A decade or so ago, Ubisoft was constantly complaining about PC gamers pirating its titles. The French company was so frustrated with pirates that a number of iconic “Ubisoft vs PC pirates” GIFs flooded the market. And last week, Ubi gave PC gamers another big reason to simply pirate its games.

Twitter’s AntiDRM has shared the following email. According to it, Ubisoft will suspend your account if it’s inactive for some time, and then permanently close it after 30 days.

https://twitter.com/PC_enjoyer/status/1681655629276930048

According to Ubi, accounts that are inactive for less than 4 years are safe, and won’t receive such an email. Moreover, if someone does receive such an email, they’ll be able to cancel its closure by clicking on a link.

Let’s start with the obvious here. Scammers and hackers can easily use this template in order to create phishing emails. I know, I know, people shouldn’t be clicking on everything they receive in their emails. However, Ubisoft’s email feels like a phishing/fake email, and that says a lot.

What’s also funny here though is that PC pirates will still be able to enjoy Ubi’s games, without the need to use a Ubisoft account. This is another case in which pirates get a better experience than legitimate owners. So, instead of rewarding its customers, Ubisoft is giving everyone another reason to pirate its games. It’s hilarious, really.

So, imagine this scenario. Imagine wishing to try the first Assassin’s Creed game on your PC after a decade or so from now. Why you say? Well, why do people still play older games? You then launch Ubisoft Connect, just to find out that your account was closed. Now, the only way to play the game you had previously purchased will be by pirating it.

This is one of the reasons why a lot of gamers are against digital-only purchases. It’s also why a lot of gamers miss the 90s, during which you didn’t need an EA/Ubi/Steam/EGS/Battlenet account to play your game. You simply installed the game on your PC and started playing it. Plain and simple. Okay okay, all games back then required the presence of the game CD/DVD (which is why some used no-CD/no-DVDs cracks with their legitimate copies). In a way, even back then, PC piracy was offering a more “comfortable” experience. And things got even worse in today’s age with all the DRMs that plague modern-day games.

So yeah, GG Ubisoft!

UPDATE:

Ubisoft has stated that accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion. As the company told WCCFTech.

“Account deletion follows a very strict process. As such, we take into consideration the 4 following criteria before an account is deleted:

• The gaming activity of the account since its creation
• The account’s libraries: accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion
• 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.

 In any case, before the deletion is permanent, three emails are sent to the player over a 30-day period offering to restore their account. In addition, if the user tries to log in during the 30-day window, they will automatically receive a warning and a link to reactivate their account.”