unlinking rockstar account that i no longer have access to?

[Nick Edit]

is it possible to unlink a rockstar account from steam without access to the rockstar account, i did a full pc reset not realising my rockstar account was to an old email i cant access

[Aluvard]

No. All of that is done on Rockstar side.

https://support.rockstargames.com/categories/200013106

[Nx Machina]

All linking and unlinking is done on Rockstars end.

https://support.rockstargames.com/articles/22802944709395/Unlinking-an-account-from-your-Rockstar-Games-account

Alternatively you could try to recover your Rockstar account by contacting Rockstar Support and explaining the issue regarding your old email account.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I will say this because it is the only way out of this, with any linked account make sure to turn on 2FA and NEVER change your phone number - pay your bill and do not use burner phones either.

This is the ONLY way to 100% safeguard if the email you use gets hacked/phished.

I lost my R* account but not Epic Games because on Epic I had used 2FA but not with R*.

Also make sure when you contact R* you remember the day/month/year of account creation - this is VERY IMPORTANT because they will ask for the emailed receipt and if you do not have it (the original email receipt) they will want this information instead plus the receipt of purchase on Steam with your account name included is NOT ENOUGH for them even if the Steam account name is the same as the R* account name or if you show them the CD KEY on your Steam Account - nope still not enough proof - R* wants that original email receipt from Steam, if not, they want the specific date you created that R* account.

Anyways, OP, when R* removes online access, we will then be able to play our R* games.

The security measures they have in place for account linking is to protect their stupid online versions so my theory suggests when those are finally put down for GTA VI (hopefully) then GTA V will be unlocked again (same for RDR2) - I despise R* online and cheaters.

I have been battling R* for 6 months now, so do not take my word on it, lol. 🙃

[Yujah]

WARNING: if you unlink as per #2 advise you will not be able to again play any on said Steam account bought Rockstar game; both the Rockstar and Steam accounts need to remain unchanged for a Steam-bought Rockstar game's license to remain valid. I do not know for certain whether or not they'd work again after relinking the same Steam acount, but believe not even that, so danger-danger.

You can't moreover simply rebuy on the same Steam account, probably due to Rockstar but certainly (also) due to Steam. I.e., recovery is the by far best advise.

1. Note that you do not in fact need access to the old email address to login at

https://signin.rockstargames.com/signin/user-form?cid=socialclub

The email address serves only as an account id in that sense. As long as you know the password you can login there with the old email address and said password and then change the email address once logged in.

2. If you did forget the password: if you once linked anXbox Live / PlayStation account for which you do still have the credentials to that same Rockstar account (supposedly simply by playing a Rockstar game on console) you can use that. "Sign in using" at the above link, and then update email first, password second.

3. Going through Rockstar suppport is next but tends to be least effective. If you need to and (note; edited) if this is about GTA4 and you bought it back when it was still a GFWL game (before 2020) they are going to ask for a "CD key" as proof of purchase. This used to be visible from the game's rightclick menu but no longer is; Steam support should however be able to provide you with it.

If all else fails, rebuying either on a different Steam account (but note that you can not family-share Rockstar games back to a main account) or directly on the Rockstar launcher are what remains.

Or not at all, of course...

[C-14|M.Smith]

Yeah good luck provided EVERYTHING they asked for ( didnt remember the exact date it was created) and they told me to kick rocks. I am thinking about getting people together for a class action

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Originally posted by C-14|M.Smith:

Yeah good luck provided EVERYTHING they asked for ( didnt remember the exact date it was created) and they told me to kick rocks. I am thinking about getting people together for a class action

I eventually got my R* account back but I also had that email also as my Steam email at one point in time so Valve helped me out a bit with verification of ownership.

[nullable]

Originally posted by C-14|M.Smith:

Yeah good luck provided EVERYTHING they asked for ( didnt remember the exact date it was created) and they told me to kick rocks. I am thinking about getting people together for a class action

I'd like to see someone sue for not managing the credentials properly...

