Ubisoft sued for taking The Crew offline and ‘duping’ players

A pair of California-based players are suing Ubisoft for permanently putting The Crew in the garage.

Ubisoft’s 2014 racing game was shut down this past March due to “server infrastructure and licensing restraints.” In their filed suit, plaintiffs Matt Cassell and Alan Liu (who bought the game in 2020 and 2018, respectively) claim they were were two of thousands of players “[left] with a skeleton of what you thought you paid for.”

This is the second time this year Ubisoft has been sued by its players. In early October, the Assassin’s Creed maker was accused of illegally sharing user data with Meta via account linking.

Liu and Cassell’s lawsuit condemned Ubisoft for letting players think they were buying The Crew to own and not “renting a limited license” to access the title. It also accused the developer of “duping” players with the idea of the game being playable offline, either through physical discs or its digital version. Had the pair (or any player) known the studio would shut The Crew down whenever it wanted, they say they “would have paid substantially less for the Product or not have purchased it at all.”

“[Ubisoft] intended consumers to rely on their representations and omissions in making their purchasing decisions. Through their conduct, [Ubisoft] have violated California state consumer protection laws,” the suit reads. The duo are seeking monetary relief and damages for themselves and other players affected by the shut down.

Do not go gentle into that offline

Over the past two years, countless online games have been shut down. Some have been around for years, others only a few weeks, but the issue has become so common as more and more titles have been taken offline in larger numbers. This past September, California law requires retailers to say digital items (like games or music) are merely licensed rather than actually bought, and that most online games specifically must come with a warning that they could be shut down at any moment.

As this relates to Ubisoft specifically, the original Crew’s shutdown was explicitly said to be the inspiration for the California law. However, this suit is further complicated by the studio already acknowledging the negative reaction to terminating the first Crew game by working to implement individual offline modes for 2018’s The Crew 2 and 2023’s The Crew Motorsport.

Meanwhile, The Crew players have decided to just make the first game themselves. Back in June, TheGamer covered the player-made The Crew Unlimited, a recreation of the original title that will have offline functionality.