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On Monday Ubisoft began revoking CD Keys for Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed Unity from Uplay accounts that were bought from resellers like G2A or Kinguin. At the time, the publisher stated that the keys were fraudulent but has since elaborated.
Kinguin claimed that these keys were bought directly from licensed wholesale distributors and that everything should be fine. However, Ubisoft disagrees and is now saying that all revoked keys were originally bought from EA's Origin service using a stolen credit card.
In a statement to Game Informer, Ubisoft said: “We strongly recommend that players purchase keys and downloadable games only from the Uplay Store or their trusted retailers. We regularly work with our authorized resellers to identify and deactivate fraudulently obtained and resold keys. In this case, we confirmed activation keys were recently purchased from EA’s Origin store using fraudulent credit card information and then resold online.”
EA has since confirmed Ubisoft's account of events, admitting that the keys were purchased via Origin using fraudulent credit card information. In a statement, an EA spokesperson said:
“A number of activation keys for Ubisoft products were purchased from Origin using fraudulent credit cards, and then resold online. We identified the unauthorized keys and notified Ubisoft. If you are having trouble with an activation key, we recommend you contact the vendor who sold it to you for a refund. We strongly advise players only purchase keys from Origin or trusted resellers.”
G2A and Kinguin are both working with customers to resolve the issue and either replace the keys or issue refunds.
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KitGuru Says: Buying from grey market resellers is always a bit of a risk and unfortunately it is usually the consumer that gets punished for trying to save some money. Some resellers will likely issue refunds or replace the keys. It will be interesting to see what Kinguin has to say now following the recent turn of events. There is still more to this story that we don't know yet. Were any of you guys affected by the key revoking?
i see another point is if you buy ubisoft or anyother that ubisoft is in contact with prices will vary but not much if certain keys were stolen you will know what keys they were and you can list them as i am sure it will be no problem too ,i just think they are trying to drop the key cheap markets away so they can control prices well sorry but i not buying your keys
Ubisoft says one thing, gets proven wrong and tries to make up excuses, oh ubisoft we know you just want to make a few extra bucks but at least don’t be pathetic when trying to justify it.
I am not sure i believe that story. Anyway this is Ubisoft/EA’s problem, Credit cards companies problem not the poor victims, myself included who bought 2 of these keys.
I say I don’t believe the story as I bought two keys from two different sources two months apart.
Both these keys were canceled…..so I don’t believe that story. Given Ubisofts track record….
PS I bought my games on Ebay….No luck getting money back as its over 45 days….Paypal rule.
I tried to ask sellers direct. No Luck.
I don’t use G2A for this reason – it’s always seemed a bit dodgy to me. I wasn’t aware of Kinguin.
I only buy my games off Steam, GreenManGaming and the Humble Bundle (and also Uplay and Origin if they had a game that appealed to me at a decent price, yet to buy anything directly of those services though). I’ve also bought a few games directly from the studio where they use their own DRM (e.g. rFactor 2).
My key hasn’t been revoked yet, and it best not be either, I buy a new game every couple months if that, even then it’s from G2A, paid £20 for gold edition fc4 as it was on sale, didn’t realise it was that version untill I downloaded it, was only expecting the bog standard version. Companies lime ubisoft need to realise that people cant afford £70 for a new game and it’s dlc
I hope this is all one big troll because Ubi games are already shit as they are. So for them to be shitty with what people they have left still buying their trash products is just insane. If they were for the players they would have just taken it in the chin and took the so called “loss” like a champ.
I’ve yet to see my copy of the game not work yet but if it does I’d expect all the ubi games I bought on steam to not work either because “Ubisoft”
Companies like ubisoft need to realise that when people spend £40-50 on one of their games they expect it to work without xGb day one patch. I loathe the company nowadays, they don’t even stand for anything. No great products, no new ideas, no quality of work, same old chump wheeled out with newer, more broken graphics.
I don’t get these people who are blaming Ubisoft. Blame the people who sold you the dodgy key, blame yourself for buying something that is too good to be true. If it is fraud then Ubisoft arent making any money, your £20 or whetever is going to a criminal. They are buying the key with a STOLEN card. You are not a victim, the people who have had fraud against their card are the victims. If you have had you key revolked then you are a facilitator of the crime (even unwittingly). Get a refund or claim it as fraud through your own card company. And if you still want the game, buy it legitimately.
Pretty much this. Ubisoft are revoking fraudulently claimed keys, and I can’t blame them for this. Those keys were essentially bought with stolen money, and Ubisoft can hardly be expected to tacitly condone this illegality by just letting it happen. My friends have purchased from Kinguin and haven’t had their keys revoked, which indicates to me that Ubisoft are targeting purely the ones that have been obtained through illegal means.
