this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025

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Ubisoft holds firm in The Crew lawsuit: You don’t own your video games (www.polygon.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works

77 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-191645/https://www.polygon.com/gaming/555469/ubisoft-holds-firm-in-the-crew-lawsuit-you-dont-own-your-video-games

Ubisoft responded to California gamers’ The Crew shutdown lawsuit in late February, filing to dismiss the case. The company’s lawyers argued in that filing, reviewed by Polygon, that there was no reason for players to believe they were purchasing “unfettered ownership rights in the game.” Ubisoft has made it clear, lawyers claimed, that when you buy a copy of The Crew, you’re merely buying a limited access license.

“Frustrated with Ubisoft’s recent decision to retire the game following a notice period delineated on the product’s packaging, Plaintiffs apply a kitchen sink approach on behalf of a putative class of nationwide customers, alleging eight causes of action including violations of California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as common law fraud and breach of warranty claims,” Ubisoft’s lawyers wrote.

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[–] Weirdfish@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I've spent well over $2k on guitars, accessories, DLC, etc, for Rocksmith 2014. For five years I've been using it to learn bass guitar, and absolutely love it.

One day Ubi is going to turn off the servers, and I am simply going to cry.

There is no alternative I'm aware of, the new version is AI garbage from what I've heard, and I enjoy the thing I have and the songs I've paid for.

If they are not going to provide an offline mode, or the server code, then I will 100% make it my mission to pirate the game and make it playable offline.

[–] HATEFISH@midwest.social 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why not do it now, there's nothing stopping you from buying the whatever new content you want and importing it. Why wait for them to take it away from you?

[–] Weirdfish@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Honestly? I'm lazy. I play on my PS4, and have it all done up for that, the cables, pre amp, audio D-A for the sound bar / headphones, etc. Its what I know, and it works.

Haven't owned my own PC in like 20 years (I'm a programmer and work always just gives me a beautiful laptop).

I recently bought a gaming PC that was top of the line 5 years ago, and am slowly turning that into a linux gaming PC. It's going to be a while before I can actually use it, and in the mean time the PS4 still works when I get home and just want a whiskey and jam night.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago

A quick search found multiple pirated versions of rocksmith, you might already be able to do the last part of your post.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago

If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't theft.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Don't know what's worse: Ubisoft, EA or both.

[–] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago

It doesn't have to be a competition, we can all accept the fact both are anti-consumer.

[–] Denalduh@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Yes.

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Fucking France, man...

[–] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 139 points 1 week ago (25 children)

Oh cool then piracy isn't theft.

[+] Gladaed@feddit.org -8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It still may be. Is it theft to take a rentable car without renting it?

You are getting a good without enabling it's production. Just because the additional cost from you doing this is extremely low does not mean it ain't theft. Just means it ain't such a terrible thing to do.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Does the rental company now have one less car they can rent?

Does the developer now have one less license they can lease?

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No they don't, because I returned it before a shortage occured. They just lost the profit from rent.

No he doesn't.

In both cases the additional cost caused by your actions is very low. Damage was still fine to the provider.

If the additional cost per user is very low people should not be priced out, still.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

No they don't, because I returned it before a shortage occured. They just lost the profit from rent.

That's strange, the goal post was right here just a minute ago...

Whatever time period you had taken the rental car for was a time period that they could not have rented it to someone else. You can't know until after the fact if there would have been a shortage in that time frame. There's also the extra wear you have put on the car.

If you took a rental car for 5 minutes and returned it I doubt anyone would charge you with anything.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Depends if you see theft as someone taking something they didnt pay for or earn, or if you see it as someone depriving someone else of their property, or both of them count.

I'd argue both qualify as theft, and pirating is the first case. Just because you can replicate something for free (which is not the case with software) does not mean you are entitled to it.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Depends if you see theft as someone taking something they didnt pay for or earn

Ah, so children playing in the park is theft. (They didn't pay for or earn it). Drinking from a creek is theft. Breathing air is theft. I quoted your post, I guess that is theft as well.

does not mean you are entitled to it.

