Full title: Ubisoft says you “cannot complain” it shut down The Crew because you never actually owned it, and you weren’t “deceived” by the lack of an offline version “to access a decade-old, discontinued video game”
Ubisoft’s lawyers have responded to a class action lawsuit over the shutdown of The Crew, arguing that it was always clear that you didn’t own the game and calling for a dismissal of the case outright.
The class action was filed in November 2024, and Ubisoft’s response came in February 2025, though it’s only come to the public’s attention now courtesy of Polygon. The full response from Ubisoft attorney Steven A. Marenberg picks apart the claims of plaintiffs Matthew Cassell and Alan Liu piece by piece, but the most common refrain is that The Crew’s box made clear both that the game required an internet connection and that Ubisoft retained the right to revoke access “to one or more specific online features” with a 30-day notice at its own discretion.
And people will still defend this company
Does anyone defend them? I think what happens is that people get mad at them but then still buy the games anyway because they’re absolute fucking idiots. I believe this is what happens.
People are still buying the games. Call it what you want but if you give them money it’s your fault they keep doing this.
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Yea that’s exactly what I’m saying. I blame the consumers. It’s not like they don’t have options.
Yeah, that’s true
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This is why I will always have some nostalgia for physical media. I still got CDs I bought in the 90s (which I’ve copied onto my hard drives a long, long time ago) and while they need a like coaxing to work at times, they are forever mine and no one can take them from me.
I was very hesitant to go on steam specifically for their ‘you don’t own shit even if you paid and followed the rules’ garbage.
Steam is crazy in how it’s still usable and not completely enshittified after existing for so many years. I don’t know how they do it
It’s called staying away from venture capital. It really is as simple as that. Because Valve has a lucrative business model they have no need or desire to raise capital from outside investors, therefore there is nobody to squeeze them for value at the expense of their customers.
If you watch Cory Doctorow’s talk where he coined the word “enshittification” he explains how the process works, and it starts with outside investment. Enshittification is just a catchy term for value extraction, from the perspective of the customer.
Damn, now I understand the hype!
Ubisoft cannot complain when gamers “pirate” their games then.
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t theft and all that.
Goddammit… get the quote right:
If buying ain’t owning, piracy ain’t stealing.
Whose exact quote do you think you’re quoting? Every time i hear this phrase it’s always said the way OP said it, never the way you said it. Also please try to talk to people in a less pissy way
Piracy was never stealing, in so far as legality is concerned in the USA, at least.
Stealing requires the owner of the stolen thing to be deprived access of that thing. If someone steals your car, you cannot access it anymore, since it was removed from you by the thief.
Piracy copies your car, meaning you still can access your car but someone else can drive a copy of your car. The first example is a major inconvenience to you, the second example has absolutely no negative effect on you.
It is why instances of piracy that make it to a court of law are tried as Copyright Infringement cases, and not theft or piracy cases. When your ISP spies on you and sends you a letter after you pirate something in an insecure manner, you get sent a Notice of Copyright Infringement, not a Notice of Theft.
In fact, I downloaded a Rimac Nevera just yesterday.
For Cyberpunk 2077, but still. Would, could, did.
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.
I like the cut of your jib.
When you “buy” software, you’re buying a license that grants you permission to use it subject to the terms & conditions. The stealing as the law would see it is from using software without purchasing a license or using it in violation of the license.
It even extends to digital content people “buy” on Steam, or Google Play, or Amazon including books, music, and videos. You didn’t buy that content, even if you think you did. You bought a license to it which is why occasionally Amazon or whoever will just scrub the content from your account without your consent. That’s also why in some countries you pay VAT on e-books even though you don’t pay VAT on real books - because you actually bought a software license which is liable to VAT.
So the best advice is don’t buy digital media from online services. For games and software it is unavoidable but recognize you don’t legally own squat although most console games on disc or cartridge can still be sold second hand. But even that is being eroded. Nintendo apparently are planning to sell “physical” games in stores but you open it up and there is a redemption code inside. Sony and Microsoft have both tried to get away from physical media too.
