The results are that if you bought a game and thought it was legitimate, you could find yourself locked out, because someone else diddled Ubisoft.

Over the weekend a number of Uplay users took to the Ubisoft forum to complain about the unexpected removal of games such as Far Cry 4 from their libraries.

Games are cheaper on third-party websites than officially supported online shops such as Steam and Origin. But normally they are still legit although the companies behind them source cheap, region-unlocked keys to sell on to their customers.

In this case affected customers used third-party website G2A to buy Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed: Unity.  G2A is selling Assassin's Creed: Unity Uplay keys for $27.87 while in the UK, Unity costs £44.99.

G2A has been in trouble before.  Last year Devolver Digital cancelled keys for its games bought through the site.

Ubisoft said that it regularly deactivate keys that were fraudulently obtained and resold. In this case, we are currently investigating the origin of the fraud, and will update customers as soon as we have more information to share. In the meantime, customers should contact the vendor from whom they purchased the key.

Ubisoft appears to be  targeting keys bought with fraudulent credit cards.  However it does seem that this is really Ubisoft’s problem and not the gamers, who in this case would be victims, having bought what they thought was legit, if just cheap, software.