[Lastpick72]

An absolutely tone deaf company. I’m open to considering a class action lawsuit just on principle alone, however the Eula would most likely require a mass arbitration instead. It’s unreasonable of them to ask for receipts going back over a decade to prove account ownership. In my case I recently picked up RDR2 on Steam. When I tried to play I was met with a 2FA challenge that relied on an email account I haven’t used in years. I fought with their support system just to get a ticket submitted because the link was dead on their support site. Note, I’d already updated my profile, setup 2FA, all pre-reqs to even being able to submit a ticket. After a couple of heated exchanges where they asked for receipts, they replied and closed the ticket saying I couldn’t prove I owned the account. I then refunded the game on Steam (say what you will about Steam, but they haven’t completely gone to the dark side) easy. I then opened another ticket with Rockstar requesting my account be unlinked from my Steam account. I provided them the information as requested with screenshots of my Steam profile. Again they then asked for receipts that are unreasonable to obtain given the many platforms and over a decade of membership that I have. I won’t be purchasing any more games from them but even I did I wouldn’t be able to access them because of the link with Steam. Had the same issue Ubisoft, completely tone deaf to its customers and an arrogance that seems to scream to big to fail.

A little update here. I’m not an attorney, however I can read fairly well. I just read through their EULA, what’s seems unclear to me is whether their EULA is applicable to identity issues related to your rockstar account. Nowhere does it talk about requirements for proving ownership of the account and little is mentioned regarding our rights regarding linking of accounts.

What is clear is EULA’s have become so lopsided as to cause serious pause to anyone that cares to read them. Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky but simply reading these EULA’s is enough to make angry enough to not want play any games requiring them. Perhaps I should just take up checkers as a hobby.

[nullable]

Well blustering lawsuits might make you feel better. But you're not going to get anywhere the crux of the issue is you didn't manage your account very well. And good luck with the argument "they wouldn't give me an account I couldn't prove ownership of".

After all, you wouldn't be thrilled if I could convince Rockstar to give me your account because I could be loud and angry.

Ultimately the problem is with easy to create free accounts that people are prone to neglect. How much hard identifying info does Rockstar really have in your account? Back when you made it how eager would you been to provide it?

Valve requires the same sort of stuff if you lose access to your Steam account. Same problem.

The easier an account is to create and the lower the requirements for creation the more you have to be very careful in managing it long term.

One of the reasons a proper password manager is worth its weight in gold. Helps a lot for long lived free accounts.

[Lastpick72]

You want to play that card. Fine, let’s play. If a person changes their email provider then how are they responsible for receiving that communication? I updated my information on Rockstar and that didn’t get pushed to my linked account, is that my responsibility as well? Is it reasonable to ask a user that has managed to login to their account to also provide all receipts that are most likely digital, from multiple storefronts, and span across more than a decade of purchases? A reasonable mechanism should exist in order for that company to maintain good relations with customers. Have you visited their support site? You can’t even submit a ticket without signing in, once signed in the FAQ for this issue has a dead link.

While I agree with you on maintaining passwords, the reality is that we as individuals have no control over what technologies a company will choose to implement nor when. In this instance the issue was caused when they decided to require 2FA. I never received notification because that email account was dead years ago, over 5 according to my last logon to Rockstar. Nowhere does it say in the EULA that I as a licensed user needed to keep all digital receipts in order to access my account. So what’s reasonable to prove ownership. Was me logging in using my old credentials and then updating all profile information not sufficient?

[nullable]

Originally posted by Lastpick72:

You want to play that card. Fine, let’s play. If a person changes their email provider then how are they responsible for receiving that communication? I updated my information on Rockstar and that didn’t get pushed to my linked account, is that my responsibility as well?

What linked account? It sounds like you're talking about two rockstar accounts. You might want to clarify it.

At any rate, pretending like this was something that was done to you is quaint. How does everyone else maintain access to their accounts. No one ever changes emails? I mean c'mon.

Ultimately it sounds like your argument is "I changed something, but didn't check to make sure everything I expected to be updated was. And that's Rockstars fault."

I think also you're misremembering some details, or making some assumptions. And your email account problems aren't Rockstars problem to solve for you no matter how you slice it.

Your accounts, you didn't manage them, that has consequences. It's a tough lesson to learn. I learned it over twenty years ago, apparently you're learning it today.

