To better serve customers, Ubisoft has announced that they’ll be offering downloads of selected content from other developers and publishers. Already on board are EA, Warner, Telltale and Bohemia.
A year ago this would seem terrible given Ubisoft’s history with the PC market. They were previously well known for their tough (but wholly ineffective) stance on piracy.
There’s enough evidence to suggest that Ubisoft have learned from their awful approach to combatting illegal downloads with DRM that hurts legitimate consumers by keeping them constantly online to play games (but not actually affecting the experience of anyone playing a version gained illicitly). Their most recent releases didn’t feature any of the awful restrictions, showing an interest in getting smarter about their business practices.
Obviously competition is good foreveryone buying games. Steam is synonymous with buying games on the PC and is a rare instance of a monopolistic entity that could be used for evil actually using the incredible power it holds for magnanimous displays of consumer affection. That’s good while they remain a strange non-public but still massive company that can do whatever they feel like without having to answer to a board of investors. What we have to be mindful of is relying on them too heavily, having the market depend on their presence and then circumstances changing.
Knowing that Ubisoft are making strides to improve is good news. Let’s see how well they stick to their promises and what insentive they give to consumers to migrate over to the UPlay service.
