Steam's Ubisoft removal not DRM-related

By Robert Purchese Published 19 March, 2010

"A local business decision," says publisher.

Ubisoft's piped up and explained that Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter V were not removed from Steam due to DRM disagreements.

"The games listed are available for sale in all other countries on Steam. The fact it is not available on Steam UK has nothing to do with the DRM but is linked to a local business discussion between Ubisoft and Steam in UK," said Ubisoft in a statement.

Both games had mysteriously vanished amid speculation that Valve didn't want to muddy its reputation and be associated with Ubisoft's controversial DRM solution that requires users to be online at all times.

This "local business discussion" comes after Ubisoft's DRM servers were "attacked" earlier this month, presumably by angry fans.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Quak #1 2 years ago

    Aha, saw this at lunch time on VG24.

  • PlugMonkey #2 2 years ago

    Anyone know what's going on with Metro 2033 on Steam? It was there for pre-order, proudly boasting its Steam Achievements and all that, and then it just vanished from the store.

    Is that the same deal but with THQ?

  • PlugMonkey #3 2 years ago

    Ubisoft have got to be the most stupid motherlovers in the gaming industry right now.

    Er, Activision?

  • KDR_11k #4 2 years ago

    Metro appears just fine in Germany so if it's missing that must be a localized issue too. Maybe there's some issue with Steam's handling of the GBP?

  • Darren #5 2 years ago

    Apparently this deal is something to do with GAME, allowing them to sell PC games for a few weeks before they appear on Steam. Or so I've read.

    Considering the prices Steam ask for new releases though here in the UK, I'm surprised anyone is daft enough to buy games from them (only their excellent weekend deals are good value IMO) as even GAME tend to be cheaper and online obviously cheaper still (although you do have the 'inconvenience' of having a disc, case and manual for this lower price). ;)

  • Malek86 #6 2 years ago

    @PlugMonkeys: Activision is not really stupid. More like, nauseatingly greedy. But they have yet to do anything as stupid as this whole DRM fiasco.

  • sneetch #7 2 years ago

    In fairness, brotherbob and PlugMonkey, it's a close run race at the moment. ;)

  • sneetch #8 2 years ago

    @Darren
    Apparently this deal is something to do with GAME, allowing them to sell PC games for a few weeks before they appear on Steam. Or so I've read.

    Considering the prices Steam ask for new releases though here in the UK, I'm surprised anyone is daft enough to buy games from them (only their excellent weekend deals are good value IMO) as even GAME tend to be cheaper and online obviously cheaper still (although you do have the 'inconvenience' of having a disc, case and manual for this lower price). ;)

    You also have the inconvenience of having to go to a GAME store to buy it (they're not everywhere) or the inconvenience of waiting for the delivery to arrive. That said, yeah you're right, Steam is expensive and I normally buy from online retailers; the 3-5 day wait isn't enough to make me want to pay an extra €20. :)

  • PlugMonkey #9 2 years ago

    @Malek: I think time may tell on that one. Tearing apart the dev team responsible for your $billion cash cow may, in the long run, prove to be a worse move than pissing off a few PC gamers.

  • UberFrog #10 2 years ago

    Ubishit

  • drxym #11 2 years ago

    Who wants to buy full price games on steam anyway? The likes of AC2, Bioshock 2 etc. are ridiculously expensive selling online at the RRP when it's easy to find them for 30% less than that on Play, Amazon etc. Even most bricks and mortar stores are cheaper ffs.

  • Mortey #12 2 years ago

    I bought Chaos Rising from Games download service at the weekend, they were charging £30 in the shops, it was £20 as a download.

    All they did was email me a code to pop into Steam (£30 there too, I think)

  • Pasco #13 2 years ago

    Malek, firing the heads of the studio that make you the most money IS stupid.

  • the_mtfr #14 2 years ago

    I've had it up to

    HERE

    with digitally downloadable games being available in just some countries. For example I would have perhaps bought Burnout Paradise on Impulse but nooooo.....

  • xenon_md #15 2 years ago

    I can see myself getting pissed off with 'Steam UK' first Metro 2033 disappears now Ubi/possibly Game are pulling this crap. I quite happily pay a little extra for my lazy "oh i want to play that now" impulse buys on Steam. Steam = ultimate convenience for me.

    edit : Hmmm thats more getting pissed of with publishers and retailers pulling their titles from Steam.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/10 @ 18:24

  • Gastrian #16 2 years ago

    Regarding the "inconvenience" factor weren't companies like Amazon, Play and even GAME shipping their pre-orders so far in advance they were being received by their customers a day or two before release? Surely thats more convenient than Steam's "Christmas Tree" policy, ie you've got the game in front of you but can't open it until a specific time designated by your parents/Steam?

