15 ms·

Ubisoft account -including games- can be permanently deleted for inactivity

294 points by yabatopia 3y ago

asynchronous 3y ago
Ubisoft’s ecosystem has always been especially terrible- I don’t know anyone that enjoys using it.
- politelemon 3y ago
  I suspect this is much like the EA userbase. EA is a terrible company for gaming. Among their many shady and abhorrent practices, they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: FIFA (now called something else). The userbase that plays these games do not care. They are a sustained revenue source. A majority of them do not overlap with gaming and tech communities online. They simply play the games and move on. It's a large silent community that we don't often interact with. Ubisoft has a similar userbase in its assassin's creed, far cry etc series. To them this won't be any cause for concern.
  - Exoristos 3y ago
    The Walmart userbase.
  - Daz1 3y ago
    >they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series) Please stop spreading disinformation. Aside from the usual graphical changes and annual roster updates you can see a list of major changes under each release. >The userbase that plays these games do not care. So what exactly is the problem if they're clearly meeting the expectations of their userbase?
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      I think there is an argument to be made that a game franchise known absolutely to see new, regular annual releases could be better served as a GAAS (Game As A Service) instead of as standalone releases that demand to be purchased each time. Food for thought.
      - fakedang 3y ago
        Paradox Interactive recently did this for the Europa Universalis series, and honestly it's a good deal for new adopters. That being said, it's more expensive than a humble bundle sale (which happens often, at least annually). The EU4 game receives at least 2 DLCs as well as other music packs and sound packs a year, so it makes sense to get the subscription (which could still be more affordable for some people though).
      - SargeDebian 3y ago
        Fifa 23 for PC came out for €60 and dropped to €40 in November 2022, and then jumped back and forth between those prices. That is €5 or ~€3.50 per month, paid annually, and you keep content if you stop subscribing. What would you expect a GaaS model to bring?
      - chupasaurus 3y ago
        Vast majority of profits are from their gacha mode so it wouldn't matter, but traditions™ to reap the harvest each year are stronger for now.
      - oefrha 3y ago
        You mean EA Play? I’ve subscribed for a month or two at a time when I wanted to play some FIFA or another EA title. You certainly don’t need to purchase the standalone titles.
  - darkwater 3y ago
    > they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: FIFA (now called something else). That's just the Switch version (called Legacy)
    - natebc 3y ago
      EA declined to pay the FIFA fee, the new game is called "EA Sports FC" https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc
  - woutr_be 3y ago
    > The userbase that plays these games do not care. They are a sustained revenue source. A majority of them do not overlap with gaming and tech communities online. They simply play the games and move on. It's a large silent community that we don't often interact with. What's with the need to use such an insulting tone, simply because you don't like a certain type of games? I buy F1 every single year, and I'm an avid gamer and part of the tech community. The game doesn't require massive changes every year, there's simply no need for it. Improved graphics, and an up to date grid, cars, circuits and regulations is what I want from such a game.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      As a fellow F1 player, I do feel less comfortable buying these games at full price and that's why I don't buy them every year, even though of like the updated grid and tracks. I wish there was a cheaper upgrade option, since I'm clearly not buying a full game. Your point that it doesn't need a full overhaul is completely correct, but we are still paying full price.
      - woutr_be 3y ago
        I do agree with you on the price point. And sometimes I do feel like I'm overpaying just to have the game up to date. Obviously I don't know any of the financials behind making such a game, but I would imagine that licensing makes up a fairly large chunk of the price.
        cornel_io 3y ago
        I know nothing about this one in particular but typical game license deals are something like 25% of revenue to the IP holder. A strong dev like EA may bump that down a little bit and a mega IP (Harry Potter, Marvel, etc) might bump it up, but it's not going to be super far off.
    - BlargMcLarg 3y ago
      It's not an insult to point out the obvious 'ignorance is bliss'. You can still like bargain bin fast food while admitting such food is garbage. That's the thing happening with these companies, changing things to be more consumer-unfriendly while riding on nostalgia or branding. Pointing it out doesn't make it an insult to those still enjoying the game.
  - nperez 3y ago
    I'm a sports fan and I see it as an annual subscription model. They update rosters and make small tweaks, and if I don't care I can stick with the older games. I've seen Jetbrains use a model where you optionally subscribe for continued updates, and I've seen it in audio production software too. Madden for PS5 is $70.00, or just under $6/mo. If you spend half as much time playing Madden as you do watching Netflix or Youtube, then it's not out of line with the average cost of entertainment. There are good points to be made about whether EA are meeting their full potential on quality of updates though.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    EA is a bunch of wanna be tech uncles in the bay area who are secretly wishing to fit in with the tech CEOs but don’t have the business model to do it. See Unity (run by an ex EA CEO who spends a fortune on reputation management services wiping a certain lawsuit of the internet to the point obscure NY italian restaurants show up above his name in Google) wasting the opportunity to become the engine company in games and deliver solid value on ridiculous ads plays trying to become an ad tech company. These are companies that could have solid business models and solid value. But greed. EA is actually a parasite. It’s the Vampire Armand from Interview with the Vampire. It takes no risks, it doesn’t innovate because it doesn’t know how and want to - instead it buys already proven ideas, scales them with fat cheques and rides them until they are out of favor, while squeezing the people who build them year after year for 10% layoffs. And thus it keeps itself alive, decade after decade and the people who run it a fat paycheck, the road littered with the husks of sucked dry studios and broken dreams. One of many fun aspects: Many projects run on contingent workers who can only work for months out of a year (otherwise law would make them permanent), paid starbucks wages but without starbucks benefits. These workers are tunnels to EA with deals straight out of overpriced schools which approach young people with “100% placement rate” and “job guaranteed” in the hip game industry - tie them with insane student loans and then funnel them into EA. EA then dangles them the idea that the best performers will be made permanent - appealing to youthful optimism bias - and many of them run 2-3 years with intermittent unemployment before realizing that almost nobody gets made permanent. By then they are so deep in debt and unable to pay their loans, lack appreciable skills and stuck in a low end job that just hoping keeps them going or drives them to work at Starbucks for better benefits. It’s pure evil.
  - jon-wood 3y ago
    While I agree with the mechanics of what you're saying, there definitely is a subset of people who don't really play games, they play a game. There's a few big franchises this applies to, EA's various sports games, F1, Football Manager, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and I'm sure some others. What I don't agree with here is that the users don't care. No one is capable of having such passionate opinions on a glorified spreadsheet than a Football Manager fan. Likewise CoD players - they dared to try something new with whichever one was largely based in space (I thought it was one of the best), and got eviscerated by their player base, who really just want to play Modern Warfare 2 again.
