In a response to a post from the AntiDRM Twitter account, Ubisoft Support has clarified that users who don’t sign in to their account can potentially lose access to Ubisoft games they’ve purchased. The initial post from AntiDRM featured a snippet of an e-mail sent to a user from Ubisoft notifying them that their account had been temporarily suspended due to inactivity and warning that it would be closed permanently in 30 days. Responding to the ominous e-mail, the Ubisoft Support Twitter account stated “We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account” and noted that account closure could be avoided by signing in to the account again.
Oooh, I would really like to see that challanged in front of a German court after such a deletion happened. There are so many different legal facettes here.
- Is the deletion maybe necessary due to GDPR? (they have to keep the minimum amount of data)
- What’s with the physical copies / codes that were bought. Should they automatically be freed up for re-use once the account that claimed them is deleted? (That would kinda make sense to me.)
- What about stricly digitally bought games?
- How far are their ToS valid in our jurisdiction?
Damn I really hope they do this to the wrong person and rub them the wrong way so they get dragged to court for this.
Data Protection shouldn’t be a relevant issue - at least not in the sense that it forcss them to delete accounts. When you process data under the GDPR, you have to identify a lawful basis.
I assume that transactions through the eStore would be handled under the contract basis, with the hosting of the game in the library forming part of the contractual relationship. That would enable them to maintain an account for as long as the contractual relationship persisted.
That basically means GDPR doesn’t force them to close an account, they close an account based on their policies because they choose to. That’ll be based on their T&Cs, so things will fundamentally circle back to whether their T&Cs are legitimate and lawful.
It is possible that a data subject could potentially raise a claim for damages under the GDPR, on the grounds that the deletion of their account is a breach of contract that amounts to an availability data breach.
GDPR clearly says, if there is a valid reason for storing your data, they can store it (no timelimit). Like you can store data for invoices etc for 10 years too even when you ask them for deleting your data.
Iguesseverybody also agreed to it when you registered.
I do not see any valid reason why they would delete acvounts, like saving 1 line in a database?
Some companies decide to delete user content not because it’s necessary for GDPR, but because it’s the simplest way for them to deal with GDPR.
Valve has a TOS that lets them do the exact same thing. So it’d be interesting indeed.
I knew putting Ubisoft on the blacklist was a good idea a decade ago. Everyone should blacklist them as well, just let them die as a company.
So, if you want access to the games you paid for, you need to pirate them?
Yes that, or skip the paying part.
Definitely no reason to buy games if they can get away with pretending that you didn’t.
What does seem to make the whole process more efficient doesn’t it? LOL
I mean they save their bandwidth, space for personal data and computing tasks and you safe money.
Win-Win
You are cracking me up, internet friend.
People need to realize that you do not own the games that you buy from stores such as Ubisoft and Steam. You are renting these games at best. These companies can deny access to your games at any time they see fit. Whether it’s deleting inactive accounts, a change of policy, business going bankrupt or any act of god.
This is why I only buy games from stores such as GOG or itch.io where I actually receive a DRM-free copy of the game. It’s mine forever so long as I back it up; which is not hard to do since storage is so cheap nowadays.
Why do people think they are “buying” something when in fact they are “renting”. Everything that’s not in your power is not in your posession, hence it’s not something you have bought. This counts for ebooks with DRM as well as those online games. Amazon and other companies call it “buying” to make people believe it’s equal to real books, games ect. in their posession, and people do believe it.
Ubisoft appears to have just raised the white flag to all of the seafarers. Yarrrr.
If you are still buying Ubisoft games in 2023 you are part of the problem.
Yikes. Why… Going to have to hope EU saves people again from losing digital content they purchased due to inactivity. Or maybe it’s a push towards piracy if honest paying customers get screwed like this.
It’s crazy (sad) how much we are all starting to have to rely on the EU to save us from the BS.
I wonder if this is an attempt at cutting down on bought or stolen accounts somehow. Buying or breaking into old accounts is a thing, so I wonder if this is their solution (a bad one I might add).
Well. This certainly has me reconsidering buying any Ubisoft games. I get that we just license all our entertainment now when we purchase it legally, but most companies are smart enough to not remind you of that fact and how easily they could cut you off from everything you’ve bought.
It’s annoying enough that Netflix removes my account and watched history, after I go a few months without the service. But I still deal with it a couple times a year. This… this makes me just want to never touch anything Ubisoft ever again.
Isn’t this a GDPR requirement if enough time passes without account activity?
GDPR allows you to keep data as long as you need it to run your business, which in the case of online game store would be basically forever. The only data that has a time limit is stuff like log files and the like, which you might need to catch cheaters and hackers, but is useless after a few weeks or months.
Ah, thanks for the correction.
seems i lost my games then will check it now.
Unless they also refund the price paid for the game, this is theft (or fraud), and should be punished as such.
