UBIsoft in potential financial trouble

trinibwoy said:
I think there’s also an element of “luck” in which games the anti-woke crowd happen to target. Ubisoft must have known though that Assassins Creed Shadows would be a lightning rod for controversy. It commits at least two sins of promoting a female combatant and “out of place” diversity.

That Steam list is pretty telling. Apparently any representation of brown people or women in an action or historical European setting is woke. Women in positions of authority is also woke..which is just lol. I don’t know how you make a modern game without breaking at least one of those rules.
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concepts like "cancelling" and "woke" are pretty new but as I understand it, something woke is wanting to cater to everyone as if we lived in a perfect world, even forcing things to happen so you just look multi-everything, they create new words in certain languages where some definitions are masculine or feminine, but not both, woke mentality is about creating a black little mermaid -which imho is stupid-, and things like believing that if you are a male and you think you are female then you are female (I am not against that, except in sports, however if you are born with XY chromosome you are going to experience the problems of people with an Y chromosome, health wise, 'cos you are internally XY).

This has an effect in videogames too, just like what happened with the female -mostly created by female artists- of the Playstation game called Stellar Blade. Or this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840380768079491307

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840329124960723141

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840243748007219257

The interviewer is a woman who brings up the point. The video is worth the watch...
 
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Cyan said:
concepts like "cancelling" and "woke" are pretty new but as I understand it, something woke is wanting to cater to everyone as if we lived in a perfect world, even forcing things to happen so you just look multi-everything, they create new words in certain languages where some definitions are masculine or feminine, but not both, woke mentality is about creating a black little mermaid -which imho is stupid-, and things like believing that if you are a male and you think you are female then you are female (I am not against that, except in sports, however if you are born with XY chromosome you are going to experience the problems of people with an Y chromosome, health wise, 'cos you are internally XY).

This has an effect in videogames too, just like what happened with the female -mostly created by female artists- of the Playstation game called Stellar Blade. Or this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840380768079491307

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840329124960723141

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840243748007219257

The interviewer is a woman who brings up the point. The video is worth the watch...
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Sad to see since I had wish listed both those games. I had fond memories of getting dragon warrior free in the mail from nintendo power. They were trying to launch the franchises here in the states at that time. My friend and I had a sleep over and ended up beating the game that same night. So we were going to get the remakes and hang out and beat them like we did god like 35 years ago now or something. But we decided to wait for them to be dirt cheap or for them to patch out the silliness.


I did buy a few hundred dollars of ubisoft stock. I figured if cut out the dei stuff and started focusing on the quality of the games it be really good for them.

I also heard they are giving anyone who preorders the first expansion free. I have a feeling they are using this extra time to add a male Japanese playable character to the dlc and announce it before the launch of the regular game. Its the only way I can see them trying to win back fans
 
eastmen said:
Sad to see since I had wish listed both those games. I had fond memories of getting dragon warrior free in the mail from nintendo power. They were trying to launch the franchises here in the states at that time. My friend and I had a sleep over and ended up beating the game that same night. So we were going to get the remakes and hang out and beat them like we did god like 35 years ago now or something. But we decided to wait for them to be dirt cheap or for them to patch out the silliness.


I did buy a few hundred dollars of ubisoft stock. I figured if cut out the dei stuff and started focusing on the quality of the games it be really good for them.

I also heard they are giving anyone who preorders the first expansion free. I have a feeling they are using this extra time to add a male Japanese playable character to the dlc and announce it before the launch of the regular game. Its the only way I can see them trying to win back fans
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I think the game is just in bad shape and they are scrambling to get it somewhat presentable.
 
eastmen said:
Its the only way I can see them trying to win back fans
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It’s not at all clear they’ve lost fans though. That’s the problem with the internet today. A few loud people with agendas can front like they’re representing a movement when they’re probably sitting in moms basement with a webcam.

