Assassin’s Creed 3 finally made it to PC on Tuesday, but an astute reader pointed out that it hadn’t wound up on Steam yet. And it still hasn’t. As it turns out, there’s been a little trouble at Ubisoft’s end.
“We’ve been in discussions with Valve about Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3, but for the time being the games are not available via Steam in the UK,” Ubisoft told PCGamesN in a statement.
“In the meantime, UK customers wishing to purchase either of these games can do so by visiting the Uplay store, our retail partners or other digital distributors. Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 are available on Steam in other regions outside the UK.”
The situation appears to be a repeat of the issue we talked to Valve about back in July, which has seen a number of Steamworks games over the last three years withheld from sale on Steam but made available in retail stores in the UK.
At the time, Valve’s director of business development Jason Holtman believed the problem resolved. But he explained that “at the end of the day, the partner can choose what to do”.
“We haven’t linked [Steam and Steamworks] up. If you have a Steamworks enabled game and don’t want it on the store, or it isn’t on the store for another reason, that’s fine as well.”
However, when we talked to Ubisoft’s online services head Stephanie Perotti at Gamescom this year, she reassured us that Ubisoft wouldn’t be following EA’s footsteps in removing their games from Steam in favour of their own platform:
“You can still find our games on Steam and we do not have any intention to change that. We believe in choice and we believe that it’s normal to let the players and the consumers choose where they want to purchase their games.”
Thanks @pcdoghat!