While Ubisoft had shut down servers for its racing game The Crew all the way back in 2024, with the game even getting delisted from digital stores in 2023, the company has not escaped criticisms over the decision. More recently, Ubisoft has been the subject of legal action by two The Crew players, who have accused the company of violating consumer protection laws in the US state of California.
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.
