Ubisoft Investors Push For Company Sale as Shares Hit Decade-Low (techspot.com) 48
French video game publisher Ubisoft has delayed its upcoming "Assassin's Creed Shadows" by three months following disappointing sales of "Star Wars Outlaws". Ubisoft shares have hit a 10-year low as activist investor AJ Investments, backed by 10% of shareholders, pushes for a sale. "Star Wars Outlaws" sold just 1 million copies in its first month, far below expectations. TechSpot adds: Ubisoft has never had the best reputation among gamers. It's been voted the most-hated gaming brand in the world more than once, and there are those who blame the Outlaws reception on trolls who target Ubisoft games and modern Star Wars media.
"The game received an unusual number of user reviews with a clear negative bias (including a large percentage of "zero" reviews), despite seeing acceptable review scores from reputable review sites," Wedbush analysts Michael Pachter, Alicia Reese and Kade Bar wrote in a note last week. "This is a case of a rare incel victory that led to Ubisoft having to take down its numbers," they added.
"The game received an unusual number of user reviews with a clear negative bias (including a large percentage of "zero" reviews), despite seeing acceptable review scores from reputable review sites," Wedbush analysts Michael Pachter, Alicia Reese and Kade Bar wrote in a note last week. "This is a case of a rare incel victory that led to Ubisoft having to take down its numbers," they added.
per the EULA we can drop all the servers with no r (Score:5, Insightful)
per the EULA we can drop all the servers with no refunds on games that don't work any more.
Happy to see Ubisoft die. (Score:3)
Despite face-saving public comments, the fact is that Ubisoft is failing to please its customers. At least, failing to please enough of them to be profitable.
This is the company that gave us an utter flop of a game in "skull and bones" which they proudly touted as a "quadruple A experience" in order to justify the very high price tag. They are all marketing and no market-pleasing.
They ALSO drop old servers even if you still want to play the old games, as Joe_Dragon said. AND they like to put awful DRM in
Proposal: A path forward for the games industry (Score:2)
Simple proposal that Ubisoft and other game companies already have settings like amount of blood during battles.
Simply put a slider in the game settings with how much diversity and inclusion are put into the game during game play. Something from say "max", "high", "medium", "little" and "minimal" to allow the game player to setup the game.
This would be important in countries which have different levels of import restrictions where some things which could be shown in the USA could not be shown in the other
The definition of out of touch: (Score:5, Insightful)
"The game received an unusual number of user reviews with a clear negative bias (including a large percentage of "zero" reviews), despite seeing acceptable review scores from reputable review sites," Wedbush analysts Michael Pachter, Alicia Reese and Kade Bar wrote in a note last week. "This is a case of a rare incel victory that led to Ubisoft having to take down its numbers," they added."
"Well of COURSE it has to be the fucking incels. We couldn't possibly make a shit game, just look at the scores in all these reviews we paid for!"
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I haven't paid any attention to
Re:The definition of out of touch: (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't paid any attention to Ubisoft games in a while or this game specifically, but I wonder if the lackluster sales have to do with how much damage Disney itself has done to the Star Wars brand with their recent films and television series. I do realize that after reading a short blurb about this game that it doesn't share a story or setting with any of those entries, but I think there's so much Star Wars fatigue that a lot of people didn't bother to even look into it.
This, in particular, strikes me as having the largest impact on the sales of the game; in combination with the fact that Disney has done to Star Wars what Ubisoft has being doing to their own open world formula for over a decade. I didn't give this game the time of day, but if it had come out like 10 years ago (with graphics relative to what was reasonable 10 years ago) I would have been all over it. The market is saturated, and we don't want what they're selling anymore. I mean, yes I did read the same bizarre complaints from some folks who claim the protagonist "isn't hot enough," but to blame your poor sales on the people dispensing this bad take is just... a bad take.
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>average critic score
How stupid must one be to think that your target audience for mass market game sales are critics, rather than gamers.
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You got the high critic scores, and all of the critics got a free copy of your game.
