Ubisoft Creates Exclusive Partnership with Epic Games to Sell The Division 2

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Ubisoft has removed The Division 2 from Steam. Instead of selling the game on Steam, they have created a new product page on the Epic Games Store. The game will still be sold through the Ubisoft Store and "Ubisoft and Epic will work to integrate key components of Ubisoft's Uplay and Epic's online services to provide gamers from both ecosystems with more seamless social features and interoperability." Epic and Ubisoft will partner on upcoming titles to be announced over the coming year.

Valve has been criticized by developers for taking a 30% revenue split of each sale of digital items on its Steam storefront. Recently Discord and Epic Games have launched their own digital storefronts where they take considerably less revenue from each sale. Discord is offering developers a 90/10 revenue split while the Epic Games Store sets its revenue split at 88/12.

"As long-time fans and partners of Ubisoft, we're thrilled to bring a range of awesome Ubisoft games to the Epic Games store," said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic. "We aim to provide the most publisher-friendly store, providing direct access to customers and an 88% revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games."

"We entrust Epic to deliver a smooth journey for our fans, from preordering the game and enjoying our Beta to the launch of Tom Clancy's The Division 2 on March 15," said Chris Early, Vice President of Partnerships. "Epic continues to disrupt the videogame industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support."
 
I wonder how many other developers will go this route and how this will result in a change to the profit split of Steam.
 
And who said competition wasn't good for the consumer. About time Steam gets knocked off their high horse. Maybe they'll go back to making video games or offer actual support for their platform.
 
And so it begins; the battle of titans.

A battle where the only clear winner will be the consumer.
 
Of all the games to make exclusive to the Epic store. Everyone's friends are on Steam, and so is the largest player base. If this was a single player game it would make more sense, but the Division 2? It doesn't matter how small of a cut the store is taking if you don't sell any copies......
 
exlink said:
And so it begins; the battle of titans.

A battle where the only clear winner will be the consumer.
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Not seeing how the consumer wins. Price will be same.

Doesn't seem the people parroting the consumer-wins line really understand the nuances of this. Increased fragmentation and siloed exclusives = lose-lose.

Epic burning through their FortNite money to bribe exclusives will come with a sad corollary truth: you can't buy mindshare or 15 years of inertia. You have to be disruptively better than an entrenched leader in other ways than lighting money on fire.
 
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I imagine Valve will soon change the amount they take from developers/publishers once the competition gets fierce enough.
 
I’m sick of Ubisoft games. I bought the last two assassins creeds and they were just so unbelievably blah. Far Cry was the same. I’m just done with them.
 
Time2Kill said:
And who said competition wasn't good for the consumer. About time Steam gets knocked off their high horse. Maybe they'll go back to making video games or offer actual support for their platform.
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Your not looking at the bigger picture
If Steam goes under you lose all your games it only one that support Linux + windows game under that os
All the dev will just move to one other that mean no more update nor fix nor online game playing you have rebuy ever game all over that will such big time especially those who have been on the Steam platform for 15 years and have bought many thousands of games
 
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DPI said:
Not seeing how the consumer wins. Price will be same.

Doesn't seem the people parroting the consumer-wins line really understand the nuances of this. Increased fragmentation and siloed exclusives = lose-lose.

Epic burning through their FortNite money to bribe exclusives will come with a sad corollary truth: you can't buy mindshare or 15 years of inertia. You have to be disruptively better than an entrenched leader in other ways than lighting money on fire.
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I’m not parroting anyone; I’ve come to this conclusion myself as did many others.

So far the consumer has been winning with Epic entering the race to get people on their platform. I have 2 free (good) games and will be receiving a free game every 2 weeks for the rest of the year from them. I’ll hold my judgement on how effective this strategy was to bring people onto the platform until the end of the year. But Epic doesn’t seem to be half-assing their platform like EA and Ubisoft did with theirs.

Not to mention we now will have another store that will have its own sales and deals. So basically if a game is not on sale on Steam it may be on sale on the Epic Store and vice versa. You know - competiition...

