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

You have to question the leadership of the company. A company of that size and it's current reputation, they have possibly chosen the worst path possible. A complete own goal.

They should have released a statement saying they understand financially times are difficult and people want to save a little money with their entertainment purchases.

Though purchasing through 3rd part key sites seems risk free, the way in which these keys are acquired are in some cases illegal.

As gamers ourselves we do not want to see our customers suffer so as a gesture of good will we will be keeping your games in your library.

Any future purchases via 3rd party key sites could see the removal of your game.

Oh and we realise we are greedy *******s overcharging for **** games but lol.
 
What I don't get about this with illegal credit cards, is that the responsibility comes down to the end user. I know some will make the purchasing illegal goods argument, but what grounds do Ubisoft have for disabling keys that weren't purchased illegally by the end-user?

From what I can gather, they're apparently saying that stolen credit cards were used to buy keys from Origin, then they were supplied to Kinguin / G2A and resold there. So surely Origin should take the hit here and not the end-user purchasing the key in good faith from the reseller? Origin authorised the transaction on those key purchases using a stolen card, so surely they're responsible?
 
Sega Mega Dave said:
You have to question the leadership of the company. A company of that size and it's current reputation, they have possibly chosen the worst path possible. A complete own goal.

They should have released a statement saying they understand financially times are difficult and people want to save a little money with their entertainment purchases.

Though purchasing through 3rd part key sites seems risk free, the way in which these keys are acquired are in some cases illegal.

As gamers ourselves we do not want to see our customers suffer so as a gesture of good will we will be keeping your games in your library.

Any future purchases via 3rd party key sites could see the removal of your game.

Oh and we realise we are greedy *******s overcharging for **** games but lol.
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Exactly, what a PR nightmare. Why didn't they release a statement saying some fraudulent purchases have been identified, explain what happened, who they were supplied to, say that no action will be taken this time but that in future be careful where games were purchased, rather than just going "stuff the end-user, they paid out for this, most likely in all innocence but we're going to mess them up anyway" and then can all the associated keys leaving everyone totally in the dark. To fire up your game client and then discover that a game you want to play is no longer there and have no explanation is appalling to be honest.

What do they honestly think is going to happen now? That those users affected by this are going to go "Oh well, I should have bought from a different site, I'll go there now and buy another copy, take my money Ubisoft!"? Erm, no, those end users are going to say "stuff Ubi, get lost" and will most likely never purchase from them again.

What a bunch of morons!
 
mid_gen said:
Just pointing out that piracy levels are extremely high on open platforms that are relatively trivial to obtain pirated software.. .android and PC are a quite good comparison here, next to the closed ecosystems of iOS/consoles.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...y_5_percent_of_Android_installs_were_paid.php

Not really relevant to this particular discussion, I just wondered why you thought 90%+ piracy was contentious...those are the kind of numbers you expect on PC/android.
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I take it you didn't read the link I sent, it would show you why that notion on the PC is rather redundant.

I'm not sure why you keep referencing android, just because it's an open platform doesn't mean the numbers are relevant to PC game discussion.

As a baseline for this fallacy lets take the highest selling game on PC currently 'Minecraft' which has shipped 18 million units. On the basis that 90% pirated the game that would mean that 180 million people are playing minecraft...right...

Yes certain games are pirated more than others but as per the link I'd posted there doesn't appear to be any substantive proof that it approaches even close to 90%. Using android games as a basis for that argument is completely irrelevant. It was a number plucked out of thin air by a clueless CEO.
 
SS-89 said:
Yes certain games are pirated more than others but as per the link I'd posted there doesn't appear to be any substantive proof that it approaches even close to 90%. Using android games as a basis for that argument is completely irrelevant. It was a number plucked out of thin air by a clueless CEO.
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I agree,

I know a lot of people who play PC games (like most on here) and I can't think of a single person who plays pirated games, why....? because they're all on steam..
 
Sega Mega Dave said:
Piracy they're not lost sales as people who pirate wouldn't generally buy the product if it was £50 or £5.
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I disagree there dude. I think there is a definite sweet spot for pricing in games that feels right. And if it feels right people are much less inclined to pirate.

