively unplayable. But though there was some hope of community-made patches making the game playable again in some capacity, Ubisoft is all but nuking those hopes by revoking licenses from players who’ve purchased the game, which means they no longer have access to it at all.

Shared by users on Reddit, a message on the game’s library page reads, “You no longer have access to this game. Why not check the store to pursue your adventures?”

Ubisoft has yet to officially comment on the matter, but as you’d expect, there’s been considerable backlash from the community- which is understandable enough. When you buy a game with your money, you expect to own it forever, even if servers have been taken down. By revoking licenses, Ubisoft has essentially set precedent for purchases being temporary, which is unlikely to go down well with audiences.

Unfortunately, even if you purchased the game before this, there won’t be any way to play it. According to its Steam page, it will be playable until March 31st, 2024, after which servers will shut down. Since The Crew is always online, you’ll no longer be able to access it.

Interestingly, the community has been working on an offline patch since October 2023. It made slight progress but is far from fully functional. Stay tuned for more updates on its progress.

In the meantime, The Crew Motorfest is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Check out our review here.

As revealed by creative director Stephane Baley over on Twitter, The Crew and The Crew 2 have collectively surpassed 40 million players in their lifetimes across all platforms, the former having launched in 2014 and the latter in 2018.

That is not reflective of sales, especially with both games also having been available via subscription services, but it’s an incredibly impressive number nonetheless. With a new mainline game in the series also launching later this year with The Crew Motorfest, that number is bound to climb even higher in the near future.

15 years ago a group of friends dreamed of creating their own driving game. Ubisoft trusted them. Ivory gave birth to #TheCrew. 15 years later 40 million players have joined the adventure. Soon it will continues with The Crew MotorFest.Always believe in your dreams! Thank you all pic.twitter.com/zuArbN7nmN

— Stephane Beley (@__Fergus__) February 25, 2023

The Crew: Orlando was seemingly supposed to be a DLC for The Crew 2, but seems to now have taken the shape of an entirely new game in the franchise. This is according to notable industry insider Tom Henderson, who took to Twitter to share his insights on the matter. Henderson also says that the game is currently in pre-alpha and that no release dates are known to him as of yet. In a seperate Tweet, he mentions that the game could be a reboot of sorts as Ubisoft wasn’t all that happy about The Crew 2.

Interestingly enough, the aforementioned Reddit dataminer suggests that the game is set in Hawaii, which seems a little weird for a game called “Orlando”- so it’s hard to be sure about which details to believe. The Reddit post also states that there will be a battle royale-style mode in the game as well.

Of course, this all just early speculation and rumors, so best to take it all with a pinch of salt for now. We’ll let you know if there are any more updates though, so stay tuned.

Project ORLANDO by Ubisoft Ivory Tower has leaked on Reddit – https://t.co/NxxrM3L3a7

The game is not actually The Crew 2 DLC. It's currently just dubbed as "The Crew: Orlando" and is a completely new game with a new driving engine. Currently in pre-Alpha & no set release date.

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) September 24, 2021

I'm not sure. From what I've heard is that they weren't happy with The Crew 2 are and just overhauling everything… So it's a possibility.

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) September 24, 2021

Two Worlds

The timing of Two Worlds’ release, coming up after The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, might seem like it created lots of unfair expectations. Unfortunately, this wasn’t helped by developer Zuxxez proclaiming it to be “a more focused, grittier experience” than Oblivion with “much more complex” magic, a “more complex society” and more depth to the horse riding. The final result was a mess with graphical issues, a cliched story wrought with awful voice-acting, repetitive combat and bugs galore. Some of the environments looked nice and the world was appropriately large. But that “deep” horse riding was a nightmare to control, souring the experience all the more. Overall, Two Worlds is looked back upon as a meme and an albatross that it’s successor had to bear.

Do keep in mind, that though it’s natural to assume that when we talk about big game maps, we might be talking about open world games only- but that’s not the case. Whether its an open world game, or an open ended game that’s not particularly open world, or a huge map that we’ve seen in multiplayer play- it’s all fair game for this list. Also, do keep in mind that randomly generated maps were not considered for this feature.

A final note before we begin- there’s every possibility that we might have missed out on some game you were expecting to see on this list, and if we did, it’s either because the exact sizes of their maps aren’t known to us, or because we simply forgot! If it’s the former, and you know what the sizes are, please tell us! If it’s the latter, please remind us.

So without further ado, let’s jump into it.

#50. ASSASSIN’S CREED UNITY

The open world action by developers Ubisoft has its fair share of issues, sure, but its world is one aspect that can’t be faulted. It’s a joy to explore, and it’s also pretty big. At about 2.4 km2, there’s more than enough space in this virtual world to explore and lose yourself in.

Far Cry 4 – Ubisoft Montreal

Why not start with a particular screenshot, featuring co-op gameplay with players in buzzers, that was the focus of a Kotaku article about a professional bullshotter? This Far Cry 4 shot had soft edges on the bullet casings and muzzle flash on guns, an effect which extended to the buzzer’s rotors. That’s only the tip of the iceberg for Ubisoft though so don’t worry.