Ubisoft is deleting older player accounts on PC for the dumbest reason

What you need to know

• Ubisoft is a sizeable third-party publisher that makes Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six games, and more.

• A user posted an email from Ubisoft detailing the deletion of their account because it was deemed as being "too old".

• Ubisoft Support confirmed the email was genuine.

• If your account is deleted, you lose your games and other items tied to the account permanently.

• Ubisoft has now clarified that these account closures only apply to accounts without games attached to them.

Update:

In an email to IGN, Ubisoft clarified their stance on account closure.

In accordance with EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), they delete accounts to prevent storing individual information passed a specific time frame.

The following is the criteria Ubisoft uses in determining account deletions:

• The gaming activity of the account since its creation

• The account’s libraries: accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion [emphasis Ubisoft's]

• The duration of inactivity of the account, meaning the last login to our ecosystem (including from Ubisoft games on Steam and other platforms)

  • In practice, as of today, we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years

• The existence of an active subscription tied to the account.

To make a small note, the Ubisoft website link that was provided a few days ago in our first story has now been updated to reflect this policy more clearly.

The original story is as follows:

Ubisoft is one of the world's largest third-party publishers, creating franchises such as Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and more. With these series comes an overwhelming amount of games associated with them. Assassin's Creed alone contains 12 purchasable games, with a 13th coming soon. All of these are purchasable or obtainable via Ubisoft Connect, Ubisoft's PC app. What if Ubisoft deleted your account?

A user on Twitter posted the details of the following email, "We noticed that you have not been using your Ubisoft account associated with email address X. We have temporarily suspended your inactive Ubisoft account and will be closing it permanently in 30 days in accordance with our Terms of Use. If you wish to keep your Ubisoft account, you can cancel its closure by clicking on the Cancel button below before 2023-08-17."

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Ubisoft Support replied, "Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within the 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email. We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account so if you have any difficulties logging in then please create a support case with us."

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I should mention, this isn't a new revelation, but rather a highlight of a weird stance Ubisoft takes against inactive accounts. On their website, they detail the policy against inactive accounts. "Please be reassured that Ubisoft does not automatically close inactive accounts. As part of our Terms of Use, in rare instances, we may immediately close inactive accounts to comply with local data protection legislation. This is only if we have strong reasons to believe that the account in question will remain unused.

We may also close long-term inactive accounts to maintain our database. You will be notified by email if we begin the process of closing your inactive account. If your account was flagged as inactive and you would like to keep using it, you can cancel the closure of your Ubisoft account. You can find the link for the cancellation in the Ubisoft email that was sent to the email address attached to your account. Please check your spam folder as well if you are unable to locate it." According to this, you'll lose access to your entire library of games if your account is deemed for deletion. Not only is this tied to your games library on PC, but Ubisoft store points, cross-progression systems, and more. Removing an account means you'd lose access to everything.

Honestly, this seems incredibly short-sighted even if you're warned 30 days prior. There's been plenty of moments I've missed something because Google thought it was spam, or promotional material. This only gives people a reason never to purchase a game from Ubisoft. I spent years away from Division 2, only to come back at a later date. Had I not logged in, my account would have been deleted, which is outrageous. Whatever their magical timer determines when an account is too old, it needs to be set to infinite.