Ubisoft CEO responds to Stop Killing Games: 'Nothing is eternal'

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot directly responds to Stop Killing Games, a petition that was started due to Ubisoft's business decisions.

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In 2024, Ubisoft pulled The Crew 1 from all digital storefronts after nearly 10 years of availability. The Crew is an online-only game, so when the servers were shut off, owners had no way of playing the game they paid for. This sparked a wider discussion on game ownership and a publisher's responsibility to make games available to consumers who purchased them, even after an online game is taken offline. This controversy led to the Stop Killing Games movement, which spawned the Stop Destroying Videogames petition in the EU; at the time of writing, the petition has garnered over 1.4 million signatures and has even gained support from parliament.

Now we have an official response from Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot on Stop Killing Games, as well as an explanation of why The Crew 1 wasn't made available offline. Guillemot was asked about the controversy during a recent Ubisoft general shareholders meeting, and he replied by essentially saying that gamers are forewarned about possible game service discontinuations and that Ubisoft responded to the situation by offering The Crew 2 for just 1 Euro.

Below we have a transcript of what was said at the meeting:

Question (anonymous investor):

What about accusations that video games are being killed? There's this petition with thousands of signatories, how do you make sure that games remain playable and accessible even after server support is discontinued?

This petition was initiated in 2024, when Ubisoft announced the end of service support for The Crew, and now the servers are shut down and the game can't be played any more. Do you support that petition at the end of the day?

When players buy an Ubisoft game, do they own it? Or is there a chance they will not be able to keep playing the game years later?

Answer (Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft CEO):

Regarding the petition, we operate in a market, and whenever we release a game, we provide a lot of support for that game.

We also provide a lot of services to make sure the game is accessible and remains playable 24/7. We provide information regarding the game, and how long the game can be played. Players and buyers are forewarned that eventually the game may be discontinued.

What happened with The Crew?

There was a one Euro fee proposed to all buyers of the game--for just one Euro, they got to buy the next version [The Crew 2]. One Euro, it's not a whole lot of money to be able to continue playing a game. And we also announced that [The Crew 2] would be made available offline in the future so that players could continue to play it.

This is an issue that we've been dealing with. But this kind of issue is not specific to Ubisoft. All video game publishers are faced with that issue; you provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point the service may be discontinued.

Nothing is eternal, and we're doing our best to make sure things go well for all players and buyers. Obviously, support for all games cannot last forever, but that's an issue that we're working on, and it's something that the industry at large is working on to minimize impact on players.

But clearly that's something that needs to be factored in the lifespan of a piece of software. Whenever there's a service component, eventually services may be discontinued because the software may become obsolete over time.

A lot of tools become obsolete 10 or 15 years down the line, they're no longer available, and that is why we released [The Crew 2].

Clearly, this is a far-reaching issue and we're working on it.