Hamuko 3y ago
Important to note that Ubisoft will also brick all of the Ubisoft games you bought on Steam if your Ubisoft account is closed. https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1683080866166079490 https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/168308086616607949...
- gambiting 3y ago
  Because the steam "version" is just an unlock inside Ubisoft Connect. The game isn't managed through steam internally(although steam does have the ability to download the game and its updates).
- shmde 3y ago
  Wait what the heck. How is this shit even legal ? I have a few of Ubisoft games on steam and Ubisoft's official site. I used to feel bad when I was young and pirated because I didn't have money to buy video games. Now they are just justifying reasons to pirate. Which I definitely will start if the products I bought are taken away. This is an insane *Terms and conditions.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    Because the games bought on steam just unlock the game inside Ubisoft Connect - steam is just a download manager at that point. You still technically own the product on Steam, Ubisoft can't change that - but since your associated Ubisoft account doesn't exist anymore the game won't launch. I'm not saying it's great, just explaining how it works behind the scenes.
- bauc 3y ago
  That's why I just don't buy their games. I really enjoyed Far Cry 3 and would really like to get the rest of the series, but just can't put up with their account system even at discounted prices.
- beltsazar 3y ago
  What? This is beyond the inconvenience of 3rd party launchers that PC gamers often whine about. I'm glad I play on PS5.
dschuetz 3y ago
Ubisoft: Ubidead Does that also include console copies I wonder? I have blacklisted EA/Origin and Konami already, now Ubisoft is entering the list. Do not support money-milkers.
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>Does that also include console copies I wonder? Console copies don't rely on your Ubisoft account so no, it does not. You might lose progress in games where it's stored on Ubisoft servers though, like The Division.
  - psychoslave 3y ago
    The only game I still play from time to time is Rock Smith 2014 on a X-box I bought specifically for that. I wouldn’t even care to connect to any account if this wasn’t required to access the store. There is two account required to access the whole game actually, one that is X-box/Microsoft account without with I guess the console is as useful as a brick, and one for Ubisoft which saves your progresses, give access to a few bonuses most notably the song Desolate Motion[1]. I don’t know where the record about acquired songs is supposed to be store, I would except it to be a Microsoft side handled stuff, but I remember that sometimes Ubisoft servers would be down and that would make bought tracks unavailable. I had a look at Rocksmith+ but was utterly disappointed with the monthly subscription fee model they went with. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZaAOaPaczU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZaAOaPaczU
    - Anthony-G 3y ago
      I started learning guitar during Covid and I purchased Rocksmith 2014 as a complement to Justin Sandercoe’s excellent series of courses. I’m curious about why you bought an X-box specifically for Rocksmith. Does it perform better with an X-box than a PC? I purchased the game from Steam and it runs fine – if a little hot – on a Windows 10 laptop. So far, the only problem I’ve had on the PC was note detection when playing open strings for the “String Skip Saloon” game.
ant6n 3y ago
I sometimes don’t have time to play games on steam for perhaps a decade or so (work, kids…), but I like to resume playing as time permits. Should I be worried I'll lose my account and games?
- IceDane 3y ago
  Sometimes, for a decade or so? Steam was released in 2003. So you've been on steam to play twice, maybe, since then?
  - fer 3y ago
    Not whom you reply to, and maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah. My account is from Sep 2003, I have around 300 games there (mostly from Humble Bundles), by 2012-2013 I almost stopped playing. Then I had a phase where I put maybe 100h in Rocket League to play with friends back in 2017, then 2021 to play Outer Wilds[0]. That's pretty much it. I still want all of those games, thanks. [0] Which so far I consider the best single-player gaming experience in history
    - moritonal 3y ago
      From a technical, emotional, and spiritual level, I agree with your comment on Outer Wilds. If people reading this don't really "play games", make this the one you try.
      - ant6n 3y ago
        Maybe in a couple of years, as time permits. Thx for the suggestion.
    - automatic6131 3y ago
      >Which so far I consider the best single-player gaming experience in history The only use case for "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" memory erasing technology would be so you can play Outer Wilds for the first time again. +1 for Outer Wilds
- 3y ago
neilv 3y ago
From the screenshotted Ubisoft Support tweet: > Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging in to 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 Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid class action lawsuits and regulatory investigations, by backpedaling. You probably also want to fix whatever organizational dysfunction led to a video game company behaving like this, and talking like this.
- jjbinx007 3y ago
  I can't think of a single rationale for this. A user account isn't much more than a database entry. What possible reason could a company use to justify this?
  - gmerc 3y ago
    Remember that EA had EA downloader around the time steam came around. However, their packaged goods division, who made most of the profit, saw it as infringing at their KPIs and someone pushed the inane idea it could make more money if it just allowed you to download the games you bought a fixed number of times to keep the project from getting killed.
    - freddie_mercury 3y ago
      The EA Downloader was released 3 years after Steam.
      - gmerc 3y ago
        I think that counts as “around”. steam took a while to materialize on everyone’s radar as more than an orange box installer and it took a while to get downloader off the ground
  - 3y ago
dbetteridge 3y ago
Oh I cant wait for them to try this on in Australia, The ACCC will rake them over the coals.
NikkiA 3y ago
I've had my ubi account go inactive for multiple years, and still not been deleted (just checked) so I'm guessing this pro-piracy guy on twitter is lying about the reason for his account being deleted.
- DandyDev 3y ago
  If you'd read the article, you'd know that the legitimacy of the tweet has been verified by Ubisoft. They apparently really do close accounts due to inactivity
- alpaca128 3y ago
  The main "pro-piracy guy" in that case is Ubisoft, they are really putting in some work to make the legit way of playing games seem like a great way to get ripped off. So far pirated games have: no login requirement or DRM troubles, no dependency on an online service, potentially better performance, and no risk of losing access. In other words, you can actually own the game that way.
- techaqua 3y ago
  they really do close account. my account was deleted. probably because it only has giveaway games and i never played any of them.
rvz 3y ago
Unsurprising and it is not your video game. Cloud-based games tied to ‘accounts’ are a scam.
_imnothere 3y ago
Definitely not talking about legal stuff here, but what if all these user-hostile action lead to more pirated copies?
- lionkor 3y ago
  Thats not much of a what-if: It would make sense to buy games and then download a cracked version instead of the official one, simply because the one you bought can be disabled & taken away at any moment. And, of course, cracked games have better linux compat because they dont have the DRM(s). Buy it to support the franchise and get sequels, of course.
