Ubisoft is not held in the highest esteem among PC gamers. There are a variety of reasons for that, the most prominent of which would be the manner the publisher has handled DRM. Its games have been saddled with what is perceived by many as being unacceptable forms of digital rights management, the technology used to combat piracy. The company has now declared it is changing the way it handles things, and while it hasn’t given us the satisfaction of admitting it was wrong, the important thing is one of the world’s biggest biggest publishers now appears to be taking computer gaming much more seriously.
To be fair, Ubisoft had already taken some steps to further capitalize on the PC gaming market recently. It announced several new free-to-play titles last month and then launched Uplay PC, a digital distribution platform for its PC games that operates like Origin or Steam. Whom this was targeted at was unclear; with Ubisoft having the reputation it does, many hardcore PC gamers shy away from buying PC versions of Ubisoft’s games in the first place. (I count myself among this group; I think Anno 2070 looks great, and even though it has been discounted numerous times on Steam, tales of its DRM were enough for me to take a stand and not buy it.) The odds that these people would not only support its games despite the way they are treated, but do so directly through its own distribution service were not high.
