I agree that the honesty is much appreciated, especially coming from someone who bought the PC release. That being said Patrick, I really think you should be holding Steam just as accountable as Microsoft or Sony for allowing a totally broken game to be sold on their service. Is there just no QA on the seller's side anymore? It's hard to believe that (as someone who meets all of the recommended system requirements according to Steam and has an Nvidia card) someone could have started up AC:U and played for more than an hour without noticing the huge frame-rate and crashing issues present.
I really hope that in the future console manufacturers and online marketplaces like Steam will have to accept some accountability for these sorts of problems, but somehow I doubt that will take place. I can't complain though, I did get a refund from Steam despite their policies about that.
P.S. You should edit your title duder, it says Ubisof!
Steam/Valve's role is pretty different from Microsoft and Sony. Steam doesn't have a certification process, but Microsoft and Sony do. Certification processes exist to ensure a certain level of quality, but it's a bit more wild west on the PC. The onus is entirely on the publisher on the PC.
There's no reason for Steam not to have a certification process for games sold on their service, other than because consumers allow them to get away with it. Same with Origin, uPlay, GOG, or any others.
Obviously the PC's platform variability won't allow for as stringent a process (though console cert is a joke now, compared to the olden days), but it could catch some of the universal bugs people encounter (and there were/are plenty of them in AC Unity)
The reason why PC is such a vibrant and diverse environment for game is because "anyone" can create something where on Sony's and Microsoft's there are "strict controls" on who gets dev kits, licensing, and as already mentioned the "certification process". Start doing these things and it kills the culture PC has created over 30 years that allows creation of entirely new genres and other "low performance" games that would never stand a chance on closed platforms like consoles.
I don't see "quality" as the "deadly serious issue" on PC as it does on the consoles because of its free formed and open environment. It isn't that PC games are less buggy (hell no that isn't true at all) but it is more the case it is "self correcting" where the environment is cut throat and information is so free flowing that it becomes "self correcting".
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