Siloed exclusives are only an inconvenience (minor at that, IMO) for PC gaming unlike the physical, hardware barrier it is on consoles. I’ll gladly install another, free platform if it means I can potentially get better deals on items I buy regularly.
 
homernoy said:
Of all the games to make exclusive to the Epic store. Everyone's friends are on Steam, and so is the largest player base. If this was a single player game it would make more sense, but the Division 2? It doesn't matter how small of a cut the store is taking if you don't sell any copies......
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It doesn’t matter what store you buy it from. I had a friend who had a free copy of The Division from the Ubisoft store/UPlay while I had it on Steam. We still played together.

Wouldn’t be surprised if many developers already do this or will begin to do this especially since cross-platform is starting to become prevalent.
 
exlink said:
It doesn’t matter what store you buy it from. I had a friend who had a free copy of The Division from the Ubisoft store/UPlay while I had it on Steam. We still played together.

Wouldn’t be surprised if many developers already do this or will begin to do this especially since cross-platform is starting to become prevalent.
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The problem is this game isn't on Steam, where all my friends are.
 
I have a lot of friends on steam, we don't use it for chat or anything any more because we are all on Discord at this point for just about everybody I know Steam is a glorified launcher that also has a storefront. Valve needs to get back into making good first party content, they got too complacent with their income from the Steam store and let a lot of talent slide, Epic is in a position where they can offer lower store prices because they have a number of alternative revenue streams from first party sales (looking at you Fortnight), and licensing from their engines, income from the store is just icing on the cake and they are using that icing to draw in talent to try for more first party titles. Epic is essentially doing what Valve started with and forgot about when the money started rolling in, yes Valve still makes a lot of money so it wont go anywhere any time soon but 50% of that money comes from less than 100 titles each year and if Epic can steal away even a fraction of those 100 titles it puts them in a strong position and will force Valve to step up its game.
 
homernoy said:
Of all the games to make exclusive to the Epic store. Everyone's friends are on Steam, and so is the largest player base. If this was a single player game it would make more sense, but the Division 2? It doesn't matter how small of a cut the store is taking if you don't sell any copies......
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I'm sure Ubisoft is really worried about not selling any copies to the sequel of its best selling game ever.
 
DPI said:
Not seeing how the consumer wins. Price will be same.

Doesn't seem the people parroting the consumer-wins line really understand the nuances of this. Increased fragmentation and siloed exclusives = lose-lose.

Epic burning through their FortNite money to bribe exclusives will come with a sad corollary truth: you can't buy mindshare or 15 years of inertia. You have to be disruptively better than an entrenched leader in other ways than lighting money on fire.
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True but there are lots of other factors here at play. First of all when steam launched nothing existed like it. It really had no competition and the industry had not seen what it could do. Now days a lot of major investors get it, they understand the online store model be it google play, app store, Microsoft store, or steam. And now days a lot of people know what steam is. That may not seem important but it is, it means that epic, and investors are going to be willing to make the financial sacrifice to compete, and yes they aren't morons they will start integrating everything steam has into it. Remember epic got their start copying quake, they know how to be a late mover in a market. Fortnite itself is an example of that, late to the party but it has done better than PUBG. It has become literally a household name, you can see the shirts even in the mall.


Bigshrimp said:
I imagine Valve will soon change the amount they take from developers/publishers once the competition gets fierce enough.
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Maybe, or maybe they will and it will be temporary. I actually think about this like online hotels and flights. Originally they made their inroads into the industry by offering lower prices. Once everyone was used to Priceline, hotels expedia etc then the prices kind of normalized back up. Now days there are a number of hotels where I get a better deal going directly to them. especially if its a small one. Point is the industry seems to have consolidated around the 20 to 30% mark. Just cause one guy who had no presence in the market till they had a massive hit game comes in offering a lower price doesn't mean that will stick long term and it will simply become normal for everyone to only charge a 12% commission.
 
DPI said:
Epic burning through their FortNite money to bribe exclusives will come with a sad corollary truth: you can't buy mindshare or 15 years of inertia. You have to be disruptively better than an entrenched leader in other ways than lighting money on fire.
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Saying you have to be "disruptively better" with no specifics is an easy statement to make, but doesn't mean much for an actual strategy. Steam has shortcomings sure, but it isn't SO lacking that's the room for another publisher to come in and take a bunch of marketshare without some sort of gimmick. But hey, pretend you had Epic's money to publish, how would YOU get buyers to leave Steam en masse and come to your service? Having a better split with developers and exclusives to entice players is the most effective method I can think of. I honestly can't tell if you're pro-monopoly or just naive when it comes to this. Look at it this way:

1. Compete on equal ground as Steam, gain little marketshare, be less profitable, and Steam continues to retain its monopoly-like status because no one sees any reason to switch.
2. Compete with exclusives and have a chance of eroding Steam's monopoly status.

