YouTuber Ross Scott, AKA Accursed Farms, is considering starting a class-action lawsuit over the shutdown of The Crew - Ubisoft’s 2014 online-only racing game, which is planned to shut down at the end of March.
As PCGamesN reports, in a video posted on January 18, Scott stated that he’s “sick” of reporting on games like this being shut down, and “would rather do something” to help the situation. He believes that in this instance, “this is actually close to a perfect scenario for taking legal action,” and has published his latest video as a means of generating ideas for how to proceed, before potentially starting a fundraiser for it later down the line.
Scott believes that there’s one good angle that could be used to take legal action over the game’s shutdown via consumer protection law. The argument he suggested hinges on it being “sold under a perpetual license, not a subscription.” This, he argues, would mean “we were being sold a good, not a service,” which will soon be “deprived [...] of all value after the point of sale.”
He added that “it’s possible that argument won’t hold up either, in which case I think there’s no possible way to stop this practice, at least in the United States.” However, he’s still hopeful it could have an impact, as he pointed towards the amount of “non-gamers” who aren’t aware of how big an issue the sudden shutdown of online-only games is.
“By challenging its legality, we could turn this into a black-and-white issue,” he continued. “If we lose, I want to lose hard. If there’s no chance of stopping this, I want a judge to say to our faces that when we buy video games, we have no consumer rights and no ownership over what we pay for. The end.”
Scott also says that if he has any say in the matter, he wouldn’t want to accept any settlement offer from Ubisoft, since “the point is actually bigger than the game and bigger than Ubisoft.” The only settlement he’d accept, he added, was a patch to make The Crew playable without any further support from Ubisoft.
In a post published to Twitter / X after the video was shared, Scott stated that he’s already received “a lot of multi-page emails about possible legal proceedings” from viewers. However, he later reiterated that “there may or may not be a lawsuit, but I will pursue every legal avenue I can that's affordable, domestic [and] international.”
It remains to be seen whether any action will come of Scott’s plan, but for now, The Crew is no longer available to be purchased digitally. Existing owners will be able to play it until March 31.
Take a look at some more fantastic games to play on our lists of the best PC games, best PS5 games and best Xbox Series X games.
