Full title: Ubisoft says you “cannot complain” it shut down The Crew because you never actually owned it, and you weren’t “deceived” by the lack of an offline version “to access a decade-old, discontinued video game”
Ubisoft’s lawyers have responded to a class action lawsuit over the shutdown of The Crew, arguing that it was always clear that you didn’t own the game and calling for a dismissal of the case outright.
The class action was filed in November 2024, and Ubisoft’s response came in February 2025, though it’s only come to the public’s attention now courtesy of Polygon. The full response from Ubisoft attorney Steven A. Marenberg picks apart the claims of plaintiffs Matthew Cassell and Alan Liu piece by piece, but the most common refrain is that The Crew’s box made clear both that the game required an internet connection and that Ubisoft retained the right to revoke access “to one or more specific online features” with a 30-day notice at its own discretion.
I gotta thank Ubisoft for saving me money by consistently saying dumbass shit so I don’t buy their crappy games. The one Elon tweet was still pretty funny though I won’t lie.
This is why I will always have some nostalgia for physical media. I still got CDs I bought in the 90s (which I’ve copied onto my hard drives a long, long time ago) and while they need a like coaxing to work at times, they are forever mine and no one can take them from me.
I was very hesitant to go on steam specifically for their ‘you don’t own shit even if you paid and followed the rules’ garbage.
Steam is crazy in how it’s still usable and not completely enshittified after existing for so many years. I don’t know how they do it
It’s called staying away from venture capital. It really is as simple as that. Because Valve has a lucrative business model they have no need or desire to raise capital from outside investors, therefore there is nobody to squeeze them for value at the expense of their customers.
If you watch Cory Doctorow’s talk where he coined the word “enshittification” he explains how the process works, and it starts with outside investment. Enshittification is just a catchy term for value extraction, from the perspective of the customer.
Damn, now I understand the hype!
I bought Star Wars squadrons and it worked for a bit. Now it doesn’t even boot and I don’t know why. Initially it was my shitty anti-virus that was causing the problem, but even after disabling it it doesn’t load.
And people will still defend this company
Does anyone defend them? I think what happens is that people get mad at them but then still buy the games anyway because they’re absolute fucking idiots. I believe this is what happens.
People are still buying the games. Call it what you want but if you give them money it’s your fault they keep doing this.
Same goes for the people who whine about how broken COD is yet still buy it every single year. People often wonder why the game industry is the way it is, but then you realize the average person has a gold fish brain and will keep wasting their money on crap just to be disappointed over and over. Companies absolutely love that kind of customer and would rather rely on them than actually try.
Yea that’s exactly what I’m saying. I blame the consumers. It’s not like they don’t have options.
Yeah, that’s true
The way of the future…VCRs went away. DVDRs went away, replaced with DVRs and membership streaming, where you can “buy” a movie on Amazon Prime, but if they lose the rights to the movie, so do you - oh well. Your Tesla will brick, if Elon gets mad at you, and your video games will stop working if “the man” unplugs the server. Oh, and dont get caught pulling out your old dusty VCR to record the Super Bowl to watch later…thats a copyright violation. The oligarchs want to make sure the plebes eventually own nothing. If the masters can take it all away, the peasants will do what they’re told, be quiet about it, and smile when in sight of the masters.
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.
The problem is it’s getting harder and harder to pirate games, especially games that are entirely online.
I like the cut of your jib.
When you “buy” software, you’re buying a license that grants you permission to use it subject to the terms & conditions. The stealing as the law would see it is from using software without purchasing a license or using it in violation of the license.
It even extends to digital content people “buy” on Steam, or Google Play, or Amazon including books, music, and videos. You didn’t buy that content, even if you think you did. You bought a license to it which is why occasionally Amazon or whoever will just scrub the content from your account without your consent. That’s also why in some countries you pay VAT on e-books even though you don’t pay VAT on real books - because you actually bought a software license which is liable to VAT.
So the best advice is don’t buy digital media from online services. For games and software it is unavoidable but recognize you don’t legally own squat although most console games on disc or cartridge can still be sold second hand. But even that is being eroded. Nintendo apparently are planning to sell “physical” games in stores but you open it up and there is a redemption code inside. Sony and Microsoft have both tried to get away from physical media too.
I think there is an implication that if you buy a game which is online by nature (e.g. an MMO) that the servers can and will shut down eventually. My cupboard is filled with defunct MMOs. And people do not “own” any commercial software per se, they run it under licence.
