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The Division 2 Is Ditching Steam For The Epic Games Store On PC

Gamezone

Gold Member
Valve could easily have prevented this by lowering their cut. Epic is going at this very aggressively, and still no word from Valve. Don't forget that Bethesda and Activision also left Steam in 2018. Activision pulled their biggest titles at least.
 

The Skull

Member
It could be that more people buy the game from Uplay and Ubisoft realise that they don't need Steam.

You could be right, but it's still money left off the table. From the almost unanimous hate I see for Uplay, and the skepticism against the Epic store, I can't see them making up lost steam sales between the two stores. Will be interesting to see though.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
You could be right, but it's still money left off the table. From the almost unanimous hate I see for Uplay, and the skepticism against the Epic store, I can't see them making up lost steam sales between the two stores. Will be interesting to see though.

Some publisher will disagree, but I don't have their numbers. Bethesda even pulled crap like Rage 2 from Steam.
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
You could be right, but it's still money left off the table. From the almost unanimous hate I see for Uplay, and the skepticism against the Epic store, I can't see them making up lost steam sales between the two stores. Will be interesting to see though.

I really highly doubt this, if someone is going to spend hard earned money on any of these titles and want to play them launching from a different launcher isn't going to phase them in the slightest.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Can't wait for the eventual steam release after it flops.

The problem is though. I suspect Epic will have tied them into some timed exclusivity deal as they have with the other 3rd party titles on the platform, which means there's likely zero chance they'd be able to leverage any zeitgeist for the game if they do try and bring it to Steam afterwards.
 

The Skull

Member
The problem is though. I suspect Epic will have tied them into some timed exclusivity deal as they have with the other 3rd party titles on the platform, which means there's likely zero chance they'd be able to leverage any zeitgeist for the game if they do try and bring it to Steam afterwards.

Didn't think of that. Generally interested to see the adoption rate of the Epic store as it seems to be missing key features that Steam has in spades. Does it even have forums yet?
 

sol_bad

Member
What makes no sense is your ability to ignore the pros for Ubisoft while touting the cons for you.

Oh wait, that last one makes perfect sense for an internet forum. There always no shortage of people who have very little data willing to question the decisions of those who have all the data.

I'm not even buying the game on any platform at all, there is no pro or con for me personally.

You don't have any data yourself, but please show me as an example that Darksiders 3 has sold more copies on Epics store than on the Steam store. If the game sells 50k copies on Epic and 100k copies on Steam, they have still made more money on Steam even if the profit per unit is lower

Unless we have a time travel device we'll never know the full outcome of the various possible decisions Ubisoft could make here. The simple fact is, Steam has been around for 16 years, it has a large audience due to this. There is a percentage of that audience who will simply not purchase games from another digital store.

Now when The Division 2 launches, Ubisoft won't let the public compare sales numbers between the 1st and 2nd game. Do we even have sales numbers for The Division 1 on Steam, are they public?

At the end of the day, IF this forces consumers to the Epic store and it does sell well, we consumers lose out in the long run. We already are starting to lose due to Origin and Ubi's store, their frontends and features are pathetic in comparison to Steam. It's like if the next Xbox removed 70% of its feature set, no more achievements, no voice chat, no party chat, no digital streaming services etc. How does anyone win from that?

*EDIT*
Would any console only owners mind having 4-5 different logins and various features being either available or unavailable depending on which company you bought it from?
 
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InvictusBlurp

Neo Member
Regional Prices and refund are live in EPIC store.

The Division 2 is 43,20 in my region, i think that i will give the epic store a chance.
 

telasoman

Member
I think they should put it on both stores, make the one on Epics store cost 8 or so dollars less (whatever the cut difference is) , and see where it sells more.
 

KonradLaw

Member
Does it even matter? Even on Epic Store it will still launch uPlay anyway before you can actually play the game. I just buy all their games boxed
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Does it even matter? Even on Epic Store it will still launch uPlay anyway before you can actually play the game. I just buy all their games boxed

I won't get family sharing, Steam achivements, identical refund policies, and better controller input. Big picture mode is also a bit more pain in the ass without Steam.
 

