last time i played a ubisoft game on steam it required uplay, i don't know if that holds for r6s but if it does then that's probably not somethinc valve likes. maybe you can't transfer items, but you can fire up uplaf through steam and get cheaper dlc for your "steam version" that way?
my reasoning is this: if players on steam and uplay can play together, and see the dlc other players have, and prices of that dlc vary between stores, that counts as "the same product" having a different price. potentially players could transfer dlc from uplay to steam if they require a uplay account everywhere. in that case, ubisoft are violating the terms.
if that doesn't hold, then valve are overreaching.
well no, the integrations are what i'm talking about. not saying that valve is hosting their own r6s servers, just that by using steam features and having the same game (eg able the connect to the same server) on two stores it falls under their "parity" policy.
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.
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.
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?
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.
sure, but rainbow six siege uses all of those things because it's an online game. otherwise there'd be a need to have separated server infra for steam and non-steam users.
because that's what the lawsuit is about. valve has no problem with people selling games on their own store fronts, as long as what they're selling isn't just a steam key. ubisoft wants to sell games on their own store for online games which use steam as a backend without giving steam a cut. you can buy all the anno games for cheaper on uplay than on steam, and that's not a problem. but rainbow six siege uses steamplay.
Uplay featured a $15 USD Rainbow Six Siege Starter Pack, but this version was not available on Steam, making the cheapest option on Valve's platform much more expensive.
emphasis mine.
a "starter pack" is a collection of dlc for a game. all the dlc is on steam. the starter pack was not, making the dlc cheaper on uplay than on steam. rainbow six siege uses the steam backend for online play, meaning that the dlc in question is connected to steam, but available elsewhere for less money.
but... it's not. if you read the article, they made a dlc bundle on their own store where all the dlc was on steam, for cheaper than they were on steam.
the starter pack was not available on steam. that means it's a collection of dlc. the online nature of the game means that dlc is also available on steam, it's just the package deal that isn't. that's textbook the thing they outline in their policy.
i don't know if that was ever the question. rather it was whether they've chosen to split them up or not.