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[diffusionx]

Serves you right Ubisoft for not putting the right resources behind Beyond Good and Evil 2...

Karma's a bitch, Yves!

Actually the issue is that Ubisoft has been pissing money down the drain for years on vaporware like BG&E2 and Skull & Bones.

The error is never at management. If things go bad and down south the response is: "My workers are lazy and underqualified, and they can't deliver anything on time". However, if some project turns out great the management response is: "Look what I did using my excellent management skills. Our success is entirely because of me, because I'm such a good manager".

A company like Ubisoft right now which seems to be in total freefall always has tons of problems. The managers are probably not very good. The rank-and-file they are hiring are probably not very good. Their entire corporate ethos and structure is probably flawed. The fact that they couldn’t deliver a straightforward remake of Prince of Persia Sands of Time is indicative of the problems up and down. Bad management, bad employees, bad plan, bad schedule, everything bad.

I know a lot of top people got pushed out of the company a few years ago, this was applauded because it was generally thought that they were scoundrels in some way, but they were the people who built the company and made it into a powerhouse, and they were apparently replaced by far less competent and less skilled people who rapidly drove the company into a ditch. As always, the only thing that makes a company are its people, there is no magic dust in the air at a studio that guarantees the company would be successful after successful people leave.

 

[Fart Knight]

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Putting that pressure on your company like this. CEOs are just so out of touch lmao

 

[ZehDon]

Ubisoft's titles have lacked passion and vision for a while now. Assassin's Creed, Far Cry - they need new, inventive games.

I thoroughly enjoyed Division 2, but it feels like they sent it out to die. There was no vision, no direction, other than... more Division. And that feels like it applies to all of their big games. They just keep making them, without anyone having a real passion or vision for what any of this stuff could, should, or would look like.

 

[SlimySnake]

Actually the issue is that Ubisoft has been pissing money down the drain for years on vaporware like BG&E2 and Skull & Bones.


A company like Ubisoft right now which seems to be in total freefall always has tons of problems. The managers are probably not very good. The rank-and-file they are hiring are probably not very good. Their entire corporate ethos and structure is probably flawed. The fact that they couldn’t deliver a straightforward remake of Prince of Persia Sands of Time is indicative of the problems up and down. Bad management, bad employees, bad plan, bad schedule, everything bad.

I know a lot of top people got pushed out of the company a few years ago, this was applauded because it was generally thought that they were scoundrels in some way, but they were the people who built the company and made it into a powerhouse, and they were apparently replaced by far less competent and less skilled people who rapidly drove the company into a ditch. As always, the only thing that makes a company are its people, there is no magic dust in the air at a studio that guarantees the company would be successful after successful people leave.

this is an excellent post. Ubisoft for all its faults was a company that was VERY productive. They released a bunch of mediocre AAA games every year but the key thing is that they managed to release them every year with high production values. EA, Sony, MS and other third parties were taking 4-5 years while Ubisoft were pumping out multiple AAA games a year.

And then last year, nothing. A year before that, their mediocre games became straight up bad. Valhalla, Watch Dogs, Far Cry 6 all way worse than their predecessors. You have to wonder if its because of that forced exodus of talent.

This is an industry wide problem. Everyone is struggling to ship games. But Ubisoft used to have their shit together. They had one thing other studios didnt have. Manpower. Every AC game had a 1000 people working on it since the PS3 days. Thats how you ship a new COD and AC every year. So what changed? They still have a large workforce but they are no longer as productive or motivated?

I remember the AC director who got fired because he cheated on his wife. Like what? Everyone in hollywood and the entertainment industry cheats on their wives. Half of the movie directors are married to actresses. Including big names like Spielberg and James Cameron. Hell, Cameron married two of them. How can you just let go of your director like that? Do your best to keep talent in an industry that has a huge burnout rate for people in their 30s. On twitter, all these studios are populated with young 20 some year olds getting triggered by every minor criticism they read on twitter. Those guys will never be as productive as people who have been in the industry for a decade.

 

[winjer]

Putting that pressure on your company like this. CEOs are just so out of touch lmao

Imagine working at Ubisoft, seeing the CEO screwing up again and again, and now he puts the responsibility of fixing the company on you and your colleagues.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Actually the issue is that Ubisoft has been pissing money down the drain for years on vaporware like BG&E2 and Skull & Bones.

Skull & Bones, yes.

But BG&E2 is well documented to be criminally under-resourced. So there really isn't a strong argument that this project at least has been a major cost for them. It's been many years since the project was first announced, but in reality for large stretches of time there was very few people working on it. It's never been in full production, for example.

