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[Rumor] Ubisoft is removing games from UPlay bought from unauthorized retailers

And once again, people come out of the woodwork and bend over backwards to blame this on consumers. I can't say it surprises me anymore. Where is the proof that these banned keys were stolen?
Opposite question also applies:where is the proof that they weren't? It's part of the reason i've held off from getting codes from sites like GDD despite their prices.
 
We are dangerously close to piracy excuses here.

Really dude, not paying the full $60 is now considered to be borderline piracy? Please tell me you are joking?

Opposite question also applies:where is the proof that they weren't?

That doesn't make any sense. You don't ban games from people's accounts and then say "prove to me they weren't stolen". You first check IF they were stolen and THEN you ban those games.
 
This is a messy situation...

On the one hand if these keys are stolen then Ubisoft has every right to ban them, although they could find a much better way of informing that customer of that and why its happening rather then just removing the game and then having them without it without any notice or anything. Better yet it would be much better if they reached out to that customer, provided information on what is wrong with that key and offer to give them a legitament key at a discounted price because of the trouble they've had and give general advice not to buy from other sellers.

If in fact the keys are from a different territory and were bought by G2A or whomever legally and can be used outside of that region then I really don't think Ubisoft has any right to block these keys just because this site has the games for much cheaper then Ubisoft would like. If they don't set up that these keys can only be used in certain regions (where they are sold) then that's not the fault of the site who buys them or the customer who purchases it from said site. Again if Ubisoft allows keys from other territories to work in different languages and regions and doesn't have the infrastructure to block such a thing from happening do they have a legal right to take away these consumers games?

I'm not trying to defend G2A mind you, if they are doing something illegal then people need to be informed and anyone who promotes this site should be informed of the practices it does and avoided at all costs (and avoid anyone who associates with them as well), however we don't know enough about where/how they acquire these keys in order to resell them so cheaply. Obviously its sketchy as all hell and logically you'd think that something very shady is going on but without proof of some kind its very hard to tell people who support this site that they are actually doing something clearly wrong, you have to be able to prove it words alone mean nothing.

And IF G2A and other sites like them are doing something shady then it is also the responsibility of Ubisoft and any other company who is going to take away these games from customers that these sites are NOT legit and to avoid them. Staying silent about it and then just removing someones games without any kind of warning is all kinds of shitty if not just as shady as g2A might be.
 
Since when do sellers of keys need authorisation by Valve?
They do if they're selling Steam keys. It's against the terms of service.

I'd imagine the same for Ubisoft and Uplay, EA and Origin, and so on. I just said Valve, because the question mostly comes up about Steam, with it being the biggest digital game service provider.

It's the unfortunate issue with licenses and digital content.
 
I bought my GRID Autosport key from a seller on Kinguin and the season pass from Steam.

Seems like a net win for Codemasters in that case. Not to mention giving a glowing review of it on Steam and leaving multiple positive impression on Neogaf and other forums of the game.

Seems to be a 'far cry' from Piracy.


EDIT: I want no part of stolen merchandise, but I think we all buy from ebay and Amazon marketplace sellers. I am however all about exploiting regional pricing whenever I can. So I shop at kinguin with the same 'buyer beware' mentality I use on ebay and amazon marketplace.
 
ummm.... that is not how any modern legal system works.
True, but neither does asking about where the proof is that they're not stolen, it would be strange imo if they don't have a way to actually track the keys. What I don't understand is the implication that the consumers shouldn't be going after their resellers and that only Ubisoft is at fault here.
 
None at all. And when the games turns out to be stolen, you may very well lose possession of the item you bought. You might even be charged with possession of stolen merchandise.

Except that some magical hand isn't going to appear from the sky and take your game away. They would first have to prove that it was in fact stolen and for you to be charged they'd have to prove you KNEW they were stolen.
 
None at all. And when the games turns out to be stolen, you may very well lose possession of the item you bought. You might even be charged with possession of stolen merchandise.

Yet the moral pitchforks don't come out when a guy scores a copy of Radiant Saga for cheap on ebay.
 
Except that some magical hand isn't going to appear from the sky and take your game away. They would first have to prove that it was in fact stolen and for you to be charged they'd have to prove you KNEW they were stolen.
Welcome to the digital future. You don't own anything in your Steam, Origin, UPlay, PSN, XBL, eShop, GPlay & iTunes library.
 
