Ubisoft wants the gaming world to end the use of game activation keys in pursuit of burying the ‘grey market’ where reselling of game activation keys takes place.
The grey market for game key resellers has always been a sore eye for publishers as they hurt sales directly and many of these keys are bought using stolen credit cards.
Also, as long as game keys are sold online, people are always going to find one way or another to sell and buy them for profit, taking away the publisher’s share in the process.
Ubisoft hopes to put an end to such illegal activities by getting rid of activation keys altogether. To accomplish this, it has teamed up with a company called Genba Digital.
They are working on a new intermediary process for game activation called “silent key activation.” On implementing it, whenever you buy a new Ubisoft game, you will be asked to use your uPlay account.
Upon purchasing the game, the website will automatically activate the subscription in your Uplay account. The legitimate partner sites that sell Ubisoft’s games will have to embed this technology on their website to continue selling.
Even though it’s a big initiative by Ubisoft and other companies are likely to follow suit, it is not going to be easy to put an end to game activation keys altogether. Just like any other technology, there is always a possibility of finding and exploiting a loophole in the silent key activation tech.
