After watching a video on YT about the gaming industry, i am seriously considering following the author's advice and simply contacting a game publisher about a major issue that is bothering me and stopping me from buying their games(or getting bought games refunded), rather than simply silently voting with my wallet by not buying their games until they change their policy. However, i would prefer to have at least a somewhat decent chance of not getting my mail/letter end up in a bin that never gets answered or looked at, so i'd like some advice on what venue of contact i should use exactly.

The issue is UPlay. I won't go into details about my reasons to hate it. Just suffice that i refuse to install it, will never register an account on it and will not buy any games that demand it(or let the ones that i bought without realizing their requirement, before Steam's refund policy kicked in simply gather dust unplayed). And some of those games are flat out awesome games that i would buy in a heartbeat if they would just let themselves be validated through Steam alone without requiring a second, highly intrusive distribution client.

Obviously i stand the best chance of getting an answer on UBISoft's insistence on using that client for their most succesful titles(one without all the real reasons being burried under PR hot air like "we sincerely believe that this client enriches your gaming experience more than any other storefront client could do") if i ask someone who is a few levels above your typical entry level consumer relations rep. And using a publisher's forum is more likely to start a trolling war than get a decent answer (yes i know this is a forum too, but the GoG community tends to be more caring about games than the typical toxic "official" game forums for a major IP).

So who should i contact within the company, and how? Anyone have any experience with getting a major game publisher to answer a serious question about a major distribution policy, or even contribute to making them reconsider it? I really would like to play the AC series beyond the first part, or FCBD or watch dogs, but i never will unless they withdraw the "must validate through UPlay even if you bought and installed the game through Steam" requirement. If they would consider selling the titles through GoG, that would be even better!

I don't know whether to be happy or sad that I came here to make that exact joke and you've already made it :P

Despite this, I tend to make a post on their game forums and leave it at that. Sure, you'll get flamed, but don't engage in it. It likely won't make any difference to the game company, but you'll have stated your case and you may be surprised that others that agree with you will post as well. You could also try tossing an email to their Support address. Again, it will likely be ignored, but you'll have at least alerted them to the fact that they lost at least one customer.

Found this place

And it looks like you can get a reply within an hour here: facebook.com/UbisoftSupport

Aww, ninja'd.

For OP, you can write to whoever you like, isn't going make a piss in the oceans worth of difference.

Their standard answer is:. It is company policy to require Uplay for all future products.

I have had Uplay on my system. I didn't want it. And I don't have it on my system now and probably won't. It's just another annoying client. I'm not 100% against it, but it certainly is a strong disuader to Ubisoft purchases.

long ago I had an ongoing dispute with steam, i accidentally found a list of email addresses that shouldnt have been in public domain, I found the one closest to what I needed and emailed away, Long story short dispute was dealt with in about 1 day after that when it had been rolling on for months, apparently I accidentally contacted a person that used to be a training manager and was now one o the PR people who took the issue more seriously.

TL:DR Do searches in odd places with odd terms, try to find email addresses for individuals, in your case unlikely to change the outcome, but at least you know that you are sending o someone who may have some sway rather than a helpdesk advisor who as much as they may want to change things cant.

Typo's and grammar inconsistency's are free of charge, you're welcome and have a good day.

Try a Customer Service form and/or the forums on Uplay.
I did that once with Codemasters and they got back to me about a question I had.

I simply decided years ago that Ubisoft would never again see my money so long as their games contained DRM or other anti-consumer experiences that I took issue with. I didn't need Ubisoft to know this, and don't think that having a voice to an actual human being at Ubisoft would cause them to change their minds, nor even contribute in even the most miniscule way to changing their minds. Rather, I decided for myself what I was going to do for me, and their decisions for them make no difference in my life. I found that to be more empowering than trying to convince them to do anything in order to make me happy.

I do have Uplay and games that use it but I did not spend even 1 cent on any of them and I never will. If Ubisoft or someone else gives me a free game that uses Uplay, I have no problem using it for it didn't cost me any money personally to use it so I don't end up feeling ripped off by it, nor like I got taken advantage of by anti-consumerist practices since I'm technically not really a paying consumer of theirs as far as Uplay is concerned. I do own Ubisoft games here on GOG.com, but of course they are DRM free and do not require or use Uplay either so they get an exception from me with regard to that company.

