The rumors were kicked off when a tweet circulated showing
an email entitled "Ubisoft Account Closure Due to Inactivity." The
email instructed that the recipient's Ubisoft account had been temporarily
suspended, and would be closed permanently in 30 days unless the closure was
canceled by the account owner.
The email was then confirmed to be legitimate by the
official Ubisoft Support Twitter account, which reiterated the given
instructions for canceling the pending account closure.
While all of this is legitimate, what caused people to panic
was the context offered by the original poster, who claimed that "You will
lose all your games purchased forever."
Ubisoft clarified its stance on account deletions. The
publisher confirmed it has "for many years now" deleted inactive
accounts in accordance with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
on how long companies are permitted to store individual personal information.
The company claims its policies are "aligned with legal requirements and
with the standards of the industry" and that they also serve as fraud
prevention.
However, Ubisoft also clarified its criteria for account
deletion, noting that it absolutely does not include accounts that have
purchased games attached to them. The publisher takes the following into
account:
- The gaming activity of the account since its creation
- The account’s libraries: accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion [emphasis Ubisoft's]
- The duration of inactivity of the account, meaning the last login to our ecosystem (including from Ubisoft games on Steam and other platforms)
- In practice, as of today, we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years
- The existence of an active subscription tied to the account.
Ubisoft added that emails such as the one circulated are
sent to users 30 days prior to account deletion, and if a user tries to log in
during that window, they will receive a notice and a link to reactivate the
account upon login. You can read more about its policy on its official website.
So no, if you haven't logged into your Ubisoft account in
years, you're not on the verge of losing your game library. Of course, there's
still plenty more to worry about regarding digital ownership of games or other
media and the risk of losing those libraries at any time, especially at a time
when digital game releases seem poised to push out physical any day now, but
you can rest assured that at least in this situation, Ubisoft isn't just
obliterating accounts willy-nilly.