Uplay Tries To Beat Origin At Trying To Beat Steam

Remember Ubisoft’s Uplay? Have you taken a look at it recently? An update was just quietly released.

It now has a PC client, user avatars, sells, installs, and patches games, achievements, and gives in-game bonuses. It appears to be outdoing Origin in terms of functionality.

I wonder if/when we’ll see their games pulled from Steam? I imagine Ubisoft will want to sell their DLC with no cut going to Valve.

I think it shows some awareness on Ubi’s part that they have even more trust issues to deal with regarding PC gamers than even EA.

…and not much else…

I called it back when they launched their DRM (Ubi Launcher).
Wasn’t hard to imagine that those “Uplay Points” given for some achievements in one game to be redeemed in another one day will be a real currency.

I wish Ubi luck because they will need it…

Who is taking the plunge and installing this? 1, 2, 3… Not it!

EA was able to get away with it because of Battlefield 3. Hell, Valve was able to get away with it because of Half-Life 2.

I hope Ubi doesn’t think Far Cry 3 or Assassin’s Creed 3 will do the same.

What do you mean get away with it? Virtually every modern Ubisoft game requires Uplay.

If they want more PC dollars wouldn’t it be more effective to not delay every PC release and ease up on their shitty DRM? The company has been shitting on their PC customers for years now, I doubt people are just going to line up for UPlay.

All they need is one game that pulls a bunch of sales. I remember a lot of resistance to Origin by many PC gamers, but Battlefield 3 overcame that easily.

Not for this PC gamer at least.

That’s true. I was just snarkily commenting that it’d be easier/cheaper to get more revenue out of PC gamers by simply not fucking them in the eyeball whenever they try to buy an Ubisoft product.

You’ll get no arguments out of me. The last Ubisoft game I bought was RUSE. I haven’t purchased any of their PC versions of AssCreed since the first one.

Which is why I havn’t bought a Ubisoft PC game in years now. Fuck their DRM.

Last time I bought Ubi game was 3 years ago, and its not going to change anytime soon.

So are they going to unveil a “U Play Bro?” campaign? That’s what I think would take this to the next level of being in touch with the pulse of the modern PC gamer.

U Play Bro?

@Reldan; I am already ready to sign up.
@Marxeil; EA Downloader is a store???

I’m not sure if that’s correct. Judging from my test group of one person, I can launch Battlefield3 directly from the browser while Origin loads in the background. I never bother to open Origin to check out new deals or god forbid, buy anything there, while Steam store gets a peek at least twice a week.

Of course other, less discriminating users may be using Origin as a store…

it sucks major ass, can’t figure out how to register Anno 2070 to the program (which I bought from the Ubi store last fall), searched their forum for almost an hour, still no answer found.

uninstalled this crap client, as soon as i could.

I don’t understand the hate, I see it as positive that companies are trying to compete and improve their clients. The fact that they want to sell their games digitally directly themselves is understandable. And with the shitloads of memory I have these days I do not mind running both Origin and Steam at the same time. I put all my origin and otherwise games into steam and use that as game launch platform anyway.
And I just bought Alice on Amazon for 5 dollars, while on steam it is 50 euros. Even on summer sale it will not be cheaper than that. It activates on Origin instead of Steam, but who cares, I care about the games themselves than the way they are delievered.

At least as long as they work well, obviously.
I am about to try this new Uplay, my Driver SF is just downloading from steam, so I assume it will update Uplay as well.
What I like about Origin, despite its ugly and clunky interface is that it downloads the games fast (maxes out my 60mbit connection), it allows me to install games wherever (so no fiddling with junction points necessary) and it downloads games preinstalled just like steam.

I believe the hate has to do with the company, while the dislike has to do with the client itself (which will likely get better with time).

Now I see there’s an offline mode, but does that hamstring your games like it always has in the past? (no DLC’s would function, iirc)

I do not see fragmenting the market as a good thing for consumers. I do not trust EA or Ubisoft at all, and I trust Valve only a bit more, but it’s enough for me to toss my eggs in their basket.

With Valve at least I feel like there’s a chance that they aren’t just trying to bend me over a barrel. I KNOW EA and Ubisoft are trying to bend me over any way they can if they think it will make more money pop out.