Having said that, there are a great many games that Ubisoft sells exclusively through Uplay, or which require it to play. Far Cry 3 and newer titles in the franchise are a prime example. But as much as Ubi makes numerous games I'd potentially like to play some time, no games they produce give me any discomfort at all that I can't obtain them how I'd like to - on GOG.com DRM-free, or even on Steam with CEG or thereabouts. I own around 1000 games I probably will never live long enough to play as it is, with new games being added to my library all the time during various promos, giveaways, sales and other - more than enough games to make my gaming time pleasurable for what is virtual eternity for me - regardless of what Ubisoft does.

So I can say what I want to say to them right here right now - "Bring your games to GOG.com DRM-free and I may buy some more of them Ubisoft, but if not then I wont buy any of them ever - and I'm ok with whatever you decide to do in either case because I'm good either way with or without the games you make which I'd like to play." That's what it boils down to - I can sleep at night with complete lack of thought or care for what they do ultimately. I'll win Far Cry 3 in a contest in the future, or they'll have Ubi-35 promo that they give it away for free, or some other scenario - or I'll just never play the game and never care about it. :)

I can respect some other people might want to have their voices heard, and all the power to them in achieving that. I just honestly don't think all the people who want their voices to be heard on issues like this combined and amplified through a thousand Marshall stacks pointed at Ubi HQ would have any influence over their business decisions whatsoever, so I more or less choose to not spend time even trying. The video game market is highly competitive and I just spend my money where I already get what I want. If Ubisoft wants a part of my wallet, well - they know where to find me, not the other way around. :)

I refuse to even install UPlay. Was a bit tempted when some of their giveaways were nice but no, just no.

A little scripted "Thank you for your interest, but it's among our interests" kind of answer aside, you'll get the same results directly mailing into the trash.

A necro thread, whatever...

Anyway, here is what the Ubisoft representative would probably want to say to the OP, but can't:

"Dear" customer,

Look, I understand you want to have your games on one client/service only, Steam. But look at it from our perspective. Valve takes a cut from every game we sell through their service, so we'd rather have you buy the games directly from our store so we get to keep all the dineros, ok?

We were thinking earlier how to approach this dilemma. Electronic Arts used a bit different approach by not even selling their newest games through other services at all, so if you want their latest games, you actually have to buy them through their Origin store. We decided for a bit different strategy, we sell our games through Steam but you have to register them also on UPlay so that you have an account in our service and hopefully are encouraged to use it more and more over time.

If we became big enough, we even hope other publishers would feel the urge to sell their games in our store so we could get extra revenue similarly as Valve does with Steam.

We wouldn't have this problem at all if Valve agreed to sell keys on Steam to third party services like our UPlay, but they've been unwilling to do that. I can certainly understand why, they want to keep customers using their service, just like we want customers to use our service instead.

It is possible our strategy doesn't work and people will refuse to buy our games because they are not 100% Steam games, and at that point we might have to revise our strategy, maybe even close the UPlay service and start selling our games through Steam only. But the time for that is not here and now, and we certainly hope it won't go to that. We hope our own store succeeds because that means more money to us. Steam is making lots of money selling OUR games, and we feel that is wrong. After all, where is Half-life 3? In eternal limbo as Steam is a bigger money making machine than making another single-player game would be for them.

I hope this answers your questions and concerns.

Ps. Don't even mention that GOG store. From our perspective they are even worse than Steam as they refuse to sell any games which require an UPlay account to activate single-player, so at best we will just sell some older games there, hoping that GOG people get interested in acquiring newer games in the series and come to buy them from UPlay.

As sad as that sounds, it is probably not far from the truth. Ah well. I guess i have to learn to live without Assassin's creed black flag.

Although different clients are a pain, if you value gaming you should actually welcome competition.

Monopolies are never good and competition brings us better products and prices.