True, what I don't understand is the implication that the consumers shouldn't be going after their resellers and that only Ubisoft is at fault here.

Ubisoft needs to protect their business, but they could've done that in a more consumer friendly manner, like provide excellent customer service to preserve the relationship with people that like playing their games.

It blows my mind how some people are ready to give up their consumer rights to big business.

Terms of Service mean NOTHING until they have been legally tested. Assuming that reselling is immoral/illegal/wrong based on the ToS is ridiculous. A company can put whatever they want in the ToS. Clicking on "agree" does not make it a legal contract. There are many factors that come into play, and some terms of the agreement could hold no force simply because they do not fulfill the requirements of a legal contract.
 
Really dude, not paying the full $60 is now considered to be borderline piracy? Please tell me you are joking?

You misunderstood my comment. I'm all in favor of waiting for GotY editions and price drops. I do it all the time.

I don't like it when people use "games are too expensive anyways" "DLC prices are out of hand" as an excuse to pirate the entire thing and to "punish" the publisher.

The person I quoted used similar excuses why he doesn't wait for pricedrops .
 
Are consumers expected to know this? I had no idea you had to be an authorized reseller to sell keys. Plenty of forums have BST type threads and key selling is very common.

Yes and unfortunately every forum I have been a part of that has a BST thread ends up with people getting banned for selling fraudulent goods.

Ubisoft needs to protect their business, but they could've done that in a more consumer friendly manner, like provide excellent customer service to preserve the relationship with people that like playing their games.

It blows my mind how some people are ready to give up their consumer rights to big business.

Terms of Service mean NOTHING until they have been legally tested. Assuming that reselling is immoral/illegal/wrong based on the ToS is ridiculous. A company can put whatever they want in the ToS. Clicking on "agree" does not make it a legal contract. There are many factors that come into play, and some terms of the agreement could hold no force simply because they do not fulfill the requirements of a legal contract.

Then these people getting their keys cancelled can take Ubisoft to court and answer the questions of whether or not this is legal. The problem is most of the people getting their keys cancelled knew they were subverting the normal key purchasing services and really have no clue if they bought a stolen key or not. Also sorry I have seen so many people swearing they would never buy another Ubisoft/EA game again that just end up buying them later on. This will not hurt Ubisoft at all and most people who get cancelled will just go out and buy another key.
 
I don't buy new games from them because I never pay more than 20 euro for a pc game, but those places are usually great for when you miss a random steam sale on a old game.

I stopped buying from kinguin though, they added taxes.

1.We should wait for official confirmation about whether or not they're looking into the site itself and also consmers should also look into the site and take it up with the reseller they got their now banned key from.

2.What usually happens to users

1. These sites are really old and have built a reputation already, people seem to be happy about them as they score good on resellerratings, have 100,000s of fans on facebook, twitter and they're advertised by streamers. Ubisoft could have gone after them years ago.

2. That's not the point at all.
 
Wow.

This isn't Ubisoft's fault, if people researched these companies they would know the risks. You're paying half the price of what it costs for a legal key, does that not suggest something is a little dodgy about it to start with?

If you were a musician and people were finding ways to buy stolen MP3 codes and you had a way to stop them from being played would you do it?
It is also not the consumer's fault that Ubisoft had to gall to release broken as hell games with outrageous price tag of $60. It's not like these people are pirating the games, they're clearly willing to pay for the right to access them, they just don't agree that the cost of entry for an alpha build should be $60. Of course this only applies for the people who bought codes obtained from the grey market.

Like I also said, if those codes were stolen then fuck the resellers who sold stolen codes. They're the ones at fault, not the consumers.

Most people pirate MP3's anyways so that comparison doesn't really hold much weight. :P
 
How can you 'steal' a CD key from 'them' tho? Is that just a PR bullshit saying for 'they bought them in a cheap currency land (like Russia)'?
 
Someone must be in charge of the Auction site then go after them, they are facilitating the distribution of stolen goods. But like I said it is much easier for Ubisoft and Co to go after the consumer and what's more there will be plenty of people cheer leading and whooping whilst they do it.

I dont think anyone is whooping or cheerleading. All people are saying is that you have to accept the risk that comes with buying merchandise from the grey market... That is the reality of the situation. If you didnt know that before dealing with those sites, thats unfortunate but that still doesnt absolve you of being the one that made the mistake.
 