The way of the future…VCRs went away. DVDRs went away, replaced with DVRs and membership streaming, where you can “buy” a movie on Amazon Prime, but if they lose the rights to the movie, so do you - oh well. Your Tesla will brick, if Elon gets mad at you, and your video games will stop working if “the man” unplugs the server. Oh, and dont get caught pulling out your old dusty VCR to record the Super Bowl to watch later…thats a copyright violation. The oligarchs want to make sure the plebes eventually own nothing. If the masters can take it all away, the peasants will do what they’re told, be quiet about it, and smile when in sight of the masters.
Deny. Defend. Depose.
Here’s the original in higher quality and less cropping: https://i.imgur.com/XzgU9AS.mp4
The watermark in the bottom right corner says KLING AI 1.6
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No, make it a entirely employee-owned company, so they can vote the execs out, sanitize the culture, and keep the thousands of worker out of unemployment
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The workers, the gamers, and the industry are glad you’re not in charge of anything, punishing them for things they have no control over, and wasting good talents and infrastructure.
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How old are you?
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You want to use the “throw everybody out and see what happens”, and you claim how much better things would be under your governance.
You’re talking like a Elon Musk wanna-be, even using shitty metaphors that mask all the complexity of the problems, and the cruelty that these kinds of decisions imply.
You want to throw 20k employees out without any consideration for the economic and personal consequences, not to mention all the other companies around who will see their business sometimes heavily impacted.
All this to make a stupid metaphor. You’re 14 at best.
I think there is an implication that if you buy a game which is online by nature (e.g. an MMO) that the servers can and will shut down eventually. My cupboard is filled with defunct MMOs. And people do not “own” any commercial software per se, they run it under licence.
So I don’t see that Ubisoft has any legal obligation here. But as a good will gesture they really should put the server code in escrow, or open source chunks of it so that games can continue to enjoy life after the company itself has no economic incentive to continue running it.
The use of the words ‘buy’, “own” or ‘purchase’ in connection with DRM rental should be an international felony, and grounds for immediate break-up of businesses that use them.
Ubisoft you can’t complain if I pirate your games, because I never actually bought them and you weren’t deceived by a lack of purchase.
Hijacking.
Are you European Union Citizen? Do you like games?
Do you want to own games again? and not just “License” them? Then please join the Stop destroying Videogames Initiative.
Initiative - https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en
(Only sign if you are a EU citizen!)
It’s an initiative to get the European parliament to discuss the matter all together, and Iirc, it already has some members that support it. (So It’s not just any ordinary petition that will go nowhere.)
We have already collected 42% of the 1 million signatures from European citizens required. But the deadline is June 2025 and if we don’t get enough signatures by then, it won’t be looked at by the European commission. So to at least get the matter to be discussed, please sign!
(ONLY FOR European Union citizens! No one else! Please do not sign if you aren’t an EU citizen. Also No Brits! there’s another initiative for the UK.)
Short video explainer about the initiative - https://youtu.be/mkMe9MxxZiI
For more info visit https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
You can also view the petitions for other countries - (Australia, Canada, UK, Brazil… and more)
ONLY FOR European Union citizens! No Brits!
signs anyways…is American
Tell you what customers absolutely can do: decide to stop doing business with you.
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Ubisoft cannot complain if I pirate their games, because they never actually sold them. And I’m not deceiving them with my intention of never, ever, give them a dime.
Yeah I’d really like to know how this ‘you don’t ever own the game’ fits in with their other line ‘piracy is theft’.
how can you have stolen something if you haven’t actually gotten it?
You are right you can’t steal something that is not ownable, but paying for the game is what allows you to play so playing without stealing is still breaking their rules. Instead of buy to own they made it pay to play. But that sucks so fuck them anyway
“You wouldn’t download a car”
Fuck you, I would if I could.
one can dream