Skull & Bones has been a clusterfuck and should have been canned years ago. I don't understand why they couldn't have just taken the template they already laid out from Assassin's Creed Black Flag and just made a full-on re-skinned Black Flag-like action-adventure game as a new IP. Instead, they spent years trying to figure out how to make a ship combat-only game fun.

 

[sinnergy]

On time with a shite budget , please be creative in your energy and creativity sucking cubicle environment

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Every year is crucial for a company

valve doing literally nothing

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Until they compensate me for all the single player DLC they recently decided to delete, they can go fuck themselves.

They deleted single player DLC? Which game?

 

[Bragr]

It's always been in their court, he just needed to make that clear earlier.

 

[Lupin25]

Ubisoft about to get bought by sony or M this year...

I doubt they’d want them since they’ve sullied most of their IP.

Assassin’s Creed/Avatar are their only hope. As franchises, Watch Dogs, The Crew, Far Cry & Tom Clancy’s aren’t exactly trending upwards anymore either.

Pretty big fall from grace.

I don’t like Ubisoft games at all but you shouldn’t want to see a company that employs people and provides them their livelihood fail.

Agreed.

I’d also rather see them create a more effective pipeline and revive the IP they have than to simply let them sink, as well.

 

[SlimySnake]

I don't understand why they couldn't have just taken the template they already laid out from Assassin's Creed Black Flag and just made a full-on re-skinned Black Flag-like action-adventure game as a new IP. Instead, they spent years trying to figure out how to make a ship combat-only game fun.

They did make Assassins Creed Rouge which was a stand alone AC game built on the Black Flag engine. Do we even know which Ubisoft AC team is working on this?

I think there was some kind of consolidation that happened after AC Unity's failure. Pretty sure i have not seen a game from that team since Unity. The Syndicate team went on to make AC Odyssey. The Black Flag team was told to reboot AC and they did Origins. And then made Valhalla three years later. Where are the other AC teams? The Unity team is actually very talented... its a great game marked by an unfortunate release. IIRC, Spielberg's son was one of the creative directors on it. The AC Rouge team is also gone MIA and the series is basically now in the hands of two studios instead of three. Thats probably why they skipped the last couple of years and have a last gen DLC expansion coming out in Mirage later this year.

It's possible that the Rouge team was making Skull and Bones and just couldnt get the coop elements to work. i LOVE Black Flags so i was kinda excited for this and I truly believe that it couldve been a success. That said, if it came at the expense of a traditional AC then yes fuck Skull and Bones.

 

[UniformDeliverance]

To give the benefit of the doubt.. he likely said this in French so we are seeing a translation here. And I don’t think this is an inaccurate statement from him.. they have the teams, the funding, and the IP. Now it’s time for teams to pull together and deliver quality products.

I mean a good leader would use words like “we are in the together” but I mean it is what it is.

 

[Bonfires Down]

Can't imagine a more blatant admission that you're doing fuck all for the company. Shareholders need to kick him out.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

valve doing literally nothing

Why is this something you're celebrating?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This company has lost complete direction and I don't have much faith in them

They need to focus on making next-gen single player AAA games with good mechanics and no busy-work bloat.

It really isn't that complicated. See: Elden Ring

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Why is this something you're celebrating?

 

[Braag]

Brief history of Ubisoft and what not to do as a video game studio:

Studio invents a formula which relies on repetitive gameplay elements.

Then goes on to creates dozens of games with that same formula.

Later adds some RPG elements to the formula because people like those.

Players get bunch of floating damage numbers, weapon and armor stats as well as spongy enemies with levels.

Microtransactions follows. Even single player games have dozens upon dozens of mtx added to them.

Studio keeps repeating this updated formula.

Any projects with more creativity behind them are either put on hold or never get released cause all resources are put into these formulaic games.

People are finally fed up with the studio's game. Sales numbers plummet.

Studio's CEO begs the devs to save them.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

and for the entire industry .

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Imagine working at Ubisoft, seeing the CEO screwing up again and again, and now he puts the responsibility of fixing the company on you and your colleagues.

He's not. It's just a generic statement that people are grafting bizarre, overly specific meanings to.

 

[zcaa0g]

Lots of franchise potential, but they have ran out of ideas.

 

[Longcat]

They deleted single player DLC? Which game?

A bunch of games. It happened at the same as they shut down multiplayer servers for some of their older games a few months ago.

