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Ubisoft\u2019s online-only racing game The Crew<\/em> stopped being operable on April 1. Some users are reporting, however, that things have gone a bit further. They say that the company actually reached into Ubisoft Connect accounts and revoked the license to access the game, <\/em><\/a> and others.<\/p>\n Some of these users <\/a>, as they had purchased the game with their own money and received no warning that Ubisoft would be deleting the license. When attempting to launch the game, these players say they received a message stating that access was no longer possible.<\/p>\n On its face, this sounds pretty bad. People paid for something that was snatched away. However, there\u2019s one major caveat. The Crew<\/em> is an online-only racing game, so there really isn\u2019t anything to do without the servers. Those servers went down on April 1 and the game was delisted from digital store fronts. Also, this move only impacts the original game. The Crew 2<\/em> and <\/em><\/a> are both still going.<\/p>\n When Ubisoft announced that the servers would be taken offline, it offered refunds to those who recently purchased the The Crew<\/em>. The game\u2019s been around a decade<\/a>, so this refund likely didn\u2019t apply to the vast majority of players. Some of these people said they had planned to set up private servers to play the game, an option that is now impossible.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the biggest deal in the world, being as how The Crew<\/em> is not operable, but it does highlight a major problem with the purchase and use of digital goods. We pay money for these products. We think we own them, but we don\u2019t own a damned thing. Read the terms of service from Ubisoft or any other major games publisher for proof of that. Philippe Tremblay, Ubisoft’s director of subscriptions, recently told Gamesindustry.biz<\/em> that players will <\/a>. I\u2019m not so sure we\u2019ll ever be comfortable with the idea that stuff we paid for can disappear on a dime, even if it becomes standard practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n