I am not claiming they are entitled to it, I'm just saying it's not theft.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You can't steal from nature. Parks are provided for the public, its literally the whole point.

Any more gotchas?

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So you don't define theft as "someone taking something they didnt pay for or earn" then. Glad we agree.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If someone's part of the "public" then its provided to them for 0$, thats the deal. If they are an adult in that area they might pay for it in taxes, but most places won't limit access to local taxpayers. There is nothing underhanded happening there. Its provided for a group of people and those people use it within the guidelines setup for them.

Im sure you will have as little to say in your next reply but do try to actually make a point.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago

If someone's part of the "public" then its provided to them for 0$, thats the deal. If they are an adult in that area they might pay for it in taxes, but most places won't limit access to local taxpayers. There is nothing underhanded happening there. Its provided for a group of people and those people use it within the guidelines setup for them.

Of course it is. I don't know who you think you're disagreeing with here.

Im sure you will have as little to say in your next reply but do try to actually make a point.

Interesting considering you had a lot to say without making any point at all. What exactly is the point you're trying to make here?

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[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 84 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So I actually read the article, even though there are huge outstanding questions on the nature of ownership, that’s actually not what the court argument is about:

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,”

Well yeah… software as a service is a thing but Ubisoft is straight up lying…

My two cents: no one is expecting online services to be up forever, so imo the correct solution is open source the game after the company meets their 10 (or 20) year obligation which should be clearly pointed out during the initial rental agreement (shouldn’t call it purchase)

[–] grue@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

there are huge outstanding questions on the nature of ownership

There really aren't, though. There is only the well-established and correct understanding of it as embodied by things like the Uniform Commercial Code, and lying criminals trying to gaslight us into letting them steal our property rights.

[–] syreus@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If a company decides to stop hosting it's online service they should be required to open it up for third party hosting. By ending their support they are admitting the profit capture is over so if another company wants to host it for profit so be it.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They shouldnt be required to do anything with it. Theres no public safety issue that requires it be maintained, its just a game. You also seem to imply making money from creating a game is immoral. This whole "art" belongs to everyone thing is stupid and only hurts artists.

[–] syreus@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You should reread my comment.

I didn't imply there is a public safety issue. I didn't imply anything about morality.

If a company drops the hosting for online servers they shouldn't prevent third parties from picking it up. That's the whole statement so you don't need to find anything between the lines.

Art does belong to everyone but that's completely unrelated to my comment above.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You are implying its about server costs then? Activision sunset the crew because they had been developing the crew 2 for a long time. It had to come out eventually. Allowing third party hosting of the crew would have cost them a lot of money. Why should they take a loss in that situation?

[–] syreus@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

They should take a loss because they sold a product and it's availability shouldn't be a lever they use to drive traffic to their new game. Is this where I say you are implying that corporate profits are more important than honesty?

Are you implying that they didn't insinuate that this game would be supported longer when they had an actual expiration date on the product code, 2099? If the Crew 3 has been in development for 10 years and they spend a billion dollars developing it would it be ok to sunset the Crew 2 after a couple weeks to "motivate" buyers to buy the new version? Who decides what is the "appropriate" amount of time a product should be available.

If they don't allow private or third party hosting for the Crew then anyone should be able to refund it since they bought a product that has been rugpulled.

You can feel free to ignore all of that because there isn't a good reason to support Ubisoft here and this model unless you like the taste of shoe polish.

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[–] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, I stopped paying ubisoft long ago.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 17 points 1 week ago

Certainly doesn't help that their launcher is significantly worse than even EA's. That's a feat.

[–] spicystraw@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ubisoft: 'You don’t own your games.' Me: 'Cool, so when I uninstall The Crew, I’ll send you an invoice for storage fees since it’s technically YOUR property.'"

Also, The Crew was supposed to last until 2099? Bro, Ubisoft can’t even keep their servers alive for a weekend, let alone 76 years.

[–] Trollception@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Let me know when they recognize your claim and you have managed to collect from Ubisoft.

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