Ubisoft: Please give an official confirmation or denial to your players. | Forums

[One.Enemy]

It's possible that Ubi is moving into the Chinese market. In another thread, I provided links and information about the requirements for a company to do that, which include partnering with a Chinese business partner, installing servers in China (or using the business partners), and submitting to random spot checks either from the government or by competitors who request it. Please see a comprehensive guide to the Chinese Cybersecurity Law here.. Of note is this:

Article 9 of the law states that “network operators … must obey social norms and commercial ethics, be honest and credible, perform obligations to protect network security, accept supervision from the government and public, and bear social responsibility.” The vagueness of this provision, as well as undefined concepts of national security and public interest, increase the government’s grounds to make wide assertions about the need for investigation and reduce a foreign company’s ability to contest a government demand for data access. In addition, the spot-checks can be initiated at the request of the government or a trade association, meaning domestic competitors could request spot-checks on foreign firms. From a business continuity perspective, the new powers of inspection also present a new challenge for operations.

To comply with data localization, foreign firms will have to either invest in new data servers in China which would be subject to government spot-checks, or incur new costs to hire a local server provider, such as Huawei, Tencent, or Alibaba, which have spent billions in recent years establishing domestic data centers as part of Beijing’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). The substantial investment by these Chinese technology firms in recent years is one of the reasons critics of the new law believe it is partly designed to bolster the domestic Chinese data management and telecommunications industry against global competitors.

Some may want to point to the phrase "critical sectors". However, I counter that the Chinese government is one of the most corrupt in the world, and such a category will not slow down any breach of this aspect of the law.

Another article on how China famously steals source code and reverse engineers it for their local businesses can be found HERE


Is For Honor a part of or plans to be a part of the Chinese Market? Is Tencent your Chinese business partner to enter the Chinese market? Are you aware of the aspects of China's Cybersecurity Law and Tencent's proactive compliance with it?

Most importantly, will you guarantee the playerbase that there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that their data will be compromised and given to the Chinese government through any means whatsoever? Will you be transparent with your playerbase if their data has been "spot checked" and/or compromised in any way by the Chinese government or Tencent?

[One.Enemy]

This is too heavy for an internet forum. Maybe you should move this to some more serious channels. I am completely being honest and sincere here. What are you trying to achieve? We players do not hold any ubi stocks.

I understand what you're saying, but this is irrespective of whether you hold stocks. This is your data with Ubisoft that I'm talking about. The stocks aspect is a question as to whether Tencent, the 3rd largest stockholder in Ubisoft, is their Chinese business partner for doing business in the Chinese market.

The concern is that, as part of the deal, Ubisoft has to install servers inside of China which can and will be "spot checked". Ubisoft also has to share the source code and user data with Tencent, who shares with the Chinese government. Ergo, your data theoretically could be given to the Chinese government. Also, theoretically, Tencent could reverse engineer the code and create their own version of For Honor and kick Ubisoft out, costing the company a LOT of money. This could trickle down into some serious cutbacks in the game as you know it.

All of these things are theoretical, yes. But also possible. I'm just asking for Ubisoft to address it officially for peace of mind.

[One.Enemy]

And you think you will get an answer here? The chance that you may get ignored or banned is higher than getting an honest confirmation, which they do not owe u.
If you believe your evidence is firm enough, its better to make peace with that instead

Sometimes, it's not about getting an answer. Sometimes it's about the fact that they were asked. If they choose to ignore the question, then that's on them. They can't say this concern was never brought up. However, people could say it was brought up and they deliberately chose to ignore it.

If they ban me for asking these questions....well...that just says a whole lot of things.

Sometimes, that's all the reaction you can expect.

[MrB3NX]

I don't see a big deal

Most of the western gaming companies are cooperating with Tencent to provide their games to the Chinese platform

and that's is good for business , there are hundred of millions of video-game players in China

Those people are living very far from the west and Tencent makes it easy for both side to advantage from each other with unique politics of course

The developers that actually create the games in North America are not affected by the Chinese partner owners

so how about you calm down because i've seen the same argument in other company and nothing actually changed ,

[Goat_of_Vermund]

All of the world's governements already have all of our data if they need them (I am pretty sure they don't care about random gamers in random countries). Stealing some of the fundamental ideas of For Honor wouldn't take more than playing the game a bit, they don't need some great business manuever with reverse engineering, and making a totally new game would make far more profit. You read a bit too much conspiracy theories.

However, if the Chinese governement indeed took over Ubisoft, they still will deny it (or just ignore the topic). Therefore, this topic is quite pointless.

[One.Enemy]

I don't see a big deal

Most of the western gaming companies are cooperating with Tencent to provide their games to the Chinese platform

and that's is good for business , there are hundred of millions of video-game players in China

Those people are living very far from the west and Tencent makes it easy for both side to advantage from each other with unique politics of course

The developers that actually create the games in North America are not affected by the Chinese partner owners

so how about you calm down because i've seen the same argument in other company and nothing actually changed ,

Actually, we don't know how many Western gaming companies are cooperating with Tencent. I know DOTA, CS, Siege, and a few others are played there now. Other games are typically owned by Chinese companies themselves, primarily Tencent.

But I think you missed the part where every company that wants Chinese players has to partner with a Chinese company, install servers (or let Tencent run the servers in this case), share the source code for both the game AND the servers with Tencent, and be subject to Spot checks by both the Chinese government AND trade groups that request them.

It's fair to ask Ubisoft to put these concerns to rest officially, so I can't see why you'd be resistant to them providing a simple answer.

And please, before you ask me to calm down because one company wasn't affected, please take the time to research other companies that HAVE been affected, and lost millions in the process.

