Reports that a user has lost hundreds of pounds worth of games to their account have put Ubisoft’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy under review.
According to a survey by PC World, a Norwegian gamer had their Ubisoft account and all of their games permanently deleted after less than two years of inactivity. They claim to have only received one imminent deletion warning email that was sent to their spam.
Ubisoft denies the possibility of this happening, stating that four conditions are taken into account before an account is eligible for deletion. They are:
- The gaming activity of the account since its creation.
- Ownership of PC games since account creation: accounts linked to purchased games are not eligible for deletion
- The duration of account inactivity, i.e. the last connection to our ecosystem (including from Ubisoft games on Steam and other platforms). While our terms of service are meant to reflect all possibilities, in practice we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years.
- The existence of an active Ubisoft + subscription linked to the account.
As this user had purchased games on his account, was very active two years ago, and took a break of less than two years, he should not have been eligible for deletion. However, the evidence provided to PC World appears to support the user’s claim. According to Ubisoft’s GDPR policy:
“We may suspend or close your account and your ability to use one or more of the Services or any part of the Services, at any time, automatically and at our sole discretion… upon notification, when your account has been inactive for more than six months. “
Checking the GDPR statements of other large companies, it appears that most claim to never delete accounts with purchases attached. Blizzard, Steam, and GOG do not delete any accounts for any reason. Epic Games can rename inactive accounts, but won’t delete them either.
Microsoft says it reserves the right to remove Minecraft Kingdoms accounts after 18 months of inactivity and failure to pay the subscription service. Riot Games can also remove valiant accounts after an “extended period” of inactivity on the free game. No specific time period is given for this.
In other news, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot held an impromptu meeting with Ubisoft Paris where he explained that the company will not back down on its decision to integrate NFT and that this is just the beginning. .
