Ubisoft is Taking Away ‘The Crew’ Licenses From Players Who Own the Game

Ubisoft’s 2014 racing game ‘The Crew’ was officially taken down on March 31st of this year- deeming it unplayable for anybody who owned the game. Although it was possible to play the game solo, this still relied on online servers from Ubisoft. Therefore, with the shut down of these servers, there would be no official way to play the decade old game. While the community held out hope that there would be an unofficial method to keep playing thanks to fan servers, this hope has been dashed thanks to Ubisoft removing The Crew from player’s libraries.

Image by Ubisoft

Its not uncommon to see fans revive games after their servers have been taken offline. For example, Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online still have surprisingly active communities despite their official servers being shut down for several years. However, with Ubisoft’s removal of people’s licenses for ‘The Crew’ (which is why it is being removed from player’s libraries), the ability to still play the game via fan servers is being taken away entirely- which is not only bad from a consumer standpoint but also from a preservation one.

Image by Ubisoft

This move from Ubisoft only serves to darken the idea of digital ownership- with licenses for games being able to be taken away from publishers and developers with no compensation to players. With digital sales for games now vastly outnumbering physical copies sold, hundreds of products could be taken away from consumers just a few years after being purchased. Considering also that so many live service and online games are failing so soon into their release, it presents a murky future for games ownership in a digital age. Put simply, digital ownership is becoming more and more fickle- which is a trajectory unlikely to change as long as publishers can keep getting away with removing already purchased games from players.