You seem upset they're not going with option #1.

There's a real word analogy to what you're proposing, of having an arguably superior product compete against years of monopoly-level entrenchment: Desktop Linux. Linux is free, has more control for users, arguably more convenience, privacy, and security than Windows. It has no must-have unique exclusive content that someone can't get on Windows instead. How's their marketshare working out for them?
 
I hope Valve plan to release Half Life 3 on Steam that put Epic Games Store out of business. Hope Valve do something about it.
 
phatbx133 said:
I hope Valve plan to release Half Life 3 on Steam that put Epic Games Store out of business. Hope Valve do something about it.
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Epic store isn't going out of business anytime soon. Remember they have millions of gamers now that don't even know what steam is, that alone is solid gold. Fortnite just put epic back on the map for at least a decade.
 
Competition is good. I am no valve die hard or anything. But the competition would have the be insanely good and offer me a real reason to support them... other then, we take 10% less of DLC and in game currency purchases for loot boxes. Why should I care about that.

Valve gets my support as they support Linux, pretty much end of story. But not even counting that as my reasoning to support them. Ya 15 years late to the party and buying up titles like its 1999 and MS has a console to launch. Really just makes me hope Epic fails all the faster.

Which is exactly why Valve will not respond by dropping royalties. Why should they ? When a few big titles fail hard with Epic exclusives... or get terrible press cause people aren't able to download their games with zero issues on launch days or some other game service breaking stuff happens that creates negative press for the service jumping developers. Valve will be waiting to welcome them back... and I hope they stick to their guns, and to their 30% ask.

I can hear it now....
"When the dead is done we part ways... valve buys a little ranch in Washington. Epic going to take their little medicine show back on the road.."
"and you going to pay.....Hallllffff"

 
Good.
Steam need some competition, they have been slacking big time (and I'm talking about Steam, not about Valve not making HL3).
 
This isnt going to be pretty... Exclusives will provide a uniqueness to encourage gamers to even consider another ecosystem and obviously the producers are looking at more ROI, but unless epic can provide everything else steam does AND exceed (device support, API, ecosystem etc)... It's not going to be great

If they still rely on exclusives to survive or stay relevant in 12months, they have no real future

https://www.fortressofdoors.com/so-you-want-to-compete-with-steam/
 
Saw this coming a mile away. In before the few Valve defenders who said there Valve has nothing to worry about.

The only thing I find interesting is they are bothering with Epic at all. They have Uplay, a big install base (anyone who bought any Ubisoft game the past 6 or so years including on Steam). You'd think if they wanted to save money they'd go Uplay exclusive like EA did with Origin.

DPI said:
Not seeing how the consumer wins. Price will be same.

Doesn't seem the people parroting the consumer-wins line really understand the nuances of this. Increased fragmentation and siloed exclusives = lose-lose.

Epic burning through their FortNite money to bribe exclusives will come with a sad corollary truth: you can't buy mindshare or 15 years of inertia. You have to be disruptively better than an entrenched leader in other ways than lighting money on fire.
Click to expand...

Anything can change if you become complacent, much like Valve has. This isn't the first time a tech platform had near dominance and then lost its hold. Keep saying that all you want, but 2019 is going to be rough. More and more AAA games are leaving. That 15 years of inertia won't mean much when half of the best selling games aren't on your platform. Especially since the most popular game with kids these days are on other platforms.

Valve is already offering AAA publishers & high selling games a lower 20% rate. They aren't doing this out of the kindness of their heart. You can't be so oblivious as to the reasoning for this move. Hint: They're worried about loosing their market dominance. Add in that smaller indie developers, who almost all use UE4, get an even bigger discount on Epic's platform and you can see why this is attractive. Put the game for $50 on Steam, $40 on Epic. Most will buy their copy on Steam but long term people will opt for the cheaper price. AAA devs will charge $60 regardless, but people will move to a new platform for a AAA game (Origin, Uplay, Blizzard, Rockstar are examples) despite the whining on the forums.