So I don’t see that Ubisoft has any legal obligation here. But as a good will gesture they really should put the server code in escrow, or open source chunks of it so that games can continue to enjoy life after the company itself has no economic incentive to continue running it.
If they don’t sell the game but a long term rental license, then they should not say “we’ve sold 1234557890 copies of <game>”.
The thing is with MMOs or online only games do you have a valid expectation of the game surviving forever?
It was deliberate choice by them to make even the single player campaign online homie. It ain’t an mmo, and it never should have been built like this.
Don’t even play like that wasnt fucked up, ok? If your actual argument is “i think companies should get to do what they want” them say that, with your whole chest, not this Weak socratic-method-bootlick-bull…
Take that stand and defend it. Or you could also stfu
It was deliberate choice by them to make even the single player campaign online homie.
As one would expect from an online racing game. Anyone buying it would know in advance that single player offline modes do not exist when they bought the game.
It ain’t an mmo, and it never should have been built like this.
It kind of was and it was intended to work as it did by the company that made it.
If your actual argument is “i think companies should get to do what they want”
My argument us that this is a game designed to be played online only. When you bought the game the packaging/materials do not talk about offline play so you shouldn’t expect it to work in a way it expressly isn’t designed to do. Adults should be aware of what things do when they buy them.
It ain’t an mmo, and it never should have been built like this.
It kind of was and it was intended to work as it did by the company that made it.
Adults don’t dance around semantics in debate when they’re called out. I told you to stand up and this is your response? Mebbe you’re not even hidin! Maybe it’s the only way you can talk?
I guess you disagree, but I find your speech pattern embarrassing and tiring.
Be better eh? For me
Your perspective seems to be you should get whatever you want regardless of the actual product you were sold and the terms of that sale. That’s not rational. You bought an online only game. If you wanted a single player offline mode to exist then you should have bought a game that had one.
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Pretending authority is your only tactic. As the likely old-head here I deny you my permission to “be the adult in the room”
Call out use of argument from authority fallacy, call to his own authority instead… Quite ironic.
Well you know what, I call upon the deep magic of rule 2 to remove your message (for the part I didn’t quote, for those who wonder).
roll dice, get a critical failure “well fu…”
Anyway, please stay civil, no matter how heated a debate can become.
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Technically they’re right, which is why pirating Ubisoft games is ethical.
Edit: Pirating Nintendo games is ethical too, of course.
There you go, offline mode ftw
Some call it piracy when you download games, movies, music, software or books. I call it an online public library. In 2003 I used to get video games from the public library, install them on my PC and play them. You had to have the disk in your CD drive to play the game so when the game was due back at the library you could return or renew it. If game makers don’t provide hard copies then downloading is no different than using the library.
Ubisoft deserves to go bankrupt, get dissolved, and have their IP’s sold to people aren’t malicious.
No, make it a entirely employee-owned company, so they can vote the execs out, sanitize the culture, and keep the thousands of worker out of unemployment
No, let them die. Better to start fresh than start cursed.
The workers, the gamers, and the industry are glad you’re not in charge of anything, punishing them for things they have no control over, and wasting good talents and infrastructure.
The workers and gamers would own the fucking companies if I was ‘in charge’. I have no intention of letting poor management ruin any of the games. I would kill Ubisoft to signal the end of an old rotten era and the beginning of a new, better era. Death is not a thing to be shunned and rejected as much as accepted as a vital step of the natural cycle. Like an over grown predator in the wilds, its death would sustain and entire ecosystem unto itself spurning the creation of newer smaller life.
Why are you defending Ubisoft like they actually give a shit about their workers? They clearly don’t more than any other tech company otherwise they’d be more like Larian less like EA or Activision. There’s more reasons to kill them off and break them up than let them live.
If you never actually own a Ubisoft game that logically pirating them isn’t theft right? Right?
You are joking, but I am 100% serious, I don’t see the contradiction in this.
It’s a license to play the game, so when you pirate it is like sneaking into the movie theater. There’s no additional cost to the producer, but theoretically a loss of revenue from the license (movie ticket) you didn’t buy.
All that ignores the fact that they sure do pretend they are SELLING the game when it’s convenient.
I agree with this point, and it’s also why I think the class action suit makes sense. Some of the people who bought The Crew got a physical copy, which is now just a useless disc. It’s still just a license like you said, and I agree that it feels like they’re selling the game.
