Good news Americans and Canadians! The next publisher to leap upon the Steam train is Ubisoft, with over forty of their games onto Valve’s download platform. This includes classics like Far Cry, various Clancy titles, the Heroes of Might & Magic series, and IL-2 Sturmovik. And it also means future Ubi releases will be downloadable too, with pre-loading Assassin’s Creed already an option. You know, if you’re from North America.
This is the second company in a row to sign up with Steam and prevent the majority of the world from being able to take advantage. Atari’s motives last month are clear: they are currently so very overwhelmed with money that the last thing they want is vast numbers of people buying their games. But Ubisoft too? I asked Valve’s Doug Lombardi why this was the case, who put his hands up and said,
“It’s their call. We offer worldwide coverage, and we’re happy to offer the products to as many customers as the publisher/developer desires.”
We’ll be asking Atari and Ubi what their reasons are, and you can be sure we’ll get back to you as soon as we know. Meanwhile, have fun North Americans.
Related Stories:
As I’ve mentioned in here before, but I agree with wcaypahwat on the ‘I prefer boxes’ count. That said, I’m starting to get incredibly frustrated with the localization time delay nonsense, be it inside the digital distribution scheme or outside.
To take my biggest example in my mind right now: Rock Band. Yes, I know it’s a PC gaming site, but it’s relevant to the discussion. It has been out since November 20th in the U.S., while Wikipedia currently lists it as Q2 2008 for Europe and, even more soul-rendingly, N/A 2008 for Australia. It’s the most glaring error to me right now, but the ‘arbitrary number tacked on to every release date’ game gets played on basically every video game released. I *know* there must be other factors at play here, but seriously, what gives?
An earlier comment sums it up perfectly: “I want to give you money to play your games, please let me.”
EDIT: And because I want to be entirely clear, I’m not foolish enough to think that a game should be released simultaneously worldwide, but it really looks like most of these things go beyond simple measures of practicality.
How much localization do they need to put a game from the US through anyway, to get released in the UK/Australia? Are we really so pedantic as to be so upset that a game asks us to press the colored buttons as opposed to the coloured ones?
Well yes, but thats not really my point.
I don’t know how relevant this is with the advent of HDTV, but Japan and North America use a different SD television format than Europe and Australia, which I imagine has to be adjusted for. And from what I understood, mostly they release multi-language versions for Europe. I imagine they could save some time by just chucking an American English version overseas, but if they want to sell to people who only speak French or Spanish or whatever, they’d then need a separate release and printing, which must not be profitable enough for them.
I feel for you guys. I really do. And I am never, ever moving to Europe.
Oh, the issues would be purely legal ones (not that I can imagine what said issues would be, if the ratings boards of the countries in question have already rated the games) — I can’t ever remember playing a commercial release that used proper English (hmm, any counterexamples, anyone?), so I think it’s particularly unlikely that the half-arsed PC people at Ubisoft are fretting over a few stray ‘u’-s and ‘z’-s.
It’s got nothing to do with localization. I’ll probably see boxed copies of Assassin’s Creed before its official launch date. Ubisoft are really good at releasing their stuff.
Besides, we’re talking PC games. Everything runs everywhere.
Ubisoft’s back catalogue is not the problem either, I could find nearly everything they’ve published in-store for €5 in a single afternoon.
But the dollar is simply too volatile. In the past 3 months it’s lost ten percent of its value. That CoD4 for $70 deal would have cost me €60 when it was released (which matched local store pricing), but now it would be closer to €50. Accountants see that as a bad way to maximize profit. Once the dollar levels out, or even gains on the euro, they’ll be a lot more willing to distribute over Steam (for special, localized -i.e. inflated- prices of course).
That’s how I saw it too… Once you convert it from clown money to real money, such as GBP Sterling, that $70 over Steam works out to ~£35 – the SRP that Activision set out and surprisingly, the retail value that most places like GAME and even the supermarkets are selling CoD4 at…
Actually, once you add VAT, you’re talking £41, meaning they’re MAJORLY profiting, which is just sickening abuse of Valves system. It’s like they don’t want you using the system.
Oh, I was going to buy it on Steam. Guess its off to the Pirate Bay then.
And btw, -ize endings are just as British as -ise endings. In fact -ise endings are more French
2K not available on Brazil??? I bought Bioshock on Steam. Did things change? Did I take advantage of a window of non-conformance?
wcaypahwat: They don’t do any in the first place.
I also like the boxes but not at double the price steam charges USA players
Frak paying 100 USD for a game but that is pretty much what they make us do here in .au :(
As far as I can tell, it’s an issue with other distributers, and some deal Ubi made with the one for Australia. They don’t offer any of their online stuff outside of North America; not on their store, not on Steam.
I didn’t know about Atari on Steam, but you can’t get any of their NWN stuff off their website from Down Under either. I guess I’ll just have to enjoy my laid back, Western Australian lifestyle with games from other people, then.
The Penny Arcade guys were talking recently about their game. They said they were in talks with gamestop, but gamestop wanted a cut of all digital sales. It’s no wonder things like this happen. Eventually digital sales will eclipse retail shop sales and this will happen less, at least I hope so.
have you asked them yet?
OT: Another funny game:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=7670&cc=US $29.95 vs:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=7670&cc=CZ $49.95+VAT – for exactly same game. WHY?
I’d happily pay more to be able to buy a digital copy. DVD’s are just a pain in the ass. But I can’t. Ubisoft say that i MUST buy a DVD version. So Up yours Ubi. I’m not going to bother with this. I have too many games anyway.
This is what led me to buying from PlayAsia… COD 4 upping their prices was bad enough but then not having any rockstar, 2k and Ubisoft games available to me in Australia…
Assassins creeds for $48.50 AUD
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-ad9u-71-7s-49-en-15-assassins+creed%27-84-j-70-2obn-43-a.html
Far Cry 2 ready for preorder on steam… And still only NA.