Ubisoft has issued quite the rebuttal to a pair of players who are attempting to sue the French publisher for shutting down multiplayer racer The Crew.
Last year, two players in California filed a lawsuit against the company for permanently shutting down the title, claiming they and thousands of others had been left with a “skeleton of what you thought you paid for.”
They essentially argued The Crew should have been left in a playable offline state rather than being delisted and taken offline.
Ubisoft claimed it was necessary to wind down the 2014 release because of “server infrastructure and licensing constraints,” but noted it had maintained support for “almost a decade.”
For those two players in California, it was a decision they felt “totally barred access to the product they paid money for.”
“Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that the all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed,” reads the original lawsuit (via Polygon).
“Turns out the pinball machine manufacturer decided to come into your home, gut the insides of the pinball machine, and remove your ability to play the game that you bought and thought you owned.”
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Ubisoft puts the kibosh on the idea of outright ownership
In a response filed in February, Ubisoft suggested the argument that The Crew would remain playable indefinitely is “misleading” and claims it was explicitly selling temporary access to a product rather than outright ownership.
“Plaintiffs do not allege that Ubisoft made any statements indicating that consumers, would, in fact, obtain unfettered access to The Crew if they purchased a physical copy,” reads the company’s response (thanks again, Polygon).
“To the contrary, the packaging made clear that Ubisoft could limit access. This is fatal to Plaintiff’s FAL, UCL, and CLRA claims. Plaintiffs’ entire theory of the case is based on the faulty assumption that buying a physical disk entitles purchasers to infinite access to play the game.”
Ubisoft claims that “flawed” assumption doesn’t equate to misrepresentation under California law. The company reiterated it was selling a license to a product as opposed to ownership rights.
This isn’t uncommon in the video game industry, but the lawsuit highlights a fundamental divide between the companies selling those licenses and consumers making purchasing decisions.
The plaintiffs have since responded to Ubisoft’s arguments with a photograph of The Crew’s packaging, which notes the activation code for the title won’t expire until 2099. They claim it’s an example of Ubisoft indicating The Crew would remain playable “during this time and long thereafter.”
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You can read Ubisoft’s full response here.