Ubisoft is being sued by a couple of people after the studio shutdown their racing game, The Crew. Released in 2014, the game was shut down recently due to "server infrastructure and licensing constraints." This effectively made the game unplayable as The Crew completely lacked any offline or single-player mode.
Ubisoft announced in December 2023 that they would be shutting down the servers. At the time, they offered refunds to people that had recently purchased the title. The also halted all new purchases of The Crew at that same time. On March 31, 2024 the servers were shut down. Immediately after the shutdown, Ubisoft began to remove The Crew license from those that had purchased the game prior.
A lawsuit was filed this week in California by Matthew Cassell and Alan Liu. The lawsuit (PDF; as provided by Polygon) says that players were "duped" in a couple of different ways. First, they say Ubisoft mislead people into thinking they were buying a game when they were actually licensing it. Second, they say that Ubisoft "falsely represented" that the files for The Crew were on physical media discs to be freely access, not that the discs were just a key for the game. The lawsuit alleges that Ubisoft violated California consumer protection laws.
The plaintiffs purchased the game in 2018 and 2020 respectively. Both purchased the game on physical media. The suit claims that neither of them would have purchased the game if they knew that the servers could be taken down and left completely unplayable even as an offline title.
Cassell and Liu are hoping that the court approves the lawsuit as a class action lawsuit. This would mean that other players of The Crew could get involved should that happen. The lawsuit is seeking "monetary relief and damages for those impacted by the server shutdown."
A little snag here, and this is probably something most gamers don't know, is that even with physical media you are almost always purchasing a license to use that gaming software. You own the physical disc, the box, perhaps the manual inside the box, but the software on that disc is just licensed to you and that license can be revoked at any point. Most times when you boot up a game, there will be a license agreement, perhaps one that is included in the EULA most everyone blindly agrees to at first boot. It's possible that the agreement is simply included in the manual or somewhere on the box. The point is, in most cases you are not purchasing the game but a license to play the game.
It's not something most people probably think about, but this has been the case for numerous years now and spans back several gaming generations. The difference now is that while it was technically possible for the actual software owner (say a developer or publisher) to revoke your access to a game, it was never really enforced. What were they going to do, visit everyone's house that bought a game and take their cartridges or discs back? No, of course not. In a world where everything is online all the time? Well, it makes revoking licenses a ton easier for these studios and they, based on the terms you agreed to, are within their rights to revoke that license access.
This whole ownership vs licensing thing has really come into light in recent years because of the huge increase in digital storefronts and because of the rise of always online games that can be taken away at any time. California in particular recently passed a new law (AB 2426; going into effect in 2025) that will force digital storefronts to make it very clear that they are only purchasing a license to a game and are not purchasing the software itself. This also includes informing potential buyers that since they are just buying a license it can be revoked at any point. They must also inform everyone that a license comes with restrictions that actual ownership of the software does not include (such as making copies of a game). Failure to disclose these restrictions and limitations to consumers could result in the digital retailers being issued fines for false advertising.
Of course, there are times where there is no EULA to be found, especially on very old titles. The whole licensing vs ownership thing is very muddy, especially when a EULA doesn't exist or due to varying and ever changing software copyright laws. It gets even more complex when several different regions and jurisdictions have found some elements within EULAs are not just unenforceable but also possibly illegal.
People like you and me who are very well versed in this industry know all about digital rights but the average person has no idea what a game licence is, the average mum doesn't know she's entering a contract when she buys little Timmy a racing game, what makes it worse i feel is that unlike an MMO that is so reliant on servers where the expectation is that it'll go offline someday The Crew really isn't, Timmy doesn't even know he's playing an online game until they turn the servers off and that's become normal for a lot of games.
Add in all the debates around preservation and other ownership issues like theft, emulation and modification and you realise this is only the beginning, i just hope by the end it favours consumers.