First Brothers in Arms free with pre-order Comments by Robert Purchese

I noticed this last night. It's annoying to be shown the offer only to find you're not applicable.

I 've already logged into Steam by the time I see the adverts, so it already knows which region I'm in.

They're probably still deciding whether to double or triple the price for Europe (see CoD 4).

ubi shitcans european steam users yet again.

I can't see anyone being surprised by this, Ubisoft infamously refused their catalogue of games on Steam to Europeans, and this is another of their games.

@ mallocks

Good shout, did we ever get any idea of why they decided not to give us stuff on Steam?

I still stand by my point that if I'm not allowed to purchase something I shouldn't see it advertised.

ubi have their own D/L service in europe i think thats why. (i love on steam how it cost's up to 20 euros more than the DVD based version when you add the taxes and stuff, only valve products or 3rd partys offer value for money on steam)

"We will investigate."

Why waste your time and energy, Rob? I can let you know what you'll find out here and now: Valve will tell you what they've said in the past for incidents like the COD4 rip-off; the publishers decide how much it can be sold for and where it'll be sold. Ubisoft will, of course, attempt to turn any conversation into a marketing exercise, probably telling us we can't buy it on Steam for our convenience or because European gamers don't use Steam or some bullshit before shifting the conversation onto "we're really proud of Game X, it's really redefining Genre Y and offers a whole new, emotional take on Feature Z. It' a whole new blah, blah, bollox."

X = Brothers in Arms
Y = the tactical FPS genre (or whatever)
Z = cut-scenes where men talk in gravelly voices about how they didn't know what to expect from war but learned a lot and grew, both as human beings and as soldiers during it

Ubisoft have a truly pathetic on-line presence in Europe (surprising really as they are, geographically speaking at least, a European publisher). Look at the downloads in their US store, hundreds of games. Now look at the downloads in their European store, three games. Sorry, two games, Kong is in there twice, for some reason. What a pile of shit service.

I suppose they're petrified that people from some European countries won't be overcharged by the full amount if they're allowed to buy their products on-line digitally from a UK store. So instead those people buy them on-line physically from a UK store. Hmmm. Hopefully this policy ends up costing the company more in the long term.

Eventually we'll have a article from someone in Ubisoft whining about how the PC market is declining in Europe as evidenced by the fact that no-one has downloaded any of their three, sorry two, games from their UK store.

@thewolfiv

No, I don't think that's the reason because Ubisoft have their own download service in the US, and potentially have one in Europe (although they really have to start offering something there for download before you could glorify it by calling it a download service.

As for the prices on Steam they're fine for the vast majority of games, at least they're a hell of a lot cheaper than buying the physical version here. Some publishers may charge more (like Activision) but that's them, not Steam.

Nice comment sneetch, highly readable.

That would have made a better article than the one above which is basically: "Free BiA with pre-order - or maybe not, it doesn't seem to work, we'll see if we can find out".

Pre-order it from play.com and get a free t-shirt :)

I'll buy this in an instant... If they let me.