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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Ubisoft executives need to become comfortable with “not being employed.”
Unfortunately, that’s not how this works.
This is late stage capitalism, execs are judged on how much money they managed to squeeze out before the company died. They’ll be hired immediately specifically to do it again somewhere else.
The company dying in incidental.
Some will take the blame, take millions as parachute payments, then the low level workers will have their jobs cut.
Make stupid choices, suffer stupid consequences.
And no one will learn anything from this.
Maybe they should just have fewer avocado toasts for a while?
kinda unrelated but I’d love it if valve sold physical copies of their games to use with the successor to the steam deck
Maybe they should come as some sturdy USB stick that you just plug in the back and start playing.
“Company fails to generate infinite revenue even after implementing every abusive tactic known”.
More like, company keeps pushing for short-term profits, runs out of goodwill built up in the past.
Ubisoft had many long standing issues, but disowning The Crew users was the worst possible move they could have made in their already dire situation.
I played and enjoyed both of them, shutting down the first one instead of giving it offline functionality really pissed me off and was the final straw for me with Ubi. It had a fully offline playable story, NPC vehicles to race etc. and the game would’ve been preserved forever.
Instead we got the crew 2, always online AAA signature garbage.
I want to say the same thing…
But then you have like every other corporation on earth doing the same, and most of them see their stock price soar.
Imagine, about five years ago, they peaked at $82.
It was also during that time when they talked about getting into Crypto, NFTs, and all sorts of other get rich quick schemes.
Now look at them.
I’ve hated what ubisoft has done to gaming ever since the fc3. Only shining beacons were early siege and rayman games. They have incredible artists and programmers working at it and could make some great games but the directors completely double down on the most generic, most mindeless wide appeal possible. I regret buying wildlands because the setting is unique. The game is as tactical as far cry which is just mindleslly run into camp, use your overpowered character against deaf and dumb enemies and complete the collectable.
I remember “Far Cry Blood Dragon” as the only entry that really stood out. The gameplay was exactly what you described but dialed to 11 (as it should be).
FC 3-6 … same game, identical mechanics, less over the top fun more boring and repetitive tasks. Somewhere at Ubisoft there is someone who is responsible for this, including all the consequences.
FC3 was a game changer. It was absolutely wild in its time. It’s just a shame that all of its successors went the same road… I stopper playing midgame FarCry V because it was… bad. The scenario was shit. The gameplay was shit. The map was huge but lacked substance.
Not for me since i had already played better open world games. Games like stalker which had amazing a life and animals that were programmed to act like real ones rather than spawning a tiger and an antelope 20m infront of you and setting one hostile to other, fc2 which was flawed but the ai interactions were mind blowing like sniping out a guys leg and watching allies drag him to cover, arma, crysis etc. all were better but fc3 was casual, accessable and marketed.
Blood dragon was amazing. I probably should give it a go again
I don’t think i even play Ubisoft games, they can go down for all i care.
No one could have predicted this, no one.
I’m a very casual gamer. Where can I find out what Ubisoft is doing to get them so much hate?
It is difficult to know where to start, since there have been a lot of unpopular actions. A lot of these are pretty standard for the triple A studios unfortunately. Think DRM with always online and authentication server issues, toxic workplace, decommissioned games by removing the servers for them and not giving ways for people to self host, rehashing existing properties to milk success, having their own launcher so having double layers of authentication, microtransactions, subscription based model pushing, game variants locking out certain content unless more money is payed etc.
decommissioned games by removing the servers for them
The pirated version usually works.
and I was mad when I couldn’t local host StarCraft anymore.
I really try to avoid recreation companies with human right ‘challenges ’ like abusive working environments.
So is Ubisoft worse than most others ? Do they do that junk on console games as well? Like if I got an Ubisoft game for switch would I need a non-Nintendo account?
Based on the words of internet strangers I will not purchase their games. Sounds like way to much to go though just to play a game. Do people really go though all of that to game?
It sounds like way too much effort
Ubisoft games on game pass require ubisoft logins. Not sure about switch. Steam versions usually require it too.
At this point I think its smart for most people to just pirate ubisoft stuff if they really want to play it.
A year ago Ubisoft exec gave an interview where he said that the next leap in gaming industry should be fueled by gaming subscriptions, and that gamers should get comfortable playing by subscription as opposed to buying and owning game licenses.
He then proceeded to give an example on how players got comfortable switching from physical media and full ownership to digital licenses.
This caused a massive player backlash on the wave of protests against the migration from ownership to subscriptions (aka “You’ll own nothing and be happy”). Ubisoft has got a financial dent as sales and subscriptions dropped, and is now facing a problematic financial future.
Thanks. Is that like how steam or console games need to connect to a server to validate a game before you play, so when the server stops so does your game or is this worse than that? Can’t say that idea appeals to me either.
Anything else ? or was that enough
Steam doesn’t do that. Some games on Steam do, but it’s the games deciding to do that, not Steam.
There are many games on Steam that are DRM free and can be played offline and without Steam running or being installed at all.
That’s what happens with DRM and digital licensing, which was considered by the exec to have most players already onboard.
Here, he was talking about gaming subscriptions, i.e. paying a monthly fee to have access to a library of games. Once you stop paying, games become unavailable, and games outside the subscription are not available either. His idea is to make more gamers are more comfortable with the subscription model despite it taking away any possibility to play when you stop paying.
Get rid of uplay. I might buy ubisoft games if they weren’t tied to that horrible service
Not just Uplay, but also their activation servers. Their games make calls to their endpoints to authenticate if you own/access the game and DLC. If those activation servers are decommissioned without a replacement, your game won’t activate and you’ll lose access to DLC.
They announced they would do this for legacy games several years ago, and I was going to lose access to all the DLC I paid for with my Splinter Cell Blacklist game that I physically owned on a Wii U disc way back in 2013. Bought all the DLC because I loved the game. After enough gamer backlash, Ubisoft backpedaled and the activation servers remain for now. However, the concern is still there that I’ll lose the stuff I paid for when they decide they can’t serve it anymore or if they go bankrupt. Without them updating the game code or open sourcing it, I lose updates, DLC, etc.
We need digital ownership reform, or else it’s piracy time again. This will especially be critical when Gabe steps down from Steam and new owners are appointed, or if Steam goes public.
My god I dread that day.
That’s awful, sorry. Sadly, until we globally overhaul the laws regarding DRM, or consumer backlash threatens to destroy the industry (like with music piracy), this kind of garbage will continue to happen.
The US is kind of a lost cause, but there is an effort out there!
And nothing of value will be lost.
Yeah but… You do get that you don’t own any of your games on Steam, Epic, whatever either?
Just GOG is DRM free.itch.io as well
You’re not wrong, but Ubisoft were absolutely tone deaf for saying that.
Id just like to point out when you read the full article the context is different than the headline as usual. But regardless Ubisoft deserves their demise.
steam can be DRM free as well but it depends on the game to use or not the Steam API for license…
I took their advice and got comfortable not owning Ubisoft games.
i quit after AC4. kept up with the news and reviews, seems I never really missed anything good.
They make it so easy: anything they release I’ve already played years ago already.
Don’t you mean… AAAA company?