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

Such a failed opportunity in Games for Windows. What I wouldn't give for a single app that seamlessly interfaces across multiple stores. Instead of being its own store it should have been what Windows always has been. A facilitator.
 
Such a failed opportunity in Games for Windows. What I wouldn't give for a single app that seamlessly interfaces across multiple stores. Instead of being its own store it should have been what Windows always has been. A facilitator.

Steam is so very close to this that it annoys me when people go "bu-bu-but monopoly?"
 
Again Activision is not going to do that. Both company's are independent Activsion-Blizzard is only a publisher for both company's.

Blizzard hasn't been an independent company since 1994. Activision-Blizzard is a single company, resulting from the Activision Vivendi merger. Activision should totally put their products on Battle.net. They are throwing away money by not doing it. Personally, I;d rather everything just be on Steam.

In early 1994 they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for $6.75 million.[9] The same year the company briefly changed its name to Chaos Studios, before finally settling on Blizzard Entertainment after it was discovered that another company with the Chaos name already existed.[10] Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

Blizzard has changed hands several times since then: Davidson was acquired along with Sierra On-Line by a company called CUC International in 1996; CUC then merged with a hotel, real-estate, and car-rental franchiser called HFS Corporation to form Cendant in 1997. In 1998 it became apparent that CUC had engaged in accounting fraud for years before the merger; Cendant's stock lost 80% of its value over the next six months in the ensuing widely discussed accounting scandal. The company sold its consumer software operations, Sierra On-line which included Blizzard, to French publisher Havas in 1998, the same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi. Blizzard was part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi. In July 2008 Vivendi Games merged with Activision, using Blizzard's name in the resulting company, Activision Blizzard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment#History
 
I don't understand why they are doing it now.

Btw it's the same in France, I can't find Far Cry 4, The Crew or Assassin's Creed Unity.

Probably so they don't have to mark down their games for the upcoming Steam Black Friday and Winter Sales.

Rather than not participate in the sale, just remove their library from Steam. I mean that's the only way I can take from this doing this kind of decision at this time.
 
Im curious how many people have used uplay in the last few months for a new game?Because its received several updates improving it a great deal.

When it launched it was extremely barebones and quite laughable, and even now titles older than AC Black Flag need manual patching/installation, but for a recent game at this point its far from a painful experience if you can get over the fact that its not Steam (friends list, extra application etc)

I needed to download Child of Light again and it went like this



Thoughts?

Honestly, if this is what Ubisoft wants to do with their properties, it's a damn shame, but it's not something that will stop me from purchasing the games. I never had an issue with uPlay, as stupid of an idea it is. Maybe that makes me part of the problem, but I won't deprive myself of games I want to experience simply because they decided to try and make the most money. The client is far from terrible.
 
I have a problem with uplay because when I downloaded Assassins Creed 4, it wouldnt work because it wasn't installed on my primary drive.

The second game I had on uplay is Splinter Cell Blacklist and that still won't work no matter what I try to do.

The only two games I own on uplay don't even fucking work. I don't have this problem with Steam or even Origin. Uplay is fucking terrible.
 
Maybe you're right!

As I said in the Steam Community thread, I can't begrudge Ubisoft for doing this. It seems to have worked for EA to some degree, and with the amount of IPs Ubisoft have these days, it makes sense for them to attempt a similar route. It's sort of been coming over the last few years, with the uplay integration, the lack of any real sale discount, and the lack of Steam Versions available outside of Steam.

So I wouldn't say this was a sudden change in distribution.

It is sudden when you had preorder's up for AC:Unity and FAR Cry 4 on steam.

It is sudden when close to your entire Library of games from Beyond Good&Evil HD, Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Rayman, Ghost Recon, all the Tom Clancy's are on steam.

We put up with EA because they had an MMO, and Battlefield. But do we wish the rest of their games like MASS EFFET, Need for Speed, and the likes were back on steam,......YOU BET YOUR ASS!!

It only add's more complication for people who might want to venture for the first time into PC.

And with prices for Pre-built PC hardware being really cheap now for PC gaming, it becomes more complex for someone to have a small box hook it to tv/Monitor with a controller and use big picture mode.

No now if they want to play anything like AC:U,CREW, RainBow SIx:Siege, they have to use that shitty service where their friends list is fucking empty.

Can't use steam to boot the game, and get into a voice chat to group up and play.

So not everyone here has that kind of "OK" outlook.
 
Blizzard hasn't been an independent company since 1994. Activision-Blizzard is a single company, resulting from the Activision Vivendi merger. Activision should totally put their products on Battle.net. They are throwing away money by not doing it. Personally, I;d rather everything just be on Steam.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment#History

Clearly you didn't read further.

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 this happend Blizzard went up again with Quality games. And it will not happen. There both independent from each other that has always been this way.
 
It is sudden when you had preorder's up for AC:Unity and FAR Cry 4 on steam.

It is sudden when close to your entire Library of games from Beyond Good&Evil HD, Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Rayman, Ghost Recon, all the Tom Clancy's are on steam.

