Ubisoft has been acting up recently; the company we all loved and respected in the early 2000s due to the fantastic games it produced has gone through a metamorphosis. It basically became a one-franchise company that has since canceled a ton of games and deleted a ton more—even if the players owned those games. Now, the French game maker is on a deleting crusade once again, and this time it’s targeting players’ accounts.
According to Kotaku, Ubisoft’s account deletion policy, though not a novelty, gained some attention about a week ago after its wording left players confused about the possibility of having their accounts deleted.
On July 19, a Twitter user tweeted a screenshot of a Ubisoft email they received stating that their account had been suspended due to inactivity and that it’s scheduled for permanent closure in 30 days—unless they log back in.
Apparently, the company retains rights to delete user accounts for a variety of reasons, such as fake accounts, violation of the company’s Terms of Service or rules of conduct, and now, for failing to log into your account for a specific amount of time. That’s right; gamers can now lose their Ubisoft accounts due to account inactivity.
This has prompted a public backlash against the company, which, admittedly, points out the fact that the messiah often isn’t the wisest, but the loudest—a metaphor describing a phenomenon where people tend to follow or believe the most amplified or sensationalized news, rather than news that’s deeply grounded in facts.
Here’s what happened: on July 19, a Twitter user tweeted a screenshot of a Ubisoft email they received stating that their account had been suspended due to inactivity and that it’s scheduled for permanent closure in 30 days—unless they log back in.
Of course, this had gamers spooked, and the public backlash was further fueled by outlet publications reporting on the apparent issue—thus giving credibility to misinterpreted information.
The truth is that gamers have been losing their Ubisoft accounts to inactivity for quite some time now, and this isn’t anything new. Ubisoft’s Terms of Service actually state that the company has the right to terminate user accounts for various reasons, including inactivity.
But the process of account termination isn’t random or something that the company does without following a strict protocol. Said protocol includes reviewing the gaming activity of the account since its creation, whether or not an account has purchased games, the duration of inactivity, and the existence or lack of an active subscription tied to the account.
The truth is that gamers have been losing their Ubisoft accounts to inactivity for quite some time now.
The Termination Process
Basically, if your Ubisoft account has no games in the library, has no active subscription, and you haven’t logged in for more than four years, it can be flagged for permanent termination.
Furthermore, Ubisoft reaches out to the account holder via three emails, each sent over a 30-day period, offering them a chance to restore their account. An inactive account is flagged for termination only after all three emails haven’t been responded to.
A Ubisoft spokesperson stated that, in practice, the company hasn’t deleted any inactive account that has been inactive for less than four years.
Furthermore, this doesn’t affect games bought and played over Steam or other distribution platforms. So, yes, Ubisoft is deleting user accounts, but it doesn’t do so randomly and without notifying account holders beforehand.
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