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Ubisoft Revokes Digital Keys For Games Purchased Via Unauthorised Retailers
RogueyWon writes: For the last several days, some users of Ubisoft's uPlay system have been complaining that copies of games they purchased have been removed from their libraries. According to a statement issued to a number of gaming websites, Ubisoft believes that the digital keys revoked have been "fraudulently obtained." What this means in practice is unclear; while some of the keys may have been obtained using stolen credit card details, others appear to have been purchased from unofficial third-party resellers, who often undercut official stores by purchasing cheaper boxed retail copies of games and selling their key-codes online, or by exploiting regional price differences, buying codes in regions where games are cheaper to sell them elsewhere in the world. The latest round of revocations appears to have triggered an overdue debate into the fragility of customer rights in respect of digital games stores.
Well, it's final. The Right of First Sale has been revoked. Soap, Ballot, and Jury boxes haven't worked. What's next?
Learn to love Alaska
Do you want piracy? Because this is how you get piracy.
Simple, really:
Ubisoft just taught another generation of paying customers that piracy provides a superior product, regardless of price.
Congrats, Ubi! We haven't had a good DRM fuckup like this in a while - Without all your hard work, people might eventually forget how much it (and you) sucks. Keep up the good work!
Or maybe it would be an idea to not buy from the cheapest seller
What a great moral to the story! "Quit price-shopping, assholes - Pay full retail, or we... will... fuck you!"
Glad to see people feel just peach about that.
One problem is that how does the consumer know who are authorized resellers? Ubisoft doesn't have a list that I can find, so how do you know if a site is legitimate or not? It's hard to go by the old adage "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is" anymore, with so many sites having sales at cut rate prices on digital goods. I picked up a few "too good to be true" bargains last month during the Steam sales.
Except in this era of increasing server-side reliance, game piracy is becoming less of an issue. It will eventually get to the point where you're not actually buying the game, you're buying an account with which you can then play the game. Since the majority of people don't think twice about needing to be always connected this trend will only continue.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
You should have read the first link:
Ever tried to buy a new car in the US as a resident of Canada?
Yeah. Ubisoft learned from the car industry, they're just a bit better at it.
Except in this era of increasing server-side reliance, game piracy is becoming less of an issue. It will eventually get to the point where you're not actually buying the game, you're buying an account with which you can then play the game. Since the majority of people don't think twice about needing to be always connected this trend will only continue.
Bingo, mod this guy up. This is exactly what the games industry has been moving towards for years and the trend is accelerating. It's really the only viable answer to piracy that's left and publishers are embracing it wholeheartedly.
Eventually, there will be no standalone games and every game will be lost to history when its servers shut down. Thanks, pirate assholes.
(If I had a dollar for every /.er who at least thought of writing an angry justification about pirating in response to my last sentence, I'd be able to retire tomorrow. LOL)
Dear UbiSoft,
You've just entered the same realm as Sony as a completely assbackwards company with no respect for your customers whom I will never do business with again, no matter what.
(not that I had a very high opinion of UbiSoft as it was, but this kind of shenanigan just brought it to the bottom.)
Jesus fuck. So I can't buy games while on holiday in another country? A big FUCK YOU goes to ubisoft. You may keep your games from now on. Luckily I haven't liked any of their games for a long time, so it's not really a loss for me. They have just ruined every good franchise they have touched, just like their role model EA. (ok, EA has some decent sports games, but they have been the exact same game for 10 years, so.. luckily I don't play sports games).
Why is it that big publishers just destroy every golden nugget they buy? There is a bit of the same with big music labes. Too many middle managers trying to get their opinion through? End product is a compromise of everything, bland and soulless? Workers feel like they have no say in anything, so they just don't care?
Or to put it another way, they take advantage of unhealthy markets in North America that fail to push prices down to the marginal cost of production and do their best to defeat any natural market force that might bypass that market.
It's actually more analogous to living near the border and driving to the other country to buy your TV for less. Then when you get home, the manufacturer breaks in to your home and steals it.
That's not what the second link says is happening though.
My reading of the second article is that there is the following problem. Website G2A.com allows private re-sale of game keys, whether that's to undercut the retail prices or avoid region locking or whatever is irrelevant. Carders are constantly on the lookout for ways to cash out stolen credit card numbers. Because fraudulent card purchases can be rolled back and because you have to go through ID verification to accept cards, spending them at their own shops doesn't work - craftier schemes are needed.
So what they do is go online and buy game activation keys in bulk with stolen cards. They know it will take time for the legit owners of the cards to notice and charge back the purchase. Then they go to G2A.com and sell the keys at cut-down prices to people who know they are obtaining keys from a dodgy backstreet source, either they sell for hard-to-reverse payment methods like Western Union or they just bet that nobody wants to file a complaint with PayPal saying they got ripped off trying to buy a $60 game for $5 on a forum known for piracy and unauthorised distribution.
Then what happens? Well, the game reseller gets delivered a list of card chargebacks by their banks and are told they have a limited amount of time to get the chargeback problem under control. Otherwise they will get cut off and not be able to accept credit card payments any more. The only available route to Ubisoft or whoever at this point is to revoke the stolen keys to try and kill the demand for the carded keys.
If that reading is correct then Ubisoft aren't to blame here. They can't just let this trade continue or it threatens their ability to accept legitimate card payments.
It's really the only viable answer to piracy that's left and publishers are embracing it wholeheartedly.
I used to pirate games and I used to buy games. I eventually couldn't be bothered with pirating and worrying about malware or with trying to jump through the hoops that the publishers wanted, so I stopped playing games altogether. Then gog.com launched and sold me games that I was nostalgic about, cheaply. Then they started selling newer games. I spent more with them last six months than I did on total on games in the five years since Steam was launched and the industry wend DRM-happy. I can download DRM-free installers for all of the games, often in OS X, Windows, and Linux versions.
It turns out that there's another answer to piracy that works: sell your product in a way that's easy to use at a reasonable price. Stop worrying about pirates and start worrying about customers. Someone who wouldn't buy your game anyway who pirates it is not a lost sale, but someone who can't be bothered to put up with your treating them like a criminal and so doesn't buy from you is. Buying a game from gog.com is easier than pirating and, if you factor in the cost of your time, probably cheaper as well.
Give me a product I want for a reasonable price and I will happily hand over my money, because I feel that I'm getting something valuable in return. Don't, and... well, computer games are not the only form of entertainment available.
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