Whether The Division 2, Anno 1800 or Rainbox Six Siege – there are a few titles in the Ubisoft portfolio that can eat up a lot of playing time. But beware if you don’t look at your account for too long: Then Ubisoft will delete everything.
Ubisoft is currently receiving criticism for its common practice of completely deleting player accounts, including all purchased games. The discussions were triggered by a player’s tweet and the support response below (via twitter.com).
The Twitter account [email protected]_enjoyer posted an image with an email from Ubisoft. It says:
We noticed that you are not using your Ubisoft account […]. We have temporarily deactivated the account and we will permanently delete it in 30 days in accordance with our terms of service. If you wish to keep your account, you can prevent deletion by clicking on the “Cancel Button” below […].
Apparently, many users were not aware of this practice by Ubisoft. The tweet has been viewed over 1.6 million times. However, the support response was seen more often and quoted many times:
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…
— Ubisoft Support (@UbisoftSupport) July 20, 2023
The support simply repeats the hint. Many users do not agree at all with the account deletions and the posts look accordingly when you look at the quotes from the Ubisoft tweet:
Here’s the original thread with Ubisoft’s response. This is absolutely unacceptable & I really hope people let them hear it.
If not? Better not miss the above e-mail & 30 day warning that your account will forever be closed lmao https://t.co/VFSW5vCVXo
— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) July 22, 2023
When will the account be deleted? There is no clear guideline on this. A support employee is said to have once informed a user that Ubisoft does not delete formerly active accounts if you have been online within the last 4 years (via pcworld.com) – however, the information is almost 2 years old.
Even then there was criticism that the e-mail with the warning was not enough to indicate the deletion. Something like this tends to end up in the spam folder.
New accounts on which no activity can be seen can be deleted after 6 months. A restoration is not possible.
It’s not the first time Ubisoft has come under fire for this business practice. Other gaming launchers/publishers don’t take it as hard, letting accounts run for many years without intervening.
However, Ubisoft is no exception in the industry: beware, if you do nothing, your account in Black Desert will be deleted.