A response from Ubisoft and its lawyers to the claims of an ongoing lawsuit a number of The Crew players affected by the game’s shutdown has surfaced, and it’s an interesting read, if pretty depressing if you’re still under the illusion that you actually own any of the games you’ve bought.
If you’re out of the loop, this legal battle’s been in motion since last year, when Ubisoft deep-sixed the online driving game citing “necessary due to upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints”. That led two players to accuse Ubisoft of violating California consumer protection laws, hence this court case that’s all about what constitutes a game and what you’re actually paying for when you buy one.
Will, in this response to the suit issued in Feburary this year – which has come to light now thanks to Polygon – Ubisoft’s pretty clear that it thinks the players had no reason to believe they were buying “unfettered ownership.”
“To the extent it contains any substantive indications bearing on the reasonable consumer standard,” reads on passage, “the Complainr indicates that a reasonable modern video game consumer would fully understand they were purchasing a limited licence to play The Crew. The packaging’s warnings that Ubisoft could ‘cancel access’ to the game and that the software is ‘subject to licence’ dispelled readers of the idea they were obtaining unfettered ownership.”
Somewhat related to that, there’s another passage that caught my eye reading through the response, and it involves the slogan you’ll find on the back of the game’s box. “In their most desperate Hail Mary,” Ubisoft wrote, “plaintiffs allege that Ubisoft represented that consumers were obtaining full ownership of the game by including the tag line ‘Never Drive Alone’ on the packaging. That statement is a nod to the social nature of The Crew and the game’s multiplayer function. It amounts to nothing more than inactionable puffery because it does not describe specific or absolute characteristics of the product.”
Damn, inactionable puffery. There’s a phrase you don’t see every day, and one I’ll definitely now be using to describe any video game slogans or taglines I run into.
Anyway, the plaintiffs – that’s the players – responded to this with an amended complaint issued on March 18, which brought fresh allegations about The Crew’s in-game currency and that Ubisoft implied the game would be playable for the long-haul due its packaging citing an activation code as not expiring until 2099. Ubisoft now has until April 29 to issue a response to that, as the argument rumbles on.
Did you play a bunch of THe Crew before it shut down? Let us know below!
