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[Respawn]

Ubisoft probably saw all the piles of money Origin is making and decided to do the same.

I tip my hat off to you sir.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Ah, another mimics the form of that which is successful, but cannot comprehend its method.

Also, lol @ Uplay. Stuck in 2004 dimwits.

 

[Totobeni]

What!? You guys are crazy.

nothing crazy here, a boycott is a legitimate method of putting pressure or telling a company that you don't agree with their moves.

I for myself will not buy Ubi soft games anymore. it's my decision as I don't want a PC future with so many awful client and store for every publisher on the planet. I already have very bad experience with Origin and uplay and I don't want more of it.

 

[mephixto]

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.

Are you sure know how it works?

Activision and Blizzard Entertainment still exist as separate entities.[8] The holding company does not publish games under its central name and instead uses its subsidiaries to publish games, similar to how Vivendi Games operated before the merger.[9] The merger makes Activision parent company of Vivendi Games' former divisions until July 25, 2013.

While Blizzard retained its autonomy and corporate leadership, other Vivendi Games divisions did not. For example, long-time label Sierra ceased operation. With the merger, there was a rumor that if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they "won't likely be retained."[10] Some of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Prototype have been retained and are now published by Activision.[11] Also, due to the closure of Sierra, the Sierra Community Forums servers have been shut down as of November 1, 2008[12] until Sierra was reopened in August 7, 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard

 

[Nokterian]

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.

Well someone else posted it and like i said there still separate that has always been. I will not see it happen since the split like i said quality in blizzard games went up looking at Warcraft,Diablo 3 and the smaller titles like Hearthstone and HoTS.

Activision and Blizzard Entertainment still exist as separate entities.[8] The holding company does not publish games under its central name and instead uses its subsidiaries to publish games, similar to how Vivendi Games operated before the merger.[9] The merger makes Activision parent company of Vivendi Games' former divisions until July 25, 2013.

While Blizzard retained its autonomy and corporate leadership, other Vivendi Games divisions did not. For example, long-time label Sierra ceased operation. With the merger, there was a rumor that if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they "won't likely be retained."[10] Some of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Prototype have been retained and are now published by Activision.[11] Also, due to the closure of Sierra, the Sierra Community Forums servers have been shut down as of November 1, 2008[12] until Sierra was reopened in August 7, 2014.

 

[Saintguine]

This along with having a minimum requirement of a GTX 680 to even run the game has really made it easy for me to skip AC Unity.

 

[IndoAssassin]

We should all boycot Ubisoft games. After the deodorant DLC for asscreed, this news just crossed the line.

I boycotted Ubisoft's PC games. I buy them on consoles.

 

[Bluth54]

I already have Far Cry 4 preordered on Steam. If Ubisoft does decide to pull their games from Steam it will be no huge loss, I'll be just fine without their games just like I am with EA since I'm not buying games though another client.

 

[CosmicQueso]

I already have very bad experience with uplay and I don't want more of it.

Well then surely you already know that uPlay has been integrated in all Ubi games, Steam or not, for some time now.

So even were it on Steam, uPlay would be a part of the experience. But you knew that already I'm sure.

This along with having a minimum requirement of a GTX 680 to even run the game has really made it easy for me to skip AC Unity.

Because the better option for PC gaming is to never push tech specs forward. No Riva 128 compatibility no sale is what I say.

 

[NoPiece]

Are you sure know how it works?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard

100% sure. Blizzard is owned by Activision Blizzard. Activision gives Blizzard some autonomy to manage their own business, but they are beholden to ATVI.

Well someone else posted it and like i said there still separate that has always been. I will not see it happen since the split like i said quality in blizzard games went up looking at Warcraft,Diablo 3 and the smaller titles like Hearthstone and HoTS.

What does separate mean to you? They have their own office, and have a lot of freedom to make the games they want, but as a company, they are owned by Activision, and have been owned since 1994. It is amazing they have been able to maintain their identity given all the turmoil at the corporate level.

 

[Zeyphersan]

Will still buy cheap on uplay

But then again, I only buy games when they're cheap anyway, so that doesn't really mean anything

 

[Saintguine]

Because the better option for PC gaming is to never push tech specs forward. No Riva 128 compatibility no sale is what I say.

Nice strawman bro, make sure you don't beat it too hard. It does have feelings.

I'd like a major increase in graphical fidelity along with the pushing of higher system requirements like with Crysis 3 or Battlefield 4 rather than the pushing of higher system requirements for the sake of it thank you very much.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Nice strawman bro, make sure you don't beat it too hard. It does have feelings.

I'd like a major increase in graphical fidelity along with the pushing of higher system requirements like with Crysis 3 or Battlefield 4 rather than the pushing of higher system requirements for the sake of it thank you very much.

Oh no the logical fallacy card. It's been played. You got me, bro. Let's make it Voodoo2s then.

