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Ubisoft made The Crew unplayable on March 31st
Image credit: Ubisoft
Ubisoft racing game The Crew shut down on March 31st, rendering the game unplayable for everyone who bought it since its release ten years ago.
In response, YouTuber Ross Scott has launched Stop Killing Games, “the largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games”. The initiative exists to encourage people to petetiion their governments about the issue.
“An increasing number of videogames are sold as goods, but designed to be completely unplayable for everyone as soon as support ends,” says the Stop Killing Games site. “The legality of this practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media.”
A ‘take action here’ button then prompts visitors to select their country of origin, and suggests courses of action the visitor could take to protest the forced obsolesence of video games.
The main focus of the campaign is to use the closure of The Crew to petition France’s Directorate General For Competition, Consumer Affairs And Fraud Protection (DGCCRF) to investigate the issue.
Many games, particularly those with online components, are sold with a terms of service that explains that players are purchasing not the game, but a license to play the game for as long as it exists. Theoretically, these terms of service provide the manufacturers cover when they turn servers off, rendering paid-for products unplayable. These terms of service have mostly not been challenged in court, however, nor reviewed by regulators in each country. That’s what these petitions are designed to address.
Scott, best known for the YouTube channel Accursed Farms, has been talking about leading a legal response to The Crew’s shutdown since it was announced. In a new video announcing the Stop Killing Games initiative, he explains that his hope is to prompt a broader regulatory discussion about the practice of games being broken on purpose by their makers or otherwise removed from those who bought them.