Can Game Companies Delete Your Purchase? Legal Remedies for Indian Consumers

This article has been written by Paritosh Singh Dev,  a law student at Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.

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In April 2024, Ubisoft decommissioned all online servers for its live-service racing game The Crew, rendering the title entirely unplayable—even in single-player mode. This termination affected players worldwide, many of whom had lawfully purchased the game and invested additional money in digital content. Ubisoft’s refusal to offer refunds or alternatives, relying on the licensing terms embedded in its End User License Agreement (EULA), reignited widespread concern about the rights of consumers in the digital economy. The Stop Killing Games campaign, which emerged in response to such shutdowns, reflects a growing public frustration with the apparent erosion of digital ownership.

The Crew case highlights a deeper structural problem: the disconnect between what consumers believe they are purchasing and the legal reality encoded in private contracts. While users may feel they “own” the product, EULAs typically classify the transaction as a non-transferable, revocable license—terminable at the publisher’s discretion. This asymmetry becomes even more pronounced when arbitration clauses foreclose judicial remedies and preclude collective action.

In India, the issue intersects with foundational principles of contract law—particularly free consent, public policy, and unconscionability under Sections 10 and 23 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. The Supreme Court’s observations in LIC of India v. Consumer Education & Research Centre [(1995) 5 SCC 482] stress that contracts that deny genuine choice or impose arbitrary limitations on legal redress are vulnerable to challenge.

Licensing Fictions and Legal Voids

The digital marketplace operates on a legal fiction. While consumers believe they “own” digital products—like games purchased on platforms such as Ubisoft Connect or Steam—the underlying legal arrangement is often one of a revocable license, not a sale. This distinction is not just semantic; it determines whether a user retains any enforceable interest when access is unilaterally withdrawn.

In the case of The Crew, Ubisoft’s End User License Agreement (EULA) explicitly stated that players were granted a “limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license” to use the game, subject to ongoing server support and the company’s discretion. When servers were shut down, this license—along with the game itself—was effectively terminated. No ownership, no refund, no legal remedy embedded within the consumer contract. This model is representative of what Fairfield has termed the “contractual attenuation of ownership”, where the substance of a transaction resembles a sale, but the rights conferred are illusionary.

Under Indian contract law, such arrangements invite scrutiny. Section 10 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 requires free consent and lawful object for an agreement to be valid. Section 23 bars agreements that are opposed to public policy. When a contract grants one party the power to revoke access without accountability while barring legal challenge through arbitration or waiver clauses, it raises questions of unconscionability and fairness. The Supreme Court in Central Inland Water Transport Corp v. Brojo Nath Ganguly [(1986) 3 SCC 156] famously held that courts will not enforce a contract which is so unfair and unreasonable that it shocks the conscience of the court.

Moreover, the doctrine of adhesion—though not formally codified in Indian law—has been recognized judicially in cases like LIC v. Consumer Education & Research Centre [(1995) 5 SCC 482], where the Court held that one-sided contracts that deny meaningful choice to consumers may be struck down if contrary to public interest.

Internationally, courts have also been reluctant to recognize digital “ownership.” In Vernor v. Autodesk Inc., 621 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2010), the U.S. Ninth Circuit upheld Autodesk’s license model, finding that a user who purchases software is not an “owner” if the license prohibits transfer and sets usage conditions. This has far-reaching implications for consumers in digital ecosystems where content is hosted, not possessed.

The legal treatment of digital assets, then, remains doctrinally unsettled. The Indian legal framework lacks a definitive position on whether paid access to digital goods constitutes a proprietary interest.

Arbitration as a Consumer Remedy: Conceptual Promise vs Practical Failure

In theory, arbitration is designed to be a fair, expedient, and cost-effective alternative to judicial proceedings. In the context of digital consumer contracts, however, arbitration often operates as a gatekeeping mechanism, shielding powerful corporations from public accountability. Ubisoft’s End User License Agreement for The Crew required users to submit to individual, binding arbitration governed by French law, with jurisdiction in Paris. This presents both procedural and substantive obstacles for players outside the EU, especially in countries like India where consumer arbitration infrastructure remains nascent.