Are there any examples of good games that were canceled by an angry mob? Helldivers 2 for example seemed to survive the hate brigade simply because it’s a good game.

Outlaws likely underperformed due to poor marketing and poor execution and not due to any anti-woke campaign.
 
Johnny Awesome said:
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...
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I guess we might be having a pendatic argument of what consitutues value but I just don't see the IPs having that much value broadly speaking and relatively speaking. If we want to compare it Mario it's not even close, people would be willing to pay a lot of money just for the rights to Mario for products outside of gaming.

We also need to consider here it's not just a matter of aquiring the IP but you would aquire all of Ubisofts debts and liabilities as well which given their state likely signficantly negates any IP valuation. Looking it up Ubisoft has $2b roughly in net debt.

Pitching a high concept idea for a game that looks good on paper is very easy. Actually executing (including all the nitty gritty studio management) and making a good game* that sells is far from an exact science. We can't both say these corporations are "greedy" and just want to make money at all costs while also saying they intentionally make choics that don't make them money. The reality is if they knew exactly how to make a successful game down to a science they'd all be doing it with guranteed returns.

*If we also really want to go into here what is a good game is often not clear. On top of that the business success of a game and how good it is also somewhat tenuous.

You mention the same conundrum that I stated. The value of the IP increases and decreases based on the consistent success (or unsuccess) of the games. The problem here is if Ubisoft were successful then it isn't just their IP which would be more valuable but the entire company.
 
trinibwoy said:
I think there’s also an element of “luck” in which games the anti-woke crowd happen to target. Ubisoft must have known though that Assassins Creed Shadows would be a lightning rod for controversy. It commits at least two sins of promoting a female combatant and “out of place” diversity.

That Steam list is pretty telling. Apparently any representation of brown people or women in an action or historical European setting is woke. Women in positions of authority is also woke..which is just lol. I don’t know how you make a modern game without breaking at least one of those rules.

Outlaws got flak for having a female main character who isn’t a thirst trap. That probably wasn’t the reason for the poor reception though. The trailers and marketing were pretty terrible. I bet a better executed launch would’ve made all the difference.
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I´m part of the ant-woke crowd, and I dont think there´s any luck to it. I cant speak for everyone, but diversity per se isn´t a problem, its when its forced or done for ideological reasons. Same thing with female characters, its toxic, unbearable girl-bosses I cant stand.

Anyway, the decisions Ubisoft has made about Shadows are so far beyond stupid I can hardly belive it. Its obvious that despite their virtue signaling they dont care about japanese culture. Its hard to imagine something something more disrespectful than that half tori gate figurine. People notice this, the virtue signaling is so obvious, thats where the negative response is comming from.

With so much money invested in this game the obvious choice would have been to have a main character from the region the game takes place in (like in every other AC game), but when they learned about Yasuke they of course couldnt help themselves.
 
techuse said:
If a game is legitimately good, I don't think social political controversies can bury it. When a game is mediocre at best, the effects can be quite detrimental.
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This right here is correct. Look at the best selling game of last year, Hogwart's Legacy. It had pushback from the both sides of the culture war, with the content of the game being criticized for having historically inaccurate diversity, LGBTQ+ characters, and gender inclusive character creation. There's also always some pushback to anything Harry Potter from some religious groups because it promotes witchcraft or something. The opposite side opposed the game because of Rowlings public comments on trans people. Honestly I don't think there has been a game released recently that has such a wide range of people it could offend, but it still outsold every game last year. Also, as I posted earlier, basically every game in the top selling games so far this year has some sort of "woke" content. I'm sure if I could find a a list of games the pro-woke crowd dislikes a lot of those games would be on that list as well.

ZebMacahan said:
With so much money invested in this game the obvious choice would have been to have a main character from the region the game takes place in (like in every other AC game),
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Naoe fits this description.