otikik 3y ago
Save a couple GB of hard drive storage in exchange of a big PR problem and sending your image down the drain. Stroke of genius.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  It's about avoiding legal risk. User data is a legal liability to store.
  - lionkor 3y ago
    They could easily pseudonymize the data by removing payment info, personal info, etc. but keeping the games because why wouldnt you let people keep their games as a game company
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Lets say they did this. They remove all personal info, including the email address for signing into the account. So technically the games are still attached to the account, but there is no way for you to sign in to it and there is no way for you to prove that you are the owner of the account. It isn't any different from the user's perspective than just deleting the data.
      - xvinci 3y ago
        I mean there is, you send out randomized credentials "please use these for your next login". And if someone lost access to their e-mail address, the proof of ownership would be the same as it is today (aka sending receipts, keys, etc.). But lets really be honest: These kind of companies dont give two sh*ts about security leaks and GDPR infringements, as is demonstrated almost every other week by news. Privacy or legal compliance is most certainly not the reason they are doing this.
      - malfist 3y ago
        Email isn't PII. They'd have no reason to delete it.
dgan 3y ago
How is legal? When I buy something, I expect me to own it, that's why it's called "a sale" and not a "a lease" / whatever I can't imagine a single reason how one party in the contract singlehandedly decides to change the nature of the contact
- tpxl 3y ago
  > When I buy something, I expect me to own it Well there's your problem, you never bought the thing. They use the language like 'buy' and 'sell', but in reality you're renting. This should be illegal IMO.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >How is legal? When I buy something, I expect me to own it It's 2023. That ship has sailed long ago...
captainbland 3y ago
As an aside, the fact that Ubisoft try to get you to sign up for an online account from a console and will actively prevent you from playing a game if you don't (so long as you're connected to the internet) is too user hostile for me to begin with. I've basically stopped interacting with their games as a result.
- bpye 3y ago
  They prevent you playing even single player content? I’m surprised that such a design passed certification.
  - captainbland 3y ago
    Yeah I had that with Watchdogs Legion specifically on PS5 even to get to single player. I could bypass it but only by disconnecting from the internet in the system settings which is a pain. I'm surprised too but I guess Sony relies on these big third party publishers to such a degree that they let it slide.
- dkersten 3y ago
  I don’t generally play their games but I currently have a PSN+ Extra subscription which has access to a large portion of their library, so I’ve been playing all the games I’ve missed (far cry 5 and 6, AC Valhalla, watchdogs legion, ghost recon breakpoint). While they aren’t -bad- games, they all feel very similar and ultimately quite shallow and hollow. Certainly worth a few hours of fun each, but they started to feel stale pretty quickly, certainly not worth paying the normal price tag for, so you’re not missing all that much.
MrDresden 3y ago
I stay away from any games that require me to log into a proprietary system to play them (for example EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard). There is already a glut of other games to play so why bother.
- iamtedd 3y ago
  Steam is a proprietary system. Do you use Steam?
  - MrDresden 3y ago
    You don't need to be logged into Steam to play the games it serves you.
nntwozz 3y ago
You'll own nothing and be happy. Yours sincerely, Ubisoft
rozab 3y ago
This must be a GDPR thing, right? Discord recently received a big fine for not deleting accounts after a period of inactivity.
- pixelfarmer 3y ago
  This looks like some regulatory induced certification bureaucraziness stunt that creates all sorts of funky stuff already within such megacorpos. Because time is money, the solution is usually the one they can take with the least resistance. Consequences down the line are an afterthought, and I'd bet someone mentioned that this would cause problems and it got waved away for not being important / other solution(s) being too expensive, this sort of thing, as usual.
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  They could be using GDPR as an excuse to do this. Or, to be more charitable, their legal people have been reading FUD about the GDPR rather than the actual regulations. GDPR has plenty of provision for legitimate interests, particularly in favour of the data subject: https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimate-interest/ https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimat...
  - cccbbbaaa 3y ago
    Legitimate interest is the most fragile basis in GDPR and should not be relied upon, apart for server logs as suggested by recital 49. Contract (art. 6(1)b) may be better here, but keep in mind that art. 5(1)e still applies.
omnibrain 3y ago
While I have to admit liking some Ubi Games in the past, namely Anno 2070 & 2205, Watch Dogs & AC: Unity I really hate what they do regarding to "Savegames". Me and my wife have some overlap in games we enjoy and lately it becomes more and more difficult to have separate playthroughs. We already use different windows users, but that's not enough, you have to disable "cloud saving" but it usually still "overwrites" other savegames. So usually I just let her finish the game and then completely restart for my playthrough. Worst offender, though was "The Crew". There didn't seem to be a way to actually restart, or reset progress. And it wasn't even that I wnated to "share" the game with her. It was just me wanting to restart after a few hours, because I had the feeling I rushed/missed something in the beginning.
- chmod775 3y ago
  The way cloud saves seem to work on Steam is that there's some folder that is synchronized with the cloud after you close the game. If Ubisoft's thing works the same, then 1. start game 2. delete saves 3. kill game might work.
  - omnibrain 3y ago
    I usually find a way to do it. But with "The Crew" it was different. I think the problem is, that even the "Single Player Mode" is not really single player but some sort of online hybrid thing nobody asked for in a single player racing game.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    One of the things that sets steam apart is family sharing, so you can share licenses with a spouse or sibling but keep your saves on your own profile. Uplay doesn't have that.
gausswho 3y ago
As these log-in-or-lose-it policies pass through the tech world I wish password managers could reliably log into all my accounts. Ostensibly the feature exists but I've found it unreliable.
gausswho 3y ago
When services do this, does logging in with a token via an API reset the clock?
- SalimoS 3y ago
  this remind me, our university use google workspace for managing emails for all the student, I'm using the iOS mail app to consult and send emails, but last year google increased the price (or) reduced the storage so the IT in the university removed the inactive account, they removed my account so when I went back to the university to fix the issue in the console it showed him I didn't connect for more than 2 years (yet I show him the then last week email that the IT department sent it which talk about the new storage limitation
happytiger 3y ago
Where’s the line for a company stealing what was rightfully bought? I’m only asking because this seems pretty close to that line.
brettermeier 3y ago
Ubisoft seems to really want Empress to crack more games :P Meanwhile I even understand why some people send her quite a lot of money via crypto to crack a game instead of spending the money directly on the game.
- dchftcs 3y ago
  >Meanwhile I even understand why some people send her quite a lot of money via crypto to crack a game instead of spending the money directly on the game. To be fair, those people could be running an internet cafe and want to deploy the illegal copies to 100+ computers.
