Ubisoft rails against Steam's "unrealistic" business model

From GameWatcher: "Ubisoft is not all too keen about Steam anymore, if their recent comments about the company are anything to go by. Chris Early, Ubisoft's partnerships & revenue vice president described Steam's game market model as "unrealistic".

This goes well in-line with Ubisoft's recent tactic of selling their games on Epic and UPlay only, avoiding Valve's legendary marketplace altogether. This has resulted in more people adopting UPlay as a permanent gaming platform, which works wonders for Ubisoft for reasons that should be obvious."

[anonymousfan]

I really like the steam platform but they seem to be seriously losing ground

[Rachel_Alucard]

In order for them to be losing ground they would first have to acknowledge Epic as a competitor. I have yet to see that ever happening considering everything around EGS is bought and artificial.

[djl3485]

Yea....because not acknowledging something means it will never happen. /rolleyes

[LordJamar]

You haters and your only wanting steam as a monopoly dream

[RedDevils]

You basically describing Blockbuster of old against Netflix lol

[rainslacker]

Acknowledging and recognizing aren't the same thing. I'm sure Steam sees them as competition, they just aren't that concerned with it at the moment. Steam, being privately owned, isn't beholden to investors to keep revenues and profits on a continuous path up. They can afford to take a multi-million dollar hit. Epic, while gaining ground, still is a drop in the bucket for Steam. Steam wasn't hurt by EA or Ubisoft doing their own thing, nor have they been hurt by the various other services out there which don't sell on their service.

This would be more akin to how Microsoft see FreeBSD as competition. Sure, they may lose a bit if people opt to use that, but they aren't really hurt by it.

[opc]

steam isn't a monopoly. There are like a dozen stores and platforms on PC and most of hte most poular games in the world are not even available on Steam. Steam is just successful

[Christopher]

Shit. All those people playing games on EGS are not real? Damn.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Well the comment seems to have brought a negative emotional response in a few people so yeah I would assume theres truth to it.

[PapaBop]

Seem to be losing ground how exactly? I'd say it's Epic losing ground with developers who care about their fans reassuring them than their games won't be on EGS. It's becoming a trend, some are even pinning the statement to their youtube videos. When Epic set out to make their store, I doubt they expected this. Not surprised from Ubi with this, I love their games but they've shafted PC gamers for years with poor ports, they won't be missed on Steam and even if you do/did buy off Steam, it just loads into Uplay anyway.

[anonymousfan]

A lot of the big publishers are starting their own storefronts and now Epic...

[PapaBop]

Big publishers aren't buying exclusive rights to games they didn't develop to take them away from the competition. And there hasn't been a new store from a big publisher in a while anyway other than Epic, I doubt it's effecting Steam.

[Christopher]

***Epic losing ground with developers who care about their fans ***

Losing ground, but gaining more and more developers and games?

You know what developers also care about? Making money so they can finish their game the way they want and create more games afterward.

[boing1]

When EGS gains more ground, the same developers will crawl back because money.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Not a single publisher has started a storefront in the last 5 years. Bethesda dropped forcing theirs after 76 bombed, Ubisoft is just abusing the negative reception of EGS to their advantage, and it's unsustainable for anyone else to do so with how many launchers are being forced on people. Realistically, Take two is the only other company I can see forcing a launcher of some kind, but there are no plans, and they would make way more money selling MT's to hundreds of millions on Steam alone. Do not fall for this ridiculous narrative, this only started after Epic showed up, keep in mind.

[mamotte]

Wait until Epic stops giving free games to see how it disappears.

[anonymousfan]

I'm actually curious about what will happen but in the meantime I got loads of free games which beats subscriptions like PS+ for my taste in games nevermind it's 100% free ... But yeah I agree it's unlike the giveaways will continue in 2020

[orbital71]

steam are the forerunners, and the rest are just noobs looking to cash in

[SegaGamer]

"It’s unrealistic, the current business model that they have. It doesn’t reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution"

Eh? it's exactly the same with digital stores on consoles.

[UltraNova]

SegaGamer
"It’s unrealistic, the current business model that they have. It doesn’t reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution cuts. Now that we have a cheaper alternative (thank you EGS), Steam can go F themselves."

[harmny]

It's called competition. It's what makes the world better

[UltraNova]

Harmny,

You think? Of course it is and its most welcomed.

[yellowgerbil]

@harmny
What Epic is doing isn't competition. Competition is making a better burger than the other guy, not buying up all the tomatoes in the world so no other eatery can have ketchup.

[opc]

They also have their own independent store called uplay where they get 100% of the money.

[porkChop]

On consoles there aren't any other options. On PC there are plenty. PC is an open market.

