Ubisoft Launches Uplay PC Distribution & Social Platform
Move over Steam and Origin: here comes Uplay PC from Ubisoft with loads of discounts in tow.
Ubisoft officially launched Uplay PC on Thursday during Gamescom 2012, its own digital distribution and social platform for PC gamers.
According to Ubisoft, Uplay PC replaces individual game launchers and lets players access all their Uplay-enabled PC games and Uplay services in the same place. But like Steam, users must download a desktop app which enables friend chat and enhances shopping right from the desktop. Game saves and serial keys are stored in the cloud, allowing users to install their favorite titles anywhere and resume where they left off.
“Uplay PC is a great way for customers to discover Ubisoft’s games, connect with their friends and gaming communities, and win achievements and content that’s not available anywhere else.” said Stephanie Perotti, Worldwide Director for Online Games, Ubisoft. “For PC gamers that are already fans of Ubisoft’s titles or have been considering trying some of our classics, this promotion is a great deal, and our way of saying thank you for their support.”
To celebrate the launch of Uplay PC, the company is offering PC versions of Driver: San Francisco, From Dust, Silent Hunter 5 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 for just $1 USD for a limited time. Other popular titles -- including Anno 2070, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed Revelations, Might & Magic: Heroes VI, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction -- are discounted up to 75-percent, also for a limited time.
Ultimately through the PC client, Ubisoft customers can browse and re-download their games (without having to worry about OS-crashing DRM), redeem rewards for all platforms, play supported titles offline, browse through the integrated shop, and discover free-to-play games and demos. Sound familiar? It should -- that's similar to what Steam and EA's Origin offers. What this new platform launch means for Ubisoft's support on Valve's Steam service is unknown at this point, and we've reached out for a comment.
For more information about Uplay PC, or to download the actual client, head here.
UPDATE: "Today’s Ubisoft’s Uplay PC announcement does not change our ongoing support of Steam," a rep told Tom's Hardware in an email.

Buying ubisoft game in steam = Use steam + Uplay to play = which sucks more than just Uplay alone.
It gives them a direct outlet to sell to gamers that does not have any middleman, meaning they get 100% of the profits per purchase. If, for some reason, a player really wanted to make sure Ubisoft gets 100% of the money from their purchase, they now have an outlet to do that.
That said, I'll still be buying my games off of Steam. Also I wont buy anything with extremely restrictive DRM, which Ubisoft has up the nose, so I wont be buying their games regardless. (And yes, while Steam itself is a form of DRM, it doesn't hinder me from doing much, and I get a ton of services and other benefits to counter-balance it)
Dont bother using it until they allow steam user to download the game there.
At least Uplay actually does something now, rather than just being a place for duplicated achievements that I already got on Steam.
Me when they're $75% off on Steam. Around $10 for 50+ hours of gameplay with no issues at all.
i can see it when they are dirt cheap, what i meant was is it worth it to the point to try and make an online store and social network around your games when you completely screw the pc side of things with almost every release.
Went there thinking about spending $2-4 on the games particularly HAWX 2, and just beat those and probably uninstal it all but they are doing this as a day by day promotion and couldn't even buy the HAWX 2 game as that was yesterday promotion. Now I have zero reasons to buy anything on it and more reasons to not purchase it as I already have steam and no need to replace it.
A bit disapointed in their site too, it feels too "shiney" and trys to throw a lot of things at you instead of staying simplistic. And you have to click on games to find the prices instead of giving you their information directly on the same page so you have to travel to that particular page to just find that information.
The gaming industry is going in a way where it's trying to corner the gamers into buying they're shit games that shouldn't be worth more than 10$.
In case it's not clear, EA-Origin, Ubisoft-Uplay, etc, etc. and it's not going to get any better because they're all going to go proprietary. Atleast Steam is all publishers pretty much but will eventually will be forced out because of the greed of EA(of course) and now Ubi and the others.
-We need to stop paying for subscription fees for MMOs
-We need to stop paying for EA's yearly release of the same game every single year(COD,Madden,NHL,NBA,Tiger Woods)FYI i've been avoiding them for 4 years and i've found some really GREAT games. I will never go back
-We can't support publisher proprietary distribution platforms.
The sale you say??? Well I can just wait and go pick up their games from the bay or gamestop used for pennies on the dollar for my crapbox 360.
Steam is enough for me and I only have Origin because I wanted BF3 (yes it actually does warrant playing on a PC over console).
Quite a bit of games out there right now I refuse to buy due to DRM or else I would have jumped and bought them a long time ago. Diablo III was going to buy on release till I heard you needed constant internet connection, a bunch of Assassin Creed games, as well as quite a few others. So I typically avoid them for the same reason the DRM does nothing but cause problems and does not give you anything in return.