The Crew / Ubisoft Possible Legal Action

The Crew is yet another game that is being shut down later this year (March 31st). This one is a little different in that gaming YouTuber Accursed Farms with over 300K subs is considering legal action against Ubisoft for the shutdown. There is an article HERE that sums up the position. The article also has an embedded video from Accursed Farms going indepth about the possible avenues to take. It was a good read, as was the video. Would you back a class action lawsuit to stop companies from shutting down games & achievements?

Edit: Full disclosure, I do not own this game.

This is a very important issue. Which is why I have transferred to playing on steam mostly. Case in point there is a steam curation group dedicated to speaking about games leaving steam. So let's say I buy one I can download in the future despite not being able to buy it on steam again. Because I "own" the game.

I typically don't play games that are online only; things like this are a part of why. I remember playing a 360 game some years ago that was online only and had the servers shut down only a couple of months into the service. I know that I'll never have 100% completion, but I would like to be able to play a game that I paid for whenever I'd like to.

His entire lawsuit will be tossed (if he actually gets to the point of having a judge hear it, potentially Ubisoft can hit him with a C&D ahead of time). His initial argument is he was "sold a good" and the EULA for The Crew Specifically States this is not a sale of an item, but a license for use. A few of the other articles actually include the EULA in the article.

So basically his argument is, "You sold me an item, and now you broke the item." When in actuality he bought a use license, and agreed legally to it being a use license, and part of that use license specifies length of time for notification to cease support...

This article includes a portion of the EULA: https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-crew/se...utdown-lawsuit

The end-user license agreement (EULA) for The Crew outlines states that the game is “licensed” rather than sold, and stipulates that Ubisoft may alter the terms of the agreement at any time. Ubisoft grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensed, non-commercial and personal license to install and/or use the product… for such time until either you or Ubisoft terminates this EULA,” the license says. “This product is licensed to you, not sold.”

The Venn diagram of people that don't understand how business works and people that don't understand how EULA's work is nearly a perfect circle.

The Venn diagram of people that don't understand how business works and people that don't understand how EULA's work is nearly a perfect circle.

Originally Posted by Hotdogmcgee

I feel like they are concentric circles, I just don't know which is the inner and which is the outer.

Funny I forgot to add. I was one of em Stadia users and enjoyed playing the crew 2 and if I could go back I would have never bought that game seeing what was going to happen.

I think the “you agreed to this” arguments are beside the point, which is that this is a scummy and undesirable industry practice.

I understand developers can’t support online games in perpetuity - and I don’t expect them to. But some sort of End of Life patch that allows some degree of single player/offline play is not an unreasonable thing for consumers to expect.

This is something that the Hitman community has been talking about for years with regards to the World of Assassination trilogy which, despite being a strictly single player game, has an obnoxious online connectivity requirement that has irritated fans since 2016. Many of us are concerned that when the game reaches an end of life state, players will have their progress wiped, or the entire game will become unplayable.

Again, I really don’t care about license agreements or what people “agreed” to by starting up the game. Putting an expiration date on gameplay features that do not inherently require operational servers is a contemptible practice that should be stamped out of the industry, end of story. There’s just no good excuse for it.

Alternatively, developers should not be allowed to claim that you are “buying” the game. It should be advertised as a *rental*, and consumers should be told what exact date that rental “expires”.

The Venn diagram of people that don't understand how business works and people that don't understand how EULA's work is nearly a perfect circle.

Originally Posted by Hotdogmcgee

I understand that when I bought N64 games back in the day, Nintendo didn’t come to my house and take the cartridge back after 10 years.

If developers want to prevent people from playing single player games at some point down the road, they need to stop using the words “buy” or “purchase”. They should be telling consumers that they are “renting” the game. Tell people up front, clearly, plainly that the game will be completely bricked in 8 years or whatever. No burying it in fine print, it should be front and center on all digital storefronts.

If a judge somewhere has to force them to do that, that’s fine by me. I have precisely zero sympathy for developers here and don’t see why anyone would. There is no other industry where this practice is tolerated.

Oh wow I never knew something like this happened in the Hitman community.

This is a very important issue. Which is why I have transferred to playing on steam mostly. Case in point there is a steam curation group dedicated to speaking about games leaving steam. So let's say I buy one I can download in the future despite not being able to buy it on steam again. Because I "own" the game.

Originally Posted by hello8964

This is an online game problem. Has nothing to do with Steam or the platform that you are playing it on.

Oh wow I never knew something like this happened in the Hitman community.

Originally Posted by hello8964

In defense of IOI (who I generally like as a developer) they haven’t done anything like this - yet.

The always-online requirement *is* extremely obnoxious, and does cause occasional interruptions that I’m sure every fan of the series would rather do without, but as of right now, the game is still available, still playable, etc.

The concern is about the long-term status of the game. If IOI eliminates the always-online requirement once the game reaches an End of Life state, there’s no problem.

But (to my knowledge) they haven’t addressed this issue either way, hence the concern in the community. If the servers are shut down and everyone is forced to play in “offline mode”, that means everyone’s progress will be wiped because as of right now, the game tracks your progress in “offline” and “online” modes *separately*.

IOI has every ability to do right by Hitman fans …it just remains to be seen if they will.

This is an online game problem. Has nothing to do with Steam or the platform that you are playing it on.

Originally Posted by Snappleback

I think the point might be that some external launcher actually remove games from your library after their servers shut down, while steam does not so on steam you atleast have the guarantee that is stays in your library and that you can redownload the single player portions of games after they shut down and potentially use a patch to play on private servers or play offline.