Ubisoft has made a surprising revelation about how they manage Ubisoft accounts, but the issues surrounding this are deeper than they seem on the surface.
It all started when word spread around that Ubisoft sent an email to a Ubisoft account owner that they suspended his account because of inactivity. The Ubisoft account owner needs to log back in to their account, otherwise Ubisoft will close the user’s account for good.
The issues surrounding such aggressive actions are quite obvious. If you bought games on your Ubisoft account, you stand to lose those games simply because you hadn’t been playing them.
Video Games Chronicle reported on Ubisoft’s responses to this inquiry, though they did not seem to ask Ubisoft directly for the purposes of this report.
Ubisoft’s official support page on this topic starts off by making it clear that they do not automatically close inactive accounts.
Ubisoft closes inactive accounts to follow ‘local data protection legislation’, or to maintain their databases. Each user’s terms of service will clarify if they fall under such local data protection legislation.
Ubisoft also makes it clear that they only close accounts “if we have strong reasons to believe that the account in question will remain unused.”
Video Games Chronicle characterizes this as an issue with DRM and digital games, but it’s worth learning more about the local data protection legislation at play here.
The EU has a dedicated page to their General Data Protection Regulation policy, that explains the principles behind this policy in broad strokes.
Among the provisions of the GDPR is a provision where organizations like Ubisoft have to be transparent to their users, that they have to make communications easy, that they need to explain how they use your personal data, and that users have a right to erasure, AKA a right to be forgotten.
While it’s possible that Ubisoft’s interpretation of the GDPR laws are faulty or erroneous, it’s also entirely possible that they are compelled to follow these rules to the letter. That includes contacting users to let them know their accounts have been suspended, which is something companies can do to your digital data if it’s been unused for years.
The potential big issue here is that Ubisoft users can lose their purchases, but it isn’t quite clear that that was even a possibility here. Ubisoft has several free-to-play games on their platform and gave away games a few times. Obviously, it’s reputation suicide to close Ubisoft accounts with game purchases.
Perhaps more importantly to our readers, since the GDPR provision applies to the EU, this wouldn’t happen to any American Ubisoft account owners. US Ubisoft users can check the Terms of Use for their account to confirm this,
It is one of those ironic consequences of EU’s consumer protection rules laws, that sometimes don’t catch up fast enough to developments in tech.
For example, a similar situation where the EU created problems with well-meaning regulation is EU requiring a universal USB-C port standard. While the rule looks good on paper, ending Apple’s insistence on using a different standard, USB-C cables have differences in speed, power, and protocol. Unfortunately, USB-C cables all look alike, so lacking documentation, you can ruin your device by using the wrong cable.
Truthfully, it’s Ubisoft’s job to ultimately clear up the FUD around this issue themselves. Ubisoft doesn’t really need to have this going around given the other concerns and issues the company has.
