Ubisoft's looter shooter, The Division 2, is one of the games that was released outside Steam but that apparently didn't stop it from utilising Valve's infrastructure tools.
Having products not sold in one's store utilise said store's tools and advertise themselves around is not something you see every day but Steam has been in such conundrums ever since Epic Games Store started getting exclusivity deals.
It was Metro Exodus that started the trend as it was advertised on the platform for months until Deep Silver pulled the rug from under the fans' feet by switching to EGS' timed exclusivity. Ubisoft seems to have followed suit as they opted to sell their games only on EGS, besides their own store.
However, it appears that the company managed to sneak into the Community Hub that was established on Steam prior to The Division 2's release and has remained active so far. Some keen-eyed Redditors pointed this out but it also appears Ubisoft found out about the attention the thread brought and deleted the Community Hub thread that was originally linked.
That said, the forum was still active at the time of writing, with threads dating from as far in the past as June 2018 and the most recent ones from the holiday season of 2020.
Tom Clancy's The Division 2 to be released in spring of 2019
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It's quite possible that Ubisoft found out about the unwanted attention after Steam users stormed the place, leaving negative feedback on The Division 2's Community Hub front page .
Valve hasn't responded yet and it remains to be seen if they will let games not on their platform utilise Steam's benefits.
