Yep which is why it’s very unlikely to be Ubisoft’s strategy. They must believe that whatever they’re selling will appeal to their target market. Could be their market research is just terrible or they’re suffering from an internal echo chamber. Despite years of people whining about their cut and paste open world gameplay they seem reluctant to change.
UBIsoft in potential financial trouble
- Thread starter Silent_Buddha
- Start date
Yep which is why it’s very unlikely to be Ubisoft’s strategy. They must believe that whatever they’re selling will appeal to their target market. Could be their market research is just terrible or they’re suffering from an internal echo chamber. Despite years of people whining about their cut and paste open world gameplay they seem reluctant to change.
Might be worth looking at other pubs that have gone under over the years and see if there's any commonality.
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
It's all well and good getting into the weeds about the political leanings of any given game but I'm not convinced it matters enormously.
There are people who will purchase because it aligns with their leanings, and there are people who will avoid them for the same reason. Both convinced that they're good soldiers in a tedious "culture war" while really just falling for the present day narcissistic marketing ploy whereby you aren't just purchasing a thing that you like, no, you're "saving the planet."
Yawn.
Really though, when was the last time you encountered a really solid, interesting, new mechanic in a Ubisoft game? Their open world formula became a punchline 10 years ago, and very little has been done to remedy the situation. Tweaks here and there, but that's all.
Their games are painfully design by committee, and when Ubisoft realised that the broader public cottoned on to the fact they'd been munching turd stew and they're tired of it, all Ubisoft has done is experiment with different numbers of turds per stew.
By trying to cater to the lowest common denominator on every front in order to create games for everyone, they've ultimately ended up making them for no-one.
There are people who will purchase because it aligns with their leanings, and there are people who will avoid them for the same reason. Both convinced that they're good soldiers in a tedious "culture war" while really just falling for the present day narcissistic marketing ploy whereby you aren't just purchasing a thing that you like, no, you're "saving the planet."
Yawn.
Really though, when was the last time you encountered a really solid, interesting, new mechanic in a Ubisoft game? Their open world formula became a punchline 10 years ago, and very little has been done to remedy the situation. Tweaks here and there, but that's all.
Their games are painfully design by committee, and when Ubisoft realised that the broader public cottoned on to the fact they'd been munching turd stew and they're tired of it, all Ubisoft has done is experiment with different numbers of turds per stew.
By trying to cater to the lowest common denominator on every front in order to create games for everyone, they've ultimately ended up making them for no-one.
Is that evidenced by dwindling review scores?
Watch Dogs Legion. Watch Dogs franchise in general did some interesting things.
Far Cry 5 had some fun experimentation with the structure of its open world and how story progress worked.
The Crew 2 where you could instantly switch from car, plane or boat as you traveled around.
Either way, when's the last time that a Playstation game had a really solid, interesting, new mechanic in one of their big games? This clearly is not what is making or breaking games in terms of popularity and sales.
Also, dipshits on the internet are trying to manufacture drama with the 'woke' nonsense with every other game/movie/show these days. Most of these people never had any interest in these pieces of media to begin with and are only jumping online to scream about for propaganda purposes. It is almost certainly not affecting financial results. Countless media deemed 'woke/DEI' by these clowns have done extremely well, so they are not this huge, impactful boycotting chunk of the market like they try and portray themselves as.
I think Ubisoft is definitely facing a problem of polarization in the gaming community, though. There's less and less tolerance for simply 'decent/good' games as gamers only want the best(or at least most popular) and everything else is piled into the 'trash' category. The consistent decline of the AA market attests to this, but AAA is not immune. I dont think $70 pricetags help, either. Further, gamers(and people in general) seem more reactionary than ever, and first impressions seem to be a lot more defining and hard to overcome if they're not extremely positive. The whole tone of discussion of any given game seems to get set pretty early on, often well before they actually release.
I think just in general, trying to shape and navigate the discussion surrounding your game is a lot trickier nowadays. And any general negativity just seems to snowball.
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Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
I don't put any stock in review scores. We're all familiar with the "7000 hours 0/10 don't recommend" reviews from insane gamers and the "I enjoyed it because otherwise I'll be fired after my employer cuts my ears off: 12/10" scores of professionals.
There are some things which can't be distilled down to a numerical value, and the quality and qualities of art are such IMO.
