It’s more complicated than that. Technically, you’re right, if the game entirely relies on steamworks for networking you can only play with people on steam. A lot of indies/AA actually just did that for a while because they just connected players P2P (so, no dedicated servers, which would necessarily be “outside” of steam’s ecosystem) and crossplay was too complicated, so there are a lot of multiplayer games out there that you literally can’t play crossplatform, at least in a user friendly way (shadow warrior 2 comes to mind, where you can actually connect the GOG version to the Steam version by entering a console command and knowing the other guy’s IP).
Big publishers like Ubisoft definitely had the developers and the money to roll out their own crossplay architecture and code very early though, and they absolutely did. Basically, if the game has dedicated servers it most likely has crossplatform.
Nowadays a lot of UE games just rely on Epic Online Services for crossplay. I think you can actually use it with non-UE games too but there might be licensing shenanigans involved.
Yeah but you’re not gonna see many AA or indie games made with anvil. My point was that your original assumption that a game using steam networking won’t be able to “talk” to the same game using another platform’s networking is somewhat correct, and basically still is the case for games that can’t afford crossplay solutions, with the notable exception of EOS.
I’m not sure where your questions are leading to. The Steam version either uses the Steam network SDK or UPlay, I don’t know which one. The standalone version uses UPlay alone.
This is nothing new. Crossplay is a thing. Baldur’s Gate 3 allows for crossplay between XBox, PlayStation, and PC, yet it sells on Steam too. But I’m 100% sure the PlayStation version does not use the Steam network.
Steam version probably uses steam networking and Uplay, with the latter being responsible for basically all the online features, and the former only for interfacing with steam.
i was genuinely curious because i didn’t know. but it does fall in line with what i thought, which is that: if ubisoft are charging lower amounts for dlc that can also be bought through steam, and that dlc shows up for people who are playing on steam, then they’re using steam’s services and valve are in the right. if the two versions of the game do not commuticate, then ubisoft are in the right.
Any DLC bought outside of Steam, doesn’t work with a Steam game.
A DLC bought in UPlay, might in some way be used by a third party on a crossplay online game, e.g. a map which both the buyer and their friend on Steam can access to, if the buyer creates a game in such map and invites their friend.
And Steam doesn’t take a cut of such sale and cannot set the price, because it wasn’t sold on Steam. Plain and simple.
okay, and you’re sure of this? thanks for clearing it up in that case.
but then surely it’s against their tos, no? like, if a hat is 50¢ on uplay but 100€ on steam and players on steam can see uplay players wearing the hat, isn’t that a case of price disparity in the product? it’s not a steam key, true, but if ubisoft were allowed to set prices like that it would almost certainly count as anticompetitive practices, right?
That “hat” bought outside of Steam, cannot be used by a player in Steam.
but if ubisoft were allowed to set prices like that it would almost certainly count as anticompetitive practices, right?
Are you really saying that Valve should be allowed to set the prices of Ubisoft products, but Ubisoft shouldn’t be allowed to price their own products? What?
Why stop there, then? Why wouldn’t Steam go after, say, Playstation? Someone gets an exclusive DLC for Playstation that some players can “see” during games, what do we do in that case?
no, obviously i’m not saying that. i’m saying that by having content in the game that costs different amounts for different players playing together on the same platform (pc), ubisoft aren’t following the terms they agreed to for selling on steam.
They are. Nowhere it says that a publisher cannot sell their games outside Steam at a different price. Valve employees then threatened Ubisoft with delisting the game if they did.
In any case, none of the competing stores have dislodged Steam from its role as the most important sales channel for PC games, and Valve employee testimony and corporate records disclosed in the case illustrate the aggressive ways the company has interacted with the developers that rely on it. Emails indicate Valve employees once threatened to delist all editions of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege “by end of day tomorrow” after they learned the publisher was marketing a separate $15 “starter pack” exclusively on its in-house Uplay store.
i was reading through the court documents earlier (i linked them in a comment) and while i don’t doubt that bloomberg knows better than me, that wasn’t the feel i got from the emails. it started with valve employees asking internally if it was a tos violation, then reaching out to ubisoft, then the demand to change the price on steam to match. the docs are heavily redacted so some details escaped me but… idk.
so they can’t play against people on steam?
