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.
