Why Assassin's Creed Returning to Steam is Great

In early 2019, Ubisoft had started to feel a stage of uncertainty with the PC gaming platform known as Steam, which is by far and away the biggest and most popular storefront on all desktops and laptops. Ubisoft felt that the creators of Steam, Valve, were taking too large of a cut to put their games on their storefront as when a developer publishes a game on the Steam platform, Valve takes a 30% cut of all profits that are sold on their marketplace. That means 70% goes back to Ubisoft along with all other games that launch on Steam. Ubisoft was not alone in seeing this large cut as a sign of financial robbery, as major developers like Activision, who are known for the Call of Duty series, Electronic Arts, known for EA Sports and Apex Legends, and even Microsoft, who created Xbox, all left Steam at one point, but all of these developers have something in common, that they chose to favor a new storefront that offered a much more reasonable cut in the Epic Games Store.

The Epic Games Store became a rival to Steam, and boasts one of the most popular games in the world, Fortnite, that is exclusive to their platform and not on Steam. Epic Games tried to take on Valve and offer all developers a cut that would be difficult to pass on and taking them up on this offer means exclusivity to Epic and nothing on Steam, sacrificing any potential sales they would have gotten on Steam. the Epic Store only takes a 12% cut of all sales on their storefront, meaning 88% goes back to the original developer. Many of the major developers left Steam and put their games exclusively on the Epic Games Store in order to take advantage of the cut they would get. However, going with the Epic Games Store can be a difficult choice because Steam is the biggest and most popular place to play on PC and many choose to have their games in one place on Steam rather than go to the Epic Store, and Ubisoft signed a contract with them in early 2019 when their major game The Division 2 skipped Steam entirely and was exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Ubisoft at first enjoyed their partnership so much that they quickly signed a multi-year contract to remain on the Epic storefront.

Many of the developers who started with Steam but left for the Epic Games Store eventually returned to Steam eventually, and Ubisoft was one of them when in the past couple years they launched a string of the games that were released in previous years which were only on Epic Games Store at the time such as Watch Dogs Legion and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. When they arrived, the games all launched at a reduced price as they were games that had already been released a significant time prior. Even as Ubisoft slowly started their reunion with Valve, they still chose not to release their games day one on Steam as games like Star Wars Outlaws was a late addition to Steam, but when the very hyped Assassin’s Creed Shadows came around. Ubisoft finally chose to embrace Steam once more and was the first game that they released which launched day one on Steam in nearly six years. It became a no-brainer move for Ubisoft as their choice to return to Steam paid off and their sales on the PC platform raised a significant amount and proved that you could never truly abandon Steam for too long before the logical choice came to a reunion.

Basically all developers, such as Ubisoft, who left Steam behind eventually returned as the truth of the matter is that Steam is too big and too popular to resist. Even decades into the existence of Steam, it continues to break all time player count records almost yearly. Steam is just too big of a powerhouse to ignore. Ubisoft clearly made a smart choice returning to Valve’s storefront and their future games in the Assassin’s Creed series should see a major boost in sales compared to the years they remained Epic Games exclusivity. 

One thing Ubisoft tried while putting their games only on the Epic Games Store was also releasing their games on their own PC launcher and storefront, Ubisoft Connect. Since it is created and owned by Ubisoft, they get to keep 100% of all profits made, which negates the need of worrying about how large the cut will be on Steam or the Epic Store. Ubisoft has used their own launcher for years, but their return to Steam came at a perfect time as there are gamers out there who enjoy the Ubisoft Connect app and choose to play all Assassin’s Creed games there, and there are those who choose to play on Steam, so Ubisoft can get the sales from their own storefront while also giving Valve and Steam a cut, but making profits on both. Not to mention, Ubisoft still releases their games on the Epic Games Store alongside Steam and their own launcher, so they are getting sales from several different platforms which all have their own player-counts and active users, which increases the profits Ubisoft makes in a combination of all the places people can play their games on PC.

After Ubisoft’s dispute with Steam, Valve eventually changed their policy and reduced their cut level down to 25% rather than 30%, which is a substantial difference when the Epic Store was challenging them at full force. It is a great thing Ubisoft has chosen to embrace Steam again, as for years gamers did not see that as a possibility again as even executives at Ubisoft were criticizing the business model Valve uses with Steam where the Senior Vice President of Partnerships and Revenue Chris Early publicly criticized Steam and called their then 30% cut as being unrealistic in modern standards. After that all happened, it would have been hard to guess that Ubisoft would have ever returned to Steam.

Fans of the Assassin’s Creed series and gamers alike can all appreciate Ubisoft’s efforts to reach as many players as possible and understand the fact that all of PC gaming runs through Steam, and their long-awaited return is great for all gamers and will only help Ubisoft in the long run. The future of the Assassin’s Creed series on PC is in good hands now and for the developers at Ubisoft, this decision to embrace Steam once again is a perfect choice and one that is sure to secure them serious sales and financial success. This reunion with Steam benefits everyone, from gamers and developers and everyone involved in the gaming world can appreciate the efforts Ubisoft took and can be certain that the future of Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed is as bright as can be, and returning to Steam will pay dividends to us all.