Tough to say what kind of fidelity we're looking at until we see the game. System requirements aren't constructed just "for the sake of it".

 

[Arrogant Bastard]

As much as I love Steam, I welcome the competition. Honestly, I am okay with Uplay and Origin; I actually consider the latter less user friendly though--the Origin framework is terrible for customers who are abroad as the store language is locked to the country's language via IP.

This isn't competition. Competition would be having another storefront selling the same merchandise. This is blocking competition by removing my product from your shelf. Cannot wait for every publisher out there to follow suit. Like I previously said, all this is gonna do is cause me to purchase less and less PC games.

 

[NoPiece]

Just like EA lost all its PC player base right? Oh wait...

It's not that simple. EA games could very well sell better if they were available on Steam.

Would it be surprising if EA lost 30% or more of its potential sales by dropping Steam? I don't think so. I don't hate Origin, but I rarely launch it. I have Steam up 100% of the time, I'm seeing the ads, and recommendations, and sales. If EA stuff was in the mix, it would be in front of a lot more eyeballs, and sell more. I doubt they would do it but they could probably optimize sales by supporting Steam and Origin.

 

[Saintguine]

Oh no the logical fallacy card. It's been played, bro. You got me.

Voodoo2 or bust.

Keep hitting that strawman and playing argumentum ad logicam, because I sure as hell object to decade old hardware not being able to run modern games rather than the lack of optimization on the part of Ubisoft and the lack of substantial increase in graphical fidelity with the substantial increase of the bare necessities to run the game.

I mean it's not like Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter has reasonable minimum requirements.

 

[Nokterian]

100% sure. Blizzard is owned by Activision Blizzard. Activision gives Blizzard some autonomy to manage their own business, but they are beholden to ATVI.



What does separate mean to you? They have their own office, and have a lot of freedom to make the games they want, but as a company, they are owned by Activision, and have been owned since 1994. It is amazing they have been able to maintain their identity given all the turmoil at the corporate level.

Do you not understand what was said in that wikipedia page?

I will say it again it will not happen to see any activision game on battle.net app. Activision will come with something of there own if they want to but i think it will not happen anytime soon. And again Activision-Blizzard split from Vivendi to become it's own coporation again.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Hey look I am making a game, I will create my own client for it. It is a solo game but you can add friends for that client to stack them thinking maybe in the sequel I will make the game have multiplayer and you can use those freinds. In the sequel I will create another client for it and it will be another solo game...

Spoiler

-_-

I love this world!

 

[Timeaisis]

Eventually, they should make an Creed Play, your one stop shop for all Assassin's Creed games. A FarPlay client, for buying all your Far Cry games, and a UPlay for everything in between. Oh, and they don't link together in any way. A+

 

[Yoday]

This really doesn't change much for people playing Ubisoft games on PC. Uplay has already been integrated into all of their games for years now. All this really means is that you'll have to add the game to your Steam library manually, and you wont get features like achievements or the tracking of how long you've played the game. Honestly these reactions all seem pretty similar to when this happened with EA games, yet people still buy EA games on the PC.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Opps wrong thread.

 

[draetenth]

Can't say that I'm surprised that this happened, only that it happened now after we keep getting reports about how Steam's user base keeps growing.

Out of curiosity I checked out my wishlist (127 games)... and didn't have a single Ubisoft title (I don't care about Far Cry or Assassin's Creed - though I've bought all games when they recently went on sale) so this move didn't really change things for me. I didn't go out of my way to buy Ubisoft games before and I won't do so now. I primarily just play RPGs so Origin was a bigger deal to me than Ubisoft is (though I have M & M X and heard it's good).

Eh, at ~ 800 games between Steam & GOG I can certainly play a waiting game if I must... Besides I really like Indie games and as long as I can get Obisidian, InXile, Spiderweb Software, CDPR, and Bethesda (as well as the other Indie RPG companies I haven't listed) games on Steam or GOG, the major publisher can do as they wish and it wouldn't personally bother me (but I believe that the games should be available everywhere and on all platforms).

 

[flkraven]

Make sense if they are shifting to their own marketplace. If you get big enough, why give Gabe a % of every PC sale of your game when you can use those funds to run your own client.

 

[AngryPuppy]

Why the fuck is everyone crying about this? Buy it on uplay and just add the shortcut to steam. That way it works the same way ubi games on steam always have.

 

[Oublieux]

What competition exactly?

Competition in the PC digital download space. If Steam were the only choice, consumer's would get the short end.

Uplay is atrocious[...]

Remember when Steam first started out? Give it time, Uplay + Origin are far better than when they initially launched.

If they wanted to compete they'd lower their prices and have sales on the uplay client to entice gamers to use their client [...] Competition is sites like amazon/gmg/gamefly etc. [...] Splitting up games by publishers...

