Ubisoft deactivating keys it says were "fraudulently" obtained and resold

[Glanza]

[Update: Ubisoft revealed last week that the keys in question were purchased with a stolen credit card, but in spite of that it has decided to reactivate some of them. "After further investigation into the matter of keys that were fraudulently purchased on EA's Origin store, we are reinstating keys for consumers who already had successfully activated and started playing the games," a Ubisoft rep told GameInformer. "Any remaining fraudulently obtained and resold keys have been deactivated."
The rep said that Ubisoft will maintain its policy of deactivating fraudulent game keys in the future, however, and strongly recommended that gamers only purchase game keys "from the Uplay shop or trusted retailers."]

http://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-says-canceled-uplay-game-keys-were-fraudulent/

Seems they can't make their mind up with this.

 

[Amnesia]

Feel sorry for ubisoft every so slightly but surely when hundreds of copies of the game are purchased by a few random individuals...not retailers/etailers but joe bloggs and his friends then alarm bells should have been ringing at origin. Surely you would expect some kind of security measures against this kind of thing, it's not like people purchasing stuff on stolen credit cards is something new.

 

[Bickaxe]

Will check tomorrow if Watchdogs has reappeared. Not too fussed either way as I got a refund within 24 hours and had been playing the game for a week before it was banned.

 

[JulioH]

Wow... Ubisoft making a good gesture? What is this? Props to them, and congrats to anyone who got their games back.

 

[Steampunk]

Wow... Ubisoft making a good gesture? What is this? Props to them, and congrats to anyone who got their games back.

Customer backlash, trouble from the people selling their games, questionable legal standing, so Ubisoft fixes a problem they caused themselves. Slow hand-clap at best, I don't think they've changed their ways.

 

[n111ck]

Customer backlash, trouble from the people selling their games, questionable legal standing, so Ubisoft fixes a problem they caused themselves. Slow hand-clap at best, I don't think they've changed their ways.

 

[Sega Mega Dave]

I mean it's clear you defend Ubisoft but lets be honest he's right.

No other reason for them to hand them back is there?

 

[n111ck]

The russian with the stolen credit card caused the problem.

At least the key sellers are out of pocket - might be more careful with where they source their keys in future.

 

[hyperseven]

[conspiracy]It might of been an Ubisoft masterplan to discredit key resellers, then come all white knight by giving the games back.[/conspiracy]

 

[Squark]

All they said was that 'a number' of keys were bought with stolen credit details, that could mean anything. It certainly doesn't imply that all the banned keys were bought fraudulently.
I think that a lot of genuine, albeit grey area, resellers have been caught under Ubi's bblanket banning.

 

[DaleTheWhale]

After all, just another straw to not buy from Ubisoft for me.

 

[Defiant306]

You know with a bit of common sense they could have handled this miles better and came ahead looking a lot better.

This companies ability to consider its actions before acting is a joke. EA is looking rose-tinted these days compared to Ubisofts past 12 months.

[sigh]

 

[ChrisJSY]

You know with a bit of common sense they could have handled this miles better and came ahead looking a lot better.

This companies ability to consider its actions before acting is a joke. EA is looking rose-tinted these days compared to Ubisofts past 12 months.

[sigh]

They did exactly what I said they should have done (as did many others) and I doubt any of us are in a position with the expertise required to do anything about it or know better, but we did.

Yet they still manage to to pay someone to think this was a good idea.
FML, I bet they get paid insane amounts too.

 

[eyetrip]

I own almost all the major Ubi titles, but not sure I have paid for one in years, and certainly not full price.

All been included in graphics cards and the like.

Who buys Ubisoft games anyway?

Oh well, at least people are getting their access back. Ubi need to find a better way of dealing with this - but knowing their atitude towards PC, they won't

 

[Moothead2]

All they said was that 'a number' of keys were bought with stolen credit details, that could mean anything. It certainly doesn't imply that all the banned keys were bought fraudulently.
I think that a lot of genuine, albeit grey area, resellers have been caught under Ubi's bblanket banning.