Regarding Yasuke, I think it's important to remember that Assassin's Creed is a science fiction series that revolves around a device that uses the genetic memories of a person in the future to build a simulation of the past. The feudal Japan in the game is not real feudal Japan. It's a simulation. And to unlock that simulation, they would need someone who's ancestors lived in that place at that time, not necessarily someone who's genetic heritage existed at that place before that time. This isn't an accurate historical drama, it's a sci-fi stealth action game where characters use their DNA to enter the matrix that manifests as time travel constrained by quantum leap, or better yet, Trancers rules. Trancers might be the best analogy, because it includes things like the long second and the bodies remaining in the present while consciousness is sent back. Plus it features a villain who wants to remove free will from the population as a means of control, and a protagonist who champions free will and causes chaos wherever he goes. No one was complaining that Trancers didn't features a historically accurate 1984, and it was released in 1984! This whole thing is silly.
 
techuse said:
If a game is legitimately good, I don't think social political controversies can bury it. When a game is mediocre at best, the effects can be quite detrimental.
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It certainly gives a bigger opening for the bigots to come in and use other, more reasonable criticisms as plausible deniability. But I still dont think they themselves are convincing so many other non-bigots that such media is bad simply because of their specific insistence on it. There's plenty of examples of games/media failing pretty badly in prior years without any of these anti-woke morons coming in and trying to manufacture extra drama out of it like they do nowadays. Even something recent like Concord clearly failed hard for no anti-woke reasons at all(it was largely rejected by everybody), and only in the aftermath did the pathetic anti-woke crowd try and act like 'wokeness' had anything to do with it.
 
Cyan said:
concepts like "cancelling" and "woke" are pretty new but as I understand it, something woke is wanting to cater to everyone as if we lived in a perfect world, even forcing things to happen so you just look multi-everything, they create new words in certain languages where some definitions are masculine or feminine, but not both, woke mentality is about creating a black little mermaid -which imho is stupid-, and things like believing that if you are a male and you think you are female then you are female (I am not against that, except in sports, however if you are born with XY chromosome you are going to experience the problems of people with an Y chromosome, health wise, 'cos you are internally XY).

This has an effect in videogames too, just like what happened with the female -mostly created by female artists- of the Playstation game called Stellar Blade. Or this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840380768079491307

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840329124960723141

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840243748007219257

The interviewer is a woman who brings up the point. The video is worth the watch...
Click to expand...

The video does not support your point. It only says that if you have to sexualized content in the west you have to sell it to an older age group than Squenix wants to target.

And then Hori in the end has some idiotic statement that you can't have a gendered main character in DQ anymore (for reasons he never explain).
 
Seanspeed said:
It certainly gives a bigger opening for the bigots to come in and use other, more reasonable criticisms as plausible deniability. But I still dont think they themselves are convincing so many other non-bigots that such media is bad simply because of their specific insistence on it. There's plenty of examples of games/media failing pretty badly in prior years without any of these anti-woke morons coming in and trying to manufacture extra drama out of it like they do nowadays. Even something recent like Concord clearly failed hard for no anti-woke reasons at all(it was largely rejected by everybody), and only in the aftermath did the pathetic anti-woke crowd try and act like 'wokeness' had anything to do with it.
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My view is most gamers who aren't on an extreme end of a given political spectrum will not find these issues enough to prevent them from playing a game that is considered to be good or great. If a game is considered to be little more than meh, these issues are much more likely to make gamers consider passing or waiting for a super cheap sale.

TLOU 2 for example was such a well made game, the outrage didn't have any meaningful impact on the game's reception or sales.

That being said, it absolutely does not make sense to have a black protagonist in a game set during the Samurai era in feudal Japan. There are plenty of other locations and times in human history they could have chosen. Having this stance does not necessarily make someone a bigot.
 
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Seanspeed said:
It certainly gives a bigger opening for the bigots to come in and use other, more reasonable criticisms as plausible deniability. But I still dont think they themselves are convincing so many other non-bigots that such media is bad simply because of their specific insistence on it.
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I wouldn't be so quick to call people you disagree with bigots. It's not conducive to civil debate.