Competition takes time. Origin + Uplay are still young relative to Steam. Cutting prices on only PC digital would undermine their other sales, and I'm sure major gaming stores would be none to happy. Amazon, etc. are third party resellers, they don't have their own digital platform. Your last point is similar to publishers splitting DLC by retailer as well, I feel.

 

[NoPiece]

Do you not understand what was said in that wikipedia page?

I will say it again it will not happen to see any activision game on battle.net app. Activision will come with something of there own if they want to but i think it will not happen anytime soon. And again Activision-Blizzard split from Vivendi to become it's own coporation again.

That's not what you said initially, and why I responded in the first place. You are now agreeing with me, but not with what you said: "Both company's are independent Activsion-Blizzard is only a publisher ." The truth is Activision Blizzard is independent (ATVI), but Blizzard and Activision are not independent, they are wholly owned subsidiaries.

Activision might not put stuff on battle.net, but they could if they wanted to. And they would have a pretty compelling mix of software.

 

[gblues]

 

[Arrogant Bastard]

Competition in the PC digital download space. If Steam were the only choice, consumer's would get the short end.


Remember when Steam first started out? Give it time, Uplay + Origin are far better than when they initially launched.


Competition takes time. Origin + Uplay are still young relative to Steam. Cutting prices on only PC digital would undermine their other sales, and I'm sure major gaming stores would be none to happy. Amazon, etc. are third party resellers, they don't have their own digital platform. Your last point is similar to publishers splitting DLC by retailer as well, I feel.

How is this competition though?

EA isn't putting there games on Steam, Ubisoft is doing the same thing. That is anti-competition. You really want a day in PC gaming where each publisher has their own storefront partitioning off their games from other storefronts?

You want an individual DRM method for each publisher, many gamers 100% rebuke that idea. If that is what it comes to then I'll stop playing PC games.

 

[Screaming_Gremlin]

Competition in the PC digital download space. If Steam were the only choice, consumer's would get the short end.

... That isn't the competition you should want. If you want true competition to lower the price of games, you want it to be sold on every platform imaginable; Steam, Origin, uplay, GOG, Amazon, GMG, Desura, etc. That way the retailers have to try and get you to buy from their store and not the others. By having every publisher come up with their own store, you are forced to pay whatever price they want you to and that is it.

Now if you are talking about competition between platforms, do please tell us what features uplay has that is missing from Steam, Origin, or Battle.net. This will do nothing to make Steam a better platform for its users.

 

[Alex]

I'm perfectly fine with going non-Steam, honestly a a large amount of my PC gaming time is spent on non-Steam titles. It's nice to have as much as possible in one place, but I'm not going to abandon interest in a title just because it's not present.

Uplay is another manner, however, I've really poor experiences with it as compared to other options. It's just bloated and awkward feeling and genuinely does feel like a detriment to the title. Of course, there's almost nothing that Ubi Soft makes that I like, so I very rarely have to put up with it although the occasional bout of Anno 2070 and nabbing FC4 when it's $7.50 in eight months means I can't purge it from my system in some satisfying manner.

If they cleaned up Uplay to be as speedy, inoffensive and light as Origin, I really wouldn't care too much.

 

[neotokyo360]

I never buy game on Uplay + Origin.

 

[Oublieux]

How is this competition though?

The way I see it, it's competition in the PC digital platform space. You don't need the same games across multiple digital services in this sense. Ubisoft and EA locking their games out of Steam is simply a method (and probably their best method) of taking an initial market share. Their job after that is to spread to adjacent markets; how they do that is up to them, but I am assuming they'd branch out with other publishers. Uplay and Origin already do this.

 

[Nyoro SF]

How is it "more competition" if options for consumers are being removed?

It's not competitive at all if I'm forced to buy a game from a single location. That is a content monopoly.

 

[Zeyphersan]

I never buy game on Uplay + Origin.

And we're all very proud of you, you little rebel you

 

[Bonfires Down]

Makes sense. Valve taking 30% of revenues is a big deal.

AC, FC and WD are already huge franchises, and The Division and Rainbow Six Siege will likely be big too, so I believe they have enough games to do this.

 

[Oublieux]

If you want true competition to lower the price of games, you want it to be sold on every platform imaginable.

In an ideal world, yes, this would be great as it would lead to what's called perfect competition. But, that's hardly ever the case. And as in my previous post, I just think that right now, the current tactics are a means to achieve an end (to break into the digital platform space). Once Ubisoft and Origin actually have a chunk, they could start selling third party games, leading to price competition. Valve, Ubisoft, and EA might still hold onto their own games, however, to give them more sway.

 

[Bulk_Rate]

Uplay is like the French auto industry: It doesn't need to exist, is pointlessly different from mainstream, and is a laughing stock worldwide.

 

[Alex]

I never buy game on Uplay + Origin.