No matter what happens Steam will be around for a long time. But there certainly is a chance they will loose their strong hold in PC game distribution if they don't make changes soon. Good thing for Valve is that they're aware of the situation, hence them getting more competitive on fees.
 
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With U-PLAY you can get a 20% discount using UBI credit on games that are earned though achievements in game. I saw this coming a mile away the people on Steam are going to be pissed though.

20 percent.jpg
 
Flogger23m said:
Saw this coming a mile away. In before the few Valve defenders who said there Valve has nothing to worry about.

The only thing I find interesting is they are bothering with Epic at all. They have Uplay, a big install base (anyone who bought any Ubisoft game the past 6 or so years including on Steam). You'd think if they wanted to save money they'd go Uplay exclusive like EA did with Origin.



Anything can change if you become complacent, much like Valve has. This isn't the first time a tech platform had near dominance and then lost its hold. Keep saying that all you want, but 2019 is going to be rough. More and more AAA games are leaving. That 15 years of inertia won't mean much when half of the best selling games aren't on your platform. Especially since the most popular game with kids these days are on other platforms.

Valve is already offering AAA publishers & high selling games a lower 20% rate. They aren't doing this out of the kindness of their heart. You can't be so oblivious as to the reasoning for this move. Hint: They're worried about loosing their market dominance. Add in that smaller indie developers, who almost all use UE4, get an even bigger discount on Epic's platform and you can see why this is attractive. Put the game for $50 on Steam, $40 on Epic. Most will buy their copy on Steam but long term people will opt for the cheaper price. AAA devs will charge $60 regardless, but people will move to a new platform for a AAA game (Origin, Uplay, Blizzard, Rockstar are examples) despite the whining on the forums.

No matter what happens Steam will be around for a long time. But there certainly is a chance they will loose their strong hold in PC game distribution if they don't make changes soon. Good thing for Valve is that they're aware of the situation, hence them getting more competitive on fees.
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Which still doesn't nessecarily benifit the consumer and we now have yet another launcher to install, another item running the background sucking up system resources.

As a consumer I'd consider that an 'Epic' fail that's right up there with the fabled trickle down effect.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Which still doesn't nessecarily benifit the consumer and we now have yet another launcher to install, another item running the background sucking up system resources.

As a consumer I'd consider that an 'Epic' fail that's right up there with the fabled trickle down effect.
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I am guessing you are thinking of this because Epic does not support Linux and Steam does, am I right? Competition is a good thing and hopefully, this will drive it in the right direction.
 
homernoy said:
Of all the games to make exclusive to the Epic store. Everyone's friends are on Steam, and so is the largest player base. If this was a single player game it would make more sense, but the Division 2? It doesn't matter how small of a cut the store is taking if you don't sell any copies......
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homernoy said:
The problem is this game isn't on Steam, where all my friends are.
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Unless something has changed, you should be able to still point steam at the game to use it as a launcher can you not? I know that in the past I had added none steam games to my steam library. That said, as was trying to be explained to you, you can still make yourself friends also through your UPlay accounts. That is what you are playing through with the game anyway. It isn't like Valve runs the servers and you only see steam players for a game. You are going through Ubisoft's servers and seeing the same players in the game.


If anything your argument here is why consoles are better for gaming with friends. Everyone with a PS4 is in a single friends list. you don't have to worry about trying to manage a friends list for every service out there.
 
Taking the game off Steam isn't resulting in more choices for consumer, so I don't see how this is a win for consumer.

You have to pay the same price, but now need yet another launcher.
 
Hornet said:
Taking the game off Steam isn't resulting in more choices for consumer, so I don't see how this is a win for consumer.

You have to pay the same price, but now need yet another launcher.
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If you want to limit the scope of competing platforms to just this one game then sure. But the introduction of this new platform overall isn't a loss for the consumer. You don't have to pay anything for the new launcher and you still get to play the same games on your same PC. It's a minor inconvenience at best.

Seems that some people value convenience over competition. I'd rather endure the minor inconvenience of installing another free launcher if that means Steam's monopoly is now be challenged and sparks competition.
 
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