Ubisoft still has value in the right hands with the right decisions and I agree that making successful games is hard, but almost everyone here would have known that this was a bad direction for AC. It's a fiasco of their own making.
 
techuse said:
That being said, it absolutely does not make sense to have a black protagonist in a game set during the Samurai era in feudal Japan.
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Yasuke? He's what we would call an exception. And one thing I've learned from reading about the subject, we want our video game protagonists to be the exceptional.
Also, he's already appeared in video games. Nioh and Samurai Warriors games featured him - And they were both developed by Japanese developers.
 
see colon said:
Yasuke? He's what we would call an exception. And one thing I've learned from reading about the subject, we want our video game protagonists to be the exceptional.
Also, he's already appeared in video games. Nioh and Samurai Warriors games featured him - And they were both developed by Japanese developers.
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How many black samurai were there? Did this particular samurai stand out in any way other than being black? I see he was only a Samurai for a single year. Did he fight in any historic battles? Why was he exceptional? There seems to be very little in the way of historic records of his life. What was his presence in the other two games you mentioned? Were the entire games based around him as a main character?
 
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see colon said:
Yasuke? He's what we would call an exception. And one thing I've learned from reading about the subject, we want our video game protagonists to be the exceptional.
Also, he's already appeared in video games. Nioh and Samurai Warriors games featured him - And they were both developed by Japanese developers.
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I don't really want to wade too much into this but there is an exceptional circumstance here in that I don't believe any other AC main player character is based on an actual historical person except in this case. Without going into the social/political side of this issue I do feel there is a discussion to be had in whether or not forcing specific design goals ends up being detrimental. The social/politics aside this situation does feel like a forced design goal was to add a specific type of character and then figure how to add it as opposed to a more organic process.

If we want to follow up a bit on this, and I've seen this discussed elsewhere, is that it's interesting due to how the AC universe works (as you mention in a previous post) they could've actually had organic diversity in terms (arguably I'll say since it's subjective) of adding the least/worst represented minority in American/Western media, which is the Asian (even more so the Asian American/dispora) male. I won't go much into this as it would like broach way off topic in terms of how Asian males are viewed as a minority relative to others by all sides of the social/political spectrum.
 
arandomguy said:
I don't really want to wade too much into this but there is an exceptional circumstance here in that I don't believe any other AC main player character is based on an actual historical person except in this case. Without going into the social/political side of this issue I do feel there is a discussion to be had in whether or not forcing specific design goals ends up being detrimental. The social/politics aside this situation does feel like a forced design goal was to add a specific type of character and then figure how to add it as opposed to a more organic process.
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Well, the developers have stated they wanted players to experience Japan through the eyes of a foreigner. Should they modeled the player character after Tom Cruise so he could be the last samurai? Or is it more appropriate to include a famously foreign samurai?
techuse said:
How many black samurai were there?
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At least one. He's been in at least 2 video games before you proclaimed that it would make no sense to include him in one. And those 2 games were made by Japanese developers. It might be 3 or more games. I think he appears in a non-playable state in some of the Nobunaga's Ambition titles. There are 16 mainline Nobunaga titles, and about as many more titles for handhelds that are usually mash ups and remixes, plus an MMO in that series. If Yasuke appears in only 2 of those 30+ games (and I think he's in more), he will be in more games than Solid Snake is as the main character in any of the Kojima directed Metal Gear titles. He might be in more games than Tony Hawk.

So yeah, I can't tell you how many Black Samurai there were. But there was at least one, and he's appeared in a bunch of games, books.... There was a Netflix Anime about him a couple of years ago. There wasn't even a culture war about him getting his own show on Netflix, though people probably didn't know he was in it because it's called "Yasuke". Oh, I guess they would. He's pretty famous.
 
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