No issues with Origin, honestly the client is quite a bit better than Steam in terms of speed and responsiveness and hey you can actually get customer support if something happens. I'd never move beyond picking up cheap EA games on it, but it's just not something that'd keep me off of a purchase... unlike Uplay.

EA has been wise so far to keep it as something that is light weight and launches instantly, I'm always dreading some remodel of it where they decide they need community and heavier interaction and wind up needlessly bloating it.

Still though, best non-Steam launcher is easily the currently Battle.net one. It is absolutely perfect, for my tastes.

 

[Grief.exe]

This along with having a minimum requirement of a GTX 680 to even run the game has really made it easy for me to skip AC Unity.

That requirement is guaranteed bullshit.

 

[Codeacious]

I'd be okay with this if it had happened a month ago; buying Unity from Steam didn't remove the UPlay requirement. But five days before release? Not so much. I wonder what internal charts made Ubisoft think this was a good plan.

 

[plumpblumpkin]

So...Uplay confirmed???....

 

[Rhaknar]

Makes sense. Valve taking 30% of revenues is a big deal.

AC, FC and WD are already huge franchises, and The Division and Rainbow Six Siege will likely be big too, so I believe they have enough games to do this.

every retailer takes 30%. Gamersgate, GMG, Amazon, etc, and EA/Ubi games are still there. It has nothing to do with the 30% and more to do with them wanting to push their own platform

 

[Keasar]

Well, was nice knowing you on PC Ubisoft, your client is worthless and broken when I use it so I guess I'll never see you again.

 

[Castef]

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

Well, there is no written rule that every PC game must be on Steam. Just because it is an open system every publisher could freely choose its preferred way of distributing the game.

 

[sixpackrules]

i don ´t know if it is the smartest move on their side, this morning i fired up titanfall to play some frontier defense and there were roughly 500 hundred people playing it in the world, i somehow have the feeling that if titanfall was on steam it will have some more people playing it, maybe they are gonna loose sales but compensate it with the increase in their revenue per sale, who knows. I play less and less AAA games this days, and ubi games don´t say to much for me lately

 

[dani_dc]

Competition takes time. Origin + Uplay are still young relative to Steam.

Origin was a rebrand of EADM, which existed since 2005, Origin as we know it has existed for over 3 years. Origin also completely failed their roadmap for features:

Origin is actually farther from Steam feature wise now than it was before.

Competition is created by adding value to costumers, not to come in, say "You can only buy at our store" and leave it at that.

 

[Blast Processing]

i don ´t know if it is the smartest move on their side, this morning i fired up titanfall to play some frontier defense and there were roughly 500 hundred people playing it in the world, i somehow have the feeling that if titanfall was on steam it will have some more people playing it, maybe they are gonna loose sales but compensate it with the increase in their revenue per sale, who knows. I play less and less AAA games this days, and ubi games don´t say to much for me lately

Not to rebut your point, but how many people play BF4? It might just be that TF is a bad game to some degree.

 

[Oublieux]

Competition is created by adding value to [customers], not to come in, say "You can only buy at our store" and leave it at that.

Fair enough on the EADM!

I think value to customers is a result of competition. My assumption is that, although these tactics seem unfriendly right now, it will eventually benefit the consumer in the long run. Their withdrawal from Steam is a way of taking larger market share in the digital distribution service pie that Steam dominates. Ubisoft would then have the grounds to attract other publishers, set prices, and price compete with Valve on overlapping titles.

PS: I'm glad for the friendly debates... was expecting some level of vitriol. Thanks guys.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Remember when Steam first started out? Give it time, Uplay + Origin are far better than when they initially launched.

Steam was an innovator and was creating the space as they went.
Working in an untrodden vacuum, its expected to have slip ups and missteps.
they were also a significantly smaller company, with significantly less resources at their disposal to do so.

So why the fuck do EA / Ubisoft get a pass for walking in someone elses footsteps with substantially more resources at their disposal, and fucking it up?

In an ideal world, yes, this would be great as it would lead to what's called perfect competition. But, that's hardly ever the case. And as in my previous post, I just think that right now, the current tactics are a means to achieve an end (to break into the digital platform space). Once Ubisoft and Origin actually have a chunk, they could start selling third party games, leading to price competition. Valve, Ubisoft, and EA might still hold onto their own games, however, to give them more sway.

So... it becomes competitive but only as long as no other publishers decide they want to create their own storefronts and only sell their games there?

Honestly, how does that make sense to you?

 

[mr stroke]

nothing crazy here, a boycott is a legitimate method of putting pressure or telling a company that you don't agree with their moves.

I for myself will not buy Ubi soft games anymore. it's my decision as I don't want a PC future with so many awful client and store for every publisher on the planet. I already have very bad experience with Origin and uplay and I don't want more of it.

You assume the publisher will know you didn't buy the game because of Uplay?