First of all, fuck ubisoft, you disgusting piece of ebola infested rat shit company, if someone wants to buy those keys from the grey markets then let them. Your games are not worth more than $1.50 anyways.

Second of all, if those keys were stolen then fuck the resellers.

That's a new one. 0_0
 
Yes and unfortunately every forum I have been a part of that has a BST thread ends up with people getting banned for selling fraudulent goods.



Then these people getting their keys cancelled can take Ubisoft to court and answer the questions of whether or not this is legal. The problem is most of the people getting their keys cancelled knew they were subverting the normal key purchasing services and really have no clue if they bought a stolen key or not. Also sorry I have seen so many people swearing they would never buy another Ubisoft/EA game again that just end up buying them later on. This will not hurt Ubisoft at all and most people who get cancelled will just go out and buy another key.

we're talking about two different legal issues. You're talking about people getting their keys cancelled. I am talking about how some people believe that reselling is a wrong practice based on the Terms of Service.

I don't see how your anecdotal evidence = this will not hurt Ubisoft. I'm simply stating that providing poor customer service will eventually negatively effect Ubisoft, and I can say that because it is common sense. I don't know to what degree it will.
 
Yet the moral pitchforks don't come out when a guy scores a copy of Radiant Saga for cheap on ebay.

Nobody is saying you aren't allowed to buy keys from G2A. Or that you are horrible person for doing so. Just know that there is a very real chance of those keys getting revoked. Nothing more, nothing less

I'm simply stating that providing poor customer service will eventually negatively effect Ubisoft, and I can say that because it is common sense. I don't know to what degree it will.

I don't know, Ubisoft has pretty succesfully provided extremly poor customer service for the last couple of years and their games still sell ;)
 
Ubisoft doing what is right. There is nothing wrong with striping illegally brought games.

Seriously to all those people getting made at ubisoft grow up, ubisoft is not our friend they exist to make money for shareholders, not be our best friend.

Are consumers expected to know this? I had no idea you had to be an authorized reseller to sell keys. Plenty of forums have BST type threads and key selling is very common.
Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse to break the law. Same concept here.

There is a saying if something is too good to be true, it probably is.
 
It is also not the consumer's fault that Ubisoft had to gall to release broken as hell games with outrageous price tag of $60. It's not like these people are pirating the games, they're clearly willing to pay for the right to access them, they just don't agree that the cost of entry for an alpha build should be $60. Of course this only applies for the people who bought codes obtained from the grey market.

Like I also said, if those codes were stolen then fuck the resellers who sold stolen codes.

Wouldn't consumers be better off waiting for legitimate price drops?

A) You have a better chance of getting a game that is playable after a few rounds of patching (either official or fan developed).

B) You send this message: "Your shitty broken game isn't worth my cash. I will wait until you fix it, and even then you won't get full price.", instead of this message: "I want to play your awesome game day 1, but I am too cheap to dish out $60!".

Buying from grey market sites still gets you a shitty broken game, but now you run the risk of losing said game in future key lock-downs.
 
Nobody is saying you aren't allowed to buy keys from G2A. Or that you are horrible person for doing so. Just know that there is a very real chance of those keys getting revoked. Nothing more, nothing less

Oh people are saying that. It seems like the dominant opinion. I think (hope) everyone who shops there takes the buyer beware approach just like they would from any auction site.
 
Nobody is saying you aren't allowed to buy keys from G2A. Or that you are horrible person for doing so. Just know that there is a very real chance of those keys getting revoked. Nothing more, nothing less

That's pretty much the gist of the situation. You are assuming risk when the reseller is unauthorized. However, people in this thread are definitely suggesting that buying from G2A makes you a horrible person.
 
and these sites have had every new PC release of every game for years without missing a beat through a complex chargeback scheme.

Seems much more plausible than regional pricing or stocking up during a steam sale right?
"Complex chargeback schemes"

Yeah, stolen credit card is such a fairy tale. Nobody knows anyone that ever had their credit card fraudulently used.
VISA and Mastercard trying to out-security each other as selling points is just a big sham. How we've all been so blind.
 
It's a site selling stolen keys, fucking publishers and developpers in the process. Avoid at all costs. Many intelligent people have already warned anyone and everyone about this site, it is widely known they are barely legal and use every dodgy tactics to sell keys at a price well below everyone else.