[Lastpick72]

You buy a game from Rockstar on Steam the publisher. Upon launching the game your greeted with a launcher that requires you to additionally register an account with Rockstar. Unbeknownst to you the Rockstar account is linked back to your Steam account. You do not control that linking, it is all managed by Rockstar and Steam.

I don't know how to make it any clearer, I didn't lose my credentials to my account, Rockstar changed their process to require two-factor authentication, then provided a broken process for people that couldn't validate that two-factor authentication. I updated all my Rockstar account information but they never updated the information synchronized to my Steam account. Furthermore, refusing to do so despite the fact I had already validated my identity multiple time across both Steam and Rockstar by virture of having logged into the system and posting a screenshot and URL to my profile as requested. Any further requests for account validation like asking for a digital receipt is overreach with no appreciable benefit other than to deny a customer access to use their license.

[McJeston]

I just ran into this issue trying to play RDR2 after about a year of not booting it up. Apparently my R* games account login is a yahoo email address that I haven’t used in probably 10 years at least. I had no idea this was still the email on the R* account as I have not needed to actually sign in to the R* launcher probably since I first set it up.

Yahoo deleted the email account for inactivity and there is no possible way to recover it. I contacted R* support and they wanted me to provide them an exact date of account linking. I have no clue what date that would have been or what it was linked to first between Xbox Live and Steam. Any receipts would be in the email I no longer have access to.

I guess I just can’t play the games I purchased anymore because of this. Sometimes I hate digital media.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by McJeston:

I just ran into this issue trying to play RDR2 after about a year of not booting it up. Apparently my R* games account login is a yahoo email address that I haven’t used in probably 10 years at least. I had no idea this was still the email on the R* account as I have not needed to actually sign in to the R* launcher probably since I first set it up.

Yahoo deleted the email account for inactivity and there is no possible way to recover it. I contacted R* support and they wanted me to provide them an exact date of account linking. I have no clue what date that would have been or what it was linked to first between Xbox Live and Steam. Any receipts would be in the email I no longer have access to.

I guess I just can’t play the games I purchased anymore because of this. Sometimes I hate digital media.

All can do is keep trying with rockstar support, you would have proof of receipt when bought your game via steam if bought via as it be under your account details, and Steam account as proof.

[Yujah]

Originally posted by McJeston:

I contacted R* support and they wanted me to provide them an exact date of account linking.

Yes, same crap relatively often on the GTA4 forum, in that case sometimes with childhood accounts that haven't been accesible for a decade or so due to indeed e.g. an expired email account. And hardly anyone in that case terribly minds throwing away the game and rebuying it -- but you can't (on the same Steam account) thanks to Steam, and if Steam would allow for actual deletion, then due to Rockstar, and EA, and Ubisoft, and Activision, and...

But for what it's worth:

1. You mention Xbox Live and if the XBL-account that the Rockstar-account links to is still accesible you can log in to your Rockstar-account on the web at

https://signin.rockstargames.com/signin/user-form?cid=socialclub

using the XBL credentials ("Sign-in using"). Admittedly, someone recently said/implied that even when signed in like that, changing the email address required access to the old address for a confirmation, but not sure, so you can supposedly try.

2. Your Steam purchase history will still be available: unless you did things manually at some point Rockstar will have supposedly linked the Steam account when you first started a Steam-bought Rockstar game that in fact used the Rockstar account. Perhaps you can be sure-ish that that's going to be a date you can still look up in that Steam purchase history.

3a. For GTA4 the next point is normally advise to downgrade the current "Complete Edition" which uses the Rockstar launcher/account to the pre-2020 edition that did not -- but that's not an option for RDR2.

3b. ... so I'd have this next point be advise to just keep pestering Rockstar, supplying as much detail regarding Rockstar titles from that Steam purchase history and/or your ability to login using XBL as you have. One practical point: don't follow-up via email; Rockstar's braindead support system seems to then each time launch a new case and put you at the back of the line and in the hands of the next support drone asking all the same things again. I.e., keep it on the web.

Or, hey -- I just had the idea that you could of course also create a new Rockstar account and rebuy the game on that! I'm sure Rockstar never thought of that when they made it this hard to recover an existing account.

EDIT: Oh, wait, I thought this was a different (current) thread about an Activision instance of this same issue. See I already said at least XBL/PSN thing in this one above. FWIW then.