andrewstuart 3y ago
I went to the cupboard the other day to play some old board games with family and friends. But we hadn’t played the games in quite a while so the board game company had sent someone around and destroyed them. It’s fair enough too, I mean how can the game company be reasonably expected to not destroy what it sold me if I haven’t used it for a while? It’s on me. So we had to find something else to do that afternoon.
mamonster 3y ago
My biggest problem with Ubisoft is that this is a company that owns the IP to some very storied AAA franchises(AC, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia, fuck Might and Magic even), but the foreseeable future for these titles is that Ubisoft will milk the nostalgia as much as possible with gachalikes and unfinished 60 dollar games releasing in Beta with season passes and p2w. If Blizzard deal goes through this would easily be the next company to be bought(extremely cheap valuation for premiere IP).
midjji 3y ago
These are the same assholes that let you use a email containing a + in the email. e.g. name+shittyuplay@gmail.com, and Automatically log you in after registration, so you can register and buy games. Then dont allow you to login or use the support services later on because the email contains a +. So I get their emails, including eventually one about the cancellation, but still havent been able to login or use the support for my account. And if I post on the forums I just get the shitty advice that I need to login to support services or request a password reset because neither of those allow + in the email either. I also received what looks like a ban for using curse words in my support request at one point, and yes I did use <name>+shittyuplay so well thats true, but if thats the damned problem dont let me register it in the first place. I dont care anymore since the game I registered was just some shitty thing that came with a graphics card, but I am astounded at how incompetent they can be while still trying to become more popular than steam. Steam only needed to provide better service than pirates, but Uplay needed better than steam, so well they are doomed and good riddance.
- permo-w 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - CodesInChaos 3y ago
    On most providers you don't need to make a new email address for that. For example, if you own example@gmail.com, you will receive emails sent to example+whatever@gmail.com.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    Many people use emails of the form myemail+servicename@gmail.com in order to track spam. You don’t need to make a new email, anything after the + is simply ignored by gmail. It’s very common, especially if your users are halfway technical which users of a games service surely are.
  - iamtedd 3y ago
    > why on earth were you trying to sign up with an email containing a plus? Because it's a perfectly valid character in the local part[0] of the email address? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Local-part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Local-part
tjpnz 3y ago
Piracy is almost always a service problem. - Gabe Newell
walthamstow 3y ago
Thank the gods my account including my copy of Anno 1800 is still live after 10 months of inactivity
wildpeaks 3y ago
This is why buying DRM-free is important (e.g. GOG and Bandcamp).
- yakubin 3y ago
  That depends more on the producer than the store. Try buying Assassin’s Creed II or any later AC games without DRM.
maratc 3y ago
... wave of proprietary platforms is playing havoc not only with our personal libraries, but game preservation more broadly ... and ... Nobody asked for Uplay or Ubisoft Connect I still frequently see an argument in favor of forcing Apple into allowing alternative stores, so I don't know how it's different. "Nobody asked for Ubisoft Connect" but seemingly everybody is asking for "Microsoft Office 365 Xbox Live Gold App Store for iPhone".
pierat 3y ago
Again I ask: Is it really piracy when the sales, well, aren't?
dangus 3y ago
Ubisoft is doing you a favor, none of their games are worth playing. I seriously don’t even know how they’re still in business. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone took them to court over this and Ubisoft gave a Fox News-style legal defense where they argue that their content isn’t fun enough to be considered entertainment that has any monetary value.
bovermyer 3y ago
I am increasingly interested in games that are open source, or at least not reliant on online services to function.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
The Cloud: Outsource things that are important to you, as an individual, to a company that has so many customers it can only treat them as numbers. They don't, and can't, offer their service in such a way that the value to the customer is matched by the importance with which it's treated by the service provider. This mismatch is at the core of all these cloud provider shenanigans, because it doesn't scale. Counter example: Steam kept my account unused for a decade as I went through a self imposed gaming exile due to having kids. Had to jump through some hoops to prove it was me due to some old email address that was no longer accessible, but the process worked and everything was still there.
TillE 3y ago
We're long overdue for a "digital property" law that defines specific rights around purchasing media, for consistency if nothing else. To my knowledge no country is seriously working on this, which is a bit surprising.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Perhaps not so surprising? Mergers/monopolies, lobbying, government gridlock, etc.
adamnaga 3y ago
[flagged]
Superfrag 3y ago
This piece of news is more than 7 years old, and Ubisoft has previously confirmed that the only accounts that can get deleted are the ones with absolutely nothing in them. The writer for this article should have done additional research on this. Seems to me that it came up on Twitter again and the writer took advantage of that to write an inflammatory article that's sure to get a bunch of views. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/156ukmv/ubisoft_confirms_they_will_delete_your_account/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/156ukmv/ubisoft_c... https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/40ye8e/ubisoft_may_suspend_or_close_your_uplay_account/cyy47m0/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/40ye8e/ubisoft_may_s...
trinsic2 3y ago
This is why I stopped buying games from Ubisoft and EA. The kind of shit they pull on their online gaming platforms and the way they treat there employees is a crime against humanity. Now I stick with independent game companies, they actually want to make the gaming space better. Steam is pretty good. I really appreciate how much work they put into making games playable on Linux so I don't have to support Microsoft's or Apple's walled garden approach to platforms.
meristohm 3y ago
I like the idea of not having to log into all my old accounts in order to delete them. Maybe an opt-in option to extend the auto-deletion duration beyond the default would be nice, but ultimately this information should be deleted. Are we so special we have to save everything? This is easy for me to say, though- I quit videogames last month after a long decline in use, mainly because I was using them as my late father abused alcohol. Hopefully my child is even better able to recognize the symptoms (if it's genetic) and get to the root cause(s). There's a part of me that would be glad to see an email that my Steam account had expired and all the games I paid for access to (I don't feel like I own them anymore, though I am aware that many can be played without Steam) are no longer within easy reach. I don't want to log in to Steam to remove each game from my acc, though, so I'm leaving it all in limbo for now, which works well enough. Maybe my kid will want to play some of them, and I'd be willing to play, too, as a together-activity. Eventually I'll be more balanced and can handle these middle grounds better. I used to think I would always play World of Warcraft! I'm glad I grew out of that.