[Kornholic]

That's not true. You can buy digital codes from brick and mortar stores and online retailers, and you can buy digital PS4 games from Humble Bundle. Console market is still currently more physical than digital so in fact the competition on consoles is more healthy than on PC.

[DaCajun]

@kornholic

Your statement about PC is the incorrect one, there has always been plenty of healthy competition on the PC game market. Epic is just the only storefront buying and trying to monopolizing exclusives like the consoles have been doing for years. The only people that think steam was the only PC storefront around are non-PC gamers. There are lots of good PC game storefronts that compete with Steam. Now Epic came along and is using monopolizing tactics to steal Steams dominance but what they are doing is hurting the smaller storefronts. Steams never forced anyone to buy from them by buying exclusives, they just offered a good service people like not forced like EPIC is doing now.

[vickers500]

@kornholic
I thought I remember reading Sony recently shut that down? Don't know if it was for older products too or just newer ones, but I seem to recall they were going to severely limit digital purchases to their own store.

I think they'll still have those cards with codes on them, but no more buying the digital code itself from the likes of Amazon.

[opc]

and yet everyone erroneously calls Steam a Monopoly

[rainslacker]

The big publishers can negotiate percentage rates with the console makers. Steam is apparently pretty stalwart in their pricing structure.

In general, console makers also tend to be more supportive when there are issues with the store, or the games, while Steam really doesn't care if there's a problem.

[Blu3_Berry]

Says the same publisher that banned Assassin Creed Odyssey's custom maps that provided players a big boost for XP because they want people to buy their microtransaction XP boost instead. Ubisoft doesn't care about the gamers and only care about milking players as much as they can with an easy template for their games.

They can keep their games on the EGS. I never found their games to be all that great to begin with. It's all pretty much the same template for their franchises. Big, massive open-world with tons of tedious side-objectives that don't add anything to the game other than extending the playtime and fill that said game with tons of microtransactions and a medicore story. Soon Splinter Cell will follow that template. Oh, and don't forget but Ubisoft also likes mobile.

[neutralgamer1992]

Ubi is just as greedy as Ea they are a dually worst for implementing these things in single player games

You either do all the boring fetch quests or buy boosters

[RedDevils]

Especially with Ubi Denuvo in all their games.

[LordJamar]

Hey watch your sodium intake lol

[opc]

It's also the same publisher that has been handing out free monthly updates and an expansion that adds a solid 60 hours to the game with 3 wildly different environments.

[NeoGamer232]

Every company doesn't care about gamers and are trying to milk gamers.

Nintendo put out a less then stellar console in the late 90's and that help PS1 and PS2 gain a foothold, Sony delayed putting out PS3 for a year and over-priced it and for the three years great games were hard to come by.... Microsoft had 360 RRoD issues and I don't even know what planet Don M. was on as he led the XBox One into existence.

On the third party side, Ubisoft as you stated as their issues, but Bethseda has fallen from glory with Fallout 76, EA just keeps being stupid, Square Enix just keeps with the same basic formula, Capcom - people seem to like but forget their completely lame ports (disguised as remasters) at the start of the generation, and finally Activision-Blizzard where milking is the only thing they both seem to really know.

If you are looking for a company that is looking out for you every company has strikes in my books!

[Rachel_Alucard]

"Sony delayed putting PS3 out for a year"

More like Microsoft released it a year early to beat out Sony since they failed hard the previous gen, which is the only reason they even got the traction they did last gen. They ended up having the biggest failure rate in history because of that. The PS3 still sold more in the end, so it was a waste, and now they're back to playing second bananas like the first time.

[NeoGamer232]

@Rachel_Alucard
Who cares who is 1st, 2nd, 3rd.... or whatever? None of the big three are going anywhere. They are around today, they will be around next gen, and they will be around the gen after as well. Anyone thinks that any of these companies are folding there tents are delusional.

[xVOLTx]

Make better games Ubisoft.

[neutralgamer1992]

And less greedy games

[opc]

I feel like the people that say this haven't played the last AC.

[Tross]

I’ll continue to support Steam, and ignore EGS. Thanks Ubisoft. Your statement would mean more coming from a less crooked company that makes better games.

[LordJamar]

Image being such a fanboy and thinking steam is the “good guys” or gives any crap about you 😂😂

[Imalwaysright]

Imagine being such a fanboy that you would settle with the far inferior service that doesn't even have basic features and what do you mean with "good guys”? Do you want us to believe that Epic gives a shit about us?

[Rachel_Alucard]

Imagine being such a fanboy and thinking Epic is the "good guys" or gives any crap about you 😂😂

[Rachel_Alucard]

"The industry standard is unsustainable!" *continues selling 3rd party games with a 30% cut on Uplay*

https://imgur.com/a/XIGXUed

[opc]

ubisoft stopped selling third party games.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Not like anyone was buying anything from them until it was forced on them.

