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Upcoming Ubisoft titles seemingly removed from Steam worldwide [edit: they're back]

Ripping away Steam pre-orders right before the holiday rush is too stupid for even Ubi. If they were to go Uplay-only I doubt this time of year is when they would pull the trigger, especially with no announcement or rumors or anything leading up to the changeover. I think this is a mistake of some sort and the games will re-appear shortly.

One would certainly think that. I mean, don't Assassin's Creed and Far Cry come out next week and the week after?

Basically yanking out from Steam a week or 2 before your 2 main games of the year come out? I guess that works if you're trying to guarantee the PC version sales are abysmal.
 
if this is permanent then its sooner than i expected

now comes the same shitstorm we got when ea made everything origin exclusive
 
They will probably give away watch_dogs so people get tricked into putting a foot in the door. Before you know it you are buying Call of Duty through Uplay.
 
I feel like Ubisoft policy is to make PC gaming so bad, people will buy the more expensive and less easy to pirate console versions. I also think they don't give a crap about their games long term and as long as you buy the latest one and uplay kinda works during that time, that's enough for them to make bank.
 
No they wouldn't Battle.net is from Blizzard that is not going to happen.

You do know Activision and Blizzard are part of the same company right?

If Activision would attempt this it would make sense for them to use the brand power of arguably the biggest name in PC gaming.
 
Well, I'll just stop getting their games just like I did with EA, Steam or DRM free is the only way I roll.

I can't even think of the last game I got from Ubisoft anyways.
 
* 5 years later *

Oh nice I have some free time to play a game. Lets see what program I should open:

Origin - EA games
Uplay - Ubisoft
ActiPlay - Activision
2Kplay - 2k Games
Battle.Net - Blizzard games
Steam - Valve and Indy games
GOG Galaxy - gog.com games

Can't fucking wait.

This is a fucking nightmare.
 
They're so adamant about piracy killing their PC games, I wouldn't be surprised to see them transition all PC content to some kind of Ubisoft Access (a la EA Access) subscription service.
 
I don't think Ubisoft would have put Unity or FC4 for pre order if you ended up not being able to purchase them.
 
* 5 years later *

Oh nice I have some free time to play a game. Lets see what program I should open:

Origin - EA games
Uplay - Ubisoft
ActiPlay - Activision
2Kplay - 2k Games
Battle.Net - Blizzard games
Steam - Valve and Indy games
GOG Galaxy - gog.com games

Can't fucking wait.

Optional. GOG is still good.
 
do you really think the pc future would be the "let's all get on the steam boat"?
of course every big pubs will try to get their own store.

Don't think half the vitriol in here has to do with that eventuality as much as it has to do with how awful uPlay is.
 
Yay, I won't have to buy Ubisoft's future games anymore!

Another idiotic move coming from Ubisoft, can't say I'm surpriesed.
 
You do know Activision and Blizzard are part of the same company right?

If Activision would attempt this it would make sense for them to use the brand power of arguably the biggest name in PC gaming.

There not the same there both apart and Activision bought them self out from Vivendi to be independent Activision-Blizzard is only a publisher both company's are independent.
 
I thought Steam was gonna go ahead and give publishers their own custom storefronts through the Steam client itself, like, damn.
 
* 5 years later *

Oh nice I have some free time to play a game. Lets see what program I should open:

Origin - EA games
Uplay - Ubisoft
ActiPlay - Activision
2Kplay - 2k Games
Battle.Net - Blizzard games
Steam - Valve and Indy games
GOG Galaxy - gog.com games

Can't fucking wait.
I totally called this back when Origin became a thing
 
Ha, and some people laughed at me for saying they'd do this some day.

You don't go through this much effort to build a client unless you intend to force it on everyone at some point.
 
There not the same there both apart and Activision bought them self out from Vivendi to be independent Activision-Blizzard is only a publisher both company's are independent.