  • Sunyavadin #17 2 years ago

    You also have the inconvenience of having to go to a GAME store to buy it (they're not everywhere) or the inconvenience of waiting for the delivery to arrive.

    I dunno, an average of 1-2 days before release date is good timing on deliveries in my book.

  • penhalion #18 2 years ago

    Ubisoft's piped up and explained that Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter V were not removed from Steam due to DRM disagreements.

    Yea and cancer isn't removed to save lives either is it Mr Ubisoft!

  • drxym #19 2 years ago

    Aside from release dates, the reality is that most full price games occupy 4Gb+ upwards. Even a fast broadband connection is going to take hours to grab a game. Unless someone never leaves the house, the chances are they could pick up the exact same game for cheaper from a multitude of outlets during their daily routine in less time than it takes to download.

    IMO Steam is only worthwhile for casual games, and weekend deals. Even some of the sale prices are a joke, barely matching what you could buy a game from anywhere else. They really need to sort their prices because they are an insult.

  • tiny_Eggy #20 2 years ago

    Steam is great but fairly expensive on the continent. My local game store, run by a 2 guys, is probably struggling to keep afloat so I can't with good conscience buy new games somewhere else. Yes they are just as expensive as Steam but the price can be justified which I have a hard time doing with new releases on Steam.

  • Sharzam #21 2 years ago

    Iam with tiny_eggy on this one, for example Chaos Rising its £20 is a fews places and £29.99 on steam my local independant shop (small town only game shop) run by 1 man is struggling at the moment so is charging normal RRP on most things which means £29.99 if iam to pay that price it will be in that shop.

    But to be honest in these cash tight times its getting harder to justify not just waiting for the investible weekend offer where will be £15 for example, AvP is £16 this weekend.

  • Sevens #22 2 years ago

    'And thats not to mention the fact that when I want to play it again in 2years from now, I will probably have to just buy it on steam again as my disc will be scratched or the cd key lost. '

    Yeah, can't even put them in a dishwasher without them getting scratches. Stupid discs! Shouldn't be sold to kids and morons anymore. Having contol over things you buy is overrated, too. As are good prices. All hail digital distribution. Oh, and morons, of course.

    P.S.:

    Hopefully Steam will go "have to always be online" real soon. It's awesome!

  • actionfitz #23 2 years ago

    "Malek86
    @PlugMonkeys: Activision is not really stupid. More like, nauseatingly greedy. But they have yet to do anything as stupid as this whole DRM fiasco."

    erm how about killing then raping the twitching corpse of the Golden Goose by sacking the heads of Infinity ward then holding the rest of the staffers to ransom over unpaid royalties?
    Way to go making the rest of the Activision related devs feel comfortable and secure in their jobs.

  • darkmorgado #24 2 years ago

    Way to go making the rest of the Activision related devs feel comfortable and secure in their jobs.

    Erm, do you expect anything less from a company headed by Bobby "Im a cunt" Kottick, who famously said he likes to foster a "culture of fear" among his staff?

  • PlugMonkey #25 2 years ago

    @retrend: Can't you add it to Steam by putting in the CD key code? I've done that with a few games.

  • ryn.x #26 2 years ago

    @PlugMonkey

    Depends entirely on the game, Unreal Tournament 3 and Dawn of War II (to name two) you can, but quite a few others don't.

  • Shooterexn #27 2 years ago

    Lol, bad decision.

  • bad09 #28 2 years ago

    "I bought Chaos Rising from Games download service at the weekend, they were charging £30 in the shops, it was £20 as a download.

    All they did was email me a code to pop into Steam (£30 there too, I think)"

    Used Game for the first time this weekend myself (Empire Total War for £9.53 for the week. YAY!), I to just used the key on Steam instead of downloading 8 files then installing through Metaboli (who game use).

    As for the article I do find a company crying it's arse off about piracy then limiting ways to access games a tad stupid, but who cares? This is Ubi, none of their games will be in my Steam list (or on my HDD) until the DRM is gone anyway.

  • bad09 #29 2 years ago

    @ retrend

    You probably already know this but all Retail EA games (including BFBC2) can be unlocked in your EA download manager from
    the EA store. Not gonna whack 'em on the lovely new Steam game page but you get the the online access benefit.