Spend your Ubisoft Club points soon or they'll start to vanish

You probably don’t think about Ubisoft Club points (which they insist on calling ‘units’) very often. They’re earned in-game for completing challenges, but there are so many opportunities to earn them that you’ll get plenty without going out of your way. They’re an unobtrusive way for Ubisoft to reward players without putting pressure on them. Recently, I used some to fill my ship in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with an army of female assassins, so I’m generally pro Ubisoft Club points. Unfortunately, Ubisoft has now decided to give the points a two-year shelf life that kicks in next year. Your points are going to start vanishing.

Ubisoft hasn’t given a clear reason for the change, though it’s framed as a positive one in line with other changes in the loyalty scheme’s scope, like weekly challenges, new rewards and Sam, the personal gaming assistant that I never even knew existed. The major difference, of course, is that all of these things were additions; this is a subtraction with no benefits to players.

“Beginning April 1, 2019, you have 24 months to redeem the Club Units you acquired through your gaming experience or by making eligible purchases on the Ubisoft Store,” Ubisoft warns in its FAQ. “After 24 months, these Club Units will expire and will automatically disappear from your Ubisoft Account. Each time you redeem Club Units, the oldest Club Units will be redeemed first.”

Ubisoft will compare everyone’s point balance on March 31, 2017 with the number of points redeemed between that date and March 31, 2019. If you’ve redeemed fewer points than you owned 24 months ago, the difference will vanish. So now everyone needs to do some bookkeeping. At least Ubisoft doesn’t expect us to keep track of our points and the dates we earned them manually. You can check the site to see how many points will expire.

I’m not seeing any benefits here unless you’re only able to buy things when you’re pressured into it. At least there’s no dearth of stuff to spend your fleeting points on. Maybe it’s time to buy all those desktop backgrounds that you’ll almost certainly never use.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.