Meanwhile paying customers, which are apparently "incels" didn't.
The shocking part is that you actually need to sell the game in large numbers, rather than give it away for free to a small handful of people. Who knew? Certainly not Ubisoft apparently, as they and their stooges keep referencing the critic score.
Re: Go Woke (Score:1)
Outlaws is really great (Score:4, Informative)
From what I can tell, a lot of the negative Outlaws reviews came for two reasons:
1) PC version was pretty buggy (unlike consoles), most reviewers were on a PC.
2) Most reviewers only slammed through the main story so they missed a huge amount of side content and honestly, the point of the game.
I just find it enjoyable to wander around, exploring, taking on missions. I liked the main story but it's not at all where I spent most of my time.
The whole thing is just seriously focused on classic Star Wars, being set right between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, with some (bit not too many) familiar things from that era in the game along with a lot of original stuff. As a result is is just really fun to play, this is the Star Wars it seemed to me that most people unhappy with Disney stuff have been asking for.
It's also just really nice to have a game not focused on Jedi, just someone trying to get by in the outer rim which is mostly run by one crime syndicate or another.
If you liked classic Star Wars, I honestly think this game is a must play. It's not the most serious game around, it's not Splinter Cell in terms of stealth. Nor is it Call of Duty in terms of combat. But it has a fun mix of everything and a a really likable character you play as along with a great companion creature.
I don't know that it can save Ubisoft but I think at least sales will pick up pretty rapidly on this once they get a stability patch out (due very soon) and the DLCs.
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It's also just really nice to have a game not focused on Jedi
Very true.
I honestly think this game is a must play
3) I do not have a dog in this fight, but I have seen some YouTube videos pointing out interesting shortcomings. It doesn't make the game not worth playing, but it is surprising that a AAA game would even face such issues. Here's a video comparing several activities side-by-side with Red Dead Redemption 2 (from 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Some small corrections to vid. (Score:1)
Interesting but a little misleading at times.
You do leave footprints in sand. Sort of in mud.
You do get wet when it rains, it's just that swimming is not really a thing in Outlaws. On the planet Akira when it rains her hair gets obviously wet along with her clothes, on Kajimi her clothes get covered in snowflakes. I don't know if it ever snows in RDR2 to compare.
Also some people have complained it's "unrealistic" you can knock helmeted figures on the head and they collapse. Meanwhile in the comparison f
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"I don't know if it ever snows in RDR2 to compare."
Ahem, https://geektogeekmedia.com/ge... [geektogeekmedia.com]
So there is snow but not on clothes (Score:1)
Well I have to admit I have not checked for Bantha testicles yet to see if that compares. :-)
After reading the article you linked it mentioned snowy mountains and I found a video - even though they did have clothing get wet, RDR2 does not seem to actually add snow to outfits [youtube.com] when it's snowing the way Outlaws does on Kajimi!
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Why wouldn't the best part of the game be the side quests? Just makes sense. Lack of light sabers or anything Jedi-ish? No problem. Not good stealth but also not good combat? Winner for sure!
It couldn't be the years of mismanagement at the top, or boring retreads of same games over and over, or the never-endin
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Not good stealth but also not good combat? Winner for sure!
You misunderstand - both stealth and combat are good, because they are more simple than the more complex games based around those elements. They are optimized for simplicity.
Just all around the entire game of Outlaws is more focused on having fun and playing around, and not being as serious or technical a game as others are.
I mean I guess if you hate fun you should skip it?
Why wouldn't the best part of the game be the side quests?
Don't get me wron
Problem is system requirements (Score:2)
Ubisoft fell victim to the classic problem where they assumed better hardware would be out by now for an affordable price and it just didn't happen. First Bitcoin and now AI have driven up the price of video cards massively.
This has been a problem in gaming since the early 2000s where game dev cycles run two to three years and up so you have to write your game for
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I plan to buy it and play it, but like any ubisoft openworld I'm waiting for the complete edition to be around $40 because it isn't worth any more than that to me.
