Purchases provide "a limited license to access the game," the publisher says as part of a The Crew lawsuit.
As part of a lawsuit that revolves around Ubisoft’s shutdown of The Crew, a response from the publisher states that players don’t have “unfettered ownership” of their purchases, but rather “a limited license to access the game”.
Ubisoft shut down The Crew servers in March of last year, then reportedly began revoking access from players’ PC libraries in April. A lawsuit was filed by fans in California over the move back in November 2024.
In a filing to dismiss the case, spotted by Polygon, Ubisoft responded to the lawsuit back in February of this year.
Ubisoft’s filing states the publisher, “allegedly misled purchasers of its video game The Crew into believing they were purchasing unfettered ownership rights in the game, rather than a limited license to access the game.
“But the reality is that consumers received the benefit of their bargain and were explicitly notified, at the time of purchase, that they were purchasing a license,” it continued.
The filing continues to state that those behind the lawsuit have used a “kitchen sink approach on behalf of a putative class of nationwide customers, alleging eight causes of action including violations of California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as common law fraud and breach of warranty claims.”
As per Eurogamer, plaintiffs in the lawsuit have responded with two main counterpoints; the first revolves around the in-game microtransactions being treated as gift certificates (which don’t expire in California), and the second around an activation code for The Crew that doesn’t expire until 2099.
The 2099 argument states that Ubisoft “implied that [The Crew] would remain playable during this time and long thereafter,” according to the plaintiffs.
Ubisoft has until 29 April to respond to the plaintiffs. We’ll keep you posted as the situation progresses.
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