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

TPetrichor
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163Y

How long is “too long”? If I lose my Anno empires I will shit bricks

@[email protected]
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130
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3Y

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…

@[email protected]
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53Y

I’d you already paid for them, it’s not stealing.

@[email protected]
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273Y

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.

TWeaK
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73Y

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.

@[email protected]
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9
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3Y

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.

TWeaK
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23Y

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.

@[email protected]
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23Y

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.

@[email protected]
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33Y

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.

@[email protected]
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143Y

Why do so many people, usually children, think digital games are a good idea? Absolute scam, and it’s only going to get worse. Next gen of consoles will probably be all digital. You will lose access to games for seemingly no reason, everything will be $70, no trading, no selling, and no one but the big guys making a dime from the sale.

Please shop at your local game stores, don’t buy digital. You are not only ripping yourself off, but helping to enable a future where you don’t even really own the games you buy. Look at ubisoft right now. You bought those games. You own them. They’re literally stealing games just to try and force you to buy another copy.

Con artists.

@[email protected]
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343Y

What about pc gaming? As far as I’m aware physical pc games don’t exist anymore.

Hextic
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49
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3Y

Yeah when I hear about mUh pHySiCaL games I smell a console user. PC hasn’t had physical in over a decade. Unless you like Hidden Object games.

No, our defense isn’t physical it’s just DRM free cracking or a GOG library.

@[email protected]
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93Y

I haven’t even had a disc drive in the last 7 years, I’d need an external one because high end laptops tend to not have space for that shit when there’s stuff that actually matters to consider, like performance and cooling.

Sev
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3
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3Y

I miss the days of CD keys and multiple disks, oh and owning a cd drive within the last decade. Oh wait, nah I like my expansive day 1 regged steam account with everything in it, ever and cheap keys.

Although I do miss manuals. A good manual in the pre-smartphone world was epic toilet reading. Or a good bradygames strat guide. The GTA:SA one was soooo good.

@[email protected]
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93Y

Are you like 12\s :D ?

The reason digital games took off is because it was a hundred times better in every possible way. In 2006 if you didn’t live in a capital of a country in Europe. (Which is most people), buying games was a fucking pain in the ass.

First of all games had a short shelf life. Like insanely short. 3-6 months MAYBE. After that go fuck yourself. If it sold superb well maybe it got a platinum rerelease, but honestly most games that platinum-d, you probably had already, because they were the must have-s for the console, and those were basically the games you could buy in your tiny video game store / supermarket(s). (What I mean is they had a very narrow selection of the most popular games, and budget games). The idea that your budget games were older bigger titles didn’t exist. You had awful budget games instead. Notice those are all but gone? Thank digital distribution. Makes no sense to stop selling a game. Also owning a more obscure console like the Saturn, was pretty much out of question, because there were even less stuff for it. Also in these stores no game, unless it was LITERALLY unplayable was marked down much. There was a very real cost associated with a physical game. It was perfectly possible to lose money on a real copy, unlike a digital one.

Also more experimental games were a huge risk for a publisher. Especially lower budget ones. Distribution and cartridge printing was awfully expensive. This did get better with CD based consoles a little.

Also the way games are distributed since the 90-s is optical media. Optical media is a huge PITA. The disks get damaged real easy, often without noticeable damage to the surface, they take up a lot a of space, and the optical drive is the single biggest point of failure on any period device. Laptops consoles, desktops. The first thing that always broke was the ODD. This resulted in a costly difficult and with more exotic devices impossible repair. I have a stack of like 20 PS2-s (I know I know), that I got for effectively free, because they were useless to their owners, because they don’t read disks anymore.

So this is why digital distribution took off as hard as it did. Because people remember when games were an expensive pain in the ass, and dd made it incomparably cheaper, more convenient, and let’s be real here, more long lasting.

@[email protected]
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83Y

Digital software delivery is perfectly fine.

DRM is intolerable.

@[email protected]
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13Y

If it was source code on a disk then I might agree, but as it is, your idea is juvenile and dead. Only rarely grabbing an old game release on physical media and just playing it is what you want or what you get. It may signify ownership, but so may a digital receipt.

@[email protected]
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103Y

Because game store doesn’t exist in my country and international shipping costs much as the game itself

GONADS125
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2
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3Y

That sounds like a great reason to pirate!

Well, single-player games anyway…

People in discord tell me “it’s convenient” and to “shut up, it’s the way of the future” because they are children who grew up in a permissive environment that did not condition them to question that kind of rule. They question governments and lawmakers, but not game creation.

Marxism-Fennekinism
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53Y

Convenience.

