The age of digital gaming has brought along plenty of benefits, mainly quicker access to new games as well as saving space in the home. However, it also means that in many cases, we are beholden to the digital platform provider and their terms of service. Ubisoft recently confirmed that it will delete user accounts, as well as their purchased games if a user doesn't log in for a period of time.
Twitter user @PC_enjoyer recently posted a screenshot of a recent email from Ubisoft Support recently, stating that due to a period of inactivity on a Ubisoft Connect account, Ubisoft would close the account permanently in 30 days. We don't know how long the period of inactivity was, but the Ubisoft Support Twitter account did “chime in” to confirm that this is indeed a real Ubisoft email and the publisher is actively using this policy to purge old accounts.
Now the issue with this is that Ubisoft hasn't released a good game for a minute now. Personally, I haven't purchased a new Ubisoft title since Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020) and I essentially only log into Ubisoft Connect once a year at this point to revisit Rainbow Six Siege for a day or two. If Rainbow Six Siege didn't exist, then there is now a good chance that my Ubisoft account and all associated games on it would have been deleted.
The other issue is that the email could easily be disregarded by the user as a phishing attempt, or get caught up in someone's spam filter. If you miss the email, your account and purchased games go away for good.
It is claimed that Ubisoft does this to comply with GDPR rules but the fact of the matter is, GDPR wasn't created to screw consumers out of their purchases and services like Steam do not do this and so far, no GDPR complaint has been brought forward, so this seems like the sort of thing Ubisoft could very easily stop doing.
This is essentially Ubisoft saying “remain engaged with our product or lose your purchases”. The timing here is questionable too, as Ubisoft has recently reported drops in yearly sales of games and has been struggling to find its next hit in between major Assassin's Creed titles.
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KitGuru Says: If you stop shopping at Tescos, nobody from the store is going to come to your house and try to take the items back. Why this sort of scenario would be deemed acceptable in the digital space is absolutely beyond me.