We put up with EA because they had an MMO, and Battlefield. But do we wish the rest of their games like MASS EFFET, Need for Speed, and the likes were back on steam,......YOU BET YOUR ASS!!

It only add's more complication for people who might want to venture for the first time into PC.

And with prices for Pre-built PC hardware being really cheap now for PC gaming, it becomes more complex for someone to have a small box hook it to tv/Monitor with a controller and use big picture mode.

No now if they want to play anything like AC:U,CREW, RainBow SIx:Siege, they have to use that shitty service where their friends list is fucking empty.

Can't use steam to boot the game, and get into a voice chat to group up and play.

So not everyone here has that kind of "OK" outlook.

Especially when people, like myself, might have preordered such games (OK I admit it, I loved FC3 and Blood Dragon and preordered FC4 the second I could...)
 
If UPlay being on every system means I get crossplay of every title I have purchased on every system that title was released on, then good move Ubisoft!

I mean, that would be a great pro-consumer move right?

That now they are in charge of their own digital distribution platform and the games I buy that aren't actually games just licences to play games are transferable to multiple platforms they can give me the benefits of cross platform cloud saved games, so I can play some AC3 on my PC, and then pick up later on my PS3?

Right?
 
Hmm Interesting. Ubisoft must really not like money. Watch dogs peaked out at nearly 50k concurrent users via steamcharts back when it was released. It was very impressive imo. There is no chance in hell they'll ever achieve those type of numbers if their PC games are origin/uplay only. Not gonna happen. For every new uplay customer they get..they'll miss out on like 5 steam sales (if not more). Very stupid move on their behalf. Maybe they are deliberately trying to hurt their name brand on PC? who knows.
 
It is sudden when you had preorder's up for AC:Unity and FAR Cry 4 on steam.

It is sudden when close to your entire Library of games from Beyond Good&Evil HD, Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Rayman, Ghost Recon, all the Tom Clancy's are on steam.

We put up with EA because they had an MMO, and Battlefield. But do we wish the rest of their games like MASS EFFET, Need for Speed, and the likes were back on steam,......YOU BET YOUR ASS!!

It only add's more complication for people who might want to venture for the first time into PC.

And with prices for Pre-built PC hardware being really cheap now for PC gaming, it becomes more complex for someone to have a small box hook it to tv/Monitor with a controller and use big picture mode.

No now if they want to play anything like AC:U,CREW, RainBow SIx:Siege, they have to use that shitty service where their friends list is fucking empty.

Can't use steam to boot the game, and get into a voice chat to group up and play.

So not everyone here has that kind of "OK" outlook.

Some of these points you bring up imply not being able to start a game outside of Steam, while mainly using Steam as your go-to client.

Thankfully the import function does exist. You still have access to your Steam friend library. Any other aspects such as trading cards, or community obviously won't exist for that one game, but this is a semi-work around.

Unfortunately it doesn't get around the issue of the other 3rd party service such as Origin or Uplay from getting in the way.
 
Do Ubisoft games sell well on the pc?

This seems like they saw EA do it with relative success and thought they could do it as well, but I'm not sure ubi has a strong enough pc presence like ea has where they can afford to drop steam.
 
I tolerate Origin because I love Battlefield; I don't share that love for any of Ubisoft's franchises. So no, I'm not installing a third DD client.

Well, maybe if they start giving away free games like EA does.
 
This. People need to get their heads out of their asses. Steam was nowhere NEAR the Steam we know today when they first started. Give competition time and the benefit of the doubt. I'd rather have DRM-free as well, but if Steam gets a chance, others should as well.

And Steam was criticized heavily for being garbage when they forced it into Half-Life 2. Steam didn't get a free pass just because Valve and Ubisoft DEFINITELY doesn't get a free pass because their PC ports are garbage and Uplay is a barely fuctional service with no defining features. There is literally no reason to switch to uplay because they do nothing different. The only reason to use it is because they hold games hostage. It's the new GFWL not the new Steam.
 
This is disappointing. Why did they advertise the game on Steam with a pre-order offer and everything? I don't get it. They will lose a lot of PC sales because of this.
 
This is disappointing. Why did they advertise the game on Steam with a pre-order offer and everything? I don't get it. They will lose a lot of PC sales because of this.

Yea, when I fired up steam earlier Unity was being advertised in the update news panel that comes up.
 
Because your purchase decisions have nothing to do with the product and are all about the store you buy it in? Smart.

maybe people don't want to have to run 5 different programs to access all their games. it's a pain. yeah a small inconvenience but why should we have to use an inferior service just because ubisoft want more money
 
Because your purchase decisions have nothing to do with the product and are all about the store you buy it in? Smart.

Welcome to the new Steam "gamer". It's about about appearances, games backlog pokemon collecting, friends lists etc. The games themselves are far down the list of why most "gamers" these days buy or play anything.

Fair enough Ubi, I guess the ball's back in my court.

*ahem*

I will not be buying any more Ubisoft PC games going forward. Even if they bring all of their games back to Steam, I'm not buying them. The only way they win me back is if they bring their stuff back to Steam AND utilize basic platform features, such as achievements, trading cards, etc.

I rest my case.

