The Crew: Ubisoft is being sued for closing the racing game

Developed by Ivory Tower, the first The Crew was released in September 2014 for PS4, Xbox One and PC. However, the racing game had its servers closed by Ubisoft in March this year — which certainly generated several debates on social media. Well, because of this, the French publisher is being sued by two players from California.

According to information from the Polygontwo players affected by the closure of the The Crew have initiated a proposed class action lawsuit and accuse Ubisoft of violating California consumer protection laws.

The lawsuit began on November 4th and alleges that the French publisher left consumers suddenly unable to access something they purchased and assumed they owned.

Lawsuit claims that The Crew players were deceived in different ways

The lawsuit against Ubisoft says California gamers were deceived in two ways. At first, they were tricked into thinking they were buying a game, when, in fact, they were just purchasing a license — even if the racing game was purchased in physical media format.

In the second, Ubisoft allegedly “falsely” represented that the The Crew were on their physical discs for free access by players and that the discs were not simply an access key to the game.

Both Californian players purchased the game on physical media in the middle of its life cycle, in 2018 and 2020, respectively. The lawsuit says that neither of them would have purchased the title “on the same terms” — that is, knowing that the servers of The Crew could be taken offline and become completely unplayable, even in offline mode.

Process also charges Ubisoft for The Crew not having an offline mode

The lawsuit also charges Ubisoft with shutting down the servers and not including an offline version for The Crew. The document cites several games that had their servers shut down, but were redeemed by having an offline option — such as Knockout City and two of Ubisoft’s own games, such as Assassin’s Creed 2 e Assassin’s Creed 3.

Ubisoft responded to the criticism and promised to include offline versions for its existing games in the franchise, such as The Crew 2 e The Crew Motorfest — but the lawsuit says this does nothing to fix the problem with the first The Crew.

What is your opinion about the shutdown of servers The Crew? Comment on social media Voxel!