Fuck Rockstar. I changed my email accounts a few years ago but forgot to change Rockstar first. This wasn't a problem. Now, after buying GTA V on Xbox and Steam and sinking a lot of time into it over two accounts, they added some mandatory launcher on Steam that forces you to login to their Social Club. Mandatory launcher calls an account that I can't unlink, triggers mandatory 2FA to an email that doesn't exist. They refuse to help despite my willingly handing over a lot of private information - their support system is as good as fake. The end result is I have sank >£100 in buying their games and they ensure that not only do I not get to continue my account on GTA V, but I have been permanently locked out and actually impossible to play any Rockstar Social - walled game on Steam.
Partial 'correspondence' of my third attempt to get help from them. Twice they ignored the support subject.
Judging by other complaints online this exact issue has persisted and screwed over players since the creation of GTA V, so at least 12 years.
I have the same issue with Activision, and here's the kicker. They're exactly the same blueprint. Same support. Same result. Same fake-ass Western names on their signature.
I feel like Rockstar needs to be continuously pressured, injustices talked about, just in case they give.
Just don't give corps like Rockstar money.
Additional:
(from Schwaggaccino • 2y ago • Reddit)
I emailed Rockstar and started a request ticket and they want me to log in to get me to reset my 2FA which is preventing me from logging in.
THIS IS PEAK CLOWN WORLD I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE ACTUALLY GOT PAID TO IMPLEMENT THIS JOKE OF A SYSTEM
Edit: For the time being it seems they have disabled all support as none of my support requests are going through, even with omitting data and using VPN multiple times.. I've had seven unsuccessful tickets and was just brainstorming how to automate the requests.
Final Edit: Thanks for your responses everyone, looks like legal is the only route. After 24h my support requests are still being auto blocked (not submitting as there's no delay before response), and I am skeptical they switched off support for that long, even if it is fake, so they just blacklisted my details I think.
I used to work for a company that Epic Games outsourced their support to. We were based in Athens, Greece. There were other companies receiving the same email pool on Helpdesk Bulgaria or Romania, as well as an Indian office, all supporting US customers via email.
We were paid 3.5eu / hour and our performance was micromanaged by counting how many replies we did per hour.
Hence, we had canned responses that we'd copy/paste to save time and maybe achieve a bonus for that month.
Unfortunately we ended up being shit on on reddit on multiple occasions because some poor guy misunderstood the request and a legitimate request would be promptly denied, even though it shouldn't be. The level of English comprehension varied wildly among us.
All I'm saying is maybe Rockstar actually has a way to ID your account based on IP addresses, credit card used, date purchased if you have the receipt email, driver's license etc and you're just dealing with an underpaid dude in Eastern Europe not quite understanding you.
Usually if you threaten to sue they escalate to tier 2, so you may have more luck that way and tbh I don't know about Rockstar, that's how Epic did it back in 2018.
Maybe try explaining it a different way? I dunno but good luck.
Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.
I wouldn't have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.
They can't try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.
They're asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they'd likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.
They have to do this, or anyone's account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.
Thanks for the context, which led me to downvote this post. Come on, guys; not all complaints are valid.
It is valid to take people's money and deny them the product? Interesting opinion....
It is valid for them to make sure accounts cannot be taken over by hostile actors, and it is valid for them to assume that you are able to notify them about email address changes in time.
Tell me, how many years did you have to resolve the situation regarding your email address before it came to this?
For all we know, it's a 50/50 that the customer service guy receives back an email back from that email that supposedly is not accessible saying "WTF I have no idea what you're talking about, was my account hacked?"
But since you're that gullible - hey bro, that wallet in your back pocket is mine, I put it there when I washed my jeans. Hand it back now, I paid for it and I'm 100% entitled to it!!
No and it is shitty to implement this new authentication system after all these years, however should they just hand over any account to some rando writing an angry email? If that were the case, we'd be reading about that right now ("Rockstar gave my account away!") instead of this.
I honestly don't see how you can turn the blame on him. It's not his fault the support didn't ask for the right things. It's actually part of Rockstar support procedure to ask essentially public information like previous email addresses or previous nicknames. On my first try they asked the same things from me. On my second try they also asked for Steam purchase history and game keys. It's not his fault the support fucked up and didn't ask for the right things.
But this whole situation started with him ignoring that he didn't have access to the mail address connected to his account, and i bet that this has been this way for years, not a few days. And he couldn't even spit out one definite answer for the original nickname used when creating the account (which tells me it definitely has been years). They didn't ask for the wrong things, OP couldn't answer them.
The whole situation started because he was forced to make a separate account when he really didn't need one. He wouldn't have to remember any of those things if Rockstar simply let him play their games.
As for the rest, I guess all I can say is I hope it happens to you because you clearly lack the empathy to understand why this is a problem so they only way for you to understand is by having to go through it yourself.
The thing is, and I think you're missing this, he got those wrong. After being asked for email and Nickname he provides them and the support person says "I'm unable to verify that you own the account", that means he answered wrong, yes those might be bad questions because some random person might know them, but he didn't.
They will say "I'm unable to verify that you own the account" even if you give the correct answers to those questions. I know that because it literally happened to me.