Ubisoft is doubling down on efforts to prevent grey market PC code sales with a new process called silent key activation.
Rather than give a stack of keys to an online retailer, instead the new silent key activation (SKA) system – which has been developed in partnership with UK tech firm Genba Digital – acts as an intermediary between the publisher and the retailer. The latter will ask the player for their UPlay account details, and then when they next log into UPlay, the game will be there, without either the player nor the retailer ever physically seeing, or activating, a code.
By eradicating the exchange of physical codes, Genba believes this will stop stolen or misappropriated codes from appearing in the “grey market”.
“That gives the publishers control of how their products are distributed, rather than the old fashioned way: throwing a big Excel spreadsheet of keycodes to e-tailers and asking them to declare their sales,” CEO Matt Murphy told GamesIndustry.biz (via Ubi-Source).