With less than two months left to go in 2024, Ubisoft's nightmare year continues at full speed.
This time around, the company is the target of a lawsuit by disgruntled Californian gamers, in an episode that highlights the importance of the ownership versus licensing debate in the gaming industry.
The French gaming giant put the racing game The Crew to sleep on March 31 of this year, killing all servers and removing it from all virtual storefronts.
When Ubisoft first announced the shutdown in December 2023, it offered refunds for purchases made recently, but this was not much use for players who had been enjoying The Crew since its 2014 release.
A spokesman from the company said the decision was "due to server and licensing constraints".
While servers for old games going down is nothing special, what makes the Ubisoft approach to The Crew so insulting is that they did not leave an offline version of the game.
According to the lawsuit, the fact that physical copies of the game cannot run despite being advertised as having all the game data violates California consumer protection laws.
Another key aspect of the filing is that Ubisoft misled players into thinking they...
