Ubisoft Runs Away From Epic Store And Back To Steam
from the they-be-back dept
It’s been a long while since we last discussed the platform war that started between Steam and Epic several years back. The crux of the situation was that Epic began offering a far better revenue split for game publishers compared with Steam, with something like a 10-20% delta in how much of the revenue Epic takes versus Steam. This led to all kinds of public reactions, particularly as Epic began gobbling up game and publisher exclusives as part of that revenue split offering. In general, the public sentiment was essentially: yes, pay publishers more, but to hell with your exclusives.
Ubisoft was one of the publishers that jumped into Epic’s arrangement back in 2019. At the time, the company said Steam’s revenue split made remaining on the store unattractive. Well, it’s three years later, and if you want to take the temperature on how well Epic is doing in keeping publishers away from Steam, guess who just got back on Valve’s platform?
A page for 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was officially added to Steam Monday, listing a December 6 launch date on the platform. Ubisoft has also told Eurogamer that 2019’s Anno 1800 and Roller Champions will be coming to Steam, confirming earlier rumors to that effect.
“We’re constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are, while providing a consistent player ecosystem through Ubisoft Connect,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said in a statement provided to the press.
Ubisoft isn’t a one-off case, either. Activision Blizzard had also been off of Steam for some time but recently came back to the platform.
So, what does this mean? It means there is more to the value of a platform than just a revenue split agreement. Say what you want about Steam and how it operates, but the platform has built a robust following and a massive market share percentage. Between that and the familiarity gamers have with Steam, the fact is that the delta in revenue splits may not make up the difference for publishers looking to move the most amount of titles.
The platform wars aren’t over, of course, but they also aren’t going to end in a trouncing by one side or the other.
Filed Under: exclusives, platform wars, video game stores, video games
Companies: activision blizzard, epic, ubisoft, valve
Comments on “Ubisoft Runs Away From Epic Store And Back To Steam”
I’m glad to see my boycott of Epic Games is working out. The beauty is that the game industry is flooded with options, especially with replayable games that support mods like Skyrim still getting updates and having a robust mod community. Between that and Humble Bundle, I have too many Steam games I haven’t yet played, so I don’t have to worry about missing out on an Epic Games exclusive. I just wait for it to show up on Steam or I ignore it altogether. The bigger issue is waiting for console games to come to PC. It took Spider-Man long enough. Hopefully Bloodborne is on it’s way.
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Now we just need the industry to stop using Unreal Engine…
This led to all kinds of public reactions, particularly as Epic began gobbling up game and publisher exclusives as part of that revenue split offering
Not ‘particularly as’ but ‘because of’. The increased revenue split had bugger all to do with the public backlash, that was caused by Epic going around and buying up games that had been slated to release on other platforms and leaving customers stuck with either going without(potentially on a game that they’d financially supported with the understanding it would release on a platform they used), waiting months longer, or using a notably worse platform to get it.
Had Epic just offered the increased revenue split and let developers decide if that was enough to justify selling on their platform too/instead of the current ones there likely would have been little to no public outcry, it was because they decided to buy a multitude of exclusives and screw over the customers that people were upset with them.
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Basically, all of this. The average consumer does know or care about behind the scenes dealings. They care about the fact that they had to install yet another launcher, set up payment details with yet another store for zero benefit to themselves. This was especially raw when they launched because Epic notably lacked even some features that consumers had come to consider vital, they just used Epic because there was no legal choice and because they were giving things away for free.
Steam became the powerhouse that it is because it offered real benefits to consumers at a time when buying games digitally was a crap shoot with little consistency or convenience. Saying “here’s another version of Steam, but worse” isn’t going to buy you a lot of loyal customers against the competition, and these people always forget that “fine, I won’t buy those games” is a valid choice for a consumer, as is “meh, I’ll wait for a heavy discount”.
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Not helping their case was just how dickish some of those that took the exclusivity deals were, being incredibly antagonistic to those who originally wanted their games. Especially in those cases where they had been crowdfunded and then only change tune at the 11th hour.
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How were the customers screwed over? It’s just another icon on your desktop.
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They paid for something ahead of time to support development in good faith, then the company moved the product to another platform.
Part of they key there is “platform”, not “store”. That “icon” starts a ball of non-trivial invasive code and internet connectivity. i mean, from a personal perspective, screw all launchers. They are unnecessary bullshit. But the customers who funded development agreed to give their support while accepting a particular platform was going to be used.
i’d call that screwed. Maybe a bit hyperbolic? Maybe you’d use a different word? Maybe you are just one of those people who doesn’t care about any of those things. But there are definitely people who invested in the project who did care.
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It’s not just a different icon. It’s another program running in the background. It’s another program needing updates. It’s another cloud service that might go down when I want to use it. It’s another store I have to update my credit card info on. It’s another avenue of information security breaches. It’s another set of emails I get about sales.
“Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
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“And also, used to scrape Steam data to add to your friendlist without your permission.”
