Ubisoft Removing Games and DLC Even If You Own Them
Ubisoft might have some answering to do, after it has been found out that the company is removing purchased games and DLC from players that purchased the game.
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The French video game-making giant, Ubisoft, strikes again! Following the series of controversial headlines surrounding the previously conducted investigations regarding various reports of sexual misconduct within the company (yes, we’re entirely sure that we’re not talking about Activision Blizzard), the French game maker decided to remove some of its games from Steam, even if they’re owned by gamers.
According to an initial report published by Forbes, Ubisoft started removing some of its games and their respective DLCs from Steam, making them unavailable for sales and stating that the games won’t be accessible as of September 1, 2022. This includes access to gamers that have previously bought the games through Valve’s digital storefront. For example, the entirety of Assassin’s Creed Liberation, which was on sale for 75% off, will be removed, and players were told that their purchase would effectively be deleted in less than two months.
Admittedly, Liberation is still available as part of the Assassin’s Creed III bundle pack but obtaining the said game would require gamers to purchase the bundle in order to play the game they already own but is being taken from them. The interesting thing here would be the fact that Ubisoft authorized the sale on Steam, despite knowing that the game would become inaccessible in less than two months, leaving fans and customers very disappointed and outright angry at the company for “baiting” them into purchasing the departing titles.
What’s even worse, Ubisoft hasn’t issued a single statement regarding any form of compensation for those who had recently bought their games. Steam, on the other hand, has a solid refund policy stating that refunds would be issued for all titles that were purchased less than two weeks before the refund request and have less than two hours of playtime on them. Some speedrunners have turned this into a sport — purchasing games off Steam, completing them in less than two hours, and then asking for a refund. So, it’s entirely possible for Steam to revise its refund policy.
Back to the matter at hand, the reason why Ubisoft hasn’t issued a statement regarding the refund is that it doesn’t have to issue any. Following Forbes’ initial report and the fandom’s outcry, the company made a clarifying statement regarding the removal of several gaming titles from Steam. Apparently, a purchase is a purchase, as it should be, and while Ubisoft is removing said games from sale on Steam, those games would remain accessible to gamers who have previously purchased them.
This would render Forbes’ initial report untrue, but that’s not the case — it only renders it half-true. While the games would remain accessible to those who had previously bought them, Ubisoft is shutting down all DLCs for their delisting titles, along with multiplayer support for said games. So, it appears that DLCs and online features would be the only thing affected by the upcoming decommissioning, and the current owner of said titles will still be able to access, play, or redownload those games at their convenience.
This may pose certain issues since Ubisoft’s games require an online connection even when accessing multiplayer. Will this leave gamers with titles that are accessible but unplayable? Or will Ubisoft just shut down the multiplayer components of certain games? We’ll keep the readership updated as the situation unfolds.
