Yup, you read that title right, and its not a typo,  Ubisoft has confirmed that they can and will delete Ubisoft Connect accounts, like yours and mine, if it remains inactive for too long.

This was revealed and exposed by a piracy and anti-DRM Twiiter user, PC_enjoyer on Twitter who shared screenshots of Ubisoft Support telling a user that their Ubisoft Connect account was suspended fort “inactivity” and will permanently close it in 30 days.  Ubisoft Support replies to PC_enjoyer with instructions on how to avoid this 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 your games or account so if you have any difficulties logging in then please create a support case with us.”

UBISOFT closes your account if you haven’t logged in for some time.

You will lose all your games purchased forever. pic.twitter.com/exC78bUt93
— AntiDRM🔴 (@PC_enjoyer) July 19, 2023

How is this legal?  How? Thats the question that the majority of commenters are saying right now, including myself.  One user, DayP1856 tweets in response to this, “This bit alone seems like a phishing scam,” pointing out the embedded instructions that Ubisoft Support provides in the support email.

According to PC Gamer, they looked throught the terms of service of Ubisoft Connect but was “unable to find anything regarding account closure for inactivity in Ubisoft’s US terms of use or its end user licence agreement, but the company does reserve the right to suspend or end services at any time.”   PC gamer goes on to say that it is not clear  in the terms of service whether how long an account can remain inactive before receiving such warning.

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

However Ubisoft tries to explain this, at the end of the day, this is anti-consumer practices. Its also another reason why many gamers are still sticking with physical versions of games, to avoid something like this occuring.  With something like this coming out, it’s going to reinforce the ‘physical vs digital’ debate as to why ‘physical media is better’.  PC Gamer even explains in their article that, “it should not be a radical notion that digital videogame ownership at the very least feel like ownership,”  and backs up the study from the Video Game Foundary that 87% of older games are unplayable without resporting to piracy or searching archieves.