Michael @LegacyKillaHD
This is just horrifying.
Ubisoft CONFIRMS they will delete your account & purchased games if you go inactive for too long!!!
Ubisoft… WTF?! Another example of why I’m becoming more & more concerned with the death of physical games.
https://twitter.com/LegacyKillaHD/status/1682653876418224129
Ubisoft Support @UbisoftSupport
Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within the 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email. We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account so if you have any difficulties logging in then please create a support case with us. >> ubisoft.com/help
https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1682046437834784768
I logged into steam after like 10 years no problem.
I trust Steam to maintain my library the same as any bank with my money. I don’t feel that way toward any other service.
Totally fair, too. I used to “own” Resident Evil 4 on Xbox 360, but it didn’t count the same once the Xbox One released. Suddenly the license was revoked, and I was expected to repurchase the game.
Steam has, so far, kept its word for most of us.
Guess I’m no longer buying games by Ubisoft. I spend hundreds in their store and they’re going to delete my account if I’m inactive to long? You can’t be making this shit up.
Not defending it but it has to be a pretty long period, i have played their game or used their launcher in a few years and have not gotten any email about my account getting deleted.
Not defending it but it has to be a pretty long period
Fair enough, but why have any length of time at all? What purpose does it serve the prune old accounts?
Account information can’t be taking up that much space on a hard disk.
Yet…
I wonder if you contain any games validated through Steam that are Ubisoft, whether they are forced to keep the ones associated to that account active because Steam obviously isn’t going to break their own store because Ubisoft is screwing with their own.
deleted by creator
Huh. I’ve got some games on Ubisofts store… Well, maybe not anymore.
You’ll have to explain to me why I shouldn’t just steal any future Ubisoft titles if they steal all mine first…
I’d you already paid for them, it’s not stealing.
Yeah, was just thinking I should log in sometime. If it’s gone, I got it free off epic anyway, so no big loss, but also a better reason to sail them digital season.
I will say, it could be someone hit a wrong button. My account isn’t available because I’ve got 2fa apparently, but it’s still there. I doubt even a big game company would be so stupid as to automatically delete a paying customer’s account.
If you got it from Epic then you probably still have it with Epic. You’ll just no longer have any achievements or playtime stats from Ubisoft.
At least, I hope.
As if I give a fuck about anything on Ubisoft’s platform. Honestly it’s an annoyance that makes me never want to pay for their games again. I bought Assassins Creed Origins on Steam and somehow I still have to fucking use Ubisoft’s launcher. Fuck them. Great game, but fuck them anyway.
Yeah that’s how I felt about EA after buying Jedi Fallen Order on Steam. The bastards require not only the information from your PC at all times, but the information Steam has about you also.
Fair enough I suppose. It’s been so long since I played whatever it is, I can’t even remember what game it even is. All I know is the Ubisoft launcher is taking up space.
“We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account”
So why do this? Corporate greed.
It did entice me to actually log into my Ubisoft account because I couldn’t actually remember if I had any games from them or even why I had an account with them in the first place. I didn’t purchase anything through their store front, so I don’t particularly care. Unless they’re wiping your Steam games, I don’t really see the point, like who buys games off the Ubisoft storefront anyways? Hopefully they at least have some process for reinstating accounts if somebody still has an email receipt at least.
I don’t even see how greed motivates this. I can’t think of anyone that would go back to Ubisoft games after being locked out. Even assuming they were the scummiest of publishers, how does this give them anything other than bad press and sworn-off customers?
They’re hoping this will actually entice people to come back. Following that “get people in the door first and then worry about what you’ll sell them” business model, it’s the same logical reason that Costco has super cheap hot dogs that they lose money on, and Epic Games has free games every week. It’s just to get you to into a position where you can be marketed to.
That’s the more “amicable” business strategy though. The more sinister possibility is, well, a constantly running app (the Ubisoft launcher is configured to start on boot by default, and even if you turn that off it spawns a background process as soon as you click on it at least till you reboot), always online with full user permissions and filesystem access is a very powerful thing, you’ve gotten yourself a pretty capable Trojan virus that people are willingly installing and granting whatever permissions you need! Plenty of Windows users are also in the habit of using the admin user with system access for literally everything, which makes it even easier for them to exploit.
My uplay launcher closes when i tell it to and I don’t remember changing that setting, which makes it close easier than common programs like steam, epic and discord. I remember gog also not truly closing but I may have done that intentionally.
The triple admin request on update is fucking stupid though, and idk how a company as big as ubisoft can have that be the experience.
