Ubisoft says it won’t delete inactive accounts that have purchased games

Ubisoft has stated that it won’t close inactive accounts that have purchased games, clarifying a statement made by its Twitter support account over the weekend.

Last week a Twitter user claimed to have received an email from Ubisoft warning that should they not click a link to keep their account active, the account – including all purchased games – would be closed and made inaccessible after a certain period.

Ubisoft’s Twitter support account appeared to confirm this, writing: “We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email.”

This led to widespread concern and condemnation from players who were under the impression that this meant if they didn’t use their Ubisoft accounts for a long period of time, any game purchases they had made would disappear along with their accounts.

However, in a statement to DualShockers, Ubisoft has now clarified the matter, stating that while it does indeed legally have to close inactive accounts, this doesn’t apply to accounts that have purchases tied to them.

Further reading

6

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition bodes well for Ubisoft, CEO says

The anticipated mega merger validates Ubisoft’s strategic focus, according to Yves Guillemot

The publisher explained that it has has been removing inactive accounts “for many years now” because the EU’s GDPR laws mean companies can only store individual personal information for a certain length of time.

However, it also adds that it takes a number of things into account before deleting an inactive account, and one of these is whether they’ve previously purchased any PC games.

According to Ubisoft, “accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion”.

It adds: “In practice, as of today, we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years.”