 

[RJMacready73]

I remember the AC director who got fired because he cheated on his wife. Like what? Everyone in hollywood and the entertainment industry cheats on their wives. Half of the movie directors are married to actresses. Including big names like Spielberg and James Cameron. Hell, Cameron married two of them. How can you just let go of your director like that? Do your best to keep talent in an industry that has a huge burnout rate for people in their 30s. On twitter, all these studios are populated with young 20 some year olds getting triggered by every minor criticism they read on twitter. Those guys will never be as productive as people who have been in the industry for a decade.

Fuck me that would be hilarious if a company fired an industry vet with a proven success all because some dangerhairs yelled cancel on twitter cause he cheated on his wife, since when has a person's private life outside of work bar actual criminality mattered to a company?? The whole meetoo movement and twitter enragement mob really done a number on a load of companies, some absolutely worthy I might add, no doubt they got a lot of cunts fired but they also took out a shit load of collateral damage as well.

A company as big as Ubisoft needs constant hits, their worldwide overheads must be insane and to keep something of that size afloat developing multiple games, well you need a Fortnite or a GTA Online to cover all the bills

 

[Halo is Back]

This asshole dug Ubisoft into the ground, and now he is putting all the pressure on his employees to save it.

 

[chromhound]

To find a buyer*

 

[Nico_D]

Well if they go out of business even more IPs will be bought by the other big companies....Their titles tendet to be a little copy & paste though. I personally would be sad for the Anno Series. I like Anno 1800 a lot..

Exactly. Anno 1800 and the franchise would at this point be the only one I missed. But then, isn't Ubi only the publisher?

Just dawned on me, what happens to Settlers now? Will it get cancelled too? That would be a sho... no.

 

[Thebonehead]

For want of a nail good direction from management, the shoe direction was lost.
For want of a shoe direction, the horse new IPs were lost.
For want of a horse the new IPs, the rider market was lost.
For want of a rider market, the battle company was lost

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

To find a buyer*

or apply the "twitter" strategy

 

[Ronin_7]

valve doing literally nothing

Steam prints €€

 

[sinnergy]

It's always been in their court, he just needed to make that clear earlier.

And support them in their work and needs to let them be their best .

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Funniest thing about this is we won't notice the difference when Tencents the Chinese Governments "Publicity Department" censors their games after the inevitable buyout.

 

[Griffon]

Ubisoft in trouble gives me faith in this industry.

 

[sertopico]

This asshole dug Ubisoft into the ground, and now he is putting all the pressure on his employees to save it.

Indeed, all you need to do is stacking all the climbable towers one on top of the other and you'll know how deep the pit is.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

No more hate fot Yves ok? he is only human.

Ubisoft's problems go beyond the company; they are a consequence of the state of the industry.

and to me, this feeling of the precarious nature of the AAA industry always has been there since watching the E3 event:

I see this pattern:

People get excited
every conference is disappointing
sony saves E3.

people's expectations are fucked up. and these kinds of games are too damn expensive, take an army and a long time to create.

Hollywood is the same when talking about blockbuster movies.

so, I dont blame them for trying to "optimize" their workflow and chasing the "golden Goose" in GaaS (even sony is aggressively chasing it)

But think about it:

EA:
Mass Effect Andromeda (failure)
Anthem (failure)
Battlefield (failure)
Madden (massive "L" )
FIFA (the a dropping the FIFA brand and is always the same copy-paste game)

Take-Two:
surviving thanks to GTA and NBA2K.
Then, their latest Ken Levine game (reported to be in dev-hell) and when is shown....it looks like a skin for a BioShock game. (which also has their story of taking too long due to dev issues)

Bethesda/Zenimax.
remember that year that they were the champions-saviors of Single Player Games, just to follow with Fallout 76 and before that Fallout 4 widely criticized for creative, technician/technological issues. (specially compared with thr Witcher 3 (relased in the same year)

CDProject RED:
the blunder of Cyberpunk. do I need to add more?

and of course our friends at Activision/Blizzard or should i say: The Call of Duty /OverWoW company.


it seems to me that, Third Party Publishers are simply not feasible in today's environment.

 

[Umbasaborne]

In an era where the average triple a game takes 5 years, yeah there was no way they were going to be able to continue operating like they were

 

[Fbh]

Brief history of Ubisoft and what not to do as a video game studio:

Studio invents a formula which relies on repetitive gameplay elements.

Then goes on to creates dozens of games with that same formula.

Later adds some RPG elements to the formula because people like those.

Players get bunch of floating damage numbers, weapon and armor stats as well as spongy enemies with levels.

Microtransactions follows. Even single player games have dozens upon dozens of mtx added to them.

Studio keeps repeating this updated formula.

Any projects with more creativity behind them are either put on hold or never get released cause all resources are put into these formulaic games.

