Lol this argument never fails to make me laugh."Hey guys remember when Steam use to be utter trash more than a decade ago?" I dont expect new launchers to have all the features that Steam has, but releasing bare bones crap in this day and age isn't gonna cut it either.
And yet, Steam itself exists because of this practice.
Regional pricing is fantastic and helps a LOT. But in Ubi's case I doubt it played a huge part because outside of a few versions (Chinese, Russian, Argentinian and maybe 1-2 more) Ubi games are actually cheaper for people from other regions on 3rd party resellers and Uplay than they are on steam. The rest of the world that usually benefits from regional pricing that do not have the same benefit of steam version being priced lower atleast when it comes to Ubi games because Ubi doesn't do massively cheaper prices like most other publishers (with a few exceptions that I mentioned above).
I don't think people gave Epic too hard a time for having a launcher for Fortnite. It was when it started buying platform exclusivity for high profile third party games that it raised eyebrows. Valve got a hard time for even attaching their own titles to their platform. valve came out the other side of it and has earned the respect and appreciation it has. Let EGS claw its way to that same respect from its audience. It deserves no respect from its own customers for simply attempting to upset the apple cart. Its free games program, particularly with Subnautica, is a great first step. It'll be interesting to see where it goes from there.
Steam literally exists because of them forcing it upon users kicking and screaming, against virtually the exact same arguments you now make. They don't 'moneyhat' third parties because they don't have to - they forced their way into a near monopoly on the market, why would they moneyhat? Eventually though as the big publishers move away, they will start doing it as well. Or start developing games again, take your pick.
It's a storefront, neither of them deserve 'respect' from anything lol
My point is Ubisoft (very likely through initial monetary incentive from Tencent and sales projections) is gambling that the loss of the millions of potential sales on Steam by making the Epic Store the only alternative is worth the risk.
I have a theory (which I pulled out of my ass ofc but bear with me for a sec). Ubi has said they are doing this only for "select titles" not all as New Dawn is still available on Steam. The Division is a GaaS game which is promised to have big free content drops (basically top level Ubi support that we expect) supported via mtx. Now I'm pretty sure steam makes the same cut on mtx and if you buy an Ubi game on steam the payment HAS to be processed through steam as the ingame uplay store redirects to steam payments, the publisher has no option to process the mtx through uplay even if they or the consumer wants to if the game is a steam copy. On the other hand if you have the uplay version of the game the payment is processed on uplay itself with you being given the option to process it through one of the 5-6 payment methods (cc bill/mastercard etc). Buying mtx through uplay basically removes one step and one middleman from the payment process.
That was the publishers\developers who required it not valve.
Not if the game was SteamWorks
Again using SteamWorks made Steam mandatory and devs used SteamWorks to integrate Steam's features into their games. You may see it as optional (no one had to use it) but it did speed up development of those games.
Yes, those features are removed. Just like the Games for Windows vs Steam versions of games way back then.
I think the point that was trying to be made is that it's the publishers/developers that are choosing to use those features rather than it being forced on them (and in turn, you) by Valve specifically, and that any complaints should be directed to said publishers/developers rather than Valve.
Steam has soooooo many features other launchers are lacking. Want a refund? Epic says no. Mod support? No. Community hub? No. Marketplace? No. Trading cards? No. Regional pricing? No. Console mode/ big picture? No. Controller support? No....
Mod support for an always online game? Community Hub and Trading cards, seriously?
As a consumer I couldn't care less. Valve used its toolset to bring people to its plateforme and I find it kind of amusingf that Epic is villified for having exclusives while at the same time praising Steam (and Valve) for its past and current behaviors (because I really doubt major pubs started using Steamworks without any kind of incentives)
Interesting theory.
Worked just fine for Activision (BO4) and EA (Origin). Ubisoft has already established UPlay among people playing its games. Buying the game on Uplay instead of Steam won'T make a difference for people invested in Ubisoft's gaming philosophy
Nothing prevents you from buying it on the Uplay store.
Piracy of.. GaaS games?