[Thundercat77]

"unrealistic" for their greedy plans.

[pleasuretokill]

Any company that takes options off of my table will never, ever see one single dollar from my wallet. I've bought Epic games in the past, but after I heard what they are doing trying to pay for 3rd party exclusives on PC, I closed my wallet to them. If they want to compete, they can do so by making their games cheaper and making their platform better than Steam's. Taking away purchase options? Yeah. That doesn't benefit me at all, so.... good luck seeing any of my cash. Instead of buying BL3 on Epic, I bought Darq on Steam.

[rainslacker]

What they're trying to do for 3rd party exclusives? You mean giving a larger percentage of the sale of that game to the dev? Yeah...how terrible of them.

They don't have to pay for all those exclusives you know. Some publishers do it just to get the higher cut. For an indie dev, the difference is significant enough that it could mean the difference between profit and closing the doors. I know there is a vocal group that wants to hate what they're doing, but most PC gamers really don't care enough, or at all, to take a stand, because it's not like they're not able to buy or play the game.

[opc]

not every game on epic stream well over Steam Remote play

[Tross]

@pleasuretokill That’s exactly why I don’t support them either. I like the idea of there being more competition for Steam but I do not like how they go about bringing that competition, at all. Most of the “exclusives” they secure are available on consoles anyways, so I don’t have to give them money.

[Magic_Spatula]

Another greedy company being greedy. Move along people. Nothing to see here.

[LordJamar]

So is steam lol in fact there the most greediest and biggest

[opc]

Epic is worth more than Valve, Epic has the most popular game in the world, they have more employees, and their engine is way more popular.

Epic is bigger in every way except for sales of third party games.

Steam isn't the company people should worry about becoming a monopoly.

[Pyroxfaglover]

666Ubisoft is shitty company,.. Always was

[Juusterey]

Ubisoft?
The same company that banned people in assassin's Creed ossysey' a single player game, for faster leveling up?
.the company that charged 10$ for Monopoly dlc to make my own rules?

[esherwood]

I’m glad epic marketplace exist, makes no since to me why people feel the need to be loyal to steam. They’ve made a fortune bieng the only one in there market for a long time and I’m glad there’s at least a little competition now. The 30% they where charging seems ridiculous and it didn’t take long for them to have to change it when epic stepped in. I’m sure this’ll pressure steam into making games again and drive prices down

[CBaoth]

The 30% is an industry standard. Look at Rachel Alucard's post above. Greedy Ubisoft isn't passing the savings onto the customer with their own service. They're charging you the 30%. The PC market will be oversaturated with walled gardens in the coming years and guess what you'll still be paying those royalties

[cartman313]

There was always competition. Why are people this stupid? Just go to cheapshark.com and see all the competition. Tons of other stores to buy from. Most of my games I didn't even buy from steam.

[esherwood]

Well now there’s more competition, Jesus how are people so stupid... steam has never had a major challenger and I guarantee both companies are looking at ways to make there service better then the other now. Hell we might be even get half life 3 now

[LordJamar]

Yep epic store guys were right it’s competition and devs will be the ones to decide this war not fans steam couldn’t stay a monopoly forever guys come on

[JunMei]

Yeah. Steam has to drop their cut. It's just silly.

[mamotte]

Pretty much like King Crimson.

Event then, it just works.

[opc]

Steam must be providing them with some pretty good sales numbers because Ubisoft keeps selling their games there

[VivaChe]

A company that makes billions I would say has a fairly “realistic” business model(?) lol

[AllMightyFox]

hmmm... I hate Ubisoft but have no issues with Steam that I've used for years.

seems this article and my own views are contradicting, maybe like in the past this is another failed attempt full of lies to chip away at Steams stronghold over the market, but Ubisoft is garbage so it ain't happening.

I will never reinstall Uplay, did that once years ago and the monitoring data thief platform is slow and trashy.

This is another stupid piece by a corrupt industry called Gaming News … sad part is No News is really news in 2019, it's all just propaganda and it's pathetic.

btw the "unrealistic" business model they describe has been dominating the market for over a decade soo … get lost morons

[Rachel_Alucard]

Anyone who falls for this narrative that "Steam is the bad guy" needs to look at the other option first. You're defending a company not just backed by the Chinese government, but also Disney and 7 other firms. Those companies expect a big return and Epic has to satisfy them. That's also part of why Epic's value is worth more then Valve, because they received backing by multiple firms and don't even fully own their company. Valve has no such investments or ownership splits, so there's no pressure to satisfy these firms investments. Why do people think Valve's market share is worse then Epic's attempt at a monopoly?