Ubisoft Faces Lawsuit For Forcing Internet Connection In Single-Player Games

Non-profit organization NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights, where NOYB means None Of Your Business, has filed a legal complaint against Ubisoft because the developer asked players to connect to the internet and log in to their Ubisoft account when starting to play a game. 

The Austria-based organization has taken on a case from a Far Cry Primal player who purchased the game on Steam but only found that he was forced to be online to play it, although it can be played without interacting with other players.

As a "tech-savvy individual," the player examined what data had been sent to Ubisoft, finding that in just 10 minutes, the game established 150 external server connections, and Google, Amazon, and US software company Datadog received those data. 

Therefore, the complainant contacted the game's customer support to inquire about it and was told that those action requests were used to check ownership at a game's launch. They refer the player to the company's End User License Agreement (EULA) and privacy policy, which confirms that Ubisoft does collect personal data "in order to provide You with a better game experience", and it uses "third party analytics tools to collect information concerning your and other users' gaming habits and use of the product". Besides "game data," they also collect "login and browsing data."

NOYB concluded that, under Article 6(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Union regulation on information privacy, there seems to be "no valid legal basis to randomly collect such user data."

Lisa Steinfeld, data protection lawyer at NOYB, said: "Video games are expensive – but that doesn't stop companies like Ubisoft from forcing their customers to play offline games online unnecessarily, just so they can make more money by tracking their behaviour. Ubisoft's actions are clearly unlawful and must be stopped."

The organization suggests that the data protection authority impose an administrative fine on Ubisoft, which could be up to €92 million.