Discussion: Automatic Account Deletion

[Jirki88]

What of the terms and condition legalities in effect when the premium points were purchased?

Of course. Inno will have had a lengthy discussion about the legality of this before pushing out anything that can steal people's money.

What exactly in the terms and conditions allows this?

There's three parts of the T&C that affects this:
You are neither entitled to a Licensing Agreement nor to the use of the Services or the Premium Services. The Licensing Agreement can be terminated by us and by you at any time without giving reasons, and the Services can be discontinued at any time without giving reasons.

We are entitled to delete inactive Accounts according to the relevant game rules. In this case, the Licensing Agreement ends automatically.

The parties' right to cancel the Licensing Agreement or the Premium Licensing Agreement at any time for an important reason remains unaffected by the aforementioned regulation.
The two first should be straightforward enough. The third comes into play through GDPR being an "important reason", and the reason for deleting accounts under GDPR is that we should only store data we need, and we don't need inactive accounts - do keep in mind that GDPR is doing this to "protect your data", and not having it be stored indefinitely for no reason (though you can think whatever you want about how this law is practically implemented...).

I think the better procedure would be to put the account as disabled after the 12 month period and people should have to go through a process to essentially "unlock" their accounts. This will save space in inno servers(which is the reason for this I'm assuming) while also allowing players to take a break from the game without losing everything.

I also have a question. Do you have to log onto both the forum and the game to keep the account from being deleted or if I log onto the forum does it also protect my game account.

1) That would still require us to store the data, to sometime be able to restore the account. The entire point of this is that we can't store the data indefinitely, as per GDPR.
2) As it stands, only the in-game account logins count, so that is the one you need to keep active. In the future, in-game and forum accounts will hopefully be linked more solidly than they are today.

 

[Mintyfresh]

As someone who:

a) Is affected by this quite a lot because i have a lot of accounts and a lot of name changes
b) Has had to deal with GDPR compliance every day for the last few months

I can safely say that i sympathize a fair amount with inno because the new regulations are fairly strict (is a good thing long-term for security and privacy) so their hands are pretty tied.

Although more notice would have been appreciated. I guess even the biggest of companies decided to leave it to the last minute

 

[wolf66]

"This means that having different names on the forums and in the game will only be possible by having multiple game accounts, that need to be actively used (at least log in once every 12 months to avoid the automatic deletion)."

This has confused me. "does multiple game accounts" mean I can have more than one game account on a world from the same computer?

 

[Jirki88]

"This means that having different names on the forums and in the game will only be possible by having multiple game accounts, that need to be actively used (at least log in once every 12 months to avoid the automatic deletion)."

This has confused me. "does multiple game accounts" mean I can have more than one game account on a world from the same computer?

I already replied to your first post, but here's a repeat: No, it does not. You can have any number of game accounts you want, but they cannot play on the same world.

 

[Sinful Angel]

There's three parts of the T&C that affects this:
You are neither entitled to a Licensing Agreement nor to the use of the Services or the Premium Services. The Licensing Agreement can be terminated by us and by you at any time without giving reasons, and the Services can be discontinued at any time without giving reasons.

We are entitled to delete inactive Accounts according to the relevant game rules. In this case, the Licensing Agreement ends automatically.

The parties' right to cancel the Licensing Agreement or the Premium Licensing Agreement at any time for an important reason remains unaffected by the aforementioned regulation.
The two first should be straightforward enough. The third comes into play through GDPR being an "important reason", and the reason for deleting accounts under GDPR is that we should only store data we need, and we don't need inactive accounts - do keep in mind that GDPR is doing this to "protect your data", and not having it be stored indefinitely for no reason (though you can think whatever you want about how this law is practically implemented...).


1) That would still require us to store the data, to sometime be able to restore the account. The entire point of this is that we can't store the data indefinitely, as per GDPR.
2) As it stands, only the in-game account logins count, so that is the one you need to keep active. In the future, in-game and forum accounts will hopefully be linked more solidly than they are today.

I appreciate the response. I can see you're working hard to make this work. Probably wasn't your decision you're just stuck with calming us all down. Thanks Jirki

 

[DeletedUser118185]

As I have decided to retire from the game after the end of World 94, I will be transfering all my pp to players I reepct the most and just leave the rest unused I guess. I dont like it that way but thats still better than seeing all these pp go to waste.

 

[Deleted User - 10618707]

Rip 90% of tw accounts in a year.
Although how does it affect twstat guest access to closed worlds, would old accounts be deleted from tribe records too?

 

[DeletedUser121386]

So even if you have won a world, your account will be deleted? Let's say you won back in W20, and quit, will the achievements, history and TW stats of those players also be gone?

 

[Jirki88]

Rip 90% of tw accounts in a year.
Although how does it affect twstat guest access to closed worlds, would old accounts be deleted from tribe records too?

So even if you have won a world, your account will be deleted? Let's say you won back in W20, and quit, will the achievements, history and TW stats of those players also be gone?

Guest access on live worlds might be affected, but archived worlds should not. As it stands, TWStats will continue as before.

Achievements are tied to the account, so.

 

[THE MURPH ALL CAPS]

@Jirki88 I personally think usernames should be deleted but locked upon deletion. I highly doubt GDPR requires this radical action for an online browser game.