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Also epic filing sham lawsuits whining that it ahould get free stuff doesn’t help its image either.
I’m still baffled that so many people were upset by Epic “cheating at capitalism”, especially since there was a non-trivial overlap between them and the “preponderance of straight white male protagonists is fine because the market” crowd.
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You’re baffled that people felt forced into using a single platform to play certain games? Really?
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Man, fuck Epic.
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Yeah, after the devs of Ooblets received death threats and harassment for taking the exclusivity deal, it became clear to me that the people pissed at Epic and the various devs were just GamerGate holdovers.
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As one of the many boycotters of the Epic Game Store and not part of the white supremacist movement known as Gamergate, you should really do your fucking homework about this.
Epic’s got TWO members of Tencent on their board, simply because Tim Sweeney wants to monetize mobile games HARD and cares not as to where the ideas come from. Those board members can be replaced at ANY TIME, presumably with a paperwork fast track.
Epic has also aggressively bought out games under exclusivity deals, promising them “a bigger cut” if they moved to the EGS, and while I’m not privy to the actual sales data, that’s a rather cutthroat and unethical way to gain market share.
Again, no one approves of death threats against game devs, who are notoriously known to be garbage at budget balancing, even taking into account how flaky game dev can be funding-wise.
Some people, myself included, have legitimate grievances with Sweeney and Epic. Don’t fucking fold me and my actual grievances with the white supremacists.
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Yeah, no. Gamergaters are more likely to be crypto-stonk libertarian bros who cheer on this greed-driven exclusive bullshit. You’ve got your understanding twisted.
Poor people oppose exclusives that prevent competitors from holding sales of the same exact product to drive sales.
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“people pissed at Epic and the various devs were just GamerGate holdovers.”
I’m sure that’s what they tell themselves. There’s a lot of valid criticisms of Epic, and what you have to remember is that for every loudmouthed asshole, there’s a bunch of people who just quietly left.
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Or at least politely voiced their views without resorting to death threats.
Or asked for refunds. I know some people refunded their preorders of MW5 Mercernaries because of Epic.
Again, no one approves of harassment against game devs.
maturity of customers
At this point there are so many gamers of a more mature and more patient nature that exclusives have less and less meaning. If I’ve got to wait a couple of months to get the next in a series I like, I can usually wait. It’s not a big deal.
As for exclusives on new IP? I can definitely wait, I’m completely immune from the playground pressures of yore, and don’t engage with the kinds of media that constantly push the latest games. If the game is great, I’ll eventually hear about it and might buy it, by which point the exclusives will have gone, and the next Steam sale will be just around the corner 🙂
And minus the exclusives, Epic never offered anything to the game-playing customers that they couldn’t get on the existing platforms.
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I bought a PS4 pretty much for the exclusives, and at this point I’ve stopped buying games for it because I’m confident they’re all going to show up on PC eventually.
I really want to play Ghost of Tsushima, but I’ve passed it up, even on sale, because I’m confident it’ll be on Steam at some point, even though it hasn’t been announced for PC at all as of yet. Sony’s made it pretty clear that all of their first-party console games are coming to PC eventually.
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And that’s why I have no PS4 or PS5.
Zero benefit,?? theres free games on the epic store , and games going cheap, but of course steam has a large customer base,its better to get 70 per cent of 1 million dollars than 90 per cent of 100 k.people dont like having to set up new launchers for digital choice.choice is good for consumers , versus apple store which has control over all apps on the app store .
stores are becoming more important as consumers switch away from buying physical games,music, media
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“Zero benefit,?? theres free games on the epic store”
Zero real benefit that is good for both parties. If you have to give everything away it might indicate nobody wants to pay you for the level of service you offer…
There’s good services that attract business with free samples, but Epic don’t seem to have been offering anything else.
“its better to get 70 per cent of 1 million dollars than 90 per cent of 100 k.people”
True, but has this happened?
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Ah, right, that one Epic lawsuit versus Apple over Fortnite?
How did that go again? Apple still had the right to do whatever it wanted and let Epic link to an alternative site for payment processing?
Epic was just drunk on money from their cash cow
Their store is vacant. The functionality is minimal. They ‘won’ their early games by ‘paying in advance’ for the game’s exclusivity.
Had some interesting reactions when I refused to buy their ‘new release’ games on Steam. Dude, your game is a year old, on sale or no sale.
I have a game on Epic, because my son is on it.
GOG has a better site, and I have some games there.
Steam has broadest reach and I have hundreds there.
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It’s even funnier when you realize that the Unreal Engine Asset Store has a SHOPPING CART and the EGS didn’t.
Yes, that was a thing for a while.
Cleanup on Aisle 3, I repeat, cleanup on Aisle 3—someone dropped a bunch of straw on the floor.
Is it just a strawman, or is it one of those “hey this is maybe tangentially related enough to cram my pet topic into a comment” disguised as a strawman (or a gang of strawmen)?
No reason it can’t be both, i guess.
The janitors really cleaned that one up…
I can’t even see the comment.