New developments in The Crew case: According to a lawyer, Ubisoft has violated applicable law in Germany.
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Violation of applicable law, critical terms and conditions, right to compensation: For YouTube lawyer Christian Solmecke, the shutdown and subsequent removal of the MMO racing game The Crew from players' online libraries was incorrect.
The lawyer for internet and media law is a partner at the law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke (WBS Legal) and in a 22-minute video he analyzes the situation surrounding the Ubisoft game servers being switched off and the “Stop Killing Games” initiative that was subsequently launched.
The lawyer's most important statements
Solmecke refers to the Civil Code, especially paragraph 327f. This regulates updates to digital products – these must be made available to the consumer within a so-called “relevant period of time”. For the lawyer, too little time passed between the announcement of the server shutdown and the shutdown date.
Instead of just four months, Ubisoft would have given buyers who purchased The Crew after the announcement, according to Solmeck's interpretation at least two more years Have to offer updates and the service itself. This is the period specified as a warranty period in the sales law.
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However, Ubisoft could have forestalled this with a note to be confirmed by the customer when purchasing. However, this did not happen.
Link to YouTube content
Furthermore, users could Claim for damages even if this is limited in advance to the replacement of purchased content in Publisher Ubisoft's General Terms and Conditions (GTC). However, Solmecke also finds a lot to criticize about the general terms and conditions, as they sometimes deviate from the essential basic idea of the law (paragraph 307).
The lawyer points out that someone who bought The Crew when it was released in 2014 is unlikely to Eligible for a refund from Ubisoft has. However, someone who has recently bought the item can hope for a full refund of the purchase price.
At GameStar we already have reported in detail about the case:
Even if it is so far no court rulings yet There are online games that have been switched off that could ensure legal certainty, Christian Solmecke, in contrast to lawyer Kai Bodensiek, sees a chance of success for a lawsuit.
However, he also believes that more brainpower needs to go into formulating such and the criticized points before a decision can be made. We at GameStar.de are currently preparing another article on the topic.