294 points by yabatopia 3y ago

asynchronous 3y ago

Ubisoft’s ecosystem has always been especially terrible- I don’t know anyone that enjoys using it.

politelemon 3y ago
I suspect this is much like the EA userbase. EA is a terrible company for gaming. Among their many shady and abhorrent practices, they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: FIFA (now called something else). The userbase that plays these games do not care. They are a sustained revenue source. A majority of them do not overlap with gaming and tech communities online. They simply play the games and move on. It's a large silent community that we don't often interact with. Ubisoft has a similar userbase in its assassin's creed, far cry etc series. To them this won't be any cause for concern.
- Exoristos 3y ago
  The Walmart userbase.
- Daz1 3y ago
  >they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series) Please stop spreading disinformation. Aside from the usual graphical changes and annual roster updates you can see a list of major changes under each release. >The userbase that plays these games do not care. So what exactly is the problem if they're clearly meeting the expectations of their userbase?
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I think there is an argument to be made that a game franchise known absolutely to see new, regular annual releases could be better served as a GAAS (Game As A Service) instead of as standalone releases that demand to be purchased each time. Food for thought.
    - fakedang 3y ago
      Paradox Interactive recently did this for the Europa Universalis series, and honestly it's a good deal for new adopters. That being said, it's more expensive than a humble bundle sale (which happens often, at least annually). The EU4 game receives at least 2 DLCs as well as other music packs and sound packs a year, so it makes sense to get the subscription (which could still be more affordable for some people though).
    - SargeDebian 3y ago
      Fifa 23 for PC came out for €60 and dropped to €40 in November 2022, and then jumped back and forth between those prices. That is €5 or ~€3.50 per month, paid annually, and you keep content if you stop subscribing. What would you expect a GaaS model to bring?
    - chupasaurus 3y ago
      Vast majority of profits are from their gacha mode so it wouldn't matter, but traditions™ to reap the harvest each year are stronger for now.
    - oefrha 3y ago
      You mean EA Play? I’ve subscribed for a month or two at a time when I wanted to play some FIFA or another EA title. You certainly don’t need to purchase the standalone titles.
- darkwater 3y ago
  > they re release the same game every year with minor to no changes: FIFA (now called something else). That's just the Switch version (called Legacy)
  - natebc 3y ago
    EA declined to pay the FIFA fee, the new game is called "EA Sports FC" https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc
- woutr_be 3y ago
  > The userbase that plays these games do not care. They are a sustained revenue source. A majority of them do not overlap with gaming and tech communities online. They simply play the games and move on. It's a large silent community that we don't often interact with. What's with the need to use such an insulting tone, simply because you don't like a certain type of games? I buy F1 every single year, and I'm an avid gamer and part of the tech community. The game doesn't require massive changes every year, there's simply no need for it. Improved graphics, and an up to date grid, cars, circuits and regulations is what I want from such a game.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    As a fellow F1 player, I do feel less comfortable buying these games at full price and that's why I don't buy them every year, even though of like the updated grid and tracks. I wish there was a cheaper upgrade option, since I'm clearly not buying a full game. Your point that it doesn't need a full overhaul is completely correct, but we are still paying full price.
    - woutr_be 3y ago
      I do agree with you on the price point. And sometimes I do feel like I'm overpaying just to have the game up to date. Obviously I don't know any of the financials behind making such a game, but I would imagine that licensing makes up a fairly large chunk of the price.
      - cornel_io 3y ago
        I know nothing about this one in particular but typical game license deals are something like 25% of revenue to the IP holder. A strong dev like EA may bump that down a little bit and a mega IP (Harry Potter, Marvel, etc) might bump it up, but it's not going to be super far off.
  - BlargMcLarg 3y ago
    It's not an insult to point out the obvious 'ignorance is bliss'. You can still like bargain bin fast food while admitting such food is garbage. That's the thing happening with these companies, changing things to be more consumer-unfriendly while riding on nostalgia or branding. Pointing it out doesn't make it an insult to those still enjoying the game.
- nperez 3y ago
  I'm a sports fan and I see it as an annual subscription model. They update rosters and make small tweaks, and if I don't care I can stick with the older games. I've seen Jetbrains use a model where you optionally subscribe for continued updates, and I've seen it in audio production software too. Madden for PS5 is $70.00, or just under $6/mo. If you spend half as much time playing Madden as you do watching Netflix or Youtube, then it's not out of line with the average cost of entertainment. There are good points to be made about whether EA are meeting their full potential on quality of updates though.
- gmerc 3y ago
  EA is a bunch of wanna be tech uncles in the bay area who are secretly wishing to fit in with the tech CEOs but don’t have the business model to do it. See Unity (run by an ex EA CEO who spends a fortune on reputation management services wiping a certain lawsuit of the internet to the point obscure NY italian restaurants show up above his name in Google) wasting the opportunity to become the engine company in games and deliver solid value on ridiculous ads plays trying to become an ad tech company. These are companies that could have solid business models and solid value. But greed. EA is actually a parasite. It’s the Vampire Armand from Interview with the Vampire. It takes no risks, it doesn’t innovate because it doesn’t know how and want to - instead it buys already proven ideas, scales them with fat cheques and rides them until they are out of favor, while squeezing the people who build them year after year for 10% layoffs. And thus it keeps itself alive, decade after decade and the people who run it a fat paycheck, the road littered with the husks of sucked dry studios and broken dreams. One of many fun aspects: Many projects run on contingent workers who can only work for months out of a year (otherwise law would make them permanent), paid starbucks wages but without starbucks benefits. These workers are tunnels to EA with deals straight out of overpriced schools which approach young people with “100% placement rate” and “job guaranteed” in the hip game industry - tie them with insane student loans and then funnel them into EA. EA then dangles them the idea that the best performers will be made permanent - appealing to youthful optimism bias - and many of them run 2-3 years with intermittent unemployment before realizing that almost nobody gets made permanent. By then they are so deep in debt and unable to pay their loans, lack appreciable skills and stuck in a low end job that just hoping keeps them going or drives them to work at Starbucks for better benefits. It’s pure evil.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  While I agree with the mechanics of what you're saying, there definitely is a subset of people who don't really play games, they play a game. There's a few big franchises this applies to, EA's various sports games, F1, Football Manager, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and I'm sure some others. What I don't agree with here is that the users don't care. No one is capable of having such passionate opinions on a glorified spreadsheet than a Football Manager fan. Likewise CoD players - they dared to try something new with whichever one was largely based in space (I thought it was one of the best), and got eviscerated by their player base, who really just want to play Modern Warfare 2 again.

