Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. has changed its mind about blocking players who bought game codes from less than reputable sources, and today the company announced that it would be reinstating access to the owners of fraudulent game codes who had already registered and begun playing.

The codes in question were purchased from PC game reseller sites such as G2Play, G2A and Kinguin, all of whom had fallen under suspicion in the gaming community for offering AAA new release titles such as Far Cry 4 and Assassin’s Creed: Unity at outrageously low prices. Some games were selling at as low as 50 percent of market value.

This raised some red flags in the industry, and game publishers began scrutinizing these services. Ubisoft eventually determined that several of these reseller sites were selling game codes that had been bought with stolen credit card information, and they promptly began deactivating the fraudulent codes, which revoked access from many gamers who had made purchases from those sites.

“We regularly deactivate keys that were fraudulently obtained and resold,” Ubisoft told Eurogamer last week.

Ubisoft’s change of heart

But many players cried foul, saying they had no knowledge that the codes were illegitimate, and now they were being punished by losing access to products they believed they had paid for.

After initial silence from Ubisoft, the company has finally relented and began reinstating some of the fraudulent codes.

“After further investigation into the matter of keys that were fraudulently purchased on EA’s Origin store, we are reinstating keys for consumers who already had successfully activated and started playing the games,” Ubisoft said in a statement. “Any remaining fraudulently obtained and resold keys have been deactivated.”

The Canadian game maker cautions players that in they future, they should only purchase Uplay and Origin games from trusted retailers.

Ubisoft has a reputation for being extremely harsh toward software pirates, and it is unusual for the company to have a change of heart when it comes to illegitimate game copies. But after a year of disappointing releases, buggy games and PR flubs, Ubisoft could use some good will from gamers.

Image via Far Cry 4/Ubisoft