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.
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.
Thanks for the correction on lease vs license; I didn’t really understand the difference.
GOG comes close by allowing their users to get an installer if they want a back up.
Correct, GoG is completely DRM free and has the ability to download offline installer packages for all your games. There are even a few scripts out there to do it for you.
Some of Steam’s content does as well, but not all and it’s hard to tell.
GoG is no longer completely DRM free, one example is the Hitman games that require online connection to play.
I agree, this is such a dangerously stupid move by Ubisoft.
I can only hope that this is just a mistake with an intern on their social account misinterpreting the ToS and that this isn’t something Ubi plans to enforce. But damn, is it a bad look for them. Which is a shame, because they’ve been doing some decent work at improving their image as of late, too.
Seriously. For pirates once a game is cracked there is zero worries of what will happen to my copy? Somewhere they will be able to retrieve the game even if they don’t bother backing it up.
But, paying customers opt not to do that to rely on official channels for downloads and installs. To punish them and reminding them how inferior their copy of the game is in the long term to the cracked copy is a bad move. It’ll only take losing their game once to lose faith in the platform and not bother buying again.
I mean, let’s not forget the whole sex predator thing. Their image is going to be faeces smeared on a bathroom wall until Guillemot goes.
It’s not. You don’t own the game you lease it with the clause that the storefront can ban/delete/deactivate your account for any reason. This is true for Steam, GOG, Itch, Epic, EA, Microsoft, etc.
with the clause that the storefront can ban/delete/deactivate your account for any reason.
I think you’re speculating in order to make excuses for a corporation. Show us the clause that applies in this case, and I will retract my statement.
Edit:
It’s disappointing that several people replied to me with walls of text to lecture about things that were not disputed, and in some cases not even relevant. We know online game stores typically license them rather than selling them, folks, and Valve’s license terms are not Ubisoft’s terms. Kindly read before replying next time.
One person actually brought an Ubisoft inactivity clause to the table. (Thanks, @[email protected]) Interestingly, that clause seems to be present only in the terms of service for certain regions. A quick search doesn’t find it in either the Canada or United States versions, for example. I wonder if that’s due to better consumer protection laws in some jurisdictions than others.
So depending on which regional ToS the gamer(s) in question agreed to, Ubisoft accepting money and then revoking access might or might not have been fraudulent behavior.
More importantly, it’s ethically wrong, and no amount of legal maneuvering will change that. Screw Ubisoft.
They indeed just “license” the games to us:
The Services and Content are licensed to you, not sold. This means we grant you a personal, limited, non-transferable and revocable right and license to use the Services and access the Content, for your entertainment, non-commercial use, subject to your compliance with these Terms.
For termination, it’s not any reason but a lot of reasons, including the here discussed:
for any other reason in relation to your actions in or outside of the Services; upon notification, where your Account has been inactive for more than six months.
The first one opens a lot of options for them to find a reason. None of those would trigger any reimbursement, though.
Consequences of the Termination/Suspension of an Account.
You cannot use the Services and Content anymore.
In the event of termination of your Account or of Service(s) associated with your Account, no credit (such as for unused Services, unused subscription period, unused points or Ubisoft Virtual Currency) will be credited to you or converted into cash or any other form of reimbursement.It’s not fully speculation. You can go to every store and look at their TOS. In https://legal.ubi.com/StoreTermsofSale/en-INTL we see 1. Scope
When you purchase on the Ubisoft Stores, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensed, non-commercial and personal license to use the Ubisoft Products.
Also note:
Ubisoft Products may also be purchased from third parties authorized by us to sell such Ubisoft Products. When you purchase Ubisoft Products from a third party, your purchase is with that third party and not Ubisoft.
So I’ll do this for ubisoft but last I checked it was in Steam, EA, Gog, and Epic’s. Itch is the only one I hold out hope to be better but this is pretty boiler plate stuff.
This license is just that, a license.