Read above. I can't feel sorry for anyone falling into such an obvious trap. Their desperate search for the lowest possible key led them to contemplate supporting fraudulent sites.
A lot of it comes down to trust. G2A has thrown out sponsorship support for all the biggest Twitch streamers. For all of last year (and maybe farther back) streamers that get 20k viewers daily (like Nightblue3, Trick2G, etc) had/have G2A among their sponsors, even talking them up sometimes. These are some of the most trusted faces on Twitch and they extended their "trust juice" if you will to G2A. As such, it becomes much less obvious to your average person. Site looks legit and they're being covered in the blanket of trust extended by their favorite streamer. Oh and the prices are more affordable!

So yea, it's not so simple in every case. I wonder if G2A will provide some sort of recourse for those who got suckered and if the streamers will remove G2A from their list of sponsors.
 
and these sites have had every new PC release of every game for years without missing a beat through a complex chargeback scheme.

Seems much more plausible than regional pricing or stocking up during a steam sale right?

I don't think so no. I think the vast majority of their keys are legit, and defend anyone right to use them without being accused of knowingly buying a stolen key. But some may very well be from chargebacks, and that is fucked up for sure, just like selling stolen shit on Ebay or anything else.

As I said above, I've used G2A for Civ DLC, and had no reason to believe it wasn't, or it still is not legit.
 
Getting a game for the cheapest price you can find isn't something wrong, we do it all the time. Getting a game from G2A, etc isn't "wrong" either, but when something like this happens you can't blame Ubi for it (and rest assured, things like this WILL happen, just look at the Sniper Elite 3 launch, a lot of illegitimate keys were revoked). You took a risk and paid for it, if the reseller covers the price for the item you lost, good for you, if they don't, well, I guess that next time you will probably skip them when looking for a cheap price.

Then there's the moral issue, sites like G2A, Kinguin and countless others deal with keys that may or may not be stolen. I personally don't buy from them because of that, buying a key that may be stolen is close to pirating a game (and the stuff about paying for items doesn't exactly apply here. In Argentina we have brick and mortar shops that sell pirated copies of games and people who pay for those are still pirates, I'm sure you will all agree to that)
If the money you paid goes to the dev then there's no problem with looking for the cheapest price you can find. If you aren't sure about that then I wouldn't bother. You know that games go on sale all the time anyway, so instead of playing it today you might end up playing in a month, not a big deal, I'd say.
Of course that's all just my opinion, not the TRUTH (tm)
 
That's pretty much the gist of the situation. You are assuming risk when the reseller is unauthorized. However, people in this thread are definitely suggesting that buying from G2A makes you a horrible person.

Well, if somebody got the impression that that's my opinion: No.
Hell, I bought cheap game keys on eBay before. But I knew that there is always a risk of those keys getting revoked (which, in fact, happened to me once. I contacted the seller and got a new key.). But don't complain that a company is revoking illegal keys. That's just dumb.
 
"Complex chargeback schemes"

Yeah, stolen credit card is such a fairy tale. Nobody knows anyone that ever had their credit card fraudulently used.
VISA and Mastercard trying to out-security each other as selling points is just a big sham. How we've all been so blind.

The criminal minds of the game stealing industry haven't missed a single release date. Visa and Mastercard should hire them if that's the case.
 
Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse to break the law. Same concept here.

There is a saying if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Well, this is far from city street vendors selling stolen items on a blue tarp. While I've never purchased anything there, I've seen g2a advertised everywhere from forums to twitch streams. It's absurd to think people are going to research whether or not the site is "authorized" to sell games.
 
g2a is ebay for cd keys.

Is ebay legit?

It depends. I went to G2A, and I've seen it flooded with Russian keys. eBay, on the other hand, has a lot of legit sellers and stores that give tons of information on location even if some of them can be scams. eBay is set up to reward seller posting information and being credible.

Some gaffers would exploit VPN into the Origin India store for a cheaper price, even though it's illegal, so I'm going to withhold judgement on G2A until we find out more.
 
1. These sites are really old and have built a reputation already, people seem to be happy about them as they score good on resellerratings, have 100,000s of fans on facebook, twitter and they're advertised by streamers. Ubisoft could have gone after them years ago.

2. That's not the point at all.
1.Which is why they only seem to be going after the illegal keys and not the ones that were purchased from a person who actually resold a legit key.

2.Then what was the point of bringing up gaf.
 
If you were a musician and people were finding ways to buy stolen MP3 codes and you had a way to stop them from being played would you do it?

No. I wouldn't.

