https://www.pcworld.com/article/2007456/dont-panic-ubisoft-wont-delete-your-digital-games.html
Recent headlines declaring that Ubisoft might erase digital purchases have proven to be untrue.
Just get rid of your awful launcher, nobody wants to deal with that junk and it’s hurting your sales.
Surely, this can’t be a policy of the company can it? Unfortunately, it is. Looking through Ubisoft’s international terms of service agreement, it’s spelled out for all to see: “We may suspend or close your Account and your ability to use one or more Services or part of the Services, at any time, automatically and at our sole discretion where… upon notification, where your Account has been inactive for more than six months.”
The policy later states that in consequences of account termination or suspension, no credit will be given back. On face value, it’s an unusually harsh policy, and if you take the time to uncover and read a particular Ubisoft support page, you’ll glean it’s all tied to Ubisoft’s interpretation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): “Please be reassured that Ubisoft does not automatically close inactive accounts,” the support page says. “However, per our Terms of Use, in rare instances we can take action to comply with some local data protection legislation. This is only if we have strong reasons to believe that the account in question will remain unused. We may also close long-term inactive accounts to maintain our database. You will be notified by email if we begin the process of closing your inactive account.”
Just because ubisoft says accounts with paid content shouldn't be removed doesn't mean their policy doesn't let them do exactly that or that they have not done so already. This is a company that has no problem forcing you to use their own drm for content you purchase somewhere else and sells you broken cd keys before shutting down the activation servers that give you access to content you purchased. F*ck ubisoft. Until you get a categorical terms of service update disclaiming their right to do this you can't trust them.
I can agree that, in most cases, you don't own your digital Ubisoft games when you pay for them, because of Ubisoft's DRM. However, this is not unique to Ubisoft, it's basically the same for any game purchased digitally through Steam, Epic Games, Rockstar Games, EA, Microsoft (and Xbox), PlayStation etc.
I don't really know, but maybe some of these companies don't explicitly say they'll delete your inactive account full of paid games, but the main problem still exists. You don't actually own those digital games.
Only on the GOG store you can purchase DRM-free games, or you can look for physical copies of games, if these still exist for PC (I have no idea).