Nah, the hotdogs work like that, but it’s more about the experience
I mean, Costco will take your money and do all sorts of organizational psych to entice you to buy more, but they always had certain morals, as companies go. They always try to give you a lot for what you buy, and they had public good initiatives - like you can get great prices on prescription eyewear and pretty good vision appointments without a membership. It’s not like they were losing out, but they’re willing to miss out on some profits when it comes to health needs.
It’s the way businesses used to be - not that long ago they’d give you all sorts of free stuff and even sell stuff at a loss to gain customer loyalty.
… Sorry I meant you could do that. They cut that program, and are cracking down on people sharing cards. The hotdogs getting jacked up in price might not be far behind
At this point, just getting what you’re promised in reasonable quality is about the best it gets, and you really can’t take that for granted anymore…
They can’t even show me the store on a language I want to see it in. They just arbitrarily decide I should be looking at it in french. Despite having my profile specify English. Despite having my entire launcher on English. French is the only language I’m allowed to see the store in.
And they wonder why i never buy shit from their store…
Getting people to come inside and have a look is a good strategy if they can make sense of what you’re selling and under which conditions. Entering a shop with shiny pictures and everything explained in Arabic means I won’t be spending money there as I can’t figure out under which conditions I’m buying anything.
I get this all the time in Switzerland, with just about every online portal / service.
It’s pot-luck if I actually can get something in ENGLISH that the UI is set to.
SAMSUNG - Always in German Microsoft - Always in German EA - Always in French UBI - Always in French Netflix - Getting better, but most of the older content only has German subs / localisation.
Geolocalisation needs to fuck off, just as these corporate tosspots need to.
It’s not like you, the end user, know which language you prefer.
I can get behind them doing an estimated guess based on location, but I’d rather have it as a pop up when I enter the site.
" Hey, we see you’re coming from Switzerland so we’ve set the language to German. Click continue to proceed in the German or click one or the other languages to switch!
Thanks for visiting".
I honestly don’t understand why they make it so hard. And every time it looks like they fixed it. A few months after somebody decided it’s working a little too well and reverts it back. Because screw the minorities ( multi lingual countries ) where it doesn’t work.
Ironically I’ve heard that in Brussels they get everything in Flemish by default, and in flanders we get everything in French. It’s like they’re deliberately getting it wrong.
Does this apply to games purchased on steam as well? Bs
Purchased games on Steam fall under Steam’s TOS.
There’s a post below that says you can’t launch the game when the associated Ubisoft account is deleted. You can’t associate a new Ubisoft account.
If a game you own on steam also requires you to sign into an Ubi account it might? Maybe you’d need to create a new Ubisoft account again? Idk im just guessing a possible answer to that. It’s a good question.
Ubisoft might tell you that the game is already registered and won’t let you register it again, even with a new Ubi account. I would assume the scenario where the customer gets screwed is the default.
Oh absolutely that would happen.
Let’s throw in some surprise missing DLCs for good measure.
Ha! I deleted my own account before they could, jokes on you Ubi!! Jokes aside, fuck ubisoft. I primarily buy games from GOG. Recommended everyone to do the same 🐖
I know GOG has a launcher, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. The links on my desktop just go straight to the game executables.
I’m mostly asking out of curiosity, but also maybe for anyone here that’d like to know. But if you buy Ubisoft games from GOG, like Prince of Persia, they won’t need the shitty Ubisoft launcher, right?
That is correct!
It depends on the game.
No sub-launchers on GOG. I think that would violate their no DRM stance.
That’s rad. 🤔
Didn’t know that, thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything from there but I will if it means no sub-launchers.
The only thing thats stopping me from going fully to GOG is the fact that galaxy doesnt support linux right now.
Heroic Launcher on Linux supports GOG, from what ive heard.
What do you need Galaxy for?
Fuck Ubishit pirate their games
Most of em aren’t even worth that
They’re making the case for pirating games even better.
What fucking morons
Don’t feel bad about pirating AAA titles. See, the creatives and people that actually put work into the game have already been paid - usually at least. There are cases like Bethesda, who stole work from their composer - and so you’re not taking any profits from the people that matter.
Any money you’d pay to license a game would mostly just go to shareholders and greedy execs.
Yeah so their studio gets downsized, closed or merged. The big companies don’t care about the people. Tech lost 10k dev jobs last year, plenty of talent out there desperate.
