Just when you think the negative discourse surrounding live service games starts to die down, Ivory Tower games and publisher Ubisoft killed another one of their games; proving us right once again.
Not long after the trailer for The Crew: Motorfest was published to the acclaim of many racing enthusiast, The original 'The Crew's' servers will be shutting down by March 24th; rendering the game useless to any gamers who may have purchased it.
On December 14th, Ubisoft would post an announcement on their official website entitled: "An update on The Crew," in which it announces the closure of not only the game itself, but its subsequent online stores, virtual currency packs, and editions, on every platform it was ever sold on.
"...Today, The Crew 1, including all its editions, and virtual currency packs, will be delisted from all online stores. The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew 1 owners. After this date, the servers will be shut down, which means that the game will not be accessible anymore on any platform, including PC / Xbox 360 / Xbox One / PlayStation 4 / Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+."
The announcement -which reads like it was crafted by an A.I. that just got laid off on LinkedIn- gives the most predictable excuse anyone who as ever paid for a live service could imagine off the top of their heads; citing "Licensing constraints" and "Server infrastructure."
... We understand this may be disappointing for players still enjoying the game, but it has become a necessity due to upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints. Decommissioning a game, and especially our first one, is not something we take lightly. Our goal remains to provide the best action driving gameplay experience for players and to deliver on it, we are continuing to provide new content and support for The Crew 2 and the recently launched The Crew Motorfest.
Aside from how utterly bullshit the "server infrastructure" excuse is, Ubisoft almost lets the mask slip at the end of the former paragraph, hinting to what many believe was the REAL reason the game was shut down; an attempt to push players into their newer titles, like 'The Crew 2' and 'Motorfest.'
The announcement then states that people who recently purchased the original Crew game can check the refund policy on Ubisoft's website if they want their money back. No word on what exactly qualifies as "recent" to ubisoft, and seems to exclude players who purchased the game for full price when it came out.
This serves as yet one of many outstanding examples of why piracy is always morally correct, and why live service software is a ripoff.
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