People are finally fed up with the studio's game. Sales numbers plummet.

Studio's CEO begs the devs to save them.

To be fair though I don't think Assassins Creed is the problem.
As much of a bloated mess as it was, Valhalla actually sold pretty well and was reportedly the biggest earning game in the franchise

Their issues are everywhere else. They've been desperately trying to get another multiplayer hit like Siege but failing at it. They tried their hand at a Battle Royale with Hyper Scape which failed, games like Riders Republic failed to leave a mark, Roller Champions seemed to be going after the Rocket League crowd but no one cared, Rainbow Six Extraction failed to generate much interest and upcoming stuff like Xdefiant and Skulls and Bones seem to be generating more laughs than hype. The only newer games that's had some considerable success is Brawlhalla but I doubt a game like that is generating enough money to support a massive company like Ubisoft.
Add to it stuff like Beyond Good and Evil 2 which was probably a significant money dump and has been seemingly either cancelled or rebooted.

 

[Clear]

Basically what he's saying is downsizing is coming, and if you want to avoid ending up on the wrong list better start crun-err, over-performing.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Acting like shit inside and giving games we don't give a shit about when gamers ask for Rayman, Prince of Persia, Heroes of Might and Magic... Let Ubi die!

 

[Flabagast]

Basically what he's saying is downsizing is coming, and if you want to avoid ending up on the wrong list better start crun-err, over-performing.

Yep. That’s how I’m reading it as well

 

[ahtlas7]

Wait, this idiot just wised up to the idea that 2023 is crucial? Well fuck! if he had been running every year as crucial Ubi wouldn’t be in this state. This clown needs to be removed. Isn’t there someone in France that can take over?

 

[wipeout364]

I think there is some life in their IP’s but they have degraded them by making everything feel the same. Far Cry, Assasn’s Creed, Watch dogs, The division, they all use they same game structures. It kind of a joke but it’s also kind of true; you get a large map with a bunch of dots on it indicating missions. It’s a good formula but it becomes a bit repetitive.

Sometimes Ubisofts seems like their answer to criticism is let’s make a bigger map with more dots. Assassins creed Valhalla finally did me in on the Ubisoft formula.

Then they do things that seem like completely horrible ideas : Hyperscape, skull and bones, Tom clancy’s Xdefiant, roller champions. Unfortunately it all comes across as a company without creative vision and the CEO’s remarks only reinforce that.

 

[AndrewRyan]

The employee's doing the actual work could move heaven and earth but it wont mean a thing until they get rid of that horrible PC launcher thing. Until then everything is Dead on Arrival (DOA).

 

[blastprocessor]

Sony buy them out.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Should had allowed Vivendi to acquire them when they could

Probably Tencent will acquire them, and release their games exclusively on Epic Games Store on PC

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Does that mean they will go bankrupt if they don't deliver some heavy hitters in 2023?

Well, all Ubisoft does is develop and publish videogames. So if they go for 2 calendar years and don’t release a single one that’s successful and meets internal sales targets, I’m guessing they’ll run out of cash.

 

[CosmicComet]

I'm all for whatever happens to Ubishit.

 

[Gambit2483]

They fucked up Watch_Dogs. All they had to do was build upon WD2 but no....we got Legion instead. That could have been a decent franchise

 

[A2una1]

Exactly. Anno 1800 and the franchise would at this point be the only one I missed. But then, isn't Ubi only the publisher?

Just dawned on me, what happens to Settlers now? Will it get cancelled too? That would be a sho... no.

Well it's looking grim for the next settlers game anyway. It seems ubi doesn't know how to handle this ip. What I've seen so far, I can't imagine it will win fans over and I fear this will be the final nail in the coffin for the series... A little sad... I have fond memories of the earlier titles

 

[ungalo]

Wait, this idiot just wised up to the idea that 2023 is crucial? Well fuck! if he had been running every year as crucial Ubi wouldn’t be in this state. This clown needs to be removed. Isn’t there someone in France that can take over?

Guillemot is not just a CEO he founded Ubisoft with his 4 brothers. The Guillemot family is still the majority shareholder.

Otherwise i don't know, it's definitely a tough business. Ubisoft went for a development model with studios all around the world working on different parts of a game and putting it together hency why the game are very generic. On paper it seemed efficient to ship a lot of AAA games for console but it's less relevant now. They missed the mobile turning point, and except Assassin's Creed they don't really have a strong IP. Even Assassin's Creed can't lift em up like FIFA or Call of Duty.

Even if they have some success with their upcoming games, the way they operate seems outdated.