MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Ubisoft is the latest company to move away from Steam and announce a partnership with Epic to bring its titles to the new Epic Games Store. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, which launches on March 15th, will be the first Ubisoft title to release on the Epic Games Store, with pre-orders already available on the platform.
It’s unclear at present which games Ubisoft will still release on Steam, as three of its upcoming titles are still listed there, but The Division 2 has left Valve’s store for good. However, "any pre-orders previously placed elsewhere will still be honoured," the announcement said. It also specified that “Epic and Ubisoft will work to integrate key components of Ubisoft’s Uplay ecosystem and Epic’s online services to provide gamers from both ecosystems with more seamless social features and interoperability.”
Ubisoft and Epic will partner on more titles going forward, although The Division 2 is the only one having been revealed, with more to be announced “during the coming year,” the announcement read.
Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney commented: “As long-time fans and partners of Ubisoft, we’re thrilled to bring a range of awesome Ubisoft games to the Epic Games store. We aim to provide the most publisher-friendly store, providing direct access to customers and an 88 per cent revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games.”
Ubisoft’s VP of partnerships Chris Early added: “We entrust Epic to deliver a smooth journey for our fans, from preordering the game and enjoying our Beta to the launch of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 on March 15. Epic continues to disrupt the video game industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support.”
Epic announced its store in early December with a bang, as the new marketplace pays developers a revenue share of 88 per cent, compared to the 70 per cent that Steam currently offers. Additionally, Epic waives its usual five per cent royalty fee on Unreal Engine for games sold through its new store.
When the store was announced, Sweeney told us that “Epic’s business model recognises that it’s now possible to run a digital store with an 88/12 per cent revenue share, and still have a robust and profitable business,” adding that “stores charging 30 per cent are marking up their costs by 300 to 400 per cent."
Since then, various publishers have announced partnerships with Epic, including Skybound, which will bring Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season exclusively to the Epic Games Store, Tripwire with action RPG Maneater, Annapurna Interactive, Supergiant, TinyBuild and more.
Epic also recently announced it was offering its Fortnite cross-platform game services for all developers, for free, regardless of platform, store or engine.