Mike Morhaime has stated he reports directly to Bobby Kotick so... not really?
 
Ha, and some people laughed at me for saying they'd do this some day.

You don't go through this much effort to build a client unless you intend to force it on everyone at some point.

Wait people doubted that? it always looked like that was the end game.
 
Mike Morhaime has stated he reports directly to Bobby Kotick so... not really?

From wikipedia :

Split from Vivendi[edit]
On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi for $5.83 billion, dropping the shareholder from a 63% stake to 11.8% by the end of the deal in September. Following the conclusion of the deal, Activision Blizzard became an independent company as a majority of the shares are owned by the public. Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly own a 24.4% stake in the company. In addition, Kotick remains the President and CEO, with Brian Kelly taking over as the Chairman.[14] On October 12, 2013, shortly after approval from the Delaware Supreme court, the company completed the buyback, along the lines of the original plan.[15] Vivendi sold half its remaining stake in May 22, 2014, reducing its ownership to 5.8%,[16] which subsequently helped finance Vivendi’s takeover of EMI via Universal Music Group.

Since then quality from Blizzard games went up again and it shows.
 
You do know Activision and Blizzard are part of the same company right?

If Activision would attempt this it would make sense for them to use the brand power of arguably the biggest name in PC gaming.

I feel the ship has sailed for Activision to try that with CoDs sales waning, unless they try and do a big push with Destiny on it.
 
Ha, and some people laughed at me for saying they'd do this some day.

You don't go through this much effort to build a client unless you intend to force it on everyone at some point.

I think many just didn't expect it this "soon" with uPlay being barely functional.
 
Wait people doubted that? it always looked like that was the end game.

The thought process was that since uPlay still runs if you have Steam, then there was no need to separate them.

But... Ubisoft wouldn't make this investment unless the end of the line idea was to break away in an attempt to get better margins.

I think many just didn't expect it this "soon" with uPlay being barely functional.

Oh no, this was from way back when they first announced it, as opposed to the like eventual timeline.
 
But buying the games on Steam also did force you to use their barely working shitware, even if it was to a lesser extent.

That was also a problem, but at least they were in the same place as my other games. I wasn't able to play Far Cry 3 for almost a year due to uPlay's various sign in/update problems.

uPlay is trash.
 
* 5 years later *

Oh nice I have some free time to play a game. Lets see what program I should open:

Origin - EA games
Uplay - Ubisoft
ActiPlay - Activision
2Kplay - 2k Games
Battle.Net - Blizzard games
Steam - Valve and Indy games
GOG Galaxy - gog.com games

Can't fucking wait.

5 years ago:
Oh nice I have some free time to play a game. Lets see what program I should open:

game0.exe
game1.exe
...
gamen.exe

Those were good times.

When DRM mess is what you embrace, DRM mess is what you get.
 
If buynig through Steam let you avoid UPlay, I'd get why people were annoyed, but it didn't, so why does this matter?

You can even add non-steam games to Steam if you really want to.
 
Bit of wild speculation, coming from a glass-half-full idiot: maybe they'll release fully Steam-integrated versions of these upcoming releases a few months down the line - a sort of sales 'double dip', if you will.
People who are dying to play the games/don't know any better will lump for uPlay versions day-and-date, Steam diehards will hold out for their release down the line. Having two 'launches' might create an upswing in 'buzz' (and perhaps sales overall) as a result.

Probably nonsense, but a guy can dream, right?
 
The appeal of digital on PC is the low prices relative to console versions.

I'm now envisioning Activision and SE putting out there own PC platforms :/

Shit's getting expensive.

If this were to happen, I would have to drop many of those games. Gaming is simply not enough of a priority to me for me to be spending upwards of £40 per game. That would be sad though
 
You do know Activision and Blizzard are part of the same company right?

If Activision would attempt this it would make sense for them to use the brand power of arguably the biggest name in PC gaming.
COD is pretty much done on PC. Destiny could be really big though.
 
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