Assassin's Creed 2 shipped like 9 million... I saw it on a gaming blog a week or so ago.

Here you go: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=247161

As said before, I doubt the PC had much of an impact on this loss one way or the other. It is just not that large a percentage of their revenue stream. You do not equal everyone... yes, I would miss those games. Assassin's Creed 2 was a great game and whole the other two franchises are suffering, it's not like they can't have another good installment. Chaos Theory is one of my favorite games of all time.

And Ubi does more than develop games, they publish a lot. I would miss Call of Juarez, I would miss Farcry 2, I would miss Dawn of Discovery, I would miss Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, of which I enjoyed their recent installment. And the before mentioned Settlers and Silent Hunter.

You can dismiss their catalog as unimportant because you are pissed at them, but that's just emotion, not logic. They make a lot of games that are big in the industry, they are a major publisher as well as developer and them leaving PC would be a large loss to the PC gamer on average, if not to you personally. Since when does Sega count as a major PC supporter? Their ports, when they come, are just as console-focused as Ubisoft's are and they do not port a lot of games that make sense for the platform, like Condemned 2.

Total War is nice, sure, but it does not make them some awesome PC publisher. It will change... it is changing now. Ask almost anyone where the PC is headed and they will tell you streaming services, facebook games and more MMOs. To a lot of us this is NOT what we want.

Ubisoft leaving and taking their large catalog of AAA singleplayer games with them would be a huge body blow and another step toward that future we don't want. I do. Gears of War was awesome and I seem to be the only person who loved the PC port with its amazing graphics, extra content and map making tools. UT3 was a little meh, but you can bet your ass I miss Gears of War 2 and would love to have 3 on PC... and Shadow Complex.

Why do so many people in these discussions act like their opinion on good games is what matters? It isn't. PC die-hards will tell you all day long Modern Warfare 2 was terrible and didn't deserve to be on PC but the damn thing sold millions on PC and is still in the Steam top sellers almost every day, as is the DLC everyone said was overpriced and an insult on PC.

You guys are not the average... you are not the target market... your "Ubisoft sucks I don't care if they release on PC" attitude is not rational or speaking for the average PC gamer.

Game catalogs are what matter for platforms... losing a major publisher is a horrible thing for a platform, you bet your ass.

For the record: R6 Vegas was frigging awesome. Not a Rainbow Six in the sense that the first three were (well, first two, 3 was divisive), but an insanely fun game.
Just wanted to add that :p

1) No. My argument is that Ubisoft have provided a poor service which people have not paid for. This is a good thing. This is how the world should work.
2) Good, the PC isn't dying. Only Ubisoft and Epic are saying that and we all know it's a pack of lies.
3) No it won't. You have still not provided any compelling argument that Ubisoft offer anything to the PC market. They have nothing that will not be missed other than old franchises they have no interest in using anyway.
4) I really don't know what you are talking about. I have answered all your points over the thread and I haven't pretended anything. You are the one who's argument is on shaky ground and has done everything they can to drive this thread off-topic.
Let me just make it simple so you can understand my point. Ubisoft have employed the most restrictive DRM ever seen and have put no effort into their console ports. People have not bought them. This is a good thing. Ubisoft previously claimed piracy was killing the PC and now can't say that anymore so now they are claiming the PC is not profitable which is in DIRECT contradiction to what almost every other publisher is saying.
I notice you always jump in to act as devil's advocate for any company the majority are bashing. Noble. But in this case you and Ubisoft are wrong. Deal with it. Ubisoft can either change their business model or they can continue to look like idiots by saying the PC is not profitable while Sega stuff their pockets with money.

Oy. Again, how many meaningful agreements do I have to make for you to accept that I have an opinion? Apologies, but I just don't see the point of saying "True that" every five seconds.
I don't disagree with you regarding the DRM (even if we have time and again pointed out that Ubi-DRM is not the cause of these less than stellar sales...). Ubi-DRM is bad. But it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
They are NOT claiming the PC is not profitable. Everyone here is. They are claiming that the economy fell apart :p
And here, this is providing information. Maybe if it comes from someone else you will be more likely to read it.
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/piracy_is_killing_the_pc_111_11_111111/perm=76/#p_b_76

Indeed... I can understand the disappointment with it not being very tactical, but both were awesome shooters. I have played the first Vegas 4 times from start to finish.

