Ubisoft Reactivates 'Far Cry 4' Keys Purchased With Stolen Credit Cards

Here's some good news for all those who had bought "Far Cry 4" keys from third-party resellers such as Kinguin and G2A. Ubisoft has announced that it will restore the licences for some players.

The deactivated "Far Cry 4" licences will only be reactivated for those gamers who had already downloaded and begun playing the game before their copies were revoked. “After further investigation into the matter of keys that were fraudulently purchased on EA’s Origin store, we are reinstating keys for consumers who already had successfully activated and started playing the games,” a Ubisoft representative said speaking to GameInformer.

Last week, further information had been revealed about the scandal involving deactivation of "fraudulent" licences belonging to some Ubisoft games. The French company and other resellers involved had come forward with official statements on the matter. The publisher has now revealed that deactivated licences were essentially stolen property purchased by means of credit card fraud.

Gamers who had purchased licences to Ubisoft games such as "Far Cry 4," "Assassin’s Creed: Unity," "The Crew" and "Watch Dogs" found that the publisher had deleted the licences altogether from their Uplay accounts. The problem was restricted to keys brought from G2A and Kinguin, according to Geek.com. These are eBay-like stores reselling digital game licences through a network of licenced merchants of their own.

According to Eurogamer, Ubisoft released a statement blaming the deactivation on the licences brought through EA's Origin store using stolen credit cards. This claim was confirmed by EA after an investigation by the publishers into the fraud. The company has placed the blame squarely on third-party resellers such as Kinguin and G2A. It advised gamers to purchase downloadable games only from the Uplay store and "trusted retailers."

However, the primary reason why gamers patronise third-party retailers is down to affordability. Stores such as Kinguin and G2A sell licences for a significantly a lower mark-up as compared with the authorised digital distribution avenues. Apart from discounts that can go up to 50 percent, they even offer region-unlocked keys of uncensored games. This is attractive for gamers from Australia and Germany, where games are heavily censored and are usually bereft of significant amount of content compared with the international versions.

G2A and Kinguin – the two main suppliers of the deactivated licences – have assured refunds to those affected. Kinguin's investigation into its own network of merchants has revealed that the licence fraud could be traced to "an unidentified individual from Russia." Both online stores have assured to refund the full cost to affected gamers, according to a Game Informer report. Kinguin has already cleared 4600 customer service tickets on the matter, totalling to a refund of whopping $165,312.

While Ubisoft is justified in taking measures to recover stolen property, Kinguin has raised questions in how neither EA nor Ubisoft took any initiative to nip the game licence fraud in the bud. The online reseller argued that a single individual purchasing such a large number of licences should've raised security flags.

These recent developments could potentially put a dent in the reputation of these resellers. However, the fact that they have been offering refunds to affected customers combined with the attractive discounts offered means that there will always be a market for downloadable games purchased through third party retailers.

The onus lies on big players such as Ubisoft and EA to prevent such frauds from originating from their end. If Kinguin's concerns are to be believed, these publishers are in dire need of beefing up their security protocols.

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