Hamuko 3y ago

Important to note that Ubisoft will also brick all of the Ubisoft games you bought on Steam if your Ubisoft account is closed. https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1683080866166079490 https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/168308086616607949...

gambiting 3y ago
Because the steam "version" is just an unlock inside Ubisoft Connect. The game isn't managed through steam internally(although steam does have the ability to download the game and its updates).
shmde 3y ago
Wait what the heck. How is this shit even legal ? I have a few of Ubisoft games on steam and Ubisoft's official site. I used to feel bad when I was young and pirated because I didn't have money to buy video games. Now they are just justifying reasons to pirate. Which I definitely will start if the products I bought are taken away. This is an insane *Terms and conditions.
- gambiting 3y ago
  Because the games bought on steam just unlock the game inside Ubisoft Connect - steam is just a download manager at that point. You still technically own the product on Steam, Ubisoft can't change that - but since your associated Ubisoft account doesn't exist anymore the game won't launch. I'm not saying it's great, just explaining how it works behind the scenes.
bauc 3y ago
That's why I just don't buy their games. I really enjoyed Far Cry 3 and would really like to get the rest of the series, but just can't put up with their account system even at discounted prices.
beltsazar 3y ago
What? This is beyond the inconvenience of 3rd party launchers that PC gamers often whine about. I'm glad I play on PS5.

dschuetz 3y ago

Ubisoft: Ubidead Does that also include console copies I wonder? I have blacklisted EA/Origin and Konami already, now Ubisoft is entering the list. Do not support money-milkers.

gambiting 3y ago
>>Does that also include console copies I wonder? Console copies don't rely on your Ubisoft account so no, it does not. You might lose progress in games where it's stored on Ubisoft servers though, like The Division.
- psychoslave 3y ago
  The only game I still play from time to time is Rock Smith 2014 on a X-box I bought specifically for that. I wouldn’t even care to connect to any account if this wasn’t required to access the store. There is two account required to access the whole game actually, one that is X-box/Microsoft account without with I guess the console is as useful as a brick, and one for Ubisoft which saves your progresses, give access to a few bonuses most notably the song Desolate Motion[1]. I don’t know where the record about acquired songs is supposed to be store, I would except it to be a Microsoft side handled stuff, but I remember that sometimes Ubisoft servers would be down and that would make bought tracks unavailable. I had a look at Rocksmith+ but was utterly disappointed with the monthly subscription fee model they went with. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZaAOaPaczU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZaAOaPaczU
  - Anthony-G 3y ago
    I started learning guitar during Covid and I purchased Rocksmith 2014 as a complement to Justin Sandercoe’s excellent series of courses. I’m curious about why you bought an X-box specifically for Rocksmith. Does it perform better with an X-box than a PC? I purchased the game from Steam and it runs fine – if a little hot – on a Windows 10 laptop. So far, the only problem I’ve had on the PC was note detection when playing open strings for the “String Skip Saloon” game.

ant6n 3y ago

I sometimes don’t have time to play games on steam for perhaps a decade or so (work, kids…), but I like to resume playing as time permits. Should I be worried I'll lose my account and games?

IceDane 3y ago
Sometimes, for a decade or so? Steam was released in 2003. So you've been on steam to play twice, maybe, since then?
- fer 3y ago
  Not whom you reply to, and maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah. My account is from Sep 2003, I have around 300 games there (mostly from Humble Bundles), by 2012-2013 I almost stopped playing. Then I had a phase where I put maybe 100h in Rocket League to play with friends back in 2017, then 2021 to play Outer Wilds[0]. That's pretty much it. I still want all of those games, thanks. [0] Which so far I consider the best single-player gaming experience in history
  - moritonal 3y ago
    From a technical, emotional, and spiritual level, I agree with your comment on Outer Wilds. If people reading this don't really "play games", make this the one you try.
    - ant6n 3y ago
      Maybe in a couple of years, as time permits. Thx for the suggestion.
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    >Which so far I consider the best single-player gaming experience in history The only use case for "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" memory erasing technology would be so you can play Outer Wilds for the first time again. +1 for Outer Wilds
3y ago

neilv 3y ago

From the screenshotted Ubisoft Support tweet: > Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging in to 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 Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid class action lawsuits and regulatory investigations, by backpedaling. You probably also want to fix whatever organizational dysfunction led to a video game company behaving like this, and talking like this.

jjbinx007 3y ago
I can't think of a single rationale for this. A user account isn't much more than a database entry. What possible reason could a company use to justify this?
- gmerc 3y ago
  Remember that EA had EA downloader around the time steam came around. However, their packaged goods division, who made most of the profit, saw it as infringing at their KPIs and someone pushed the inane idea it could make more money if it just allowed you to download the games you bought a fixed number of times to keep the project from getting killed.
  - freddie_mercury 3y ago
    The EA Downloader was released 3 years after Steam.
    - gmerc 3y ago
      I think that counts as “around”. steam took a while to materialize on everyone’s radar as more than an orange box installer and it took a while to get downloader off the ground
- 3y ago

dbetteridge 3y ago

Oh I cant wait for them to try this on in Australia, The ACCC will rake them over the coals.

NikkiA 3y ago

I've had my ubi account go inactive for multiple years, and still not been deleted (just checked) so I'm guessing this pro-piracy guy on twitter is lying about the reason for his account being deleted.

DandyDev 3y ago
If you'd read the article, you'd know that the legitimacy of the tweet has been verified by Ubisoft. They apparently really do close accounts due to inactivity
alpaca128 3y ago
The main "pro-piracy guy" in that case is Ubisoft, they are really putting in some work to make the legit way of playing games seem like a great way to get ripped off. So far pirated games have: no login requirement or DRM troubles, no dependency on an online service, potentially better performance, and no risk of losing access. In other words, you can actually own the game that way.
techaqua 3y ago
they really do close account. my account was deleted. probably because it only has giveaway games and i never played any of them.

rvz 3y ago

Unsurprising and it is not your video game. Cloud-based games tied to ‘accounts’ are a scam.