Xiaoki

Member
It could be that more people buy the game from Uplay and Ubisoft realise that they don't need Steam.

Let's look at the The Division 1.

During its launch week The Division had a peak concurrency of 1.2 million players and 113,000 of those were playing through Steam. So, Steam represented a max of 10% of The Division's player base.

Which means that The Division 2 is just fine without Steam.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Let's look at the The Division 1.

During its launch week The Division had a peak concurrency of 1.2 million players and 113,000 of those were playing through Steam. So, Steam represented a max of 10% of The Division's player base.

Which means that The Division 2 is just fine without Steam.

Jupp, and Epic probably paid them to make up for those 10%.

Discord probably made the transition easier too.
 
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Division is definitely the kind of game that doesn't need Steam.

GMG is currently at 15% off, which is pretty good especially for those who want Gold or Ultimate.

Have to imagine Division sales on Epic are going to be dreadful.

With the "10%" or whatever is, the Steam loyalist aspect was probably a factor. I can't imagine many feel that way about Epic.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Let's look at the The Division 1.

During its launch week The Division had a peak concurrency of 1.2 million players and 113,000 of those were playing through Steam. So, Steam represented a max of 10% of The Division's player base.

Which means that The Division 2 is just fine without Steam.

Can you cite your source on these numbers because 1.2 peak concurrency is a hell of a lot. Generally, at best you're only looking at 10% of a games user base online at any one point in time globally and the Division certainly didn't ship 12 million copies in its first week let alone on PC. Where are your numbers coming from exactly?
 

Xiaoki

Member

Kadayi

Banned

Ok, but that's across all platforms, not just PC. It's pretty much a given that the bulk of sales for AAA are on consoles for the most part. I'd imagine with regard to the actual sales on PC, Steam likely represented a fair chunk of that audience versus Uplay sales only. Let's say we are being generous and the 113K players you mention as concurrent on Steam (no source given there) represents 20% of the initial sales during the first-week zeitgeist with a lot of overlap you'd still be talking around 565K users on Steam in that period. I would imagine it only got higher after that.
 
I don't know where the stats are anymore... Division Tracker is currently a mess, and I'm not sure how to access the API directly.

But fwiw, at the height of the Division, the Uplay:Steam ratio was 2:1.
 

Xiaoki

Member
Ok, but that's across all platforms, not just PC. It's pretty much a given that the bulk of sales for AAA are on consoles for the most part. I'd imagine with regard to the actual sales on PC, Steam likely represented a fair chunk of that audience versus Uplay sales only. Let's say we are being generous and the 113K players you mention as concurrent on Steam (no source given there) represents 20% of the initial sales during the first-week zeitgeist with a lot of overlap you'd still be talking around 565K users on Steam in that period. I would imagine it only got higher after that.
I dont think Ubisoft cares where the sales come from. A sales is a sale.

The 113,000 for Steam comes from SteamCharts. You can look that up yourself. SteamCharts also shows that after the first month concurrency dropped sharply on Steam and never recovered.

Also, you are likely vastly overestimating the common person's attachment to Steam. I have some friends that played The Division on PC, I think a couple played on Steam and I can tell you that none of them are of the "no steam no buy" mentality.

I could give more figures for The Division 1 like estimated first week sales, first month sales and more but at this point .....why bother. Some people will skip The Division 2 entirely just because its not on Steam but most will just get the game for some other platform.
 

Kadayi

Banned
The 113,000 for Steam comes from SteamCharts. You can look that up yourself. SteamCharts also shows that after the first month concurrency dropped sharply on Steam and never recovered.

Also, you are likely vastly overestimating the common person's attachment to Steam. I have some friends that played The Division on PC, I think a couple played on Steam and I can tell you that none of them are of the "no steam no buy" mentality.

I could give more figures for The Division 1 like estimated first week sales, first month sales and more but at this point .....why bother. Some people will skip The Division 2 entirely just because its not on Steam but most will just get the game for some other platform.

