The Crew, Ubisoft’s 2014 racing game, closed its doors on March 31st. After that date, launching the game took you to a splash screen and then presented an error message when trying to advance, because the servers are no longer offline.
Ubisoft have now taken the extra step of revoking The Crew licenses from purchasers and removing it from their library.
Players have reported that The Crew has moved in their Ubisoft Connect libraries to a new ‘Inactive Games’ section, from which it can no longer be downloaded and installed. Clicking on the entry instead presents a message that reads, “You no longer have access to this game. Why not check the Store to pursue your adventures?”
I can think of some reasons not to check the store to pursue other adventures, and most of them have to do with having no guarantee I can continue to play games I’ve paid for.
Eurogamer approached Ubisoft for comment, and the publisher pointed back to their earlier announcement about the game’s closure: “We announced on December 14, 2023 that after almost a decade of support, we would be decommissioning The Crew 1 on March 31, 2024. While we understand this may be disappointing for players, it was necessary due to server infrastructure and licensing constraints.”
Although playable alone, The Crew relied on online servers to operate. With those servers offline, it’s unplayable for everyone, even for those who own physical editions. There had been some hope that the community might be able to reverse engineer the game enough to launch fan servers, as has happened for many defunct MMOs, but the game’s removal from player libraries potentially makes that more difficult.
In response to The Crew’s closure, YouTuber Ross Scott has launched Stop Killing Games, an initiative designed to encourage grassroots pressure on governments and regulators who could change or assert ownership rights over digital products.