Ubisoft has to go to court – and once again it’s about The Crew. Twelve years after its release, the racing game is threatening to fall on the feet of not just the French publisher, but the entire video games industry.
The legal dispute is centered around the question of ownership claims when purchasing video games. The Crew was released as an online-only title. This means that its entire gaming experience – even as a single player – took place on the servers provided by Ubisoft. However, the currently struggling company shut these down in 2024, meaning that the first part of the franchise from 2014 no longer had any use or playability.
For the French consumer protection organization Que Choisir, this is not acceptable. After all, a buyer expects to be able to keep a game and use it permanently and does not expect it to simply disappear one day. Which is why the association has now filed a lawsuit in France to get to the bottom of a key question: Does the purchase of a virtual or physical video game give players a right of use that is independent of the publisher’s will and authorization?
Citizens’ initiative obtains EU hearing
The issue has been simmering in the industry for years and is much bigger than a single hearing in France. After the end of The Crew, the Europe-wide citizens’ initiative Stop Killing Games (SKG) was formed and took up the cause of gamers’ rights.
So far, the movement has been a success story. The SKG petition emphatically underlined the fact that dwindling ownership among video game fans not only concerns the eSports editorial team, but also affects a large number of people. Over one million EU citizens signed the petition and ensured a hearing in the EU Parliament, which was recently scheduled.
On April 16, initiator Ross Scott and his fellow campaigners will be able to present their concerns to the responsible Commission. And the SKG founder is sure of his cause. “I am very aware of the problem and have probably heard just about every argument under the sun as to why companies should be allowed to destroy games that you have paid for. I can refute them all,” Scott said in a video on his YouTube channel ‘Accursed Farms’.
Lobby association sounds the alarm
If Ross is right with his pithy words, it would be tantamount to a revolution. An obligation to guarantee basic playability would have immense consequences for developers and publishers. Projects conceived as purely online games would either have to have a permanently playable offline mode or operate servers permanently.
Video Games Europe has therefore already sounded the alarm. “The development of these games would be prohibitively expensive”, commented the lobby association on the potential future of online titles whose servers would have to be operated permanently. Alternative ways of keeping old games alive would also be almost impossible to implement. For example, private servers could not guarantee that “the protective measures we have taken to secure player data, remove illegal content and combat unsafe community content” would be fully complied with.
However, it remains to be seen to what extent the responsible EU Commission and possibly also the Parliament will follow Scott’s arguments. Nevertheless, gamers and industry representatives alike can be sure that a fundamental decision is approaching. Whether in plenary or in the courtroom.