It’s like if the movie theater sold a DVD for a movie, but the disc will only work while you’re in the theatre. Pirating might still be a crime legally but I don’t think anyone should feel bad about doing it here, Ubisoft absolutely does not deserve your money over slimy business practices like this.
Agree top to bottom.
I think a better comparison would be a “Drive-In Theater”, because with pirating you’re just seeing the film, not using their seats/venue (servers) so it’s like you’re sitting in the neighbors yard watching it from their porch. Still costing them what would be considered a “viewing purchase” for the data but you’re really not putting a strain on the theater itself by “attending or sneaking in”.
I mean you’re still using the Drive-In’s gravel and taking up space, but I see what you mean.
…you’re using the drive-in’s gravel and space from the neighbor’s yard?
Ah I missed that. Thanks.
the fact is, that most people who pirate, wouldn’t pay for it if they couldn’t pirate. It’s not a loss of revenue in most cases. I sure as shit wouldn’t pay for media if i couldn’t pirate. I’m poor as fuck.
You’re correct, and this goes for ALL steam games
Half Life 2 works offline just fine. You can even run the exe directly without Steam open. You just cannot compare the two. But yes, if Steam get shut down you obviously cannot download them again. Same goes for games on GOG. You could archive them, but you can also archive games from Steam, it’s all the same.
I wasn’t saying you can’t play them, just that you don’t own them. This is still true with DRM free games. GOG’s agreement is different to Steam’s in that you own your purchase
You don’t think you own every house with an unlocked front door, do you?
You don’t really own a house at all. Gotta pay eternal rent to the government to keep it
Damn.
Damn
Or, ownership itself is a service. Rights mean nothing if nobody enforces them, and that includes property rights.
No one should own an Ubisoft game. Its a company thats at the top of the list with Nintendo as far as the level of hatred and vitriol they have for their own paying customers goes.
Problem is Ubisoft games are so shit now days it’s not even worth the effort to pirate them.
Yes sir 100% correct.
Logic checks out
It’s a nice sentiment but seriously - the whole “if buying isn’t owning then pirating isn’t stealing” thing is both overused and has always annoyed me. How are the two related? You can still be stealing regardless of if you have an option to buy or not. You could still steal an item that isn’t for sale.
What we really should be focusing on is whether pirating in and of itself is stealing, and whether it should be a crime. This overused phrase is distracting from the issue at hand, imo.
How are the two related?
A user obtains the game through legitimate means by “buying” the game. However, they do not own the game, and are in fact, just renting something. This is despite decades and decades of game buying, especially pre-Internet, equating to owning the game and being able to play the game forever, even 100 years from now.
By pirating the game, a user has clawed back the implied social construct that existed for decades past: Acquiring a game through piracy means that you own the game. You have it in a static form that cannot be taken away from you. There’s still the case of server shutdowns, like this legal case is arguing. But, unlike the “buyer”, the game cannot suddenly disappear from a game’s store or be forcefully uninstalled from your PC. You own it. You have the files. They cannot take that away from you.
The phrase essentially means: You have removed my means of owning software, therefore piracy is the only choice I have to own this game. It’s not stealing because it’s the only way to hold on to it forever. You know, because that’s what fucking “buying” was supposed to mean.
I think Ubisoft is clearly in the wrong, but you’re not making a good case. You’re conflating very different meanings of the word “own”.
In terms of legal ownership, only the copyright holder owns the intellectual property, including the right to distribute and license it. When a consumer “buys” a piece of media, they’re really just buying a perpetual license for their personal use of it. With physical media, the license is typically tied to whatever physical object (disc, book, ROM, etc.) is used to deliver the content, and you can transfer your license by transferring the physical media, but the license is still the important part that separates legal use from piracy.
When you pirate something, you own the means to access it without the legal right to do so. So, in the case at hand, players still “own” the game in the same sense they would if they had pirated it. Ubisoft hasn’t revoked anyone’s physical access to the bits that comprise the game; what they’ve done is made that kind of access useless because the game relies on a service that Ubisoft used to operate.
The real issue here is that Ubisoft didn’t make it clear what they were selling, and they may even have deliberately misrepresented it. Consumers were either not aware that playing the game required Ubisoft to operate servers for it, or they were misled regarding how long Ubisoft would operate the servers.
