Rick Lane of Bit-Tech writes
"Within a couple of hours of launching The Crew I realised it wasn't going to click for me. It took considerably longer to figure out why. I like racing games, and I love open-world exploration games. Since The Crew brings these two genres together in a pretty spectacular fashion, it should have been a delight to my senses. Instead, within a few races I was growing bored, and spent much of the remaining time playing in a sort of numb trance. Then, as I entered Miami, the game's third area, it occurred to me what was wrong."
Back in 2023, Ubisoft announced it would shut down The Crew's servers on 31st March, 2024, which would make the game unplayable due to its always online requirements - even those with physical copies of the game were to be locked out. Needless to say, many were unhappy with Ubisoft's decision.
Some, though, decided not to just leave it there, and set about reviving the game on their own time and dime. Now a little over a year later, the fan lead Crew revival project - known as The Crew Unlimited - is gearing up for its release on 15th September.
Plaintiffs bring up a new claim, too, in amended complaint.
***Replying to Ubisoft’s argument that the statute of limitations is up, the plaintiffs responded with their own photos of The Crew’s packaging, which states that the activation code for the game doesn’t expire until 2099; that’s an example of how Ubisoft “implied that [The Crew] would remain playable during this time and long thereafter,” per the amended complaint.***
I really hope this resonates with the judge on the two-sided talk Ubisoft has going on here. You can't have your cake and eat it as well, IMHO.
A few of more mishaps and Ubisoft won’t be around anymore anyway.
Assassin’s Creed and FarCry are keeping them alive right now, and it’s a shame. Tom Clancy games are at a minimum now, The Division had its run, Watch Dogs has come and gone, For Honor was something new-ish, their lacking in New IP, and their older franchises just aren’t getting the right love.
I hope the judge favors the consumers because it really sucks what thees companies are doing. I am sure these companies will simply change their user agreements to add these new "we don't own the games clauses"
Good thing i haven't bought a Ubisoft game since ac origins, and even that was a mistake 😆
Ubisoft faces a class action lawsuit over The Crew shutdown, raising key questions about digital game ownership.