These Terms of Sale are incorporated by reference to the Terms of Use of Ubisoft available at http://legal.ubi.com/termsofuse (“Terms of Use”). All capitalized terms used but not defined herein shall have the meaning given to them in the Terms of Use. Certain Ubisoft Products are subject to the acceptance of an End User License Agreement (“EULA”) and any other additional terms, which will be available to you before you can access, download, install or use such Ubisoft Product. UBISOFT’s Privacy Policy is an integral part of these Terms of Sale and can be found at https://legal.ubi.com/privacypolicy (“Privacy Policy”). Please read it carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
So we now need to look at the EULA and Privacy Policy.
So the EULA of the store https://legal.ubi.com/eula/en-US Clause 1 backs of Clause 1 Scope of the Terms of Sale.
Clause 8
The EULA is effective from the earlier of the date You purchase, download or use the Product, until terminated according to its terms. You and UBISOFT (or its licensors) may terminate this EULA, at any time, for any reason. Termination by UBISOFT will be effective upon (a) notice to You or (b) termination of Your UBISOFT Account (if any) or © at the time of UBISOFT’s decision to discontinue offering and/or supporting the Product. This EULA will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with any of the terms and conditions of this EULA. Upon termination for any reason, You must immediately uninstall the Product and destroy all copies of the Product in Your possession.
So Ubisoft reserves the right to terminate your account and thus the EULA agreement and thus your license.
For fun, lets do a bigger storefront because ubisoft is small.
Valve is smarter and calls this directly not a term of sale but a subscriber agreement. You are a subscriber to their service of steam and this is the agreement:
https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#2
Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
Establishes that these are licenses, not purchases and that you have to have a steam account and running the steam client.
Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.
Valve reserves the right to cancel your subscription if they decide to cease providing such subscriptions to “similarly situated subscribers.” E.g. as long as they do it to everyone in your “situation” it’s legal. So Valve could very well delete inactive accounts legally without refunds. It’s in the EULA, you’ve agreed that as long as they do it without direct discrimination that it’s fine.
So again, you can go through every storefront and realize you have no ownership or right to a refund if they decide to shut down. Also don’t see this as “pro-corporation” I am not defending anyone here. I am pointing out that people have not understood the loss of ownership in the digital world we now live. I’ve been sitting here waiting for the day that people go “hey wait, they can just delete my account without anything I can do?”
https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#10
Read 10.C. Valve can do it any time.
Most likely other storefronts have similar clauses
10 doesn’t have a c. 9 is about account termination and has a c but there’s no mention of account deletion due to inactivity. “[if] Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally” can be interpreted as encompassing subscribers that have been inactive, but it sounds more about when a game’s servers shut down or valve stops distributing it in a region and all players lose access.
A quick search doesn’t find it in either the Canada or United States versions, for example. I wonder if that’s due to better consumer protection laws in some jurisdictions than others.
Now that I think about it, it might not even be consumer protection but instead a GDPR issue. I’m in Europe. Users becoming inactive can actually force companies to delete their data. Ubisoft might not have any other choice than to completely delete inactive users and of course they’ll do what is best for them, not for the inactive users.
The law is written by capitalists for capitalists and shouldn’t he taken into consideration. EULAs are essentially privately-owned laws. It is theft, plain and simple.
Sure, “laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army.”
I was simply talking about the current legal definition. It’s hard to call it theft or fraud when the terms are made clear before the sale. An example of this to a lesser degree would be game studios making multiplayer games. Is it theft if a studio puts a game out on Steam with the clause “We can only support multiplayer for as long as our budget allows us.” and then goes under a few years later? A lot of these multiplayer services are things someone would have to pay for like Playfab or Gamelift. Not something easily open-sourceable. You could argue “Well don’t write your game like that” but then you are essentially killing the multiplayer game service industry without consideration of its existence or benefits.