There are some things which can't be distilled down to a numerical value, and the quality and qualities of art are such IMO.
Ironically, after that price increase in 2020 afters years of no price increase, world-wide inflation has dropped the value of that. So $60 in 2005 was worth about $80 in 2020, when the price was increased to $70; that $70 being worth ~$53 2005 dollars. Now, that inflation drops $70 now to worth $60 in 2020, nullifying the price increase, and $70 now is worth less than $45 2005 dollars! Games are far cheaper than they used to be and a direct inflation-matching price to 2005's $60 would see games need to be ~$100!!
I guess that shows the increasing need for sheer volume of sales, plus collectors editions to drive up average unit price. Not only have costs ballooned, by revenue per unit has plummeted. Gamers were paying the equivalent of up to $200 a game for SNES.
So long as voting patterns don't change over the time, that the people voting aren't changing their voting behaviour, Metacritic's scores should show increasing and decreasing game quality. Whatever biases applied to games in 2010 would also be applying now and skewing the scores in the same way, so a score in 2010 might not represent the game, but a score in 2024 would represent the delta from that 2010 measure.
All ratings where there is no verification whether they have even played/watched the game or film are absolutely pointless.
The same applies to actions like game/film of the year where people vote who have played only 3 games in a year. You have to play a lot of different games in a year to have any idea at all.
The same applies to actions like game/film of the year where people vote who have played only 3 games in a year. You have to play a lot of different games in a year to have any idea at all.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
This stock might be a good buy right now. I doubt the big publishers will let Ubisoft's IP die. Good takeover target.
arandomguy
Veteran
I was more referring to gaming IP in general. There's very few gaming IPs that really transcend beyond core gamers that you can leverage outside of having both a good/successful game itself. Which is kind of a problem in that if that were the case with the existing pipeline then Ubisoft wouldn't be in financial trouble. If someone is hoping to make future games well those games in themselves are likely going to take 9 figures and years of investment before a return.
We kind of saw this with the Embracer group aqusitions and how aquiring all that IP ultimately was hard to leverage. One thing they did get was Tomb Raider, which I feel is more mainstream of a brand then anything Ubisoft has, which they did in turn license out. Everything else while they do have awareness among gamers would still require significant additional investment and risk to reap benefits from, and that they ran into problems there.
Which I think would be the case with Ubisoft's IP. The cost to make an Assassin's Creed game to leverage the IP rights is probably more (much more) than the actual direct value of the IP.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I think you're underestimating the value of IP, but they've hurt theirs recently, but it still has value.
The bottom line is you have to at least make good games. Mario isn't just popular because he's part of the culture, Nintendo actually makes good games.
The sad thing is that the people here could figure out successful directions for new Rayman, AC, and Splinter Cell games, but Ubisoft doesn't understand what made those games great anymore...
The bottom line is you have to at least make good games. Mario isn't just popular because he's part of the culture, Nintendo actually makes good games.
The sad thing is that the people here could figure out successful directions for new Rayman, AC, and Splinter Cell games, but Ubisoft doesn't understand what made those games great anymore...
I don't consider them SF games at all. Personally I completely ignore the virtual simulation aspect because it's the weakest part of the games I could easily live without. It has no real gameplay value. Does anybody really remember the names of the modern characters vs. the one in the games' history?
To me AC tries to create a "mythological" history people can immerse into that requires consistency.
An AC Samurai game should be about Japanese and not about some exception nobody cares nor knew about before.
That some people still can't see that these kind of products the last 10 years are agenda driven aligned with the corporate hiring practices in the US these days I don't really understand.
It all trickles down from Blackrock's investment policies and opportunistic managers following the agenda to secure their careers.
In case of UBI you "probably" also have the french government influence and if you look at AC it seems to be deeply influenced by secret society like Freemasons/Rosiecrutians/.. occult ideas. That probably means higher ups in the company are part of one and are then bound to an allegiance *above* any corporation they serve/own and any nation's laws.
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Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
The Watch Dogs games dipped their toes in interesting, new mechanics but none were ever well executed. By the time Legion released, I had given the series 2 chances and wasn't about to give it a third just to jump from person to person which, from every video I watched, amounted to nothing beyond a skin change. It's even included with my PS+ subscription so I could play it for free - never gonna ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Far Cry 5 was just another Far Cry game. I enjoyed it well enough, but I enjoyed it like I'll enjoy a Big Mac on occasion: nothing new, and not even particularly good, but a bit of a non-committal foray into suicide.