Strong concurrency rarely extends beyond the honeymoon period unless you're talking a behemoth like GTA V, which outsells everything by a country mile. As for PC sales of D2, well with that we'll have to wait and see. I'm less inclined to extrapolate what my friends may or may not do as some wide-scale predictor. I think a lot more depend on actual interest.
 

Xiaoki

Member
Strong concurrency rarely extends beyond the honeymoon period unless you're talking a behemoth like GTA V, which outsells everything by a country mile. As for PC sales of D2, well with that we'll have to wait and see. I'm less inclined to extrapolate what my friends may or may not do as some wide-scale predictor. I think a lot more depend on actual interest.
When concurrency on Steam drops by half every month for the first 6 months Im not going to think "oh, gee, look at those numbers, everyone playing must be on Steam" especially with the sales estimates.

Also, Im not going to extrapolate what forum zombies may or may not do as some wide-scale predictor.
 

Kadayi

Banned
When concurrency on Steam drops by half every month for the first 6 months Im not going to think "oh, gee, look at those numbers, everyone playing must be on Steam" especially with the sales estimates.

Also, Im not going to extrapolate what forum zombies may or may not do as some wide-scale predictor.

1*p-wcR8W3W2LKXKqYLQeaxg.gif
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
I predict that Red Dead Redemption 2 and every upcoming Rockstar game also won't be on Steam. They have their own launcher, and people will chose whatever launcher it's on to play them.
 

juliotendo

Member
It's happening.

Very odd decision knowing that Ubisoft have their own launcher. I also think Ubisoft might move every upcoming release to the Epic Store from now on.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/0...ditching-steam-for-the-epic-games-store-on-pc

Update :

Epic will release more games on Epic's Store later this year.

https://www.mcvuk.com/business/ubisoft-to-release-the-division-2-on-epic-games-store

Well of course. They earn more of a percentage selling through epic as opposed to steam.

However I doubt a lot of people use epic as much as steam, highly doubt it.

The best strategy would have been to release on both...
 

Fuz

Banned
However I doubt a lot of people use epic as much as steam, highly doubt it.
My take on this: long term investment, losing money in the short period to bury steam and get market shares.

Then the customers will pay the developers' cut difference, one way or another.
 

Caffeine

Member
lets see how sales figures go. it would be interesting to see in a couple months time. and comparing to the delayed steam releases.
 

Caffeine

Member
Is this true? If true that is quite impressive. Is there any sales data anywhere?
they don't like releasing sales anymore since about aw's release. although on the pc we used to have steam spy, launch month was up 100% compared to ww2. playercounts on pc also doubled from 75k to 150k. all that was known was ww2 was at roughly under 900k on steam. unknown if it actually passed that due to steam changing gathering policies. so yes it's somewhere in the 2 million ballpark the only other pc cods around or above that were, black ops, black ops 2, mw2. I would assume future releases on bnet, considering they don't have to give valve a cut anymore.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-4/cod-black-ops-4-pc-player-counts
 
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sol_bad

Member
they don't like releasing sales anymore since about aw's release. although on the pc we used to have steam spy, launch month was up 100% compared to ww2. playercounts on pc also doubled from 75k to 150k. all that was known was ww2 was at roughly under 900k on steam. unknown if it actually passed that due to steam changing gathering policies. so yes it's somewhere in the 2 million ballpark the only other pc cods around or above that were, black ops, black ops 2, mw2. I would assume future releases on bnet, considering they don't have to give valve a cut anymore.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-4/cod-black-ops-4-pc-player-counts

It's so weird reading this, I thought BO4 in general sold less than other previous COD games. Am I living in an alternate reality?
 

Caffeine

Member
It's so weird reading this, I thought BO4 in general sold less than other previous COD games. Am I living in an alternate reality?
if its double in sales month of ww2 (which after a year total only sold ~12m) I mean black ops 4 is doing better than recent cods, but its no where near black ops 1-2, mw3 total sales figures which were around 30m each.
there was an article that stated it did sales records and yet the investors were disappointed because they thought battle royale would have a bigger impact on sales during the launch window.

https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/10/19/call-of-duty-black-ops-4-sales-activision-stock/
 
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