That depends on the country you live in. In Australia for instance anything that looks like a “sale” must be an actual sale of a product and can’t be something else sneakily disguised as a sale. It’s illegal for services like Steam or app stores to deny you access to software you’ve bought on their platform in Australia.
That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before though.
Hmm yet steam has certainly banned lots of accounts, probably some of those owning games and are citizens of Australia. So clearly there is a clause around it.
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.
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.
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?
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.
@TheTrueLinuxDev They briefly gained my support with the community outreach they used to do with Rocksmith 2014…
Then they launched the shitty subscription service Rocksmith+ and fired most of their community team and I remembered that yeah this is still fucking Ubisoft I was dealing with
This is why I buy all my games on either GOG or Itch.
Yes, they definitely have their problems, but at least I can download an offline installer for pretty much any game I buy. Sure, GOG or Itch could still take them down in the future, but they can’t take away the offline installers I have backed up on separate external HDDs.
I’m not as familiar with Itch but it works the same as GOG in that you can download the installer and keep it, no special activations or DRM required. Right? Because I definitely love that aspect of GOG. I just wish it had a larger library.
I just wish GOG would utilize Proton in a way to incorporate Linux support. It would be a slam dunk for them in terms of their userbase.
Just use the fantastic Heroic Games Launcher.
Yep, heroic is fantastic
Bottles is pretty good. It’s available on flathub.
I just wish GOG would utilize Proton to make way for broad Linux support. It would be a slam dunk for them in terms of their userbase.
I believe it does. I don’t really buy many games on Itch to be honest but from what I understand and from the handful of games I have obtained from there (mostly just free games), that is indeed how it works.
And agreed. Definitely wish GOG had a larger library.
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.
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.
At least with Spotify, you don’t specifically buy any songs.
GOG is the only good egg in your list. Shame their Linux support is awful…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.
I just use ownCloud for my own saves. I created a game saves file system to sync and some games that save out to different subdirectories, I just use symlinks
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.
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Unfortunately, “not tolerating this BS” just means “Not buying from them”, and by the time you see that it’s a problem, it’s too late for that. Even if this was a clear-cut case of them breaking some law, which it isn’t, it’s Apple; they have more money than God, and you’d never successfully sue them before they bankrupted you.
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Well maybe if he wasn’t such a deadbeat… Sitting at home all day, sending his son out to do all the work…
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.”
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.
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.
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.
If you are still buying Ubisoft games in 2023 you are part of the problem.
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.
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).
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Hosting your shit costs them literal pennies at absolute most. “This user owns these games and keys” is bytes of data. If they have cloud saves it’s slightly more, but about 100 orders of magnitude off of affecting their bottom line in any way. Old games they do or don’t support have nothing to do with inactive accounts. Active accounts own them too.
There is zero financial rationale for this. It’s not anything resembling a rounding error on the budget sheet. It’s basically free.
The curious thing is that there is a financial rationale for maintaining the minimal data, and allowing account recovery. If I bought a game or two via Ubisofts store a few years back, and I remember that game and go through the steps to recover my account… I might see more games that I’d actually rather like to buy.
The cost of keeping a minimal set of account information is a minuscule cost, with a potential upside.
I think they do this to discourage people from letting their accounts go dormant and risk loosing their games. Which makes some sense, lock you customers in, use their sunk cost to encourage activity.
I mean, how much data do they really have to store, though? They only need to store one copy of the actual game. The save files shouldn’t be unmanageable.
That could be part of it as well. Such a move could serve several purposes after all.
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.
Honestly I think I just have black flag on my goobysoft account and I haven’t plaid it for so long I don’t care if I loose my account, but if I ever want to play that game again and it’s gone, I will pirate the shit out of it
That’s an Assassin’s Creed game, yeah? I don’t know, I tried an AS game at one point, and just couldn’t get into it. I was excited for The Division for awhile, then it released. I wanted to like Far Cry, but didn’t like the mechanics. I really don’t see anything in their recent catalog that I give two shits about.
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.
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.
