How can the onion compete with this?
I mean sure, but…
What kind of ‘key talents and skills’ are we talking about?
The ability to make the same game, 20 times?
Those ‘talents’ and ‘skills’?
The ability to make the same game 20 times and get people to buy it all 20 times.
Ah, so they’re losing marketing talent.
Well well well. If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions…
Me sowing: fuck yeah, this is awesome
Me reaping: aw fuck . . .
They don’t mean the worker bees with “talent”. But the money makers.
“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” 🌭
Fuck Ubisoft management and shareholders. I hope all the passionate devs leave and find jobs elsewhere.
Meanwhile Koei Tecmo is hiring a lot more people.
I’m starting to think execs in general have no grasp on reality.
Maybe surrounding yourself with bootlickers just isn’t so smart?
No they’re fully aware - there just aren’t any negative consequences.
The shareholders love it, until they don’t. Then these people get golden parachutes contracted from day 1.
Ubisoft stock has lost 90% of its value the past 5 years though, so I don’t think the shareholders are fans.
Which makes it even more insane that they haven’t realized that it’s time to take a step back and evaluate their strategy, but I guess there’s a point that they are extremely out of touch with reality.
Of course they are. “The shareholders” doesn’t have to mean the long term owners - it can mean the people who have invested, saw line go up, and sold. They are happy, the CEO is happily off to a new job sailing down on a golden parachute, and the customers after being shown the middle finger…
…preorder the next big title. Shit.
Seems like you never spoke to those people
True but in Ubisoft’s case, it really just seems like the market did a full 180° on the whole AAA open world, feature-heavy games. I don’t feel very sorry for the execs but it isn’t like the quality of the games themselves nosedived. They just couldn’t innovate.
it isn’t like the quality of the games themselves nosedived
I would argue it has. the early games were very story-driven and well written. the latest few, if they’ve continued the trend from Odyssey, which is the last one I played, are bloated, repetitive, boring, the writing is terrible, and the story is almost impossible to follow because you can play for several hours between consecutive plot points, and sometimes have to because of level-gating
People that say this haven’t played the older games and the new games. Ubisoft makes consistently good games. They’re all fairly derivative of each other and have a lot of feature and mechanic crossover, but the writing and game design is, on the whole, quite good. They suck for selling “cosnetics” that have unique features or abilities that youv cannot otherwise get in the game. And Valhalla and Odyssey were padded with content to encourage buying the boosters, and upgrading your ship took entirely too many resources. But if you’re getting level gated then you’re just plain not engaging with the content because the issue is overleveling, not underleveling. If you’re trying to sprint through the main story, I’m sorry but you’re playing the game wrong. But the new games have far less jank than the old ones. The stealth is different but works more or less the same. I think people have very rose tinted glasses when it comes to assassin’s creed. The old games are barely playable, you’re constantly jumping to your death because of the shitty controls, desynchronizing for getting caught during the shitty eavesdrop and stalk sections. Like the only thing they did better was social stealth which Valhalla had. If you don’t like health bars and upgrade paths that’s fine but the new AC games are legitimately just better games. And this discounts Prince of Persia, Frontiers of Pandora and star wars outlaws which were all recent fantastic games. Fuckin Rayman. Ubisoft makes good games they just have shitty business practices and treat their customers poorly. But they make good games.
The quality definitely did nosedive in every Ubisoft series. It’s been that way for years now. Nothing they’ve been putting out the last decade has met the standard of quality set by their competition. Ubisoft has been digging their own grave through sheer incompetence alone since 2016.
They never have. What they have is ambition and a willingness to force others to make their wealth for them. Just push the peasants harder to get more gold.
seriously, despite Ubisoft being a shitty company, they had pretty great talented people working there. I wouldn’t deny their games are pretty, and technologically seems pretty good too (e.g. AC Mirage can run on mobile devices).
Welp too bad if they’re going to lose that quality. Not that I’m a regular buyer, their games are expensive af. So honestly I don’t care that much except for the people who lost their jobs.
The company’s report underscores a growing problem in the industry: great games cannot just be made by anyone, and, in this consolidation-heavy time, that may mean that a company gaining an IP but losing the people who defined it doesn’t really get it much in the end. In fact, everyone loses out.
You think? Hire a painter to make a painting, then fire them. Now hire me, someone who cannot paint, to make a better version of that painting. Ain’t gonna happen, is it?
I feel awful for the people working at a ghoulish corp like Ubisoft.
CEO states: “I held the pistol, but for some reason I aimed it directly at my foot.”
Well as long as the executives get bonuses and the 7-layer middle management cake remains intact. That’s the talent and skill that really matter at a video game company, right?
I’m shocked about this too but I think it’s hubris + the size of the market. Lots of dollars to be made, and so you get these slimy weasels with bland faces coming in, never having loved a game in their life, and coming to the conclusion: Oh gamers just stare at a screen with colorful things? Hey we could just make it a shop front, where you can buy colors in the colorful screen but pay us real money.
In Capitalism, the product is not the goal. Maximizing profits is the only thing that matters. In End-Game Capitalism, things start getting weird sometimes.
A big danger? It’s already happened multiple times over to please your shareholders and buy new yachts for the C-suite.
I will just leave this article from 5 days ago here:
Ubisoft Barcelona Celebrates Successful Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Launch With Layoffs
Despite Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced being considered a successful launch by Ubisoft, 51 employees at Ubisoft Barcelona, many of whom worked on the game, will be celebrating its launch by seeking new employment.
Announced on June 10, 51 employees at Ubisoft Barcelona face layoffs, with those who spoke to Insider Gaming saying the layoffs felt premeditated and were going to happen no matter how successful Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was.
See that chicken laying golden eggs? Would it be funny if I butcher it? Lets watch.
they arnt in danger before? they tried to up thier image with a propaganda show on apple tv
