Ubisoft Account Deleted for Inactivity
Marc Marasigan (via Hacker News):
According to PCWorld, the account in question had been inactive for more than a year when the owner decided to take a break from gaming. “In 2020, I sold my PC because I was gaming way too much and it went a bit over the healthy way of doing it. I made a choice to work and attend school,” said the account owner Tor.
When he decided to get back into gaming in summer 2021, he found that he was unable to login to his Ubisoft account. He was able to reset his password but later discovered that the account itself had been closed and permanently deleted along with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games.
[…]
Upon checking his email, Tor said that he found an inactivity warning from Ubisoft in his spam folder dated January 20th. The email stated that his account had been temporarily shut down and will be permanently closed if he didn’t click the provided link within 30 days.
Ubisoft says this was a glitch and that they don’t intentionally delete inactive accounts that have purchased content.
When he tried contacting Ubisoft regarding the email, the company’s representatives told him that they won’t be able to recover any of his games because his account had been closed. “If the account is closed, there is no way to restore it,” said the support rep.
Previously:
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@Dan I agree with this. It should be their responsibility (even if that doesn't guarantee they can necessarily recover the account) to compensate the user, at the very least via a refund. Even from just a PR perspective it doesn't look good for them to, as you say, wipe your rightfully purchased content and brush it off.
I believe the quote at the bottom of Michael's post is what he got when he contacted regular customer service. The end of the PC World article says they are looking into his account to "take the appropriate measures."
That said, PR aside, they are generally within their rights to revoke the licenses that you paid for as long as they do so within the terms of service you agreed to, which in this case it seems to be the case that they did.
"they are generally within their rights to revoke the licenses that you paid for as long as they do so within the terms of service you agreed to"
This is obviously a complex topic, but as a blanket statement, this is not true, and heavily depends on a person's local jurisdiction. Some places have better consumer protection, and different contract law, than others. But also, I feel that it is irrelevant, since nobody has made the argument that this is illegal; people are making the argument that it is a bunch of bullshit.
If Ubisoft is admitting it was a glitch, aren't they responsible for restoring the content he purchased? In other words, even if they cannot restore the account, shouldn't he be given all that purchased content for free on whatever new account he creates? It would be pretty disturbing (but sadly not surprising) of the Terms of Service allow the seller to admittedly accidentally wipe out all your "purchased" content and just tell you "too bad."