Uplay is so bad, haven't started Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, or Trials Fusion because of the hassle. Far Cry 3 was so good and I can't wait for FC4 but they are making such a big mistake here. I'll be waiting for them to break on this one, my PC isn't the best and Uplay makes it run like crap.

@slag: More like:

• Ubisoft: We want a bigger cut of the sales.
• Valve: All products must adhere to the same pricing policies. No.
• Ubisoft: Fuck you.
• Valve: Suck it.

Unfortunately, it's hard to see how this benefits the consumer in any way.

Oh, well you see, that's because it doesn't. Screw Ubisoft.

In the process of building a new PC. Was actually planning on waiting to get Far Cry 4 for PC, but UPlay is a REAL piece of shit. I will stick to the PS4 version regardless of it being a worse version compared to the PC.

No thanks.

I don't like Ubisoft games much anyway.

Apart from not being able to detect previous installs, I have no issues with Uplay. I'm okay with this.

I wasn't really interested in Unity anyway, but I'm definitely not buying the PC version. Nor would I anyways, given that Ubisoft doesn't really care about PC's anyways. Their PC ports are usually horribly done. Also, given the fact that they are not fully utilizing the PS4 hardware, I might not buy it at all. I have plenty of games to play, and I'll just wait until the PS4 version is 20$ or 30$, used, on Ebay.

I don't want to download a different application for every publisher. It's stupid to expect me to do that. Wasn't planning on buying Unity or Far Cry 4 anyway, but I might have with a good sale price in a year or so. Guess I won't be now.

Have your own store, awesome. Go ahead. But the more services you put your product on, the more sales you'll get. It's true of movies, and it's true of games. Less options = less sales.

Wait, really? They were advertising Assassin's Creed Unity just yesterday on Steam. Weird.

Not interested Ubi, just like I won't be able to buy Dragon Age because it's on Origin. Please take your terrible services elsewhere.

Glad I am getting this on PS4. This DRM crap has to stop. I was reminded a few weeks ago when I downloaded GTA 4 from steam to play on my Ultrabook in anticipation for GTA5 on PS4. Could not get it to run. Had to install the now defunct games for windows live. I forgot that even existed. I wonder how much DRM bullshit is installed on my aging gaming PC?

It's weird. Almost like they don't want people to buy the PC versions of their games. Some dedicated fans buy new graffix cards before their anticipated games come out. To thank them, they set up all these hoops to jump through. Then they wonder why so many people pirate their games. I can not think of one other medium/product/service where the stolen version is better and more user friendly than the one you pay for.

It's kind of gross how Steam has brainwashed everyone to think that it's somehow amazing and vital to the PC experience. It's a digital store and nothing else. I don't understand why people are getting all hot and bothered over Uplay and Origin. Why should EA and Ubisoft be giving Valve a cut when they can provide the exact same service.

Here's a cool way to challenge Steam's 'monopoly' and still not infuriate consumers: offer your own games for $10-15 cheaper on your own store. You'd still make more money in the end after not having to lose the 30% cut, and people might actually want to switch to your historically shithouse service if you're bribing them with money instead of saying "hey, this is the only place you can get this now."

This ravenous brand loyalty to Steam will never not confuse/kinda gross the shit out of me. It's a fucking store, it's not that damn important.

The games already used Uplay though, Steam was just a wrapper for Ubisoft games.

Some discussion must have gone south.

It benefits consumers in that they give more money to Ubi.

@hunkulese said:

It's not specifically about Steam, It's about having one convenient, stable and easy place where you buy and manage your game. If that comes from Valve, EA, Ubisoft or is built into the OS itself, whatever. As a consumer, I don't really care who gets a cut from what, I just don't want every single publisher to make they're own store front. Screwing around with different login info, friends lists and program updates isn't convenient.

But sure, we're brainwashed. We should just install every piece of cool software experience every company decides to throw our way, and we should help them to build their brand and earn money by clogging up our computers with trash.

Because they can't or at least aren't. There's no In House Streaming, no Big Picture Mode and worst of all no Steam Overlay. I like to chat with friends while I play games and Steam is the best way to do that.

Welp guess I won't be getting Far Cry 4 or Rainbow 6: Siege after all. Bummer.

Can't you just add the executable as a non-steam game to Steam and then get the Overlay?