_imnothere 3y ago

Definitely not talking about legal stuff here, but what if all these user-hostile action lead to more pirated copies?

lionkor 3y ago
Thats not much of a what-if: It would make sense to buy games and then download a cracked version instead of the official one, simply because the one you bought can be disabled & taken away at any moment. And, of course, cracked games have better linux compat because they dont have the DRM(s). Buy it to support the franchise and get sequels, of course.

otikik 3y ago

Save a couple GB of hard drive storage in exchange of a big PR problem and sending your image down the drain. Stroke of genius.

charcircuit 3y ago
It's about avoiding legal risk. User data is a legal liability to store.
- lionkor 3y ago
  They could easily pseudonymize the data by removing payment info, personal info, etc. but keeping the games because why wouldnt you let people keep their games as a game company
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Lets say they did this. They remove all personal info, including the email address for signing into the account. So technically the games are still attached to the account, but there is no way for you to sign in to it and there is no way for you to prove that you are the owner of the account. It isn't any different from the user's perspective than just deleting the data.
    - xvinci 3y ago
      I mean there is, you send out randomized credentials "please use these for your next login". And if someone lost access to their e-mail address, the proof of ownership would be the same as it is today (aka sending receipts, keys, etc.). But lets really be honest: These kind of companies dont give two sh*ts about security leaks and GDPR infringements, as is demonstrated almost every other week by news. Privacy or legal compliance is most certainly not the reason they are doing this.
    - malfist 3y ago
      Email isn't PII. They'd have no reason to delete it.

dgan 3y ago

How is legal? When I buy something, I expect me to own it, that's why it's called "a sale" and not a "a lease" / whatever I can't imagine a single reason how one party in the contract singlehandedly decides to change the nature of the contact

tpxl 3y ago
> When I buy something, I expect me to own it Well there's your problem, you never bought the thing. They use the language like 'buy' and 'sell', but in reality you're renting. This should be illegal IMO.
coldtea 3y ago
>How is legal? When I buy something, I expect me to own it It's 2023. That ship has sailed long ago...

captainbland 3y ago

As an aside, the fact that Ubisoft try to get you to sign up for an online account from a console and will actively prevent you from playing a game if you don't (so long as you're connected to the internet) is too user hostile for me to begin with. I've basically stopped interacting with their games as a result.

bpye 3y ago
They prevent you playing even single player content? I’m surprised that such a design passed certification.
- captainbland 3y ago
  Yeah I had that with Watchdogs Legion specifically on PS5 even to get to single player. I could bypass it but only by disconnecting from the internet in the system settings which is a pain. I'm surprised too but I guess Sony relies on these big third party publishers to such a degree that they let it slide.
dkersten 3y ago
I don’t generally play their games but I currently have a PSN+ Extra subscription which has access to a large portion of their library, so I’ve been playing all the games I’ve missed (far cry 5 and 6, AC Valhalla, watchdogs legion, ghost recon breakpoint). While they aren’t -bad- games, they all feel very similar and ultimately quite shallow and hollow. Certainly worth a few hours of fun each, but they started to feel stale pretty quickly, certainly not worth paying the normal price tag for, so you’re not missing all that much.

MrDresden 3y ago

I stay away from any games that require me to log into a proprietary system to play them (for example EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard). There is already a glut of other games to play so why bother.

iamtedd 3y ago
Steam is a proprietary system. Do you use Steam?
- MrDresden 3y ago
  You don't need to be logged into Steam to play the games it serves you.

nntwozz 3y ago

You'll own nothing and be happy. Yours sincerely, Ubisoft

rozab 3y ago

This must be a GDPR thing, right? Discord recently received a big fine for not deleting accounts after a period of inactivity.

pixelfarmer 3y ago
This looks like some regulatory induced certification bureaucraziness stunt that creates all sorts of funky stuff already within such megacorpos. Because time is money, the solution is usually the one they can take with the least resistance. Consequences down the line are an afterthought, and I'd bet someone mentioned that this would cause problems and it got waved away for not being important / other solution(s) being too expensive, this sort of thing, as usual.
Anthony-G 3y ago
They could be using GDPR as an excuse to do this. Or, to be more charitable, their legal people have been reading FUD about the GDPR rather than the actual regulations. GDPR has plenty of provision for legitimate interests, particularly in favour of the data subject: https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimate-interest/ https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimat...
- cccbbbaaa 3y ago
  Legitimate interest is the most fragile basis in GDPR and should not be relied upon, apart for server logs as suggested by recital 49. Contract (art. 6(1)b) may be better here, but keep in mind that art. 5(1)e still applies.

omnibrain 3y ago

While I have to admit liking some Ubi Games in the past, namely Anno 2070 & 2205, Watch Dogs & AC: Unity I really hate what they do regarding to "Savegames". Me and my wife have some overlap in games we enjoy and lately it becomes more and more difficult to have separate playthroughs. We already use different windows users, but that's not enough, you have to disable "cloud saving" but it usually still "overwrites" other savegames. So usually I just let her finish the game and then completely restart for my playthrough. Worst offender, though was "The Crew". There didn't seem to be a way to actually restart, or reset progress. And it wasn't even that I wnated to "share" the game with her. It was just me wanting to restart after a few hours, because I had the feeling I rushed/missed something in the beginning.

chmod775 3y ago
The way cloud saves seem to work on Steam is that there's some folder that is synchronized with the cloud after you close the game. If Ubisoft's thing works the same, then 1. start game 2. delete saves 3. kill game might work.
- omnibrain 3y ago
  I usually find a way to do it. But with "The Crew" it was different. I think the problem is, that even the "Single Player Mode" is not really single player but some sort of online hybrid thing nobody asked for in a single player racing game.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  One of the things that sets steam apart is family sharing, so you can share licenses with a spouse or sibling but keep your saves on your own profile. Uplay doesn't have that.

gausswho 3y ago

As these log-in-or-lose-it policies pass through the tech world I wish password managers could reliably log into all my accounts. Ostensibly the feature exists but I've found it unreliable.

gausswho 3y ago

When services do this, does logging in with a token via an API reset the clock?

