Steam Report

Ubisoft. They’re one of the biggest game publishers in the world, and their catalogue on Steam is growing. But what should be good news has been tainted by their decision to ignore Europe. We looked at the potential reasons for this previously, but something else has come up in the news in the last few days that has once again led me to questions Ubisoft’s sanity.

In recent days, Ubisoft have released Beyond Good & Evil on Steam (for those who can get it), and hot on the heels of this announcement, news of a sequel has started to hit the net. This is excellent news; Beyond Good and Evil was critically acclaimed and loved by everyone who played it. The trouble is, while development has started, Ubisoft are yet to greenlight the project, meaning that it may never see the light of day.

You see, the problem is (similar to another classic, Psychonauts) it didn’t seem to matter how good the game was, people just didn’t want to part with their cash. And if people aren’t going to buy the game, why spend money publishing it?

I’ll tell you why! Because since the games original release, many more people have had an opportunity to play the game, and even more people have now been given that opportunity through Steam. Not only that, but since 2003 games are much more popular with the mainstream population, and people are realising that games can (and should) have the levels of depth that Beyond Good & Evil has.

There is however another problem - without a worldwide release of the game on Steam, how can Ubisoft judge the demand for a sequel? All I can say is, let’s hope they don’t have to.

Ubisoft, you’re being evil to us Europeans - you’re not letting us play your games on Steam, please don’t add something else to this list - green light Beyond Good and Evil 2. If you don’t, then you’ll just be Beyond Evil.