I further doubt Gmail and other massive companies would be implementing such a measure for email addresses etc.

Please review this. I think the achievements of players should be reserved to a degree. A lot of people's identities will be lost which is a sad prospect.

 

[DeletedUser]

 

[Jirki88]

@Jirki88 I personally think usernames should be deleted but locked upon deletion. I highly doubt GDPR requires this radical action for an online browser game.

I further doubt Gmail and other massive companies would be implementing such a measure for email addresses etc.

Please review this. I think the achievements of players should be reserved to a degree. A lot of people's identities will be lost which is a sad prospect.

I can pass on the suggestion about locking usernames after deletion, at least.

But as for what other companies do, well, GDPR isn't crystal clear on all things, so there will be different action taken by different companies. Either way, these are not decisions made on Community Manager level, but they're the kind of decisions that CEOs and Operating Officers make under advice of the legal department (it's also relevant to note that it's the German component, DSGVO, that applies), which means they're decided (at least until in so far as the legal landscape of GDPR undergo some change, for example through the establishing of praxis). For example the auto deletion of accounts is non-negotiable. It's certainly unfortunate that some people might lose their usernames, but there isn't anything we can do (well, not about the deletion, as I already said I'll pass on your suggestion about username locking).

 

[THE MURPH ALL CAPS]

I can pass on the suggestion about locking usernames after deletion, at least.

But as for what other companies do, well, GDPR isn't crystal clear on all things, so there will be different action taken by different companies. Either way, these are not decisions made on Community Manager level, but they're the kind of decisions that CEOs and Operating Officers make under advice of the legal department (it's also relevant to note that it's the German component, DSGVO, that applies), which means they're decided (at least until in so far as the legal landscape of GDPR undergo some change, for example through the establishing of praxis). For example the auto deletion of accounts is non-negotiable. It's certainly unfortunate that some people might lose their usernames, but there isn't anything we can do (well, not about the deletion, as I already said I'll pass on your suggestion about username locking).

Thank you and to make it a bit more light-hearted I think you know how passionate I am about usernames lol.

 

[THE MURPH ALL CAPS]

As someone who:

a) Is affected by this quite a lot because i have a lot of accounts and a lot of name changes
b) Has had to deal with GDPR compliance every day for the last few months

I can safely say that i sympathize a fair amount with inno because the new regulations are fairly strict (is a good thing long-term for security and privacy) so their hands are pretty tied.

Although more notice would have been appreciated. I guess even the biggest of companies decided to leave it to the last minute

Almost as bad as saying

"as a scholar"

 

[twenty-five]

You guys left this one pretty late! I've been receiving emails for months now.

 

[nad destroyer]

This update will likely reduce returning players. I would not have returned if my account had been deleted.

This is pretty much my opinion as well. I've gone years without logging into any TW account. I do get the rational about this new rule though since I'm certain there are many inactive accounts floating around where the owners have no intention of returning. I'm glad there is notifications that your account is in danger of being deleted but sometimes such notifications goes straight to my spam folder. I keep trying to fix that too.

So my suggestion if it is possible to pay premium points to keep account from getting deleted after if hits the inactivity year mark? I go months at a time without thinking about TW at all so I don't want to worry about my account getting deleted. Or perhaps a stipulation somewhere about protecting TW veterans accounts from getting deleted?

Ha I go 2 and half years without playing TW before coming back for World 100 and this notice makes me log in to my external. Was so determined to avoid the W 100 forum too lol.

 

[lionguard32]

"This means that having different names on the forums and in the game will only be possible by having multiple game accounts, that need to be actively used (at least log in once every 12 months to avoid the automatic deletion)."

This has confused me. "does multiple game accounts" mean I can have more than one game account on a world from the same computer?

It doesn't say you have to actually open a world only that the account must be logged into.

 

[DeletedUser]

Almost as bad as saying

"as a scholar"

Oi, that's one of the best troll lines I've done in the last year

 

[DeletedUser122165]

It's an interpretation I can sympathize with, but the Terms & Conditions covers it.

But the terms also state this:

1. 10.1 Provided nothing to the contrary is agreed in our actual offer, the Licensing Agreement and/or the Premium Licensing Agreement between you and us are concluded for an indefinite period of time. Different provisions may apply for the provision of Premium Services.
2. 10.3 The Premium Agreement can be cancelled by both parties (you and us) by giving three (3) months proper notice. No reasons are required for such cancellation.

So the mail that your account would be deleted was at least incomplete. It should've said that the account would be deleted three months after the mail.

 

[JawJaw]

But the terms also state this:

1. 10.1 Provided nothing to the contrary is agreed in our actual offer, the Licensing Agreement and/or the Premium Licensing Agreement between you and us are concluded for an indefinite period of time. Different provisions may apply for the provision of Premium Services.
2. 10.3 The Premium Agreement can be cancelled by both parties (you and us) by giving three (3) months proper notice. No reasons are required for such cancellation.

So the mail that your account would be deleted was at least incomplete. It should've said that the account would be deleted three months after the mail.

Hi!

Thank you for your message. The T&C are still followed in this case. After a premium purchase this warning period is in fact extended to three months in accordance to our terms and conditions (section 10, as described by you).