News - Major new Ubisoft games will not be available in UK's Steam Store

[HEXUS]

This news affects Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed: Unity and The Crew.

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[shaithis]

Makes sense, there's been no point getting a UBI game through Steam for a while, just annoying with double DRM/launch.

[aidanjt]

Makes sense, there's been no point getting steam to pay them 70% of the sale price on game and DLC when they can have 100% all to themselves.

FTFY. Also, £50 for a game, Ubisoft? What on Earth are you smoking?

[kalniel]

FTFY. Also, £50 for a game, Ubisoft? What on Earth are you smoking?

What's wrong with that? 20 years ago games cost £45 or so. In real terms £50 is still cheaper.

[shaithis]

What's wrong with that? 20 years ago games cost £45 or so. In real terms £50 is still cheaper.

20 Years ago games weren't broken on release.
20 Years ago unit sales were much lower
20 Years ago there wasn't the tools available to create content easily
20 Years ago they weren't throwing out yearly map-packs and calling them a full product

I could go on......

[kalniel]

20 Years ago games weren't broken on release.

Some were.

20 Years ago unit sales were much lower

True. Then again, development and support costs were much lower too.

20 Years ago there wasn't the tools available to create content easily

And you didn't need them either - modern environment is far more diverse and complicated, requiring use of those tools.

20 Years ago they weren't throwing out yearly map-packs and calling them a full product

Neither are they today.

[aidanjt]

What's wrong with that? 20 years ago games cost £45 or so. In real terms £50 is still cheaper.

20 years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a new PC game that cost more than £35. And it didn't need a salvo of extra DLC.

[kalniel]

20 years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a new PC game that cost more than £35. And it didn't need a salvo of extra DLC.

I disagree - there were tons of games - look at the ones Origin output - Wing Commanders 1-5, Strike commander etc, paid 'DLC' just to add bits of speech even! Extra mission packs, all sorts.

[aidanjt]

I disagree - there were tons of games - look at the ones Origin output - Wing Commanders 1-5, Strike commander etc, paid 'DLC' just to add bits of speech even! Extra mission packs, all sorts.

Back then, expansions pack extended the game's progression, it didn't amend the original content. Sure, you might find the odd exceptions, but it wasn't the rule in any way at all.

[kalniel]

Back then, expansions pack extended the game's progression, it didn't amend the original content. Sure, you might find the odd exceptions, but it wasn't the rule in any way at all.

It's not the rule now either. Back then you could buy speech packs etc. that didn't extend progression. Now you can still buy extensions to the game's progression. Really very little has changed except our demand for more for less and sense of entitlement.

[shaithis]

It's not the rule now either. Back then you could buy speech packs etc. that didn't extend progression. Now you can still buy extensions to the game's progression. Really very little has changed except our demand for more for less and sense of entitlement.

You could say that, you could also say what was the exception then is now the norm. That alone is a big change.

[=assassin=]

I've avoided all other recent Ubisoft games on Steam anyway, since like alot of people I don't want to deal with a double-drm situation. I've had too many games, particularly Rockstar tbh, that just haven't worked, or taken alot of messing about to work, on Steam due to the insistance of these companies to use their own DRM too, instead of just having it Steam-only, which I am perfectly fine with.

[mercyground]

So is this Ubi wanting to push their own DRM store? or taking cash from Nvidia for "exclusives"?

Either way. retarded move. Just ensured i wont bother with any of it. There will be plenty of other games to choose from.

[KeyboardDemon]

I'm not sure that I see the point of comments about 20 years ago or how they are relevant now.

I could talk about how Codemaster games used to cost £1.99 just 30 years and would sell thousands of copies but now a new release costs £30 and sells hundreds of thousands of copies. If the point that's being made is that games are too expensive the solution is simple, don't buy them or look for someone that's selling them at a lower price.

If Ubisoft removes their products from the Steam store they also remove the primary route to their product for many of their customers, but not all of their customers, I can only assume that they have looked at their figures and seen they are selling enough units outside of Steam for them to justify the move. Would I buy more Ubisoft titles from the UPlay store at the current prices when it is already possible to buy titles like Assassin's Creed Unity for less than £34, The Crew for less than £30 and even Far Cry 4 for less than £32 on eBay? Of course not, but then I wouldn't buy them through Steam if I could either.

[Syphadeus]

I think it's also fair to say that when we're talking about PC games, 20 years ago they were still cheaper than console games, not at parity.

Strange that you can still purchase these Ubi titles in the UK via EA Origin.

Even having to deal with UPlay I'd still prefer Steam as the game will download via Steam, and those servers are much, MUCH better for big downloads that UPlay's. What I'll do is order the games via a CD Key website and pay £26.99 for each instead of the ridiculous prices they're charging for just the basic versions of the digital SKUs.

[kalniel]

I'm not sure that I see the point of comments about 20 years ago or how they are relevant now.

Follow the quote chain It was in response to a 'how can you charge £50 for a game?' type comment. Point was, that used to happen quite a lot. If it was 'how you can you charge £50 for a game today?' then I'd have a bit more sympathy, though I think there's still quite an argument for it. But at one point in history, and arguably, today as well, the answer is that you can quite easily charge £50 for a game and allow market forces to dictate whether that business model works or not - it worked in the past and seems to be working now. No-one is forced to play the game when it's first released after all.

Best of all today, is that we have a range of games and day one prices - even from within Ubisoft. Child of Light I keep mentioning, both as an excellent game compared to their other offerings, but also great value.