Dawn of War 2: Retribution sales boosted by Steam only release

Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising used both Steam and Games for Windows Live.

Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising used both Steam and Games for Windows Live. After negative reactions from players, THQ and Relic decided to drop Micosoft's service and release exclusively on Steam. A month after release, the THQ and Relic say that the move has resulted in improved sales, and that Steam features like matchmaking, friends lists, ladders and cloud saving led to an increase in pre-orders and happier players on launch.

Talking to the[a]listdaily, Dawn of War 2: Retribution producer Jeff Lydell said that "the combination of requiring both a Steam account and a Games for Windows Live account had been a source of frustration for many of our players, so we took the necessary steps to fix that. We also got to take full advantage of the Steamworks SDK features like cloud saving.

"The new online matchmaking experience is definitely a step up in many player's eyes. The new skill rating system gives better granularity on ladder standings, and makes it easier to see the changes in rating after a match.

"The Steam community features for organizing friends lists are all frequently used, and there are many groups with active users, as well the in-game chat lobby is always active with players."

Lydell also says that Relic were concerned that dropping Games for Windows Live would split the player base, but that hasn't happened. "It's clear most active players have moved over to Retribution," says Lydell "the total hasn't gone down."

[via Eurogamer]