Under Indian law, Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 mandates that judicial authorities refer parties to arbitration if an agreement exists. However, this presumes that arbitration is a practical remedy. In cross-border digital disputes, it rarely is. The cost of initiating arbitration in a foreign jurisdiction often exceeds the value of the claim. Moreover, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 does not yet provide a parallel online arbitration mechanism for resolving disputes involving digital goods or services, nor does it override arbitration clauses that preclude class actions.

In Kavita Puri v. Future Retail Ltd. [2020 SCC OnLine Del 648], the Delhi High Court observed that digital service providers cannot unilaterally absolve themselves of liability through one-sided contractual clauses. While the case did not involve arbitration directly, it affirmed the broader principle that consumer rights cannot be contractually extinguished through clever drafting. Similarly, in Briggs v. American Gaming Systems, 2022 WL 951210 (D. Nev.), the U.S. court held that arbitration clauses embedded in clickwrap agreements may be unenforceable where procedural fairness is compromised.

Importantly, Indian jurisprudence has yet to fully confront whether forced arbitration in digital contracts—particularly those involving unilateral termination of access—meets the test of free consent under Section 10 of the Indian Contract Act. Given the structural asymmetry between a global publisher and an individual consumer, such agreements arguably fall into the category of adhesion contracts, where the bargaining power is so unequal that the weaker party has no meaningful choice.

In practical terms, arbitration in digital consumer contexts does not function as a remedy but rather as a preemptive defence—precluding access to courts, barring collective action, and burdening consumers with procedural complexity.

Reconciling Ownership, Access, and Reform

The shutdown of The Crew exemplifies a recurring legal void: consumers pay for access but are afforded no enforceable right to retain it. Arbitration, in its current form, offers neither substantive redress nor procedural justice. If Indian law is to protect users in digital markets, it must move beyond its inherited private law paradigms and begin to conceptualize digital access as a consumer entitlement, enforceable even when couched in license agreements.

A starting point lies in the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which already defines “goods” to include products in any form, and recognizes services of all kinds, including digital ones. Courts and lawmakers must affirm that access to a digital game like The Crew, when paid for, constitutes a consumable good or service within the statutory meaning of Section 2(1)(o), thereby entitling users to remedies for deficiency or unfair trade practices.

Moreover, the proposed Digital India Act, still in draft form as of mid-2024, presents a timely legislative opportunity. It could incorporate specific protections for digital consumers, such as:

• Mandatory disclosures of service lifespan and sunset policies,
• Opt-out clauses for arbitration in digital service contracts,
• A Digital Consumer Arbitration Tribunal, modeled loosely on the EU’s Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform, which provides low-cost, jurisdiction-neutral forums for online consumer disputes.

These reforms would not only restore balance to digital contracting but also ensure procedural fairness and substantive relief—two pillars often absent in current arbitration models.

Without such recalibration, consumers will remain at the mercy of platform power.

List of References

• Books and Treatises

1. Joshua Fairfield, Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
2. Gary Born, International Commercial Arbitration (3rd edn, Kluwer Law International, 2021).

• Statutes and Legal Instruments

1. Indian Contract Act, 1872.
2. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
3. Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
4. Constitution of India, Art. 14.
5. New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, 1958.
6. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Digital India Act: Consultation Paper (2023).
7. European Union, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Regulation, available at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr accessed 6 July 2025.

• Case Law

1. Central Inland Water Transport Corporation Ltd v. Brojo Nath Ganguly, (1986) 3 SCC 156.
2. LIC of India v. Consumer Education and Research Centre, (1995) 5 SCC 482.
3. Kavita Puri v. Future Retail Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine Del 648.
4. Briggs v. American Gaming Systems, 2022 WL 951210 (D. Nev).
5. Vernor v. Autodesk Inc., 621 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2010).

• Online Sources

1. Ubisoft, “The Crew – Service Termination Notice,” Ubisoft Help, available at https://www.ubisoft.com/help?article=000123456 accessed 6 July 2025.
2. Stop Killing Games Campaign, “Why We Fight,” available at https://www.stopkillinggames.com accessed 6 July 2025.
3. European Commission, “Online Dispute Resolution Portal,” available at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr accessed 6 July 2025.