About YUplay and steam/Valve - (just posted in another thread)

[thirdkeeper]

About Valve and Uplay..

Even before Half Life 2 came out Valve had long been working to get a lock on the DRM
market by pushing the pirating paranoia. ( tho in those day's it's tru that a good segment
of sales were impacted, but there were also far less gamers in the world than there are
today so the market was more greatly impacted than it would be now.) They added to
their push by providing through this venue exposure to a wider market of potentential
buyers that would expand devs customer base using Steams own online catalogue and
info forums.

"Sign your proggies to DRManage with us and you can't lose!"

- and - Valve pushed further by forcing HalfLife 2 users to become steam members to
play the game, - artificially creating a readymade open and expanding market.

- So they signed. - And here we are.

All locked in here together nice and tidy for the preditors to target and exploit. A boon
for both buyers and sellers, but we are like fish in a barrel, and the weak do throw their
hard earned at garbage.

So Valve got their lock on DRM, and they didn't play nice-nice doing it, It was - and is
a huge imposition on the consumer who now MUST have access to the net and MUST
have an account with Steam.

((remember when you didnt have to have net access at all to unlock and play? - Just a
unique code attached to the disk - or a 2 minute phone call.. <sigh> - Remember the
hell that we, the owners of the software went through to sign onto steam when it first
started?)) <grumble>

The point that I've been evading - and finally getting around to is this:

Because of steams 'strong-arm' tactics and history - who knows what went on
between Valve and Ubisoft ??

From the very beginning they've been dedicated to improving the quality and size
of their titles with nearly every release; - Titles that all adjust and scale well for
lesser systems to the most powerful. - Titles that challange HW devs to improve
their performance in turn. - That's a very valuable meeting of the arts that benefits
all of us.

Ubi has also listened to their fans and made changes based on suggestions from the
public. (after the complaints about save points in FC1 they gave us infinate saves in
FC2 - then responding to further suggestions removed respawning enemys for FC3.

They've been responsive productive and reliabe - always improving the quality and
breadth of their product - and by doing so motivating the developement of more
powerful HW also.

What more could a gamer hope for?

Ubi went and did it's own thing and started their own DRM site, and who could
blame them.

Sure, it's a wimp and a bore compared with steams multiple flashy features, but it's
pretty straight forward without the bells and whistles, and it's actually more effecient
in getting you into your game quickly without the need of a dozen mouse clicks and
key presses.

I give them props for serving the customer, not wasting their energies on flash, and
not caving in to the hard sell that Valve imposes.

(Hint - Exit steam, launch your ubigame with the YUplay launcher and there won't
be any frame lags from 'multi-DRMs' running. - Which is a falicy. The only thing
running in the background when you launch Ubi through steam is the current
steam window . - At least, to my understanding.. )

So, give Ubi a break - for their creation of a utilitarian UI that gives gamers just
what they want; -To get into the game without any unnecessary fanfare or fuss..
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


- Thanks for the multiple feeds -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -< snip here and mail to your congressmen >- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[-=SOF=-WID99]

do you even know to sell a game over steam .. valve charges a publisher a price ...
PER copy sold // up to 30 % of the price of each game sold

hence thats why we have Uplay

Uplay games can also be bought and found on sale more often then steam from many other digital online partner sites

example #1 far cry 5 shipped

on steam price was 59.99
got mine for 15 % off that price the day the game shipped on green man gameing .. no need for steam ..uses only Uplay

FarCry Primal on steam the day it shipped was priced also at $59.99
got my copy again from green man as a Uplay only copy for $36 PLUS got the preorders bonus content ..no steam needed or used

Assasin creed Odyssey price on steam Price was 59.99

again got mine alot cheaper on green man gaming .. think it was 30 % off on day 1 the game went on sale ..no steam needed or used

[-=SOF=-WID99]

also

go back to even FarCry 4 ..

1.if you buy the DVD version of the game it has 1 DRM ... UPLAY... no Steam involved

2.if you buy the game on AMAZON it has 1 DRM ... UPLAY.... no Steam involved

3.if you buy it direct from UBISOFT it has 1 DRM .. UPLAY ...no Steam involved

4.if you buy the game on greenman gameing it has 1 DRM .. UPLAY ....no Steam involved

5.if you buy the game on get games go it has 1 DRM ... UPLAY .. no Steam involved

6.if you buy the game on newegg it has 1 DRM ..UPLAY ...no Steam invloved

7.if you buy the game on gamers gate it has 1 DRM ... Uplay ...no Steam involved

if you buy it on Steam your forced into..2 DRM's - Steam + Uplay as your DRM's as both clients must be open to run the game.
like it or not they will continue to use Uplay to distribute their games with as it is the default Digital platfom used on NEW Ubisoft "Developed" titles

valve charges a publisher for every thing sold over Steam a % of each sale so thats why they use it , plus it enables ubisoft to sell the games at more sites across the internet ..and not pay steam for every sale

i have no problems with Uplay ..just make sure you shut off its cloud save setting as yes it's not reilable ..and always back up your own save files .. but everyone should do that with any inportant data they wish to keep ..thats part of owning a PC


steam also goes a step futher and changes all the save file locations so if your base game was bought on steam YOU MUST BUY your DLC only from steam for it to even work ..