Most of the time yes. It's a bitch to do with some games though, especially Battlefield 3/Hardline due to their weird launch the game from your browser bullshit.

Well, it launches most of the time. Problem is how it sometimes doesn't. That's a reliability loss for no gain for the consumer. Similar to their excessive always online DRM they had a while back that would boot you out of a singleplayer game on any connection hick up. We get the technical problems, only they get a benefit.

As someone who has fully accepted the fact that he will occasionally have to use Origin to play a handful of games... I'm not going to budge for this one. Not yet, Ubisoft.

I understand your reaction -- I know what you mean -- but consider that Steam is also an ecosystem, much like PSN or Xbox Live, but with a lot more stuff. From an outside perspective, the list of reasons it's important to me that I included below may make me seem like some kind of fan boy, but understand that Steam really is the only unifying community for PC gaming; nobody else really takes it as seriously. It's not just a store -- Origin and UPlay are stores. Steam is an ecosystem.

• It houses my entire (all digital) game library (meticulously categorized) -- as of now, 624 games, 691 DLC.
• Tracks and stores all of my progress:
  • achievements / perfect games / avg. completion rate (2,890 / 13 / 30%)
  • time played (70.4 hours past 2 weeks)
  • personal game reviews (I've written 19)
  • screenshots (1,620)
  • videos (42)
  • guides (8)
  • workshop subscriptions (for mods)
  • artwork
  • inventory (*hundreds* of items; cards, games, artwork, in-game stuff, etc.)
  • badges (76)
• Connects me to my social list of friends (who I also have meticulously categorized, with nicknames so I can remember individual people and how I met them, making it a meaningful friends list, even for acquaintances)
• ...and has a bunch of other ancillary features, like:
  • Support for my music library, which I can control from within any game, without alt-tab or leaving the game
  • Groups, to find and participate in communities surrounding games I enjoy, allowing for scheduled events and dedicated forums to help organize play
  • Hubs dedicated to each game that includes forums, community screenshots, artwork, videos, news, announcements, guides, reviews and other information related to any given game -- many indie developers (esp. Early Access games) use some of these features as a lifeline to stay in communication with fans for feedback and progress.
  • In-game overlay, so I can access all of the aforementioned features without leaving the game (which includes a web browser so I can look really anything up)
  • Steam trading cards, which allow me to craft badges and "level-up" my profile, which grants me little bonuses, like extra showcases on my profile, emoticons I can use in chat, background artwork for my profile page, not to mention a clever way to interest people in game concept art.
  • Big Picture Mode, so I can easily run Steam and play games away from my desk, in a lounge chair in front of the plasma TV in my gaming room with a wireless controller, and get all of the same aforementioned features with a UI designed for a 10-foot view.
  • Integrated VOIP.

That list is not complete either. Steam has a lot of features, and so many of them are important to me, how I game, how I communicate with friends, and how I maintain my gaming identity. Origin and UPlay can't compete on any level near what Steam offers as simply fringe benefits just for being on the service. It's honestly staggering to me how much of an ecosystem they've built.

The bottom line is: I don't want to restart my identity, I don't want to maintain separate friends lists, and I don't want to track separate libraries of games -- I want it in one place. ...and regardless of what people may feel about Steam, it's the only option for someone that wants a PC gaming ecosystem, and Valve does an amazing job with it.

I hope that helps you understand why news like this is really important to some people, and detrimental to PC gaming as a whole -- nobody in this scenario wins: not Ubisoft, not Valve, and definitely not the consumer.

I learned my lesson with Origin - and while I would have bought all 3 games I will now find other things to spend my money on as I will not use yet another gaming client and most certainly not uPlay!

Such a dumb move by Ubisoft - sure Valve's fee is high, but it also comes with 30 million customers - happy I'm not a shareholder!

I don't care. I bought my three Uplay games from GMG and Humble anyway, and I've not experienced any problems (compared to Steam, I mean) playing Far Cry 3 and Watch_Dogs.

All you guys are gonna buy the games anyway and Ubisoft knows it.

