14 DAY TRIAL // So it looks like those who lost their games from Uplay over the weekend won’t get them back, not from Ubisoft anyway. However, there’s a high chance that they will get a refund from the third-party retailer that sold the now-deactivated keys.
Until then, though, let’s see how many uPlay users have been affected by the removal of the games. By Kinguin’s count, there are around 1,600 keys that have been revoked by Ubisoft until now.
Ubisoft deactivated 1051 Far Cry 4 keys, 450 Assassin’s Creed Unity keys, 61 Watch Dog keys and 11 The Crew keys. None of these keys has been directly sold by Kinguin.
Kinguin is a global interface for independent merchants, which are verified before being allowed to resell their products. As per Ubisoft and EA’s statements, the key that have been revoked over the weekend had been fraudulently obtained and resold.
We’ve just learned that an unidentified individual from Russia approached some of the merchants that use Kinguin to sell their products to offer them lots of keys at very low prices.
Some did not want to take the offer because the price was suspiciously low, but 35 “mostly minor” merchants agreed to pay for these keys and then resold them through Kinguin, as they were already verified merchants.
On top of that, the individual from Russia who sold them the keys has disappeared (duh!), so they are now the only ones taking responsibility for the issues.
All affected customers should be refunded soon
The good news is Kinguin confirmed that all 35 merchants who had resold the revoked keys would fully cooperate and refund all affected customers.
It’s worth mentioning that the entire lot of deactivated keys is valued at €150,000 ($170.000), which will have to be refunded by the third-party resellers.
Kinguin has received more than 4600 customer tickets in the last three days, so it will probably take some time until those sending them receive an answer.
We do not know when the affected customers will be refunded the amounts they spent on the deactivated keys, but will keep an eye out for additional details and we’ll keep updating the news.