I was specifically talking about the PC version of Arse Creed 2 not the console versions which sold very well.
I dismiss their catalog based on the fact it's nothing but console ports. Like I said what do Ubisoft bring to the PC specifically? Nothing. Silent Hunter is finished. Settlers looks to be as well. Ubisoft are scaling down their PC output because they cannot find a way to make them profitable. That is Ubisoft's fault not ours. Like I said other publishers make a good return on PC gaming but Ubisoft don't, that there is a problem with Ubisoft.
Sega are now the biggest PC publisher in the UK. I think they are now 4th Globally. They are a big player in the PC market now, thats the fact. You mentioned Total War but forgot Football Manager which while not everyone's cup of tea is one of the biggest and most important PC titles.
The PC market is changing agreed. It's expanding to include webgames and more MMO's but that does not exclude traditional games. EA's Dragon Age: Origins for example is going no-where with a Sequel planned for early 2011.
You miss Epic and thats fine. I quite enjoyed GoW myself. However it is one game. The PC market is not dying because that one game is not on it.

I agree with most of that, but that doesn't make it any less true that losing a major publisher like Ubisoft would be a body blow to any gaming platform.
I know you are looking at it as "those are console titles" but think of it this way: if you only owned a PS3, you would be angry if EA suddenly dropped all PS3 support right? You just lost a ton of games for your system. The same thing would happen to PC, the average PC gamer would lose a lot of games for his platform.
Platforms need games. Most industry people would tell you platforms live and die by their games. Sure we have some PC exclusives and PC-focused games left, Dragon Age is a great example, but just like the 360 can't survive on Microsoft games alone, the PC cannot survive on these few remaining big-name PC exclusives. Are there even any PC exclusives one would call AAA games that are not MMOs? I struggle to think of one.
And those sell platforms. Those sell video cards and processors and look good on corporate returns. Publishers releasing games on your platform is essential to your platform's survival.
Epic is one developer, making one game every few years and maybe publishing a rare one here and there. Ubisoft is a massive publisher releasing games every month, probably every 2 weeks or more. You cannot just discount them and say the PC does not need them, it is a frankly ridiculous statement.

But like I said in a post up above to Velvet, I agree, the departure of one of the big three would be symbolic, and it would probably shake the PC gaming industry to it's knees. But.. PC gaming tends to be more than just a hobby. I'm not bagging consoles, I grew up on them and I still play them (unfortunately not my old systems as I foolishly gave them away), but the console market is very much more a disposable market.
A PC gamer, no matter the extent of their knowledge of hardware or software, will invest time and money into his or her machine. Yes, it's disposable in the sense that many of us seem to be on a constant upgrade cycle, but as far as the games go - modders keep them going far beyond any sort of expected life span.
That sort of passion is what built PC gaming - person buys a computer, becomes intrigued, learns BASIC and creates a game. PC gaming was founded on 1, 2, or 3 people teams. The technology was different, sure. But as modders and the indie scene show, it's a passion that hasn't died off yet.
I still don't see it as the big publishers keeping the industry alive - for the most part they're churning out sequels that are becoming more and more generic. True however, that not all sequels, or series fall into that generalisation. I don't think it's a matter of "hardcore" and "casual" gamer, but rather the individual. Whether they must have it because it's the latest thing, and everyone is getting into it. Or whether they must have it because when they see it action they want to play it.
Neither mentality is right or wrong, that's for the individual to decide for themselves later on.
I'm digressing. Were one of the big publishers to leave, and others follow suit or scale back - there will always be the obsessive who would make a game they would love to play. That was the foundation, that's the reality right now (granted it's not huge competition to the big publishers.), and will undoubtly continue to be so. The big publishers aren't the sole reason our PCs aren't getting dusty, were it all to go absolutely backwards and we had to depend on small teams of game makers - the advances in PC technology would slow, but they wouldn't stop.
Anyway, I'm ranting because I need sleep.
But yes, your sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be a good thing is dead on. It would be a massive blow. Yet, no, they aren't the only thing "basically keeping PC gaming alive".