Actually, Valve announced 75 million active users back in January 2014 (it was 65 million just 3 months earlier, in October 2013). (Source)

Yes, this. It is not about steam. I prefer GOG where after I purchase games, they are stored on my PC without crap DRM or hoops to jump through. You want to create a great game service? Then let origin be a portal where I can buy your game from. Then never ask me to log in again. Don't ask me to fill out a survey, don't install software I don't want or need to play your game, and don't make it harder than buying a game from PSN. I verify it's me, download the game, then play it online or off without some spyware/malicious software telling me as a paying customer that I can't play because of (insert crap here). Steam is just a service like PSN where you can play online or not unless some company inserts it's crazy DRM/unwanted service on top of the DRM Steam already has. I don't want to log on to EA, UBI soft, Activision, Double Fine, Warner Brothers, or Rockstar servers on my PS4 or on my PC. It doesn't even have to be one service, but it does need to be more convenient. Like GOG does.

I was ready to buy ACU and FC4 soon post-release after seeing some reviews, but I don't need my games spread out beyond Steam and GOG. I guess I'll be looking to... other methods of getting these games.

Does anyone else think that publishers are doing this more and more to drive people away from PC and towards consoles?

@hassun: Well you see the irony in your counter-point being basically an example of a personal experience with the service. No sense in going tit-for-that on this though. I've also never had any real issues with GFWL so I guess I'm just lucky. I've never really had any severe problems with any of the online game services. Sure sometimes Steam would continue letting me know it's in safe mode and I just could not turn that off, and Uplay had some issues uninstalling games (I still have Blacklist showing up as installed) but overall I would press play on all these platforms and games would launch.

@vierastalo: assuming valve us putting ubisoft games in sale without their permission. Sure they save a small amount of money I'm owning the uplay platform, but they must lose that money in servers hosting uplay. Really seems nuts not wanting to be where the pc gamers are though.

My guess is Ubisoft feels they have franchises that are strong enough to not need to be on Steam. I'm still gonna buy their games on PC. It's inconvenient—them taking em off Steam—but it's not a huge deal.

@ripelivejam: It's suspected to be about game prices. Ubi are expecting £50 for their new PC games when most PC games are £30-£40.

What if, in the light of Activision disabling shareplay on PS4, it went like this:

Ubisoft: Hey Steam, we want you to exclude our games from family sharing!

Valve: Not what we want the steam experience to be like.

Ubisoft: Well, then we pull our games and put them on our own service.

Valve:Enjoy launch day, dont forget to plug in that extra 56k modem to double your bandwith.

Origin is a pile of SHIT.

i'm pretty much flagging every comment mentioning intent to pirate games in this thread. don't stoop to that shit, please.

I could never sign into the online part of Far Cry 3. So whenever I hit ESC to open the menu, it hang for around 20 seconds to try to connect, only to fail every time.

When I played Assassin's Creed 3 it fucked up my cloud saves and I lost several hours of progress.

It's a fact. Uplay is shit.

@corevi: I don't know about Origin but Uplay most definitely has in-game overlay with the same screenshot capabilities, friends list etc as Steam. Uplay has been evolving rather rapidly. In the span of a few months I saw them completely overhaul the main interface and friends list. They are working on it and making it a better service.

Your pre-order for Far Cry 4 [Online Game Code] was successfully cancelled.

"Unfortunately, it's hard to see how this benefits the consumer in any way."

I know Steam has built up a lot of good will, but the idea that trying to remove some of their grip on the PC market is anti-consumer is pretty weird.

@rahulricky said:

Yup. Obviously all of those companies only do it for themselves, but competition is always good.

Yeah, this is disappointing, but the easiest thing to do is not buy AC: Unity. If it's not making the money it should on PC then it should show up on Steam not too long after.

Well yes, but none of my friends have Uplay open unless they are playing a Uplay game while they always have Steam open.

That *might* end up being the positive outcome. If Ubi's games can only be bought via their flagship platform then maybe they'll actually take some care and effort optimising them. Fat chance, I know...

If they can get the client running even as well as Origin it'd be a start. I re-installed AC3 the other day and the update system is frigging awful.

This drastically reduces of chance of me buying Ubisoft games. Uplay is not bad as Origin but there is no reason for me to use it.

Not on steam, I won't buy it.
Steam is like a console in an app. If you're selling your games on a different console in an app that I have to run in the background, then fuck that. Especially seeing as both uplay and origin are apps coded by complete scrubs. Origin and Uplay both feel like apps made by someone finishing a 3 week course in Adobe Air. Just pure trash. No added features like mod support or anything either. Just barebones as fuck.

I can't keep up with all the releases on steam as it is.. Not likely to be looking around for more games elsewhere.