The Crew 2 sounds kind of interesting. But did the switching function like Ubisoft's "Steep" in which you can switch between sub-standard skiing, sub-standard snowboarding, sub-standard wingsuiting in a sterile, joyless environment? It's supposed to elicit the feeling of extreme sports, but I've felt more thrill opening tins of food that have had their label ripped off.
It's what I mean by "solid." It's all well and good having every type of food at a buffet, but if they're all poor, the variety counts for naught.
It's been a while. The public just largely hasn't cottoned on yet, and Sony's production values are high enough to distract people like jingling keys in front of a cat.
Horizon Zero Dawn was a change of pace for Guerilla and executed 3rd person shooting sufficiently well. It was intuitive and you got to blow up robot dinosaurs. It's sequel? Added status effects and elemental resistance.
God of War was a soft reboot for the series, gave a well established character some actual character, and executed 3rd person combat with some meaty heft. It's sequel? Added status effects and elemental resistance.
Spider-Man 2018 gave us the web swinging mechanics we'd been hungry for since 2004. It's sequel gave us a wingsuit. I expect the next sequel will give us status effects and elemental resistance.
Treating their Japanese studios so poorly was a bad idea that will cost them in the not too distant future.
Edit to the response for the above quote: there's also the fact that Sony seem to have managed to cultivate an audience of embarrassing lunatics of the sort who got giddy when they saw Hugh Jackman in the comic book outfit. This doesn't end well. Not for Sony, and not for their funkopop audience.
I largely agree. The diminishing tolerance for decent/good games and $70 price tags probably go hand in hand. I tend to find myself playing more indie games than anything these days, and I don't feel ripped off if I've spent £10-£20 and tap out after 15 hours of gameplay. I did, however, feel a bit ripped off after growing weary of Horizon Forbidden West after that length of time.
Part of the solution seems to be bribing influencers.
Tastes change to effect the personal level. Trends change to effect the public level. Bribes change to effect the professional level.
The polarization mentioned above is part of why I reject numerical review scores, and the only reviewers of anything that I listen to are RedLetterMedia - they talk pros and cons and then say "yeah, it was enjoyable enough, go see it."
That can't translate to a numerical score and were you to try, you'd effectively pluck numbers out of the air at random.
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This really isn't the place for that sort of theorising.
But that's still be consistent in the review scores. The review scores will affect the process of sampling through whatever prejudices exist, and where society - from individuals to groups to professionals - rate a publisher an 8/10 average one decade and 7/10 the next, that'll show a change in those people's valuing of that publisher. A metascore of 83% in 2008 represents that 'quality' as measured via that system at that point, and likewise in 2024.
If Ubisoft's scores aren't decreasing over time, how can you present evidence that the market sees them as lower quality than before? You're basically just taking it on faith or personal opinion. An argument Ubisoft's games are getting worse needs some sort of evidence showing that, and if you're not willing to use a range of rough-but-comparable metrics over time, what are you willing to use?
Frustratingly Metacritic doesn't appear to have a way to list publishers so there's no easy way to evaluate average changes. Some franchises are easier to track though. Looking here, AC's scores seem to vary title to title, but are consistently around 80% for main entries I think. So what indicators are that that AC, for example, is getting worse?
Could it be that most of Ubi's franchises are old with a ton of sequels?
FarCry is on version 6 (8 if you count Blood Dragon and Primal) , Assassin's Creed has had roughly 20 games, Rainbow Six has had 15 releases just on PC, Splinter Cell 7 games, Prince of Persia 9 games, Anno 6 games, Hero's of Might and Magic 8 games, The Crew 3 games, Watchdogs 3 games, Trackmania 7 games
FarCry is on version 6 (8 if you count Blood Dragon and Primal) , Assassin's Creed has had roughly 20 games, Rainbow Six has had 15 releases just on PC, Splinter Cell 7 games, Prince of Persia 9 games, Anno 6 games, Hero's of Might and Magic 8 games, The Crew 3 games, Watchdogs 3 games, Trackmania 7 games
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
So what? By that argument Mario and CoD and GTA are on the way out.
They aren't.
Execution matters.
They aren't.
Execution matters.