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.
So, if you want access to the games you paid for, you need to pirate them?
Yes that, or skip the paying part.
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
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.
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You can be pretty sure that they have legalese in the eula that says that your right to use the software expires with non-use.
It’s not even in legalese. I’m on my phone right now and thus have no motivation to look through a couple EULAs but I did read the interesting parts of a handful of software EULAs. A couple straight up state that they can revoke your access for any reason (usually followed by “including x, y, z”). And especially for multiplayer games, I understand why you would prefer your wording as such instead of having to list and define every “bad behaviour” like cheating, cracking the game, being an asshole to the community (including the moderators), etc.
The decision makers at Ubisoft, I imagine, just went ahead and said “How about we take this ‘for any reason’ to the absurd? If just 1% of the deleted accounts is remade and buys their games again, we make a lot of free money.”
I’ve like GOG since whether they disappear they provide installers for users, so it’s the best of both worlds of easy launcher management and installer for those that want to archive and self host everything they buy.
Love that about GoG. It’s been my preferred store for years.
If only they had a Linux version of Galaxy for cloud saves and auto updates, it would be my preferred store.
It’s the only thing stopping me from using GOG more. I’ve fiddled with Lutris but it’s still pretty finicky. Proton making things run out of the box most of the time make it very hard to switch off of Steam.
I’ve used Lutris and Heroic. They’re pretty good.
I’m thinking GoG should just support one of those projects to add functionality.
That only kinda works. No multiplayer, no achievements, no cloud saves…
Some people will immediatly want to respond with “I don’t want that anyway”. Before doing so, please consider whether you’re missing the point entirely.
That’s what I mean about supporting those projects. They could add functionality to Lutris or Heroic rather than build Galaxy for Linux.
Just reminded me of the concern people brought up when GOG Galaxy was starting out: Once most people are using the launcher, we’re a few steps away from losing the installers. 😐🤷🏿♂️
The launcher is great for automated features that make our lives easier. But if the launcher is all we have and the installers are gone, the reason to use GOG at all over its competitors evaporates.
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.