I would say the type of key sites that we're talking about here have it about right too. £15 - £25 is a very good, very reasonable price to pay for a quality new title, that will give hours of entertainment. £40-£50 isn't. But then, I am from Yorkshire ;)
 
wunkley said:
I disagree there dude. I think there is a definite sweet spot for pricing in games that feels right. And if it feels right people are much less inclined to pirate.

I would say the type of key sites that we're talking about here have it about right too. £15 - £25 is a very good, very reasonable price to pay for a quality new title, that will give hours of entertainment. £40-£50 isn't. But then, I am from Yorkshire ;)
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I sometimes think that games should have a flex price. A minimum price that, as you say, is a sweet spot which I'd probably say is £25-£30 for new AAA games, and the ability to pay slightly more *if you want to*. I think a lot of people would contribute more to the Devs if they followed a Humble route of allowing you to choose how much you pay above a certain minimum.

I honestly don't know how Ubisoft can ever be surprised that people would pirate their games when they're charging £45 for a digital copy. When you compare the content they offer in that price to what someone like CD Projekt offer in their £45 Witcher 3 pre-order it really is obvious how little they offer in comparison.

The faster Ubisoft go the way of THQ the better, imo. Let other Publishers who actually have management with a clue buy their IPs and release them in a satisfactory state please.

VincentHanna said:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ght-from-eas-origin-using-stolen-credit-cards

There was more to it than Ubisoft being *********.
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I still think Ubisoft are massively in the wrong here and the epitome of *********. There are numerous better ways of resolving the situation and if Origin really was the originator of the keys it's them that would be taking the hit when the stolen card holders charge back the money (or however that would work I'm not sure). Ubisoft shouldn't have anything to do with that process as Origin is the seller and owner of those keys. Why on earth is Ubisoft getting involved and taking the keys from the end consumer who legitimately bought the product from a well known website? It seems to me the path of sale for these keys was Ubisoft -> EA(Origin) -> Stolen card buyer -> End consumer (Through G2A). Ubisoft's contribution to this should start and end with them selling those keys to Origin. There's no other explanation I can see for Ubisoft getting involved than that they want to squeeze out these third party sellers as they offer compitiion to their ridiculous pricing model, and they can **** off with that.
 
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Basically they are crying because they want to rip off more people.

This is a bad move by them though. At least people are still paying for copies bought from 3rd party sites, now more will just pirate them instead (and not feel bad about it after being shafted).
 
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What I just don't get is that years and years ago, before digital content became the norm, the cost of a boxed PC game was £34.99 RRP and most sites like Gameplay.com would sell the game for around £26 - £30 as a pre-order. That was a physical copy of the game, along with a nice manual and maybe some other extras. Now, you get the game, only the game, and maybe a few other digital items but most of the time these are sold as pre-order bonuses and differ between retailers, and the game costs upwards of £40, and in many cases from developers like EA, Activision and Ubisoft, the games are just churned out rubbish that barely work on release, and have to be patched on day one. How is it that for less content, and more shoddyness, that we're expected to pay more?

For me, the only exception to all of this is CDProjektRed and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I'll be preordering this through GoG.com tonight at £40, but you get £7.80 credited to your GoG.com account, and you also get a discount if you add in your Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 keys into your account, along with other bonuses that you don't get elsewhere. Plus, they're not charging for the optional extras that they'll be releasing as DLC (not expansions). This, to me, is how a developer should operate and for their ideals, they're definitely getting my business direct to them rather than from another site.
 
wunkley said:
I disagree there dude. I think there is a definite sweet spot for pricing in games that feels right. And if it feels right people are much less inclined to pirate.

I would say the type of key sites that we're talking about here have it about right too. £15 - £25 is a very good, very reasonable price to pay for a quality new title, that will give hours of entertainment. £40-£50 isn't. But then, I am from Yorkshire ;)
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I wholeheartedly agree with you. I've only just posted up about the price of games having rocketed within the last 5 years or so, and I'm sure that many others agree with me that when you used to spend under £30 for a game and now they expect you to pay upwards of £40 for nothing extra, that most will shop around and buy it at a price that they're happy with. Hell, Ubisoft should be grateful that people are still buying their games after the rubbish that they've churned out recently. And I bet if you look back through years gone by, many people that pirated games will no longer pirate because Steam and other online distributors make it so easy to buy games, especially with people more than happy to wait for the price to come down in the sales. What a lot of developers need to do is start analysing the Steam sales and other sales to find out at what price point their product sales skyrocket, that way they can then see what they should be selling their games for, rather than just pricing them at £40 - £45 indiscriminately just because consoles sell for that price and it must be ok.
 
wunkley said:
I disagree there dude. I think there is a definite sweet spot for pricing in games that feels right. And if it feels right people are much less inclined to pirate.

