Netflix's 'The Witcher' helped boost popularity of 'The Witcher 3' on Steam

With the recent release of Netflix's adaptation of The Witcher, the game based on the original novel experienced some record-breaking highs on Steam. Marcin Momot, global community lead of The Witcher game series developer CD Projekt Red, shared on Twitter that the four-year-old game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt surpassed 93,000 concurrent players on the platform in December. This number was a 93 percent increase from the number of players who played the game at the same time the month before. In the New Year, the game has peaked at over 100,000 concurrent players, as shared by Wario64 on Twitter. 

It's an impressive number, given how old the game is already. We also don't know how many more are playing the game on other platforms, since Steam only takes into account PC players. The Witcher 3 is also available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. The Witcher web series, on the other hand, is an eight-episode show starring Superman actor Henry Cavill. Both the game and the show are based on The Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Source: Kotaku

Ubisoft will be releasing ‘The Division 2’ exclusively on Epic Games Store

If you want to get your hands on The Division 2, you won’t find the game on Steam when it launches on March 15. Instead, Ubisoft struck a deal with Epic to release the game exclusively on its Games Store. In the meantime, all the other Ubisoft titles are still available on Valve’s Steam. But it looks like the developer wants to test the response on this new distribution platform. Epic has a more generous revenue sharing model versus Steam, with hopes of drawing more developers to launch on its platform. Valve’s current deal gives developers 70% of each sale and goes up from there, while Epic offers developers 88% from the start.

In a statement to Polygon, Ubisoft’s Chris Early said, “Epic continues to disrupt the videogame industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support.” Early said they planned to release more games on the latter’s store, but didn’t specify if these will be exclusive. That probably depends on how well the games do on the service. What Steam has going for it is its wider reach, but if developers keep flocking to Epic’s store, then that might eventually tip the dynamic.

Source: Slash Gear

Bethesda explains why it isn’t using Steam for ‘Fallout 76’

Fallout 76 is coming to all platforms next month, including Xbox One, PS4, and PC. But just like it did with the beta, the game isn’t coming to Steam. The game will officially be launched on Bethesda.net. The reason behind this is the developer’s ability to communicate with its players. While Fallout 76 is just the second time the company released an online-based game (first was Elder Scrolls: Online), it seems they are much more confident in their own platform moving forward.

Bethesda’s Pete Hines explains, “It’s an online, always-on game, and is a service. That was also based on our experiences with other online games as well. We felt that having a direct relationship with our customers was super important to use. And so doing it through Bethesda.net exclusively allows us to have that one-to-one relationship with customers, that quite honestly you don’t always have when you go through another third party where they might own the relationship with the customer in terms of being able to email them or to reach out directly and contact them.”

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Bethesda clarifies it isn’t leaving Steam behind

Fallout 76

You might have heard the news that Bethesda has opted to launch Fallout 76 on its own Bethesda.net launcher instead of on Steam. It had some of you questioning whether this meant Bethesda was no longer going to release its titles on the platform. Bethesda’s Pete Hines clarified with IGN during an interview at QuakeCon that this wasn’t the case, even if the company is focused on developing its dedicated service. “We did not announce ‘all future Bethesda games will not be on Steam,’” he explained. “That is not what we saw. We said ‘this game will be available exclusively on Bethesda.net.’”

And the reason for this was that the video game publisher thought this would be “the best way for us to provide the best experience and service to our customers is to be dealing with them directly, and not through someone else.” Hines also left up in the air the idea of Fallout 76 eventually coming to Steam. He said, “Is it possible? I guess, but I honestly couldn’t give you any guarantee one way or the other on whether it will or won’t.” Now, the question is when will Bethesda let consumers try out the upcoming B.E.T.A. It hasn’t announced yet when it’ll be coming out. Fallout 76 is set to come out on November 14 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.