Ubisoft is facing a proposed class action lawsuit over its decision to shut down The Crew at the beginning of this yeara decade after its initial release. Two players filed the case in California District Court, claiming that Ubisoft “tricked consumers” into buying The Crew without knowing that its servers could be shut down, rendering the game unplayable online.

When the shutdown was announced last December, Ubisoft offered refunds to players, but only those who had “recently” purchased the game. Given the age of the game, many players were unable to receive theirs.

“Imagine buying a pinball machine and years later walking into your den to play, only to find all the paddles missing, the pinball and bumpers gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable score is removed. “, the plaintiffs’ lawyers he wrote in the lawsuit which was uploaded by Polygon. “It looks like the pinball maker decided to come into your house, destroy the inside of the pinball machine, and take away your ability to play the game you bought and thought you owned.”

The lawsuit alleges that players were deceived in two ways: First, by misleading players into thinking they were buying a game when they were simply licensing it, even though a player had purchased the physical disc. Second, Ubisoft “falsely represented” that The Crew’s files were on those physical discs to be accessed freely, and that the discs were not simply “a key” to the game. The lawsuit adds that Ubisoft is infringing California Consumer Protection Laws.

This is just another plus to the development of players who don’t realize what they are getting when they buy a game, which is more often than not the license and not the game itself. This difference is something that platforms like Steam try to be more obvious when you buy a digital game.

Ubisoft said it shut down its servers after a decade due to “server infrastructure and licensing constraints”. Both the 2018 sequel, simply titled The Crew 2, and the latest entry in the franchise, The Crew Motorfest, will remain unaffected after the servers go dark.