The problem is that online storefronts all lease (edit: it’s actually license) you the games you own until your account is terminated. I miss actually owning media.
The problem is that online storefronts all lease you the games
They license them. (A lease would normally have an expiration, and it would be clearly stated, which does not appear to be the case here.)
Accepting money and then refusing to honor the terms of exchange, whether it’s an object or a license, is generally called fraud.
I miss actually owning media.
Yeah, I think most of us do.
The thing is, just like software subscriptions, you aren’t buying a piece of software, you’re buying the right to use it. You can be pretty sure that they have legalese in the eula that says that your right to use the software expires with non-use. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can even let it expire by simple deciding to no longer support it.
And what do you think will happen if their license servers ever go offline?
For the longest time I never bought anything digital, but I eventually caved to steam. I still blatantly refuse to join other digital platforms, except gog where I can download the software and it works without any remote server.
Same for music: I refuse to use Spotify. I buy from 7digital and the like, where I can download either mp3 or FLAC.
You can be pretty sure that they have legalese in the eula that says that your right to use the software expires with non-use.
It’s not even in legalese. I’m on my phone right now and thus have no motivation to look through a couple EULAs but I did read the interesting parts of a handful of software EULAs. A couple straight up state that they can revoke your access for any reason (usually followed by “including x, y, z”). And especially for multiplayer games, I understand why you would prefer your wording as such instead of having to list and define every “bad behaviour” like cheating, cracking the game, being an asshole to the community (including the moderators), etc.
The decision makers at Ubisoft, I imagine, just went ahead and said “How about we take this ‘for any reason’ to the absurd? If just 1% of the deleted accounts is remade and buys their games again, we make a lot of free money.”
I’ve like GOG since whether they disappear they provide installers for users, so it’s the best of both worlds of easy launcher management and installer for those that want to archive and self host everything they buy.
Love that about GoG. It’s been my preferred store for years.
If only they had a Linux version of Galaxy for cloud saves and auto updates, it would be my preferred store.
It’s the only thing stopping me from using GOG more. I’ve fiddled with Lutris but it’s still pretty finicky. Proton making things run out of the box most of the time make it very hard to switch off of Steam.
I’ve used Lutris and Heroic. They’re pretty good.
I’m thinking GoG should just support one of those projects to add functionality.
That only kinda works. No multiplayer, no achievements, no cloud saves…
Some people will immediatly want to respond with “I don’t want that anyway”. Before doing so, please consider whether you’re missing the point entirely.
That’s what I mean about supporting those projects. They could add functionality to Lutris or Heroic rather than build Galaxy for Linux.
Just reminded me of the concern people brought up when GOG Galaxy was starting out: Once most people are using the launcher, we’re a few steps away from losing the installers. 😐🤷🏿♂️
The launcher is great for automated features that make our lives easier. But if the launcher is all we have and the installers are gone, the reason to use GOG at all over its competitors evaporates.
Even places where you can download music aren’t safe anymore.
I bought an album back in September 2022 on iTunes and downloaded it. Apple Music synced some of my music and fucked up my library, causing me to have to go to a backup from August 2019. I thought, “no problem, I’ll just go download that album from iTunes again.”
Album is no longer available for download. I have a receipt showing I legitimately paid for it.
I’ve found others online saying the same. One person even defending this behavior “well it’s not Apple’s fault the music isn’t on the store anymore”. Maybe not, but I’m going to need a refund from them if that’s the case. We shouldn’t be tolerating this BS.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they can even let it expire by simple deciding to no longer support it.
That’s one thing, and that’s an acceptable risk everyone takes when buying from an online storefront, IMO. Eventually, they’re going to stop supporting that, and we all kind of accept and agree to that. But this is them cutting off your access because you haven’t played recently. They’re not dropping support for the games in question, so this feels a bit unwarranted. What does it actually cost them to store your game license and save file? Is that cost really offset by the price of the games, themselves?
And what do you think will happen if their license servers ever go offline?
If Google Stadia is to be considered precedent, they refunded every purchased game and DLC when they shut down their service earlier this year. I should hope that a similar offering is made from other storefronts should they ever decide to cease operations.
Eventually, they’re going to stop supporting that, and we all kind of accept and agree to that.
The hell we do. I’ve stopped buying games that disappear when some server somewhere goes offline.
You accept it by participating. You don’t participate, therefore the comment wasn’t referring to you.
I was simultaneously saying that we don’t “all” participate, as well as encouraging others to do the one thing we can to stop the practice.
The comment was referring to people who do participate though. If I make a comment about Australians Americans aren’t supposed to comment their disagreement
That’s retroactively deciding your audience. Once again, I’m highlighting that it’s not our only option to endorse the practice, whereas the language of the comment I replied to implied that it is.
No, it’s not. The original comment was specifically referring to it being a risk you accept when buying off steam etc. You accept that by participating. You can protest outside the system but your comment is entirely wrong.
