I’m glad it’s highlighted on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in particular, because that was the first game I’d bought from Ubisoft in years, and the extra launcher deterred me from considering buying any of their other games for a long while still. EA still has launchers on older games like It Takes Two and A Way Out and Dragon Age II and Inquisition that create obstacles for LInux compatibility and offline play, but newer titles like Split Fiction and The Veilguard no longer have the extra launcher problem. It’s good to see Ubisoft following this trend, and hopefully they can stop standing in the way of their own success.
I remember a time when games were just installed on my computer. No external launcher
There was also a time when you also didn’t need Steam. You would buy a game, install it, and play it without having to connect to the internet at all. Growing up, a lot of friends had gaming PCs in their bedrooms with no internet connection at all.
And if you did do stuff online, it was secondary and the publisher didn’t want a cut. StarCraft actually let you play online without owning the game - it specifically included an installer (The Spawn) that was for installing the multiplayer for free on friends’ systems. You only needed the disc to play singleplayer.
That was kinda my point :)
That’s why I buy from Gog. No need to deal with launchers, always online requirements or any other bs
I still don’t understand the point of making every game have a shitty launcher. I mean, I can understand MMO’s for updating the actual game and shit, but why the fuck do single player games have them?
Because then they can advertise their other games to you along with other things, at least going by the blizzard/Activision launcher.
Can also do environment checks or setup and some troubleshooting/debug/repair from them.
Ditching the launcher is great, but I’m guessing they will still require you to create a Ubisoft account and link it in so you can hop over to their store when it “improves”. Better, but a day late and a dollar short
Please more of this. External launchers can suck my nutts
It’s amazing to hear what external launchers are able to do these days
Do they also have internal launchers? Asking for a friend
Fully agree. I think that Steam should make it a platform requirement that external launchers cannot be used on the platform.
It makes zero sense for me to hit play just to have a third party launcher open, and I have to hit play in that third party launcher as well. and I have to hit play in that third party launcher as well. At that point, I’m better off just buying it through the third party launcher.
The whole third-party launcher update process is also obnoxious… Every gatcha game does it. what’s the point of using steam at that point
At that point, I’m better off just buying it through the third party launcher.
Which is exactly why companies like Ubisoft are so dead set on forcing 3rd party launchers down everybody’s throats. They want to drag you out of the Steam ecosystem so they can pocket a bigger piece of the pie and infect your computer with god knows what.
Yeah, which is why I think it doesn’t make sense that Steam allows it in the first place. Like, it’s actively letting a direct competitor use your platform. You get none of the benefits and all of the upkeep.
They get a 30% cut of every sale and also get to say “we’re not a monopoly.” In the business world, that’s a win win.
I kinda get that for premium games but, huge offenders of this are free to play gatcha style games. Which all transactions are off platform via their own launcher system. I don’t think steam gets a cut on those. The monopoly thing has a lot of merit though, they have been super concerned about that ruling the last few years.
Especially now, where “TV PCs” are a thing (Steam Machine et al.) It’s annoying as FUCK to launch a fresh game on my Deck connected to my TV, only to have to get up 3 minutes later to fiddle with the shitass launcher.
Using a launcher to launch a launcher to launch a game is dumb as hell.
“Yo dawg…”
I come from the time where you just run the game and it, you know, ran. While I think even Steam itself is stupid as hell, at least someone is stopping the idiocy a little bit. Though ubisoft is dead to me, so it’s a participation award, not a real ‘woo, go awful company’ cheer.
Yo dawg,
(just saw the other one lol)
But that is what we heard
deleted by creator
I might actually buy some Ubisoft games again, pirating is 1000x better for their shit. Some stuff is literally unplayable the way they want you to do it, like Far Cry 3.
It’s sorrowful to know you, or that “pirates”/people like you have guts to admit your sorrow on public.
Piracy is never ever good unless for history/archiving, and still is questionable.You? You are a simple infant robber, a spoiled child, who stole money, or just did not pay people for their life work. A work on ineffably magnificent art…
You are either insufferably stupid or this is bait.
its bait.
Even the stupidest motherfucker wouldnt be all “Woe poor ubisoft”
Don’t explain with malice what can be explained with stupidity. Except this guy.
Piracy is a service problem, not a price problem.
These are not your words. You should quote references properly.
Update [2026-09-11_13-32-00+0]
The OP chose to not refer to the known author of the words. So, I’ll do.
So, from our point of view, what we saw more and more is that Piracy was a result of bad service on the part of game companies.
~ Gabe Newell Source: https://youtu.be/EQweFurRz4g?t=40
Meanwhile, indeed, this Community, apparently, has so many hateful people… You do you, people. It’s your life of hatred you create.
Pass. You’re either a troll or very naive, either way I don’t respect your take.
Edit: turns out I can edit comments too. Apparently saying I don’t respect the take makes me “hateful”. You do you.
You do you.
I pirate my quotes
I pirate my quotes
It’s sorrowful how you “pirates” admit that your sorrow over feeling sorrowful.
It’s pretty cheap to buy Gabe quotes on steam instead of being sorry how sorrowful your sorrow makes you sorry. It’s like $0.99 during the steam sale. Do you know how much it costs to fuel up a super yacht?