It’s more complicated than that. Technically, you’re right, if the game entirely relies on steamworks for networking you can only play with people on steam. A lot of indies/AA actually just did that for a while because they just connected players P2P (so, no dedicated servers, which would necessarily be “outside” of steam’s ecosystem) and crossplay was too complicated, so there are a lot of multiplayer games out there that you literally can’t play crossplatform, at least in a user friendly way (shadow warrior 2 comes to mind, where you can actually connect the GOG version to the Steam version by entering a console command and knowing the other guy’s IP).
Big publishers like Ubisoft definitely had the developers and the money to roll out their own crossplay architecture and code very early though, and they absolutely did. Basically, if the game has dedicated servers it most likely has crossplatform.
Nowadays a lot of UE games just rely on Epic Online Services for crossplay. I think you can actually use it with non-UE games too but there might be licensing shenanigans involved.
r6s isn’t unreal though, it’s anvil.
Yeah but you’re not gonna see many AA or indie games made with anvil. My point was that your original assumption that a game using steam networking won’t be able to “talk” to the same game using another platform’s networking is somewhat correct, and basically still is the case for games that can’t afford crossplay solutions, with the notable exception of EOS.
i don’t know if that was ever the question. rather it was whether they’ve chosen to split them up or not.
They can.
I’m not sure where your questions are leading to. The Steam version either uses the Steam network SDK or UPlay, I don’t know which one. The standalone version uses UPlay alone.
This is nothing new. Crossplay is a thing. Baldur’s Gate 3 allows for crossplay between XBox, PlayStation, and PC, yet it sells on Steam too. But I’m 100% sure the PlayStation version does not use the Steam network.
Steam version probably uses steam networking and Uplay, with the latter being responsible for basically all the online features, and the former only for interfacing with steam.
i was genuinely curious because i didn’t know. but it does fall in line with what i thought, which is that: if ubisoft are charging lower amounts for dlc that can also be bought through steam, and that dlc shows up for people who are playing on steam, then they’re using steam’s services and valve are in the right. if the two versions of the game do not commuticate, then ubisoft are in the right.
Any DLC bought outside of Steam, doesn’t work with a Steam game.
A DLC bought in UPlay, might in some way be used by a third party on a crossplay online game, e.g. a map which both the buyer and their friend on Steam can access to, if the buyer creates a game in such map and invites their friend.
And Steam doesn’t take a cut of such sale and cannot set the price, because it wasn’t sold on Steam. Plain and simple.
okay, and you’re sure of this? thanks for clearing it up in that case.
but then surely it’s against their tos, no? like, if a hat is 50¢ on uplay but 100€ on steam and players on steam can see uplay players wearing the hat, isn’t that a case of price disparity in the product? it’s not a steam key, true, but if ubisoft were allowed to set prices like that it would almost certainly count as anticompetitive practices, right?
That “hat” bought outside of Steam, cannot be used by a player in Steam.
Are you really saying that Valve should be allowed to set the prices of Ubisoft products, but Ubisoft shouldn’t be allowed to price their own products? What?
Why stop there, then? Why wouldn’t Steam go after, say, Playstation? Someone gets an exclusive DLC for Playstation that some players can “see” during games, what do we do in that case?
no, obviously i’m not saying that. i’m saying that by having content in the game that costs different amounts for different players playing together on the same platform (pc), ubisoft aren’t following the terms they agreed to for selling on steam.
They are. Nowhere it says that a publisher cannot sell their games outside Steam at a different price. Valve employees then threatened Ubisoft with delisting the game if they did.
From the Bloomberg article: https://archive.ph/YvHxF
i was reading through the court documents earlier (i linked them in a comment) and while i don’t doubt that bloomberg knows better than me, that wasn’t the feel i got from the emails. it started with valve employees asking internally if it was a tos violation, then reaching out to ubisoft, then the demand to change the price on steam to match. the docs are heavily redacted so some details escaped me but… idk.