Just three days after Steam launch, The Crew Motorfest disables reviews and goes half-price amid backlash

Ubisoft has been receiving a lot of negativity recently due to its decision to shut down the online functionality of The Crew, effectively killing the game. Now, the sequel-to-a-sequel, The Crew Motorfest is being review-bombed on Steam by disgruntled gamers, sending the game to a half-price sale days after launch.

The Crew Motorfest launched originally in September of last year, though it dropped on the biggest PC storefront, Steam, just three days ago on Apr. 18. It didn’t take long for the game to receive a wave of negative reviews, warranted by gamers’ dissatisfaction with Ubisoft’s recent decisions regarding the original title. At the time of writing, The Crew Motorfest sits at a “Mixed” review rating, with recent reviews being completely disabled (likely by Valve) and the game itself selling for half the price.

The majority of the negative reviews seem to be mostly caused by the End-User License Agreement (EULA), stating that players don’t actually own The Crew Motorfest and are merely licensing it. The quality of the game itself doesn’t seem to be a genuine issue for players, and one negative review summarized the situation well: “Honest review: game good, Ubisoft bad.” Another player shared the #StopKillingGames hashtag and website, a campaign specifically designed to legally go against Ubisoft and their anti-game preservation actions in a bid to change industry practices.

Though many other companies in the industry have similar EULAs and have had them for decades, the disgruntled fans seem to particularly target Ubisoft due to its high-profile delisting of past titles. Most recently, this happened to the original The Crew, where Ubisoft decided to shut down the game’s servers, rendering it inaccessible to players. Ubisoft then began revoking players’ licenses, minimizing any hope for an offline mode.

On the other end of the spectrum, gaming companies like Xbox are opening teams dedicated to preserving video games, but maintaining the ability to access and play old titles still remains an issue in the industry.