And with the advent of AI tools and such much more work will be expected from fewer people. It’s a cutthroat industry that chews up passionate workers and spits them out when it’s done abusing them. The big companies definitely deserve to crash, and if a little bit of piracy can help induce that then I’m even more for it.
I saw a great quote,
“It’s not pirating if buying it isn’t owning it”.
It’s definitely still pirating. I think the quote uses the term “stealing”.
Also you can steal services. For example imagine hacking the payment panel on an automated carwash so you don’t have to pay.
Except that wouldn’t prevent anyone else using the service in a way normal usage wouldn’t. Stealing would. The same as me pirating a game doesn’t prevent anyone else from buying legitimate copy. Stealing would.
But this isn’t about services like Game Pass - these were bought games.
It is service, which I agree is really shitty and shouldn’t be a thing. You’re buying access to a game, not a copy of the game.
Piracy can’t be stealing if paying for it isn’t owning.
Piracy can’t be stealing when the supreme court of the united states says it isn’t stealing.
I like that quote a little better
And neither is it piracy.
piracy: robbery or other violent actions outside of the jurisdiction of any state.
Luckily, it can be understood as rebels/feighters for freedom too.
Yes but then again I’d be pirating Ubisoft games. Ain’t got time for that bloated crap.
It’s like they want people to pirate their games.
But I don’t want to pirate same old reskins of bloated games
Me neither, but a whole lot of other people do.
Sony did this to me I’d bought quite a few vita games digitally. Left it alone a few months and then saw an email where they said to keep the account log in now. Tried to log in but they’d already wiped it.
Not falling for digital again.
Thanks. I’ve been considering buying more console games digitally. Going to hang onto physical as long as possible.
It’s probably different on consoles but on PC buying a “physical” copy these days is usually just a box with a code in it to download the game, no discs anymore.
I really can’t imagine that this complies with EU law.
Which makes it even more strange considering Ubisoft is based in the EU.
I really don’t see why you say this, sadly. Our laws do not protect us against account closures.
Something like this might have to be done to comply to GDPR. I’m not sure about the details, but I do know a company cannot keep personal information for longer than they need. At some point, I guess that would probably translate to removing old and unused accounts.
Doubtful. There is no basis for Ubisoft to claim the account is no longer needed just because you haven’t played a game in some arbitrary period of time. Especially if they allow explicit account deletion by the user.
Sure, but that isn’t how it works under GDPR. You don’t need to prove the information should be deleted, you need to prove the information must be kept. To give an example, the company I work for deals with long-lived contracts (often 20 years or more), and once they end we are legally allowed to keep the information for about 5 more years. After that we need to remove it.
Are you allowed to unilaterally stop providing the service you 've been paid too?
GDPR is not the only law In EU nor does it automatically supercede any and all other obligations.
Well that definitely won’t get people to put on their pirate hats…
I boycott ubisoft and EA. They can both go suck a lemon.
Makes me wonder, how much data does it take to hold every users account info and library details? Not the games themselves, no profile pictures or anything, just the data that they must have in order too know who owns what. That has to be a huge consideration when you build an online store, right?
Did they run out of space? Are they deleting “old” accounts to free up servers for the absolute flood of new Ubisoft accounts that they’re massively inundated with every day?
But seriously, what would an actual real world reason be for needing to delete accounts after X amount of time?
Totally negligible. All you need to keep is a line in a database with the person’s email, hashed and salted password, and a unique identifier for each game they own - that’s an amount of space that won’t even register on any service nowadays. There might be other optional stuff that takes more space, like display pics, cloud saves etc but you can delete those without deleting the whole account.
Napkin maths to illustrate the point: Steam’s game IDs are short numbers, typically close to 5 digits long. ASCII characters are one byte each, so let’s assume 5 bytes plus one more for a separator character per game. If you wanted to store 8 billion accounts with 50 games each then the IDs would be about 2.4 TB, so a consumer hard drive worth ~$100 would do the job at least in the raw terms of data capacity
Your sums are right, but a ‘hard disk somewhere’ is not a robust, always on-line database. Running a 3TB Postgres instance on Amazon RDS will set you back something more like $1k/mo. Still absolute pocket change for Ubi, though.
It certainly adds up, and it makes maintaining the databases more complex and costly as a whole.
Imo this is just lazy, they could at the very least “archive” old accounts and move the bare minimum data out of the main DB, as to make it possible to reactivate the account later on. Why can virtually every platform keep old account arround, but not Ubisoft?
EA’s Origin closes your account after two years of inactivity since it exists, not sadly Ubisoft dose the same shit! :/