They were bought through Origin originally, no? So it would likely be EA telling Ubisoft which keys were bought with dodgy cards so Ubisoft could ban them. I doubt there's too much room for banning legit keys if this is the case. Even if they have done it would be because of EA, not Ubisoft.

 

[Bickaxe]

Got Watchdogs back.
Now what can I buy with my £7 credit on Kinguin?

 

[spoffle]

Selling CD Keys (codes from boxed retail) is illegal, it breaks copyright laws. Ubisoft need to seek legal action against them for this.

It isn't illegal and it doesn't break copyright laws. Nothing is being copied for one. It might not be "legal" but not legal is not the same thing as illegal.

However apparently it breaks EU consumer law for Ubisoft to take it away. Its not their place to decide who has a code which is obtained through illegal measures (whether its the user who activated it or not).

Of course it does, but this is also because it's not illegal to sell games via keys of boxed retail copies anyway.

Heck, theres a lot that all of these companies are doing which doesnt conform to EU consumer law, however when it comes to 'licenses' i have absolutely no idea where things really stand. They're telling us that we dont own it. If we dont own it, im not entirely sure how consumer law applies.
You cant sell/trade licenses, EU consumer law would stomp all over that. Ford couldnt say you have to own the car for life, you cant sell/trade it etc or we'll take it away from you. But then we dont own licenses for our cars etc.

We do own the games, anything the companies say that isn't supported by law is typically BS.

EULAs don't count or even matter, as they are "contracts" you agree too post completion of the contract you made upon purchasing, which invalidates EULAs completely if they are only presented upon having already purchased the content.

The EU has already stomped all over that. I don't recall the company in question, but a software company was trying to invalidate licenses that had been sold past the first user. It was deemed by EU courts that the company has no say or control over what happens with a license after it's first sold.

The fact that we've had licenses for all digitally distributed content for as long as its been around, and the EU hasnt taken action against Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Steam etc etc says they're either not comfortable with it, or they circumvent EU consumer law, because we dont own anything other than a license to the content for as long as the content holder feels your entitled to it, based on their lengthy terms & conditions, which you agreed to, and allows them the powers stomp on us.

There's nothing wrong with licenses. Owning a license to play a game isn't saying you don't own a copy of the game. It's just the way ownership works of this sort of content. You can't "own" the entire contents of the game as it's copyrighted. But your license is the same as you owning a copy of the game as a complete entity.

Their terms and conditions don't allow them to stomp all over us at all, their terms and conditions are usually null and void because they have illegal clauses in, or they are presented AFTER you have purchased.

I fear its all very murky and Ubisoft are on legally solid ground, even if i think the way they're doing it is unacceptable and makes the gaming community hate them more than they already do.

Ubisoft aren't on legally solid ground at all.

 

[Defiant306]

They did exactly what I said they should have done (as did many others) and I doubt any of us are in a position with the expertise required to do anything about it or know better, but we did.

Yet they still manage to to pay someone to think this was a good idea.
FML, I bet they get paid insane amounts too.

Basic damage limitation strategies and good passive investigations with an application of basic communications with the people that had these keys before action would have help a lot. People can be reasonable when you present the picture as whole, you don't just delete or hide peoples games from their accounts and say nothing for days. Its basic customer good practices.

We all to an extent work to customers needs and good customer manners and proper timed interaction gives you the business the benefit and the customers trust. I think most here can say that they have expertise in this, I can say I do as I work to customers needs day in day out in the IT sector.

I'm not saying Ubisoft is wrong to delete the keys or remove them, in fact I support this were they were paid by stolen credit cards (If its still the case).

I don't agree if its purely due them taking a dim view of the gray-market sales though, there is whole other debate about that to be had and the reasons this market is strong and getting stronger.

I sometimes think ChrisJSY that we should be hired and we can do a better job for them!