Video game studio Ubisoft is facing new legal troubles after French consumer protection organization UFC-Que Choisir said it had filed a lawsuit over the company’s closure of The Crew. The new lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, alleges Ubisoft’s decision to virtually wipe The Crew from digital existence could set a dangerous and predatory industry precedent.
The online-only racing game, developed and published by Ubisoft in late 2014, was controversially delisted from digital video game retailers in December 2023. The Crew‘s servers shut down two years ago today, on March 31, 2024, effectively making the title permanently unplayable for millions of players who had already purchased the game. Like most video game releases, especially those from major triple-A studios like Ubisoft, The Crew also featured myriad premium in-game purchases, called “microtransactions,” for players willing to shell out for exclusive cosmetics, maps, and the like.
Following the server shutdown, however, Ubisoft denied consumer refunds and revoked game licenses. As if refund denial and license nullification weren’t enough, Ubisoft added insult to injury by alleging that players’ purchases covered access to The Crew rather than actual game ownership.
UFC-Que Choisir report cites Ubisoft’s potentially ‘abusive’ practices
French consumer association UFC-Que Choisir says it is urging Ubisoft to remove “certain unfair terms” from its contractual conditions and to cease “misleading” corporate practices. In its report, the consumer group says the removal of “[c]ontractual conditions that could be considered abusive” and “[p]otentially deceptive business practices” are “essential to protect gamers’ rights.” Additionally, the group says litigation is just one part of a “broader fight against the excesses of the sector.”
“The case of The Crew illustrates a worrying trend in the video game market: more and more games require a constant internet connection, allowing publishers to remotely disable games legitimately purchased by consumers without justification or alternative solutions. This trend is also accompanied by other problematic issues such as the growing reliance on paid downloadable content (DLC) and arbitrary banning of user accounts.”
” … the issue at stake is the preservation of video game heritage, threatened by the gradual disappearance of games that have become inaccessible due to a lack of active servers. For UFC-Que Choisir, one thing is clear: a game purchased by a consumer cannot literally disappear at the sole whim of its publisher.”
Stop Killing Games movement puts pressure on video game publishers
UFC-Que Choisir’s legal action is supported by the increasingly popular Stop Killing Games (SKG) movement, a consumer-led organization formed in Spring 2024 to specifically challenge Ubisoft’s shutdown of The Crew. SKG’s presentation to the European Commission last month included more than 1.3 million signatures from frustrated consumers, which, according to Reuters, is enough to mandate an EU executive review.
“Since April of 2024, we have taken various actions on the issue of challenging the legality of publishers destroying video games they have already sold,” reads a digitally translated version of SKG’s Past Actions & Results page. “Aside from proposing new law [sic], most legal action revolved around complaints submitted on the game ‘The Crew’ published by Ubisoft, as it was an ideal candidate to test the legality of this business practice.”
This is a developing story. Stay tuned to Outrun Gaming for more news as it becomes available.
