Ubisoft’s lawyers have responded to a legal action from players of defunct racing game The Crew by insisting that those players never owned the game in the first place. The players made their lawsuit to complain about the game being made unplayable when servers were shut down last year, but Ubisoft have now responded to argue that the game was only “licensed” to those playing, and players should never have expected the game to be useable in perpetuity.
Ubisoft’s legal team made the argument in a motion to have the case dismissed, as seen by Polygon.
“The Crew’s ordinary, intended purpose was to provide consumers with a revocable, limited license to access its content pursuant to the unmistakable warnings on the product packaging and Ubisoft’s Terms of Use,” reads part of the filing. “Plaintiffs received just that for years, and Ubisoft therefore provided The Crew consistent with and fit for its ordinary, advertised purpose.”
Ubisoft go on to argue that the game being under a non-permanent licence was clearly stated on some of their packaging. They also say that the statute of limitations to make this sort of complaint is up, and that the shutdown of the game caused no “cognizable injury” and therefore the case should be dismissed by the California district court which is looking at it. The plaintiffs make a counter-argument that some vouchers for the game had an expiry date of “2099”, which implies the statute of limitations is not up.
Ubisoft made The Crew unplayable when it took the servers offline last year, ending 10 years of support for the open world racing game. It started disappearing from game libraries shortly afterwards, making any hopes of a fan preservation movement (as sometimes happens with defunct MMOs) more unlikely. Eventually, some players launched the class-action lawsuit which Ubi are now trying to get dismissed. The plaintiffs are seeking “monetary relief and damages for those impacted by the server shutdown”.
It may be a significant legal case in the event it’s brought to court proper (although these things are often settled or dismissed before it gets that far). Valve make similar “it’s only a license” arguments about all those unplayed JRPGs clogging up your Steam library, and now show a more prominent warning that you’re actually only buying a digital license when you buy a game on their store. This is also the reason why you won’t be able to legally pass on your Steam library after you die in that terrible go-karting accident, at least according to Valve.
Our worries over whether or not you actually own anything you download can be traced back to time immemorial (or at least back to 2012). And Ubisoft’s latest comments are a further digging in of corporate heels on this legality. As for The Crew itself, it was an OK racing game – nothing very special in my book – but I do have fond memories of taking a cross-country road trip in the game with Adam (RPS in peace).
