Ubisoft takes away The Crew from stores as servers go down in 2024
Nine years since its debut in 2014, the action-packed MMO The Crew is no anymore available to purchase. It is still played, however servers will be shut down following the 31st March, 2024.
The game was developed in collaboration with Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft, The Crew was an extremely popular game for those who are fans of driving-related games. The game was not like other titles in this genre, The Crew let players play on an array of terrain in an open-world simulation from The United States.
The game’s popularity was enough to warrant sequels in The Crew 2 in 2018 The Crew 2 as well as the 2023 version of The Crew Motorfest, that will be available in the near future. It’s disappointing to see another of the most popular titles from Ubisoft come down with the news of closing of servers and delisting, but these older games aren’t likely to earn enough revenue to warrant maintaining.
The decision has sparked the physical-versus-digital media debate anew over on Twitter. It’s obvious where Ubisoft has a position on the issue in light of recent statements made from an executive however, a tweet that broke the news from @Wario64 was met with replies asking “Why is it that companies are allowed to allow this?” Others argued that this costs-saving strategy “should be unlawful.”
The physical-versus-digital debate often leads to cries for piracy, with one commenter writing “buying isn’t owning anymore. They then criticize us for pirated games without making a payment for the games.” A third user seemed to be naive and said “Nothing goes to waste for the community. It’s one of the most awful games I’ve played and there’s no need to play it because Horizon 4 is like 20EUR on Steam.”
In any case, it’s evident that the preservation of games is a difficult and is a controversial topic in the gaming industry. With the midst of a flurry of job cuts there’s no reason to be blamed for developers being too burned out to take action in a timely manner, however the future for this industry looks like a dark one, if the history of the industry can be removed and lost.
It appears that The Crew’s fate will be an inevitable ending for every game that is always on. It is our hope that each interruption is a chance to play these games, and create memories as long as servers are available.
