Ubisoft has responded to a lawsuit over the shutdown of its racing game The Crew, stating players purchased a “limited license to access the game” as opposed to “unfettered ownership”.
The game was taken offline in March last year, becoming unplayable due to its online requirements. Despite being 10 years old and essentially replaced by a successor, the decision sparked concern over both consumer rights and game preservation.
In November last year, fans filed a lawsuit in California against Ubisoft, stating players were unaware they owned only a licence to the game. Ubisoft responded in February, in a filing seen by Polygon, to dismiss the case.
The filing, from Ubisoft’s lawyers, states the company “allegedly misled purchasers of its video game The Crew into believing they were purchasing unfettered ownership rights in the game, rather than a limited license to access the game”.
“But the reality is that consumers received the benefit of their bargain and were explicitly notified, at the time of purchase, that they were purchasing a license,” it reads.
Ubisoft’s lawyers claim plaintiffs have applied a “kitchen sink approach on behalf of a putative class of nationwide customers” and alleged eight causes of action including false advertising and unfair competition. In response, they believe there has been no real “cognisable injury”.
Plaintiffs then responded in March with an amended complaint and an additional accusation around gift certificates. Sales of the game’s currency, they argued, could be considered a gift certificate and in California, gift certificates can’t expire – yet with the game shut down, the in-game currency has expired.
Further, photos of the packaging from the plaintiffs reveal the activation code for the game doesn’t expire until 2099, which they claim is how Ubisoft “implied that [The Crew] would remain playable during this time and long thereafter”. As such, they believe the statute of limitations has not expired.
Ubisoft now has until 29th April to respond once again.
After shutting down the game’s servers, Ubisoft retroactively added offline modes to other games in the series.
One group of modders, meanwhile, recreated the server-side software needed to play The Crew online once again.