Ultimately I think what consumers are looking for is less like ownership and more like a warranty, i.e. a promise that what they buy will continue to work for some period of time after they’ve bought it, and an obligation from the manufacturer to provide whatever services are necessary to keep that promise. Game publishers generally don’t offer any kind of warranty, and consumers don’t demand warranties, but consumers also tend to expect punishers to act as if their products come with a warranty. Publishers, of course, don’t want to draw attention to their lack of warranty, and will sometimes actively exploit that false perception that their products come with a perpetual warranty.
I think what’s really needed is a very clear indication, at the point of purchase, of whether a game requires ongoing support from the publisher to be playable, along with a legally binding statement of how long they’ll provide support. And there should be a default warranty if none is clearly specified, like say 10 years from the point of purchase.
I’m not trying to frame this in the context of the lawsuit, even though that’s the point of the original article. The Crew’s nonfunctionality is just a consequence of our lack of ownership.
Perhaps this article would explain things better than I could.
Ultimately I think what consumers are looking for is less like ownership and more like a warranty
No. That’s not true. Otherwise people wouldn’t be reciting this phrase over and over again.
Consumers want to fucking own shit again! Renting everything is the entire fucking problem.
If you have to buy it, you own it. Make it free to play but have in game purchases. Everyone knows free games can shut down any time. I play lot of mobile apps until I get tired of playing it, then delete.
I avoid buying games that requires online connection. It means the game is unplayable without it.
It’s sickening what companies can get away with just because it’s legal. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Get balatro you’ll never get bored :)
I’ve beaten most of the Gold Stakes and all of the challenges, its not a forever game. But it is fun.
I’m tired of all the pixel art indie card games.
There are better games to play if gambling is your thing.
….what? If gambling was my thing I’d be gambling.
I’ve enjoyed the hell out of Buckshot Roulette. It’s about playing Russian Roulette. With a pump action shotgun. There’s power-ups!
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And lying isn’t the answer either.
Seem a few comments recently that seem to think cards = gambling. Balatro doesn’t even use a vaguely standard deck of cards though.
Not that it would matter if it did. But would freecell be considered gambling?
Balatro isn’t gambling so win:win
“You will own nothing and like it”
I don’t like it, though.
Let’s see if the physical disc once said anything about needing an online connection for single play. Oh look, it did not, the subscription required was only for 2-8 players network play.
Let’s compare with Destiny 2’s back cover, a game that is a MMO and thus “cannot be owned” by the players. Hey, a “Online Play (Required)*” sticker that is not present on The Crew! The fine print has a bit that states that “Activision makes no guarantee of regarding availability of online play or features, and may modify or discontinue online services at its discretion without notice.”
FF14 also had a “Online Play (Required)*” sticker on its back cover. It clearly states on the rectangular bit above the T Rating: “Users are granted only a limited, revocable license and do not own any intellectual property in the game or game data”
You deceived consumers, Ubisoft. “Online Play Required” is not there, so the game should remain playable offline.
☝️ This guy lawyers
You deceived consumers, Ubisoft.
Ubisoft is being fucked on consumer protection grounds, not on false advertisement. It doesn’t matter what they said on box, they broke the law.EDIT: fuck, this is USSA lawsuit. I thought it was French(and EU in general) one.
Technically right but the game required network access to play anyways so I’m not sure that people were deceived by this as it happened.
Which was a deception in the first place, because it clearly distinguishes between ‘1 player’ where it doesn’t say anything about needing a network connection, and 2-8 player where it says network and playstation plus required. It also says network features can be removed at any time, but nowhere does it say 1 player is a network feature. It specifically does not say that.
Why weren’t people upset when they first bought the game and realized they needed to be online to play it then? Why did it only become a talking point after the fact? You could argue it was shitty to make it a network only game and I might agree, but to say people were deceived and didnt realize it couldn’t be played offline until the servers were shutdown is absurd.
They probably were upset, but not upset enough to do anything about it because they still wanted to play it. I personally would have refunded it right away, and lots of people probably also did that.
Sounds pretty fair to me.
Did you like, not read any of the comment you’re replying to? Click any of the picture links?
I did and have read about it and disagree. I dont think anyone was tricked and thought they’d have the crew forever. This all seems very self entitled in my opinion. Point out any technicalities that you want to, people should have expected the game to be sunset eventually, and that it would be gone after that, just like every other online only game.