I discount Epic simply because they are missing the platform more than we are missing GoW2. We all know how architecturally similar the 360 is to the PC which makes ports very, very easy. Epic not porting GoW2 to the PC is frankly laughable as it's just throwing money away. This is the reason the PC is going to see ports of Alan Wake, Fable 3 and Halo: Reach. As bad as piracy may or may not be (depending on who you listen to) the PC is the perfect dump for a lazy port as all the work is already done. In the case of GoW it was shipped over to People Can Fly who handled the PC port and did a good job. Anything earned by GoW on the PC was financially a bonus.
Epic pulling out of the PC market was not due to financial reasons but a business one to promote the Xbox360.
Similarly if Ubisoft pull out of the PC market then it will not be because the platform is dying it will be because they have failed to find a way to make money out of it. People can bash Steamworks or EA's DLC-DRM but at the end of the day it works and it works well. At launch Modern Warfare 2 on the 360 far outsold the PC version. Now there are more PC versions sold than 360 ones and the PC in most regions doesn't have a second-hand market to deal with.

I perfectly understand what your point is... but honestly I fail to see the logic behind it.
It's like saying that if tomorrow Toyota decided to stop making cars all the other car makers would be "Oh my god, Toyota stopped making cars... that means that it's probably not profitable anymore, let's all stop and do something else..."
Maybe video games industry works completely different than others industries but in most others having less competition is usually a good thing.
EA and the others have their own sales figures and as long as their sales are profitable enough for them their are unlikely to reevaluate anything. And the opposite is also true, no matter how good their competitors sales might be on PC, if they can't sell their own games with enough profit they are going to abandon the platform.
If Ubi leave the PC it will probably a "shock" for gamers but I doubt it will really change anything for the rest of the industry.
Personally I know that I wouldn't give a damn, I mean, I can't buy their games because of their DRM, so in the end having games that I refuse to buy or not having any games released at all doesn't change anything anyway.

No, it would be more like "Holy crap, Toyota just stopped making cars and decided to focus on motorcycles instead. We should probably take a closer look at why"
And if motorcycles are noticeably more profitable than cars, there is a good chance that they are going to reevaluate things.
And the "less competition" thing is only true if you have forced people out. There is probably a very small market for selling condoms with "air holes" for your peepee. Somehow, I don't think it would be all that profitable to get into that business :p

Doesn't WoW alone make more profit than the entire console games business? I'm sure I read that in a news article a while back.

No. It would be like Toyota pulling out and Nissan saying "I wonder why they did that, we make a lot of money from our cars. I guess Toyota just didn't make cars that anyone wanted."
If Ubisoft pull out of the PC games business EA and Activision are not going to suddenly do the same if they are making a profit. EA couldn't give a toss about what Ubisoft are doing as long as they are making money.

... that's the "And" that change everything, companies looks at what their competitor are doing, but they are not going to leave a market that is still profitable to them (or even consider leaving it) just because one of their competitor did so.
We are not talking about a creating a whole new market that didn't exist before but about an already existing one, there is a big difference between the two.

Okay.
There aren't too many companies still making leaded gas. You should get on that :p
People stopped making The Pinto. Make me one of those (I am actually serious. I want a Pinto :p).
VHS and 8-tracks (hell, cassettes in general) are pretty much dead. Would that be a good industry to monopolize?
And Delixe, while I see little point bothering to debate with you anymore (I wonder if I might be able to convince you to listen if I surround it with profanities and complaints against Ubi :p), seeing a company flop is still going to make you reevaluate things. You might not immediately pull out, but you are going to go over every single book and note you have to make sure that won't happen to you, especially because so many people actually still like AC2 and SC:Conviction, as well as Silent Hunters. So Ubi can't be too far off the mark.