An open letter concerning the game removed from our libraries.
Dear Ubisoft,
Like a lot of people present on this forums,
I have been playing your games for year, enjoying the experience of most of them.
I played trough all AC franchise (which I have part on Steam, part on Uplay), I played also all Far Cry, bought in the past on physical disc and now,
for FC 3 and FC 4, I had to buy it digitally, as, being an expatriate belgian in Poland, the boxes versions in this country are exclusively in Polish, which is not possible to play correctly for me, since I don't master that language. I speak french and english, so if one of those languages are present in the game, I am very glad to play it that way.
So, because of this, and the fact that my Steam application keeps the Euro rate, even in Poland, I find myself with the obligation to buy the game from 3rd party retailers, as I cannot afford on a polish pay (Euro is 4x the polish currency, which would make me pay a game like FC4 in Poland, in english, the equivalent of 200 Eur...).
I use Kinguin as they always provided me cd keys that work and give me what I want for a price that seems fair (around 30-40 Eur/games, which fits what I would pay in Poland for the game in the polish language).
I possess both AC Unity and FC4 and let's be honest, your company ripped off players with both those games, selling products that were in no way ready for release.
I think you know as well as me that if you buy a TV that is not working correctly, you give it back to the retailer and get a refund or a new one that works.
I suppose everyone reading this post will agree
Now, FC 4 was deleted from my games, and the key banished.
If I understand correctly, you did not distribute those keys to those retailers.
Let me tell you, I am close to 30, and I have been working for a long time in a financial department of a large company that deals with vendor and customer requests.
I have never seen anywhere that the right to use a product was taken away from a customer when not sold directly by the company to an "official" retailer.
Say that I buy a Smartphone from "Samtung" (mistake intended to not cite a brand directly) here a little bit less expensive than in Belgium and I decide to sell it in Belgium for a small profit. Doesn't Samtung make money out of the phone I bought, even though I make a little in the process as well?
So should the person I sold it to in Belgium have Samtung people ringing at his door and taking away the phone?
This is an outrageous and ridiculous way of doing business.
And you know as well as I do that there is a big chance that those people who actually PAY for the game (even though Ubisoft will make a few bucks less in Poland because I bought the game from...I don't know, a...hungarian original retailer), will, in time, in frustration, after that sort of strategy and behaviour, after the way you made people buy not-finished games, stop buying the games at all?
Nobody wants to see Ubi games obtained in an illegal way.
I think, Ubi, that you seriously need to take a step back and seriously rethink your way of doing business, if you don't actually want to really loose money (because I suppose also that in America...lawsuits are coming).
For my part, Far Cry 4 was my last Ubisoft game. I had a good fun, mostly with AC,Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Splinter Cell (I bought all of them legally), Watch Dogs, Resident Evil 4, all the Tom Clancy games ( I also possess most of them), The Settlers (same), Brother in Arms (same), and so on.
Too bad you are taking your customers as what we call "vache-à-lait" in french.
I don't salute you and I hope that you will, in time, face the consequences of your actions.
An ex Ubisoft fan.