I did not get a response, but there was a new sale.
Gamescom.
The game pack I wanted went from $119.00 to $39.60.
I figure that's close enough to $20 to get the job done.
I installed Far Cry 3 to try and give uPlay a fair shake. I've honestly never used it. I avoided Origin for EA games as long as possible, kept the EA download manager alive!
but EA eventually made Origin mandatory.
Same thing with uPlay. I had prior Ubisoft titles on Steam, but I don't want to use two launchers at the same time.
So I purchased the Far Cry Gold Pack for $39.60.
Far Cry 3 downloaded at around 7Mbps. 9.6 gigs downloaded in about 20 minutes. There are people complaining about poor download speeds on the official forums, but I was impressed. Over on steam, they're doing this "pre-allocation" poo that doubles or triples the wait for a game to install. Not a fan of that at all.
Far Cry 3 took it's sweet time to launch, to the point I loaded up the forum to try and find out why it wasn't launching, but in the middle of that, the game actually launched. There was the usual directX nonsense that most gamers are unfortunately accustomed to, but the game did eventually launch.
I was supremely impressed by the prologue, but I'm holding off on a final verdict. I've heard a lot of Ubisoft titles start off strong, and peter out to generic enemy 154 bullet sponge.
Well the prologue was EXTREMELY engaging. You're a rich as balls tourist, captured by pirates. That opening sequence is MEMORABLE. It reminds me of the HL2 opening, where you are not given a gun to begin with, and have to run to survive.
Holy crap do you have to run in FC3.
So far I am satisfied with my purchase. I knew my system couldn't run FC5, and considered the Far Cry Platinum pack to be an insulting price point, $92.00 ON SALE.
For illustration, Far Cry 3 is now hosted in the "Legacy" forum on the Ubisoft forum pages.
So yeah, it's not goodwill pricing, but that isn't an option at hand.