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.

Comments

grandmother reference

[turkeydance]

“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ok, i don't understand this.

Re:grandmother reference

[Sir_Substance]

I've been on an anti-account binge for a while. If your game requires me to make a new account, I'll never play it.

It hasn't really affected the quality of my gaming experience. Turns out companies that spend heaps of time making elaborate anti-piracy mechanisms make shit games, who knew?

As a side note, I haven't bought a Ubisoft game for about 4 years, ever since this incident:

Speaking to IncGamers, creative director Stanislas Mettra stated that there are currently no plans to bring the game to PC because of fears that only Pirates will steal the game, and the last thing he wants to hear is any of your incessant ‘bitching’ over the issue.

Again, it hasn't really affected the quality of my gaming experience. Occasionally, I wonder if I'm missing out on assassins creed, but then I go try to play Dishonored, and remember I hate the whole genre.

Re:grandmother reference

[RogueyWon]

The funny thing is that there are other cases in which buying a key for cheaper than you can get it on the official Ubisoft store is absolutely fine.

For example, just before Christmas, Far Cry 4 was £45 in the UK via the uPlay store. Alternatively, you could walk into Game (the UK's largest high street games retailer) and pick up a boxed copy of the game for £30. If you do that, you still need to register the code in the box with uPlay and run the game via uPlay, though you do get the option of doing the initial install from a physical disc (useful if you have a slow net connection). But that appears to have been absolutely fine.

Second case, the launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity was delayed on Steam in many parts of the world (so for a while, the only way to buy a digital-only copy was uPlay). But it did launch just before Christmas. During the Steam Christmas Sale, there were days when the game was £45 on uPlay and half that amount on Steam. Again, this is absolutely fine with Ubisoft.

So if what people on forums are saying is true (and we do always have to be a bit cautious here), then it would appear that the old adage that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is" doesn't necessarily hold true. After all, if the same kinds of discounts are available from multiple retailers, some of which are mystically "Ubisoft approved" and others aren't (though no list of the former is published), then the end-consumer might justifiably confused as to which is which.

Re:grandmother reference

[Cenan]

Except a pirated item does not equate to a lost sale. Further, those hypothetical people who would then download the pirated game have already paid, again not hurting sales. You'd be surprised how quickly people turn back to the monkey that kicked their teeth in for another treatment.

Event Y is going to hurt the profits of X - bullshit. Time and time again we're shown that prior reputation has absolutely nothing to do with future profits, contrary to common belief. My personal hypothesis is that marketing machines are just too good at hyping whatever game the company is putting out, making gamers want to fork over money to a disreputable company rather than wait for the pirated version to become available.

Re:Vote against Ubisoft with your dollars

[JMJimmy]

You can quite easily disable updates in Steam per game. Are you saying they push updates even after you've disabled them?

Steam's current setup is that you can disable automatic updates on a per-game basis, however, only until you try to play it next at which time it forces the update on you. You can run in offline mode for up to 6 months, losing a huge chunk of Steam/some games in the process, but after 6 months you have to go online to re-validate your DRM and bam - updates.

Re:First Sale

[Gr8Apes]

People are still buying Ubisoft? Why? That's a serious question actually, why would you pay money for some DRM infested crap that corrupts your system? There's no game so important I'll corrupt my system to play it. Any Ubisoft game can wait until it goes on sale on GOG, or be avoided forever. No loss here.

Re:pirate the games and you get no DRM as well

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! That is the kind of propaganda that the MAFIAA would like people to believe. The truth is, most cracks and keygens are perfectly safe.

I've been doing this shit since the early days of Fairlight and Razor 1911, even running a TDT/TRSi/SWaT distro BBS for a number of years, and have never had a system get infected.