In Apparent Response To EU ‘Stop Killing Games’ Petition, Ubisoft Announces Offline Modes For ‘The Crew 2’ And ‘The Crew Motorfest’
Ubisoft announced The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest will have offline modes, as petitions against “killing” games grow. It’s unclear if the move is in response to the petitions, but the timing is curious.
During Ubisoft’s The Crew Showcase 2024, focusing on new content coming to The Crew Motorfest, developer Ubisoft Ivory Tower revealed more plans for what’s coming down the pike. Managing Studio Director Stéphan Beley addressed offline mode as the first item in his presentation.
“Before going into the thrilling details of our upcoming content, today we want to acknowledge that some of you have voiced concerns about the access to The Crew games. Today, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest.”
“We are currently exploring different solutions, and can confirm an offline mode, to ensure long-term access to both titles. So stay tuned for more news in the next months,” Beley assured.
Further details were announced on the official The Crew Motorfest website. Under the “Commitment To The Crew” heading and after mentioning the above, Ubisoft announced a sale for both games. The Crew Motorfest is 70% off, while The Crew 2 is 98% off until September 24th. This takes the latter down to just $1.00 on Steam.
In addition, The Crew 2 will sell four vehicles for just one Crew Credit each; the Mustang Shelby GT500 Road Force One, the Frauscher 1414 Demon, the Slick 360HP, and the Porsche 959 Raid.
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The whole affair seems to be in response to the “Stop Killing Games” campaign, something which Ubisoft themselves unintentionally started. Servers for 2014’s The Crew went offline in April 2024, rendering the game unplayable.
Ubisoft gave players notice six months prior, blaming “upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints.” While older games becoming unplayable isn’t a rarity, it inspired YouTuber Ross Scott (Accursed Farms’ Freeman’s Mind) and his “Stop Killing Games” campaign.
As Ubisoft is a French company, the goal was to petition the French government to ban games becoming inoperable via publishers disabling them, or designing them to cease functioning once they’re done with them. This would then ripple out to other nations, along with spreading awareness.
Currently the campaign has taken aim at the European Union, aiming to gain 1 million signatures by July 31st, 2025. In addition, EU laws demand a specific minimum threshold of signatures from at least seven countries. For example, France requires 55,695 signatures, and has 36,911.
As such, while the petition is displayed as having 35,3024 signatures at this time, there are an additional 24,250 signatures not currently counted.
The petition explains that it “calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.”
“Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.”
Learning from prior experience, it clarifies “the initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.”
Previously, efforts in other nations included a petition to the UK government. While it only received 27,000 signatures out of the required 100,000, this prompted a response from The Department of Culture, Media & Sport.
While Scott felt the response was “pretty terrible,” it did state that companies needed to clearly announce if a game would become inoperable at a later stage. Scott felt this may have meant that shutting down The Crew violated UK consumer protection laws, as Ubisoft would have known early in development they’d have lost the licenses for car brands and music.
While the UK petition garnered a response in May, and the EU petition launched in August, it seems likely they motivated Ubisoft to act. Scott even replied to Ubisoft’s tweet about keeping The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest functional with offline modes.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’m hoping this is in response to which way the wind is blowing on consumer agencies in multiple countries investigating the legality of disabling The Crew 1 sold as a one-time purchase with no expiration date,” Scott mused.
Time will tell how many games follow suit with permanent offline modes, but for now, it appears the pressure is working.
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