It’s not the consumer’s fault if they purchased in good faith, although I would argue they should’ve done research into the sites they’re purchasing from, but the consumers affected should take it up with and place culpability with the reseller, rather than Ubisoft themselves.
It’s also worth noting that Valve pulled some Sniper Elite III keys from Steam for the same reason, and from the same sites. It’s not just Ubisoft.
It’s pretty hilarious to see people say “But how could I know it was illegal?” I mean, these guys offer you 30-50% discounts on games that AREN’T RELEASED YET. In any other industry, this would be a huge red flag. If the games were physical copies, no one would buy it while seriously thinking that it’s legal. But this is the internet so they probably have some magic trick to lower the prices or something, right? Yeah that makes sense.
The people who confuse me the most are the people who get mad when there’s the suggestion they should have researched the site before buying from them. Isn’t that the golden rule of the online market? Researching the seller?
A quick Google reveals the same thing from Steam; they revoked Sniper Elite III keys from the *very same sites* for seemingly the *very same reasons*. This isn’t Ubisoft alone, despite how determined people are to pretend it is.
bullcrap, G2A, Kinguin and others are 100% legal, its people who use them as a seller platform and obtain keys by fraud that was the root cause of this not G2a and not kinguin directly. end of .
I buy all my games from these resellers leaning on the trade style of discounting, for over 2 years and never had this problem, so i’m callin bullcrap on this misinformation.
Farthsmith you are totally cluesless dont get involved.
These legit resellers who provide platform for joe bloggs to sell are not to blame , its 1% of those sellers that were ther cause of this , nothing else.
and the reason g2a and kinguin etc.. are so cheap is due to common buinsess practises such as ” leaning on trade” and bulk preordering”, sell orders quickly with no stock and then order based on volume ordered with the funds earning interest in the mean time…. these are very basic trading practises…..
stay in school kid…and pay attention in Business Studies class.
still rather buy from those sites than paying 40bucks more
wait what? ubisoft games were bought on origin? uh?
If your key was revoked, just get your bank to do a charge back… simple
I bought my key directly from G2A and it was banned for these reasons. So no, it’s not just the user sellers, it’s also the G2A company.
I did buy a legit key…it worked for two months…..two frigging months. (Got mine on ebay).
I.E. It authenticated on UPLAY. Ubisoft got Payed.
So this explanation is a smoke screen for ubisoft to knobble all discount keys.
They put the average PC game up 10 euro’s this holiday season, near Xbone prices.
Only a fool or rich Sh*t doesn’t shop around for best prices. I do for everything. Please note
the keys on ebay I bought were sold by regular people buying them as gifts in Eastern Europe and reselling. I did not buy from the two companys that have been mentioned. Ebay 45 day claims limit means not refunds. I tried.
Use of stolen credit cards happens all the time…in every walk of life. Do you really think if someone bought batches of 20-4000 keys on Origin nobody would not go notice for in my case for 2 months.
They have used one incident as a cover story for the bad press thats hitting.
Until now I have been a strong supporter of buying All PC games. I don’t even own one pirate.
Anyway I will use other ways to get Ubisoft games in future…………. You can fill in the blanks
Its not everyday you get called a thief buy a major global games company.
Don’t forget, that this is the company which tries to tell ya that 30fps look better than 60fps !
use CDkeys ,cheap and valid !
It’s not Ubisoft’s fault and it’s not the fault of those that unintentionally bought a suspiciously obtained key, it’s the fault of EA/Origin, they shipped the keys in the name of Ubisoft bought illegal, it was or is a flaw in their own system!
Instead of punishing the enduser who bought the key of course cheaper but without any bad or illegal intentions and is not able to verify it’s source and validity, who is (no matter how you twist it) a Ubisoft customer after activating the key, they should at least investigate every single case before deciding to revoke keys and make sure everyone has a proof of purchase from the source where the key was obtained and – for the sake of humanity and understanding customers and value them – let them keep the game and make sure that Origin as retailer and business partner does a better job in the future and improves it’s own service so that those kind of things simply can’t happen in the future or make it more difficult to happen.
Why punishing the enduser that has been scammed afterall in first place, the only ones that have to be punished are Origin and the fraudster who bought the keys and the reseller, who also seem to have a flawed system if he can’t make sure the keys they obtain and resell are legal and valid. The customer, as always, is the failed stupid idiot and the criminal that gets blamed and punished.
Improve your own shitty services, then blame the customers.
From personal experience buying game keys from 3rd party site have always been risky. Even if the keys are legit, big companies will always try to monopolize the the market by revoking keys, because they have that power. so either buy the game from the authorized sites or don’t buy it at all.