[One.Enemy]

All of the world's governements already have all of our data if they need them (I am pretty sure they don't care about random gamers in random countries). Stealing some of the fundamental ideas of For Honor wouldn't take more than playing the game a bit, they don't need some great business manuever with reverse engineering, and making a totally new game would make far more profit. You read a bit too much conspiracy theories.

However, if the Chinese governement indeed took over Ubisoft, they still will deny it (or just ignore the topic). Therefore, this topic is quite pointless.

I never did suggest that Tencent or the Chinese government would take over Ubisoft. What I suggested as a theoretical was what happened to Uber in China. They let them set up shop, took the source code and such, then gave it to a local company and kicked Uber out. Proven case.

Also, yes....it wouldn't be hard to buy a copy of the game and reverse engineer it. However, there's the server side software as well. Additionally, if those servers have to keep any user information or records, those could be subject for storage by the Chinese government. Additionally, I think perhaps you didn't follow my link that speaks about how China is deliberately oblivious to it's innovation issue, more content to steal IP and run it than actually create and innovate. Personally, I don't like a communist country that oppresses people daily to have my information and then pass it off to who knows who in China.

Asking Ubisoft to assure us that it's safe is not a big ask, I don't think.

[Vakris_One]

Sometimes, it's not about getting an answer. Sometimes it's about the fact that they were asked. If they choose to ignore the question, then that's on them. They can't say this concern was never brought up. However, people could say it was brought up and they deliberately chose to ignore it.

If they ban me for asking these questions....well...that just says a whole lot of things.

Sometimes, that's all the reaction you can expect.

If you're expecting a company to discuss how they do their business to a random nobody on their game's forum then prepare to be dissapointed. If you want to challenge Ubisoft's integrity as a company and accuse them of breaking US and EU laws over data protection then your first port of call should be to bring all of your evidence (if you have any) to the apropriate ombudsman.

I don't see what you expect to achieve here by making multiple threads on the same topic that has already received as much of an answer by an official Ubisoft representative as you're going to get. You already got your answer here:

Hey guys,

You can put the tinfoil hats away. Character balance is done solely by our team, based on the data that we gather and your feedback, no external parties. If you have specific feedback to the Wu Lin heroes, you can send them our way or post a thread about it.

No need to spread conspiracy theories though, it's simply not true.

Just because you're not happy with the answer you recieved doesn't by virtue of make belief mean you did not recieve an answer to your question. Past this point what you are doing now is trying to proselytise your own personal opinion to anyone on this forum that is unaware about your theories and arguments being solidly disproven and debunked by Tundra in your original thread on this subject, as well as receiving an answer by an Ubi rep. That's pretty underhanded if you ask me. You're pretending as if your entire discussion with Tundra didn't happen because it didn't go your way.

[Alustar.exe]

The biggest and most glaring point that's not being pointed out here (as it likely was in his other threads) is why does it matter, and who the hell REALLY cares? If you honestly do believe this, then just stop playing, because obviously internal politics of video game designers means more to you than the actual game, itself.
This isn't the first time wild conspiracies have filtered into the forums, particularly in regards to new heroes. It happens every time, and every time the game continues to thrive in the general direction it's been going since launch. And honestly, at this point of you still feel like continuing this in the manner you have been, after the responses you've received, then yeah, you are trolling.

[One.Enemy]

If you're expecting a company to discuss how they do their business to a random nobody on their game's forum then prepare to be dissapointed. If you want to challenge Ubisoft's integrity as a company and accuse them of breaking US and EU laws over data protection then your first port of call should be to bring all of your evidence (if you have any) to the apropriate ombudsman.

I don't see what you expect to achieve here by making multiple threads on the same topic that has already received as much of an answer by an official Ubisoft representative as you're going to get. You already got your answer here:

I'm not asking them to explain HOW they do their business...only that our data is safe in consideration of the facts I presented. I never even hinted that they'd be breaking any laws anywhere. The EULA does specify, though, that they can and will share data AS REQUIRED BY LAW, and it is Chinese law that they have to.

My last thread had an aspect of asking questions about Tencent's influence in the game. Ergo Ubi-Jimothy's response. It did not address this aspect at all.

Just because you're not happy with the answer you recieved doesn't by virtue of make belief mean you did not recieve an answer to your question. Past this point what you are doing now is trying to proselytise your own personal opinion to anyone on this forum that is unaware about your theories and arguments being solidly disproven and debunked by Tundra in your original thread on this subject, as well as receiving an answer by an Ubi rep. That's pretty underhanded if you ask me. You're pretending as if your entire discussion with Tundra didn't happen because it didn't go your way.
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Again, the answer I received was about influence towards the character design. It didnt' address data protection, which is all this thread is about. Also, if you bothered to look at the links I provided here AND in that other thread, you'll see that I did prove my point quite clearly. Apparently you didn't see the need to actually follow the links I provided then or now. Even Tundra admitted that my links allowed for questions to be asked in regards to data protection, and we ended on a pleasant note and closed that thread. Apparently you didn't read that part either.

What's more troubling, in my opinion, is how fiercly you want to attack someone who's just asking questions. I haven't attacked you or anyone else with this, and when I've mistepped, I've owned it. Is it your nature to be so defensive and reactive to people who ask questions you don't like? You DO realize that there are other threads you can read, right? You don't HAVE to come in here and just spill all this salt everywhere.

If you disagree with my links, then let's have that discussion. If you have information and links to counter the points I bring up, then I'd love to see them. But all this vitriol only makes you appear like an old man yelling at kids to get off your lawn. I came here for a discussion. What's your intention in this thread?