You seem to be the one creating hatred here.
Thise aren’t your words either. I read them somewhere else before.
The artist still got paid for their work. They don’t get a bonus if more copies are sold. The only one not getting money is Ubisoft corporate executives and shareholders.
I find he’s dramatizing the dichotomy, but I always found this arranged argument lacking.
Imagine you have a budding farmhand, a hard-working local, in mind when you go to the local farmers’ market to “support local farms”. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? Because the farm owner pays that hand a static salary. Their exact success or revenue off one extra bag of apples isn’t going into that hand’s pocket.
But it’s also related; that farmhand has better job stability, more chance of a bonus, less pressure to advertise well, if the farm is making a comfortable salary.
Now, the one part I’ll admit is this logic doesn’t work as well in corporate atmospheres; where CEOs fire as many people as possible, reward no one for good performance, and would rather fudge numbers than sell a good product.
But I’d also wager a lot of commenters shortcutting their logic to “company bad, pirate games” aren’t always taking a critical investigative eye to how companies treat their people. After all, “I get free game” is a strong motivator to believe a certain way.
The videogame industry specifically is a bit unique I think I’m that most of the time the majority of the artists just get laid off after a large project gets released so there really isn’t any job stability, chance of bonuses, loyalty, etc.
I would never pirate an Indy game but Ubisoft, EA, rockstar, fuck em.
Now, the one part I’ll admit is this logic doesn’t work as well in corporate atmospheres; where CEOs fire as many people as possible, reward no one for good performance, and would rather fudge numbers than sell a good product.
So you agree with the person you’re replying to, and the two paragraphs before this one are irrelevant to what’s being talked about?
Are you prepared to assert and prove that every single company over a certain revenue is exactly the same?
I’ve come into conversations with preconceived “large company slop” feelings towards a large brand, only for a person there to remark “My brother works for that company. He says they get great benefits, and are generally treated very well.”
Sometimes the bullshit is only on the consumer side, in which case it only makes sense to avoid them because you’re getting a bad product. If you insist the product is bad, and that you’re stealing the bad product that you somehow want, in order to support the mistreated employees, who are actually being treated okay, then maybe it turns out there’s not much logic behind the protest action of pirating?
I’ve seen pirates use the same generic excuse for midsize indie publishers that have no such reason to be hated - so it’s disappointing to see people don’t actually think those things through.
Are you prepared to assert and prove that every single company over a certain revenue is exactly the same?
So in this conversation about a specific company, and how this specific company behaves, and someone commenting on pirating from this specific company, why am I being expected to extend that to every compy?
I’m not making a specific defense to Ubisoft, but I do get ticked by the generalized claim “The artist already got paid”, which is what I started to reply to. In many cases, it’s a disingenuous and misleading way to excuse piracy.
Lol. Lmao even.
Nobody who actually made the game is gonna see a dime of the money from your sale. Hell, they’re getting laid off whether the game succeeds or not. Why the fuck do I give the slightest shit about contributing to some Ubisoft exec’s yacht?
guy who thinks he’s an artist but is just maladjusted
Get a load of this guy!
I would pirate your work too.
Lmao
I’m so tired of your shit Mr Guillemot. There’s no need for you to come in here and talk down to us. You’re the CEO of Ubisoft, you can literally do anything you want. Go fly a kite, go hug your family, go do something that brings you joy and please leave us poors alone.
Master-Baiter
Are you Japanese?
Removed by mod
Great news! Now remove denuvo and undisable family sharing, and I’ll remove Ubisoft from my no-buy list
I might consider it. On the other hand Ubisoft has been pretty shitty to their developers and customers, so IDK…
I also ignored Ubisoft games. Not all games they publish had all this crap BTW, but you could count the interesting ones on one hand.
Hoping to see this update come to Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed. Currently can’t get it to work in Linux and can’t be bothered to troubleshoot when I have other games to play.
Doesn’t sound like they’re going to backport this unfortunately. Damn shame: I absolutely love The Division but having it on Steam means I have to run two launchers to play it. It usually works… usually.
Good this was a issue when I wanted to play Watch Dogs 1 on Steam Deck.
Never should’ve been there in the first place!
I wouldn’t mind additional launchers and accounts, if it was optional without hiding core game elements behind it. A game must launch and the base game be playable on Steam without additional online DRM, software launchers and account requirement. For single player games that are fine to play offline.
I’m glad it’s highlighted on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in particular, because that was the first game I’d bought from Ubisoft in years, and the extra launcher deterred me from considering buying any of their other games for a long while still.
This is like the only good game they put out in forever. Great combat, I had fun coming up with combos in it, but I dropped it eventually because it dragged on for too long, and the further I progressed, the fewer enemies I could juggle, so I was having less and less fun.
That clone fight was peak though. Reminded me of an almost identical fight in F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch—yet another metroidvania with awesome combat and combo system.
Haven’t seen it mentioned yet but besides the obvious win, the game is excellent! Highly recommended for metroidvania fans
Bye
With all of licenses acquired at Steam, for more than 10 years, I had never had a single issue with Ubisoft Launcher in all of adventured ineffably magnificent Miracles… of artists, developers, managers, people… at Ubisoft I heartfelt… soulful appreciate…
Are you having a stroke, or am I?
