• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

So Ubisoft, why is Watch Dogs not on UK Steam ? (Ubisoft and GAME ?)

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
So, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Watch Dogs is up for preorder on Steam worldwide - everywhere except the UK basically.

This has happened many times over recent years, specific to the UK, with Bethesda, THQ and Ubisoft. They would have games coming out but you couldn't get them on UK Steam until a few weeks after the games launched. We have never had an explanation for this, but the most common theory is that they all had deals going with GAME to delay the release by a short period of time.

Now thankfully Bethesda don't seem to do this anymore and THQ is dead but Ubisoft did it a few years ago with Far Cry 3 and now it seems to be happening with Watch Dogs. At this moment in time you can't preorder Watch Dogs on UK Steam whilst you can in every other Steam region.

People have been asking for official explanations but no answer. What the fuck is going on ? It just seems really stupid to me to piss off your customers for, seemingly, no good explanation. Sure you can make arguments for not preordering, getting cheaper UPlay codes from somewhere else etc but I still think it's utter bullshit and would seriously like to know why. It just seems far too targeted to be for any other reason than a deal.

Or am I missing some other completely obvious reason ?
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Still requires Uplay so does it really matter?

Well my big problem with UPlay is that downloading/patching sucks in comparison to having it on Steam so yes it does matter, to many people.

It also matters because it hurts the customer and doesn't give them the choice, also if you have someone who for some reason loves preorder bonuses they get fucked over that way too if they want a Steam version.
 

yatesl

Member
Can you get someone to gift it to you?

Alternatively, buy a £15 Uplay code from eBay when Nvidia include it in they bundles
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Chill out.

It's annoying but I'm not furious, more curious! :p Especially as they refuse to acknowledge it and its stupid to see publishers/developers bow down to retail of all things.

Officially, Ubi is blaming Valve, but this is nothing more than the former taking advantage of the fact the latter won't hit back (see also: EA blaming Valve for Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 being pulled from Steam). It's definitely due to retailer pressure.

It just surprises me that these days retailers would have any say whatsoever in the PC market.

Can you get someone to gift it to you?

Alternatively, buy a £15 Uplay code from eBay when Nvidia include it in they bundles

That's honestly a good question, not sure about that one or what restrictions are on Watch Dogs. I've bought UPlay codes before on the cheap on ebay and they've been fine, I'm just not keen on Ubisofts patching. Was a pain having to manually download patches for Blacklist when their service was being shit.
 
Can you get someone to gift it to you?

Alternatively, buy a £15 Uplay code from eBay when Nvidia include it in they bundles

yes you can the game is not available from Ireland either but i traded an american trader for a copy

you cannot trade for a brazilian / russian copy as you would need a vpn to activate them
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
It just surprises me that these days retailers would have any say whatsoever in the PC market.

I don't know why Ubi doesn't simply call their bluff like every other publisher did. There's a reason you never heard about the proposed ban again -- it was all bark and no bite.
 
What is most strange is that GAME actually sells Steam wallet credit, and lets you trade used games towards it.. So it is mixed messaging. I went in looking for Dark Souls II PC and found nothing. Walked out. I wouldn't take an Ubisoft forum admin's post as Ubisoft's official statement though. GAME up to their usual shit.

GAME never put any effort into their PC games. Felt like they were getting better.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I really doubt GAME has anything to do with it, if you was referring to LIVE or PSN then yeah but GAME well nobody actually, hardly sells retail PC games to warrant such a deal.
 

Corpekata

Banned
It is almost certainly retailers causing the conflict. A few years ago when THQ was still around this happened in the UK to a few of their titles like Space Marine. A game that flat out required Steam to play.
 
It just surprises me that these days retailers would have any say whatsoever in the PC market.

It makes more sense when you consider the majority of AAA revenues come from the console space, where retailer bullying can stop their day-1 hype based sales dead just by not ordering enough copies.

They're not worried about Game not stocking the PC version. They're worried about Game sticking the all formats releases at the back of the shop.

I really doubt GAME has anything to do with it, if you was referring to LIVE or PSN then yeah but GAME well nobody actually, hardly sells retail PC games to warrant such a deal.

Funny how this ONLY happens in the UK, and stopped happening entirely while Game were teetering on bankrupcy though.
 
I really doubt GAME has anything to do with it, if you was referring to LIVE or PSN then yeah but GAME well nobody actually, hardly sells retail PC games to warrant such a deal.

You'd think that, but evidence points to GAME doing this a few years back when a couple of titles were mysteriously pulled from Steam, including Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, off the top of my head.
 

Zafir

Member
I really doubt GAME has anything to do with it, if you was referring to LIVE or PSN then yeah but GAME well nobody actually, hardly sells retail PC games to warrant such a deal.

They also sell Steam cards these days. Sure, there was pressure before, but why would they pressure now when they're helping steam...
 

Human_me

Member
Funny how this ONLY happens in the UK, and stopped happening entirely while Game were teetering on bankrupcy though.

Thinking about it yeah when they were on the brink on bankrupcy we never had any of this crap.

But before and after the bankrupcy there were quite a few steam games that never showed up.
 
...or uplay has had some success in the UK and they want to milk this a little?

If it gets released a month on steam after its retail release we'll know the truth.

It does look like the same shit that was pulled with Brink, Skyrim, Space Marine et al though, right down to being freely available on non-steam PC DD services like gamefly (formerly Direct2Drive) and greenman gaming though.
 
Top Bottom