SalimoS 3y ago
this remind me, our university use google workspace for managing emails for all the student, I'm using the iOS mail app to consult and send emails, but last year google increased the price (or) reduced the storage so the IT in the university removed the inactive account, they removed my account so when I went back to the university to fix the issue in the console it showed him I didn't connect for more than 2 years (yet I show him the then last week email that the IT department sent it which talk about the new storage limitation

happytiger 3y ago

Where’s the line for a company stealing what was rightfully bought? I’m only asking because this seems pretty close to that line.

brettermeier 3y ago

Ubisoft seems to really want Empress to crack more games :P Meanwhile I even understand why some people send her quite a lot of money via crypto to crack a game instead of spending the money directly on the game.

dchftcs 3y ago
>Meanwhile I even understand why some people send her quite a lot of money via crypto to crack a game instead of spending the money directly on the game. To be fair, those people could be running an internet cafe and want to deploy the illegal copies to 100+ computers.

andrewstuart 3y ago

I went to the cupboard the other day to play some old board games with family and friends. But we hadn’t played the games in quite a while so the board game company had sent someone around and destroyed them. It’s fair enough too, I mean how can the game company be reasonably expected to not destroy what it sold me if I haven’t used it for a while? It’s on me. So we had to find something else to do that afternoon.

mamonster 3y ago

My biggest problem with Ubisoft is that this is a company that owns the IP to some very storied AAA franchises(AC, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia, fuck Might and Magic even), but the foreseeable future for these titles is that Ubisoft will milk the nostalgia as much as possible with gachalikes and unfinished 60 dollar games releasing in Beta with season passes and p2w. If Blizzard deal goes through this would easily be the next company to be bought(extremely cheap valuation for premiere IP).

midjji 3y ago

These are the same assholes that let you use a email containing a + in the email. e.g. name+shittyuplay@gmail.com, and Automatically log you in after registration, so you can register and buy games. Then dont allow you to login or use the support services later on because the email contains a +. So I get their emails, including eventually one about the cancellation, but still havent been able to login or use the support for my account. And if I post on the forums I just get the shitty advice that I need to login to support services or request a password reset because neither of those allow + in the email either. I also received what looks like a ban for using curse words in my support request at one point, and yes I did use <name>+shittyuplay so well thats true, but if thats the damned problem dont let me register it in the first place. I dont care anymore since the game I registered was just some shitty thing that came with a graphics card, but I am astounded at how incompetent they can be while still trying to become more popular than steam. Steam only needed to provide better service than pirates, but Uplay needed better than steam, so well they are doomed and good riddance.

permo-w 3y ago
[flagged]
- CodesInChaos 3y ago
  On most providers you don't need to make a new email address for that. For example, if you own example@gmail.com, you will receive emails sent to example+whatever@gmail.com.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  Many people use emails of the form myemail+servicename@gmail.com in order to track spam. You don’t need to make a new email, anything after the + is simply ignored by gmail. It’s very common, especially if your users are halfway technical which users of a games service surely are.
- iamtedd 3y ago
  > why on earth were you trying to sign up with an email containing a plus? Because it's a perfectly valid character in the local part[0] of the email address? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Local-part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Local-part

tjpnz 3y ago

Piracy is almost always a service problem. - Gabe Newell

walthamstow 3y ago

Thank the gods my account including my copy of Anno 1800 is still live after 10 months of inactivity

wildpeaks 3y ago

This is why buying DRM-free is important (e.g. GOG and Bandcamp).

yakubin 3y ago
That depends more on the producer than the store. Try buying Assassin’s Creed II or any later AC games without DRM.

maratc 3y ago

... wave of proprietary platforms is playing havoc not only with our personal libraries, but game preservation more broadly ... and ... Nobody asked for Uplay or Ubisoft Connect I still frequently see an argument in favor of forcing Apple into allowing alternative stores, so I don't know how it's different. "Nobody asked for Ubisoft Connect" but seemingly everybody is asking for "Microsoft Office 365 Xbox Live Gold App Store for iPhone".

pierat 3y ago

Again I ask: Is it really piracy when the sales, well, aren't?

dangus 3y ago

Ubisoft is doing you a favor, none of their games are worth playing. I seriously don’t even know how they’re still in business. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone took them to court over this and Ubisoft gave a Fox News-style legal defense where they argue that their content isn’t fun enough to be considered entertainment that has any monetary value.

bovermyer 3y ago

I am increasingly interested in games that are open source, or at least not reliant on online services to function.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

The Cloud: Outsource things that are important to you, as an individual, to a company that has so many customers it can only treat them as numbers. They don't, and can't, offer their service in such a way that the value to the customer is matched by the importance with which it's treated by the service provider. This mismatch is at the core of all these cloud provider shenanigans, because it doesn't scale. Counter example: Steam kept my account unused for a decade as I went through a self imposed gaming exile due to having kids. Had to jump through some hoops to prove it was me due to some old email address that was no longer accessible, but the process worked and everything was still there.

TillE 3y ago

We're long overdue for a "digital property" law that defines specific rights around purchasing media, for consistency if nothing else. To my knowledge no country is seriously working on this, which is a bit surprising.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Perhaps not so surprising? Mergers/monopolies, lobbying, government gridlock, etc.

adamnaga 3y ago

[flagged]

Superfrag 3y ago

This piece of news is more than 7 years old, and Ubisoft has previously confirmed that the only accounts that can get deleted are the ones with absolutely nothing in them. The writer for this article should have done additional research on this. Seems to me that it came up on Twitter again and the writer took advantage of that to write an inflammatory article that's sure to get a bunch of views. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/156ukmv/ubisoft_confirms_they_will_delete_your_account/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/156ukmv/ubisoft_c... https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/40ye8e/ubisoft_may_suspend_or_close_your_uplay_account/cyy47m0/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/40ye8e/ubisoft_may_s...

trinsic2 3y ago

This is why I stopped buying games from Ubisoft and EA. The kind of shit they pull on their online gaming platforms and the way they treat there employees is a crime against humanity. Now I stick with independent game companies, they actually want to make the gaming space better. Steam is pretty good. I really appreciate how much work they put into making games playable on Linux so I don't have to support Microsoft's or Apple's walled garden approach to platforms.

meristohm 3y ago

I like the idea of not having to log into all my old accounts in order to delete them. Maybe an opt-in option to extend the auto-deletion duration beyond the default would be nice, but ultimately this information should be deleted. Are we so special we have to save everything? This is easy for me to say, though- I quit videogames last month after a long decline in use, mainly because I was using them as my late father abused alcohol. Hopefully my child is even better able to recognize the symptoms (if it's genetic) and get to the root cause(s). There's a part of me that would be glad to see an email that my Steam account had expired and all the games I paid for access to (I don't feel like I own them anymore, though I am aware that many can be played without Steam) are no longer within easy reach. I don't want to log in to Steam to remove each game from my acc, though, so I'm leaving it all in limbo for now, which works well enough. Maybe my kid will want to play some of them, and I'd be willing to play, too, as a together-activity. Eventually I'll be more balanced and can handle these middle grounds better. I used to think I would always play World of Warcraft! I'm glad I grew out of that.