If Ubisoft makes a game I want to play I'll be buying it on Uplay just the same as if it were on Steam or Origin. Uplay isn't the greatest delivery system in the world but it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, again, just like Origin.

Because this has worked so well for EA; I'm sure with their even less popular platform this will go swimmingly.

What are you talking about? It's worked exceedingly well for EA.
 
Some of these points you bring up imply not being able to start a game outside of Steam, while mainly using Steam as your go-to client.

Thankfully the import function does exist. You still have access to your Steam friend library. Any other aspects such as trading cards, or community obviously won't exist for that one game, but this is a semi-work around.

Unfortunately it doesn't get around the issue of the other 3rd party service such as Origin or Uplay from getting in the way.

Yea, but that's my main point, of course you can add a non-steam game in the options I've done it.

But it's a huge pain in the ass to have another client running in the background just to get the game running in an environment you want.
 
Do Ubisoft games sell well on the pc?

This seems like they saw EA do it with relative success and thought they could do it as well, but I'm not sure ubi has a strong enough pc presence like ea has where they can afford to drop steam.

I don't think their fandom is as big on PC. There are a ton of Bioware and DICE fans on pc, I don't think you can say the same about AC, Rayman or Rainbow Six (atleast not for the last 10 years).
 
Don't worry, I'm sure that in a couple of years somebody will come up with a "Trillian of digital distribution" and we'll be back to square one.
 
I don't think their fandom is as big on PC. There are a ton of Bioware and DICE fans on pc, I don't think you can say the same about AC, Rayman or Rainbow Six (atleast not for the last 10 years).

probably something to do with how ubisoft have treated pc gamers in the past
 
Fair enough Ubi, I guess the ball's back in my court.

*ahem*

I will not be buying any more Ubisoft PC games going forward. Even if they bring all of their games back to Steam, I'm not buying them. The only way they win me back is if they bring their stuff back to Steam AND utilize basic platform features, such as achievements, trading cards, etc.
 
Clearly you didn't read further.



Since this happend Blizzard went up again with Quality games. And it will not happen. There both independent from each other that has always been this way.

Except that as has been stated already - Mike Morhaime (President of Blizzard) reports directly to Bobby Kotick and the other activision brass.

Is blizzard for all intents and purposes autonomous? Sure. You don't mess with a good thing. That doesn't change how the chain of command works. And that they are both under the same umbrella and there is no reason they couldn't do such a thing if they wanted to.
 
Well, looks like AC: Unity is the last game i pre-ordered on Steam and its the last game i'll be buying from them. Uplay is a no go for me. Same with Origin, even though i own over 50 games there.
As i always said, i like to have all my games in one place. Steam is all i need.

What an awful move, what if i want to buy AC: Unity Season Pass now?. I can't get it and i'm left with an incomplete game. I might as well go ask for a refund for what its worth.
 
Cool, they just saved me money, I won't be buying any Ubisoft games now.

The few Ubi games I've played on PC were shitty experiences anyway.

Plus I've lost interest in their yearly franchises with copy and paste open world design.

If the Division is good I might gamefly that on ps4, but other than that Ubisoft can kick rocks.
 
Defending games I can understand. Defending a digital platform just sounds ridiculous.

It has worked for EA. Origin has improved a lot since it started, and the free games started coming in and suddenly no one is complaining.

And it will work for Ubisoft, because people want to play Assassin's Creed more than they care about double clicking a different icon on their desktop.

This all has to do with people's perception of Ubisoft as a brand rather than the quality of the games themselves. You don't see anyone complaining about Blizzard's client.
 
I still believe this is a power play on Ubisoft's behalf just so they don't need to have their newer games on the Steam store during Black Friday and the Winter Sales that are coming up soon.

I know some companies just don't participate in the sale, so rather than be criticized for not marking their games down at a discount for the sale, instead they are removing them completely to not associate with this problem.

Instead it showcases another issue instead.
 
Defending games I can understand. Defending a digital platform just sounds ridiculous.

It has worked for EA. Origin has improved a lot since it started, and the free games started coming in and suddenly no one is complaining. I actually prefer the Origin client due to its simplicity and couldn't care less about cards and item trading and all those bells and whistles.

And it will work for Ubisoft, because people want to play Assassin's Creed more than they care about double clicking a different icon on their desktop.

This all has to do with people's perception of Ubisoft as a brand rather than the quality of the games themselves. You don't see anyone complaining about Blizzard's client.
Have you ever used Uplay? From wiping save games, updates that break half way through (meaning I had to re-download the entire game), freezing my computer for a solid minute on start up for like a month. I have never had a good experience with the client. And that is not even mentioning the massive security vulnerability/spyware that they installed with Uplay at one point. Or the fact that their severs go down regularly. Uplay makes bloody GFWL look good.
 
Clearly you didn't read further.



Since this happend Blizzard went up again with Quality games. And it will not happen. There both independent from each other that has always been this way.

It is confusing because of the names, but you are misreading. Activision-Blizzard is a single company. Independent from Vivendi, but not from each other. I used to work there, I know how it works. Blizzard is a wholly owned subsidiary. To put in an ugly way, Bobby Kotick owns Warcraft.
 
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