I would say the type of key sites that we're talking about here have it about right too. £15 - £25 is a very good, very reasonable price to pay for a quality new title, that will give hours of entertainment. £40-£50 isn't. But then, I am from Yorkshire ;)
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I think where this has all changed is the fact that developers have got sloppy & are still charging £40-50 for games that are missing content which is then added later as DLC for ridiculous prices i.e. CoD, BF, AC etc.

I would be more than happy to pay full price for games from Bethesda and CDProjektRed for example as I know I'm getting a game that's going to be worth the money (Skyrim, Witcher, Dishonoured), however looking at Battlefield (Example) I know to get the true "full" game, I need to spend an extra £40 to get the extra maps & DLC which is just taking the ****.

Everything Ubisoft have produced in the last year, has been utter rubbish, unoptimised, broken and they charge £45 upwards for it and expect us to be happy. How they've dealt with this issue has been appalling also, even if the keys were not "legit" because of doings before it reached the end user, why should they have their key revoked when they've paid for it? I don't like how out of the blue they just decide that they're going to remove people's keys without warning and then spout credit card fraud all over the place with no proof.

Surely Ubisoft being the DRM for the games, they could have provided a different key for the end users that are affected and then followed through action with G2A, Kinguin and the others?
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
Surely Ubisoft being the DRM for the games, they could have provided a different key for the end users that are affected and then followed through action with G2A, Kinguin and the others?
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So let me get this straight.. I steal something from John, sell it to Alex and he sells it to you. According to your (lack of) logic, John is supposed to take back the stolen item from you, provide a free replacement (lol) and go after Alex. Brilliant!
 
CHokKA said:
What I just don't get is that years and years ago, before digital content became the norm, the cost of a boxed PC game was £34.99 RRP and most sites like Gameplay.com would sell the game for around £26 - £30 as a pre-order.
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Before the internet, PC games were even cheaper than this. Times have changed and it's not really fair to compare. I remember buying the 1st XCom for £13 on release. OTOH, even Atari 2600 games were once £40 each ;)

These days there really isn't much need to pay over £20 for any PC game. If Ubi want to price their games at £45, there is only one response:

LOL
 
Zethor said:
So let me get this straight.. I steal something from John, sell it to Alex and he sells it to you. According to your (lack of) logic, John is supposed to take back the stolen item from you, provide a free replacement (lol) and go after Alex. Brilliant!
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I buy something from John who was selling through G2A, unaware that the key was stolen or not legit. John had bought this key through a credit card that was stolen. Ubisoft track that the key was sold by John through G2A using the credit card he had stolen.

Why should I be punished for buying the key?
Why can't Ubisoft, that know's which keys have been stolen, chase this through other means instead of just removing it from me and having to just "deal with it"?

Ubisoft can produce infinite game keys if they like, the fraud took place way before I had purchased the key.
 
Still waiting for ubisoft to answer why key was banned so i screenshot it and send it to g2a for refund,been 4 days now.how long does it usually take ubi to respond?
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
Why should I be punished for buying the key?
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This is ultimately what it comes down to, of all the people to punish they chose to fob off their customers.
The transaction was done, the deed was done and whatever they thought they could get back was never going to happen anyway, it was irreversible as no sane customer will buy the same product twice and if anything damage their reputation with said customer.

Instead of opting to announce to their customer that future purchase of this nature from x/y/z and similar resellers may result in a removal of said game they decide to remove it from customers anyway.
It'd have been good to see them pro-actively change their stance instead of retroactively annoying everyone. But typical ubisoft response, it's why I didn't buy their last load of games and will continue not to.

It's also why I don't try go on the complete cheap and use VPN's/dodgy sites even if others have used them before. "it's alright m8 I used em they're cool!" How about no.
 
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