example FC 4


Uplay only version of Far Cry 4 uses
C:\ program files X 86 \ ubisoft \ ubisoft game launcher \ savegames \ *series of letters and numbers folder varies from system to system*\ 420

Steam + Uplay version of Far Cry 4 uses
C:\ program files X 86 \ ubisoft \ numbers folder varies from system to system*\ 856


same with FC Primal
save location
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/1399999-thank-u-so-much-ubi?p=11435457&viewfull=1#post11435457
steam 2029
Uplay 2010

same with FC 5
steam version
C:\ Program files X86 \ Ubisoft \ Ubisoft game launcher \savegames \ *a folder with a long series
of letters and numbers Varies from system to system* \ 4311


the Uplay only version they go in
C:\ Program files X86 \ Ubisoft \ Ubisoft game launcher \savegames \ *a folder with a long series
of letters and numbers Varies from system to system* \ 1803

so if ya ask me ? ... yea steam is the bad guy here who always charges steam users more
for the same game .

me i'll always from now on buy only Uplay only copies of Ubisoft games .. why do i need to add Steam DRM ..that really adds nothing to the game ..other then another useless DRM layer ?

and end up paying more for the same content just to have it on steam ..screw it

i have accounts with origin , steam , Uplay and even GOG has thier own launcher now called gog galaxy ..your right DRM is here to stay .. but yea you can limit it ..

but how is it different from the 90's

back then you needed an account with westwood to play the C& C games
or a KALI account for other games ..or even for Duke Nukem 3d you had to pay the TEN network a monthly fee for gods sake ..and i thnk even interplay had their own game network .. and then there was also that other one that you had to watch ads on when it loaded .. called HEAT


an hey we all miss gamespy .. but how many bought an account when the free one worked just as well .. well thats probably why gamespy folded ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameSpy_Arcade

Subscription
GameSpy Arcade was free. However the software maintained shareware status as there were three different subscription levels. These levels provided benefits, each according to their price.

Basic users
"Basic users" could be created for free at the GameSpy website. They were able to display and connect to games, as well as chat to users inside the game lobby. Advertisements were shown inside the program for these users.

GameSpy Arcade
"GameSpy Arcade", the first pay subscription service, provided extended functionality such as no advertisements and in-game voice chat, as well as priority service for technicians to assist in solving problems with the software.

Founders Club
"Founders Club", the second pay subscription service, was the highest possible level of membership to GameSpy arcade. This subscription had benefits which applied across the entire GameSpy network, including FilePlanet access, and ‘Insider’ newsletters. This was the most expensive of the subscriptions on offer. There were some issues with the "Founders Club" subscription that caused this subscription to show up as a normal subscription on GameSpy Arcade.[citation needed]

Games

and for all those yep you needed an account e mail and password .. so i dunno why people have a problem with Uplay ..guess they are just spoiled kids

[-=SOF=-WID99]

and almost forgot back then you had no such thing as support .. if your game did not work back then .. yep you hadda figure out what ya did wrong

i remember when you hadda set up a soundblaster card with the right irq's to work along with your modem ..just to play online ..and if ya had a network card that was a whole other set of IRQ's you needed to manually set ..and avoid conflicts with your vid card ..or even your printer or other ports LOL

jumping thru the Uplay hoop is nothing compared to old games on old systems that yep ..old folks like me paid for built and yep played a ton of games on .

[thirdkeeper]

Wow.. - Thanks for a clear addendun and sumation of what (in my laborius way) I was
driving at, - and such a complete and detailed history !

- I'm getting a lil misty for the 'old' days now..

Yes - it took me over three days to get my 2800 baud configed.. but I could do anything
with my system by writing .bat files. - Auto backups, auto clean ups, auto configs for different
games.. - I had a list of favourite titles that just by typing one simple command automatically
loaded one after tthe other. My preference was usuallly to drive, fly and then fight.

(aka drive to airport - fly to target area, complete mission. - Iif I had the time I'd use an
extended command to also load fly and then drive again to complete the scenario of
returning home)

Many of us poor folk relied on DEMOs which were on disk free with every copy of PCG ond
Maximum PC..

And ID blessed us with 10 free levels for both Wolfenstein and Spear before release date.
Doom 1 and Quake 1 (completely different than the rest of the quake series) demos were
great gifts to the consumer and helped to promote their titles and generate loyality.

Even later titles like Thief had great and somtimes unique demo levels for free. Baffords
House for Thief 1 and City map for Thief 2, which was actually a more detailed map than
the one that ended up in the final release.

I know that I got a lil off-track here.. - but - the times sure have changed.