The Division 2 Won't Sell On Steam

The Epic Games Store is already starting to leave its mark. VentureBeat is reporting that Ubisoft's The Division 2 will be skipping a Steam release entirely, and will instead sell on Ubisoft's own Uplay Store and the Epic Games Store, which opened late last year.

"We entrust Epic to deliver a smooth journey for our fans, from preordering the game and enjoying our Beta to the launch of Tom Clancy's The Division 2 on March 15," Ubisoft's Chris Early said in a statement. "Epic continues to disrupt the video game industry, and their third party distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support."

Of course, a lot of that disruption Ubisoft is talking about is likely to do with the amount of profit Epic takes from developers. Steam, in most cases, takes a 30% cut from all sales in its digital store. But Epic is shaking things up by giving developers a far better deal. Epic is content with taking 12% of sales in the Epic Games Store, claiming that's all it really needs to keep the storefront profitable.

It's simple math. Ubisoft keeps 100% of the money by selling in Uplay, and 88% by selling in the Epic Games Store. That's a whole lot more money than the company would make selling The Division 2 in Steam, where it would only get 70% of the revenue.

It's hard not to imagine Epic stealing more major publishers away with the promise of a bigger payday. There are already millions upon millions of users that have the Epic Games Store installed, thanks to its presence inside the Epic Launcher, and the fact that you need the Epic Launcher to play Fortnite. If Epic can convince another big company — say, a Take-Two or a Square Enix — to leave Steam behind in favor of the Epic Games Store, all of those doomsday predictions may actually be worth paying attention to.

You can at least count on Steam losing more business from indies. Epic looks to be targeting them for exclusivity, and with the more generous revenue split, it'll be tough for many to resist.

As Meja once said, "It's all 'bout the money."