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Dark Messiah coming to Steam

Public beta requires Steam account :: May 25th, 2006 :: New products :: 20 Responses

Ubisoft‘s first-person fantasy combat title Dark Messiah of Might & Magic has had its Steam distribution all but confirmed, with registration for its upcoming public beta requiring an account.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic screenshot
Dark Messiah is Ubisoft’s first experiment with the purchased Might and Magic franchise. [Full Image]

Powered by Source, speculation over whether Ubisoft would release Dark Messiah through Steam had been quashed for most of the game’s development cycle by the company-wide use of the StarForce copy protection system. While there are no known incompatibilities between Steam and StarForce protection (mainly because nobody has ever tried combining the two), distributing a copy of the game that did not require a CD for StarForce to validate would make its tight and largely unbroken security useless, with Steam’s current DRM scheme offering little protection for single-player games from anything but casual piracy.

However, with Ubisoft’s decision to cease protecting their games with StarForce Steam is an attractive option again, and it seems highly likely that Ubisoft have decided to seize upon it.

Will this develop into a wider relationship between Ubi and Valve, following on from Atari? The publisher already makes good use of other distribution services, primarily Direct2Drive, so it may well turn out that way.

20 Responses to this post:

  1. May 25th, 2006 at 6:53 pm ::
    Andy Simpson Says:

    It could be they’re using Steam only as a convienient means for doing a beta test, but not intending to use it for full retail distribution.

  2. May 25th, 2006 at 6:55 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    Yeah, I was careful with my language on that one. It’s unlikely though. Why shouldn’t they use Steam?

  3. May 25th, 2006 at 8:29 pm ::
    Andy Simpson Says:

    Maybe they’re afraid of a retail backlash? I mean, to guys like us digital distribution is a no-brainer. Bigger margins, fewer risks. Just maybe it’ll be too much of a break from the status quo. I guess we’ll see.

  4. May 26th, 2006 at 5:18 pm ::
    boglito Says:

    Pretty exciting news. Distributing the game on steam would definately make sense. Valve’s own experience with online distribution (more sales in retail than on steam) should indicate that steam wont hurt retail, but will increase profit.

    One possiblity is that steam will only be used for the beta. Steam is 100% perfect for betatesting, so that would make sense too, although there is no reason (that I can think of) not to also distribute the whole game.

    Oh, and you might want to change the text to the image included with the article. Dark Messiah is Ubisoft’s _second_ experiment with the purchased Might and Magic franchise. Heroes V is the first experiment, and it is pretty good actually.

    .bog.

  5. May 26th, 2006 at 6:20 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    Oh, and you might want to change the text to the image included with the article. Dark Messiah is Ubisoft’s _second_ experiment with the purchased Might and Magic franchise. Heroes V is the first experiment, and it is pretty good actually.

    HOMMV is a sequel. This is a real experiment. 😉

  6. May 28th, 2006 at 5:52 pm ::
    Kadayi Says:

    If the agreement is with the publisher rather than the developer, the publisher is still going to see a profit, so there really isn’t any harm in a digital distribution.

  7. June 1st, 2006 at 3:50 pm ::
    Bob Says:

    Sweet. The E3 video for this game has me totally sold on it and now I have absolutely no reason not to buy it.

  8. June 1st, 2006 at 4:36 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    Yeah, that was great. I had a look through GameSpot’s gallery earlier today too…it’s just incredible.

  9. June 1st, 2006 at 6:14 pm ::
    Kadayi Says:

    A definite purchase based on the video of the gameplay.

  10. June 1st, 2006 at 10:51 pm ::
    ATimson Says:

    Oookay. I’m going to not touch anything; I can’t get the problem to reproduce, so I hope it went away. 😉

  11. June 2nd, 2006 at 7:04 am ::
    wizpig64 Says:

    If only the edit buttons were working! *hint hint tom*

  12. June 2nd, 2006 at 7:52 am ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    I still have no idea why they shouldn’t be. That looks like the next job.

  13. June 4th, 2006 at 10:33 pm ::
    hahnchen Says:

    Have you guys seen the images found on the steampowered store website?

    http://storefront-dist.steampowered.com/v2/screenshots/0000000354.jpg
    http://storefront-dist.steampowered.com/v2/screenshots/0000000267.jpg

  14. June 4th, 2006 at 11:05 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    I’m going to be doing something on them just as soon as this character issue is sorted. There’s starting to be a bit of a backlog, and I’m powerless to sort it out myself. 🙁

    Edit: And they are now working.

  15. June 6th, 2006 at 6:59 am ::
    wizpig64 Says:

    and…… im still getting static :|. no edit buttons above, but maybe on this one o_O

  16. June 6th, 2006 at 6:59 am ::
    wizpig64 Says:

    EDIT(kinda): nope

  17. June 6th, 2006 at 8:31 am ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    I mean the escaped characters. 😉 I’ll get onto your problem now.

  18. June 6th, 2006 at 3:02 pm ::
    wizpig64 Says:

    🙂 thanks

  19. June 7th, 2006 at 6:20 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    You’re all out of luck I’m afraid. Hopefully it will be a feature in future versions of WP.

  20. June 30th, 2006 at 10:11 pm ::
    ATimson Says:

    Yet another all-but-confirmation: Trailers available via Steam.