If the money you paid goes to the dev then there's no problem with looking for the cheapest price you can find.

I know what you're meaning to say here, but I just wanted to point out that 99% of the time, the developer doesn't see a dime from sales. Their contract is fulfilled by the publisher regardless of how well it does or doesn't do on the market. The market does affect their chances of landing ANOTHER game, however (obviously).
 
It depends. I went to G2A, and I've seen it flooded with Russian keys. eBay, on the other hand, has a lot of legit sellers and stores that give tons of information on location even if some of them can be scams. eBay is set up to reward seller posting information and being credible.

Some gaffers would exploit VPN into the Origin India store for a cheaper price, even though it's illegal, so I'm going to withhold judgement on G2A until we find out more.

Is buying keys from other regions actually illegal? Same thing with the VPN exploit? I'm honestly asking because I have no idea.
 
It depends. I went to G2A, and I've seen it flooded with Russian keys. eBay, on the other hand, has a lot of legit sellers and stores that give tons of information on location even if some of them can be scams. eBay is set up to reward seller posting information and being credible.

Some gaffers would exploit VPN into the Origin India store for a cheaper price, even though it's illegal, so I'm going to withhold judgement on G2A until we find out more.

You do know that isn't true right? Or you just mean 'against TOS'?

Because there is no law that says I cannot buy something from a store in a different country, which is why these stores force you into a region in the first place.
 
Publishers have taken large steps to block abusing regional pricing.

Ubisoft and EA limits languages based on region.


.

And this harms me. I don't want to play games in bad, awful, cringe-worthy spanish dub.
This is one reason of why I buy US keys for Ubi games.
 
Buying a 60$ game for 20$ or less on launch day should surley raise some eyebrows, don't you agree? Did you never wonder how they were able to sell those games so cheap? That thought alone should be enough to at the very least check their partners and see that Ubisoft isn't one of them.

GTA V for PS4 was and still is 55pounds on PSN.
Physical GTA V was 50 to 55pounds

but it was possible to get the physical GTA V for 37pounds at launch. That was also around 1/3rd off.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/gra...6-95-with-code-delivered-rakuten-base-2054110

So are customers now supposed to think twice about deals like that, which are common? Maybe rakuten/base is selling faked copies? Who knows...

Let's just play the same through. Rockstar would just say "Oh well, those rakuten/base copies, those are faked - sure they look exactly the same and they were produced by us, but it's not an official retailer for our games, yeah" and then disable every single one of them. That would be okay?

Even if a shop like this would have stolen those copies, they should deal with that store and not disable the games of effectively their customers.
 
And this harms me. I don't want to play games in bad, awful, cringe-worthy spanish dub.
This is one reason of why I buy US keys for Ubi games.

Wait, since when is Ubisoft doing that? Most of the games I played from them were pretty fantastic about the languages. I don't know if that changed but they always let me change the language in game and even let me choose a different language for the subtitles and menu options. So I played all the games with english VO and german subtitles in case I miss something.
If they changed that, that would be a real shame.

So are customers now supposed to think twice about deals like that, which are common? Maybe rakuten/base is selling faked copies? Who knows...

Let's just play the same through. Rockstar would just say "Oh well, those rakuten/base copies, those are faked - sure they look exactly the same and they were produced by us, but it's not an official retailer for our games, yeah" and then disable every single one of them. That would be okay?

Oh no thinking twice?! We can't possibly expect people to do that! Seriously?
And yes, if those keys are illegal it would be just the same thing. I don't know why you would think changing the publisher might change that fact.
 
No. I wouldn't.



I know what you're meaning to say here, but I just wanted to point out that 99% of the time, the developer doesn't see a dime from sales. Their contract is fulfilled by the publisher regardless of how well it does or doesn't do on the market. The market does affect their chances of landing ANOTHER game, however (obviously).

True, in cases like this it's like that. I was just thinking about independant devs when I wrote that, but that wouldn't apply to a situation like the current one.
Thanks for the clarification!
 
my key seems STILL fine.

so maybe its not right to say G2A is just selling stolen keys. Maybe they are selling SOME or it hit the peeps buying russian keys over a bad reseller. dunno.

it think your still good buying keys on the grey market if u dont get too greedy.

u can get most new releases around 50$ with a legit key. maybe thats not much for the US where you get new releases for 60$. but in germany i pay upto 80$ for a new game. so it is still a very good deal for me.
 
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