@[email protected]
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13Y

Because everything is digital these days, most people are getting their music, films, TV, books, comics, etc digitally already. Why wouldn’t they do the same with games. Especially if you’re not the kind of person who cares about trading games back in or having them all up on a shelf.

@[email protected]
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2773Y

They’re making the case for pirating games even better.

What fucking morons

@[email protected]
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19d

deleted by creator

Dojan
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33
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3Y

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.

@[email protected]
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63Y

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.

Dojan
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33Y

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.

@[email protected]
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1673Y

I saw a great quote,

“It’s not pirating if buying it isn’t owning it”.

@[email protected]
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113Y

Piracy can’t be stealing if paying for it isn’t owning.

@[email protected]
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2
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3Y

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.

@[email protected]
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493Y

It’s definitely still pirating. I think the quote uses the term “stealing”.

@[email protected]
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11
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3Y

Also you can steal services. For example imagine hacking the payment panel on an automated carwash so you don’t have to pay.

@[email protected]
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4
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3Y

deleted by creator

@[email protected]
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143Y

But this isn’t about services like Game Pass - these were bought games.

@[email protected]
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3
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3Y

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.

@[email protected]
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13
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3Y

This is why I’m a big supporter of physical media if possible. Sure the actual game may not be on there or something because it’s too big or whatnot, however with what the hell is going on with digital companies in the modern videogaming world, yeah no they simply just can not be trusted much with the amount of power they hold. This includes but not limited to: Ubisoft, Steam, EA, Epic Games, etc.

EDIT: Yeah GOG is fine apologies for that, however the well majority of games in the digital world are simply just licenses that these companies have control of.

@[email protected]
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53Y

What’s wrong with gog? Just download the offline installer and do with it whatever you want.

Rikudou_Sage
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33Y

That’s plain wrong for GOG, you can download it and burn it to a CD if you wish.

@[email protected]
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93Y

Sounds like a great way to get sued.

@[email protected]
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113Y

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.

@[email protected]
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53Y

Thanks. I’ve been considering buying more console games digitally. Going to hang onto physical as long as possible.

@[email protected]
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143Y

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.

@[email protected]
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103Y

EA’s Origin closes your account after two years of inactivity since it exists, not sadly Ubisoft dose the same shit! :/

TWeaK
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43Y

I don’t have any games in my uplay account… but I think they’re still on Steam, thankfully.

@[email protected]
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623Y

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.

@[email protected]
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43Y

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.

Saik0
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93Y

Yet…

@[email protected]
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16
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2Y

removed by mod

@[email protected]
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113Y

I fucking love that Valve is privately owned and hope it stays that way forever. It seems like they’re the only game store not subject to enshittification and I’m sure that not being a public company is a huge part of why. They’ve kept their amazing search feature all this time, just put out a significant UI update that helps UX a lot on high res monitors, and still let you play without updating if you go into offline mode (though it is a bit of a hassle).

Cosmic Cleric
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43Y

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.

@[email protected]
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13Y

This is misleading and ragebait. They only delete old-ass accounts without purchased games, and this is a compliance thing with European laws.

@[email protected]
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13Y

They showed in the tweet that they would deleted the account ANS purchased games.

Virkkunen
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23Y

Isn’t this a Hanlon’s razor issue? Probably someone working support being in charge of tweeting just didn’t know what the actual policy was, or didn’t understand it and just tweeted something without thinking of the repercusion?

And to clarify, I’m not defending Ubisoft. Despite being a big corp and big corps always act out of malice and greed, a corporation is not just one person

@[email protected]
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43Y

I read the Tweet, it does not “show” that the account had purchased games. This has been Ubisoft’s policy for years and there is no record of deleted account, except for a random tweet.

Peepee Confiscator
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143Y

I smell EU fine

@[email protected]
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5
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3Y

Ubisoft is a C tier developer/publisher who generally doesn’t get my dollars, although they have had some one-off hits in the last decade (Wildlands, Riders Republic, Anno games). I couldn’t be bothered to shell out $80 for the latest AC or Farcry copy and paste slog. Seems their servers are getting full. Doesn’t really inspire confidence in them as a service provider.

@[email protected]
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13Y

If they’re deleting inactive accounts it’s not because their servers are full, inactive accounts consume no resources!

@[email protected]
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63Y

Fuck Ubishit pirate their games

nfntordr
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63Y

Most of em aren’t even worth that

@[email protected]
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213Y

I really can’t imagine that this complies with EU law.

@[email protected]
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233Y

Which makes it even more strange considering Ubisoft is based in the EU.

@[email protected]
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33Y

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.

@[email protected]
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73Y

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.

@[email protected]
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2
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3Y

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.

@[email protected]
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53Y

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.

Magnor
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23Y

I really don’t see why you say this, sadly. Our laws do not protect us against account closures.

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