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Two California gamers have filed a class action lawsuit against Ubisoft following the shutdown of The Crew's servers. The lawsuit, filed on November 4 in California court, argues the 2014 racing game became completely unplayable due to its lack of offline mode.
The two gamers, who bought physical copies of The Crew in 2018 and 2020, claim Ubisoft misled consumers in two ways: by implying players were buying rather than licensing the game, and by suggesting the physical disks contained game files for free access rather than serving as keys.
The lawsuit references other games that received offline modes after server shutdowns, including Knockout City and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed 3. While the company has promised offline modes for existing games in The Crew franchise like The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest, the lawsuit states this doesn't address the original game's shutdown.
The legal action comes alongside YouTube creator Ross Scott's "Stop Killing Games" campaign, which has gathered over 379,000 signatures in a petition to the European Union seeking to require companies to keep games playable.
California recently passed a law requiring digital stores to inform consumers when they're licensing rather than buying games. The legislation, partly inspired by The Crew's shutdown, mandates transparency but doesn't prevent companies from making games unplayable.
Ubisoft has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
