Ubisoft speaks up on why its games aren’t on Steam

A company exec calls the Steam business model “unrealistic”

The Steam platform, a digital storefront for video games, hasn’t found much love from Ubisoft. The company’s VP of partnerships and revenue, Chris Early, told the New York Times a couple of days ago, “It’s unrealistic, the current business model that they have. It doesn’t reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution.” While succinct and to the point, not leaving much room for interpretation, Ubisoft felt it was necessary to add a little more substance to the explanation and has now explained its position with more political correctness.

A company spokesperson has stated, “It was a business decision to not put new releases on Steam and focus on the Epic Store and Ubisoft Store. Ubisoft fully supports Epic and their third-party distribution model, which is in the long-term, beneficial for publishers both large and indie and the video games industry. We hope this partnership helps to validate and evolve the model.”

The real reason is because of financial relationships between the different companies. Steam typically retains about 30% of game sales, while 70% goes to publishers. However, Epic Games Store gives 88% to the developers, keeping only 12%. More money to the developers drives better games and keeps the platforms like Steam and Epic in business.

This is why Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, the next big release for Ubisoft, will be found on Epic and not Steam. It’s also why Steam most likely won’t see any Ubisoft titles in the near future, if ever.