I already know I won't finish it, but I'll get 30-40 hours out of it.
Don't want shitty UbiSoft launcher, thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I want my games to be mine.
The Not Pirate game that became World of Ships (Score:1)
doomed UbiSoft more than anything else. All the fans ask for is more open world pirate adventures and was rewarded with a cutdown World of Ships simulator.
Trolls!! (Score:5, Insightful)
there are those who blame the Outlaws reception on trolls who target Ubisoft games and modern Star Wars media.
This. This right here is the problem.
Blaming game sales on "trolls" is really desperate. If the game is good, no amount of trolling is going to cause it to fail (even trolls could have reduced the sales a little).
A Youtuber I watch always says "We do not even have the power to force users to click to subscribe to our channel. Why do you think we can cause a game to not sell?"
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As I mentioned, all the fans want when they heard that UbiSoft is doing another pirate theme game and they have vision of a more expanded Black Flag sequel. Instead we got Skull and Bone, which for all intent and purpose is a World of Ship simulator. Skull and Bone cost a lot of time and money to develop.
To overcome the trolls (Score:1)
I saw this with Eiyuden Chronicles. There's one line in the entire script that's set off the trolls and they review bomb the game. The game itself is an absolutely fantastic pseudo sequel to Suikoden. Basically a dream team project for anyone into Japanese RPGs.
But it's not like it's the second coming it's just a really really good game in a niche genre of a niche genre. So it was always going to be vulnerable to
Wedbush, a wealth management firm (Score:2)
With an unfortunately large position in ubisoft, I imagine.
Did they really just blame incels for their woes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did they really just incels for their game failing and the company dying?
Every person and company has a certain amount of "benefit of the doubt". Because literally every action, everything you do, can be interpreted at least two ways. When you have a good reputation, then things tend to get interpreted in a good light. When you exhaust the supply of benefit of the doubt, then even good things start getting interpreted poorly. That is where Ubisoft is today. They may not be responsible for everything they are being blamed for, but they are 100% responsible for getting themselves in the position where no one will issue them benefit of the doubt any more.
Once you're in that position, that isn't the time to start blaming people and whining. Once you exhaust your benefit of the doubt, you have to fill it again. Drop by fucking drop. So I have exactly zero sympathy for their position.
heuristics to live by (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: heuristics to live by (Score:2)
They should merge with Unity (Score:3)
May as well get all the bad ideas in one place
Great (Score:4, Interesting)
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I can almost certainly guarantee that it was investors that pushed for things like DRM and Ubi's own store/launcher.
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pretty much. i've completely ignored them since i uninstalled their launcher for good, years ago. that thing was toxic, and i didn't even care about any drm. (about the time of "the division 2", which was the last game i bought from them, and was actually not bad but ... i was already pissed at the launcher for its obnoxious intrusiveness, then trivial updates just started corrupting my game installation. second time around was one too many. bunch of greedy incompetents, good riddance, will not be missed).
A long time coming (Score:2)
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Tencent investment allows the family to continue to have oversized control over the company. Right now the activists shareholders just want UbiSoft to be taken private so they can be cashed out from this sinking ship. I'm not sure if any investment bank is dumb enough to sink time and resource to do that.
Uh– (Score:2)
I just checked; Star Wars Outlaws doesn't even drop until Nov 21.
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That's just the GPCGMR version. The CPs got it at the end of August. And if even *they* panned it...
So much expectation.. (Score:2)
"reputable review sites" (Score:1)
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Or they mean the paid reviewers were outweighed by the number of people that didn't like the game?
Yes, this. Well, let me play Ubisoft's Advocate for a moment:
If you go to Metacritic and look at the Critics Reviews, you see scores that tend to hover around the total average of 76/100. You know, 80s, 70s, 60s. A few upper and lower end... scores that make sense and probably represent the game well.
But, if you go to the User Reviews section, you see a score of 5.4, and more than half of the reviews are negative, there are a ton of 0s accompanied by 1 line about why they hate the game. A review of 0 is har
Collateral Damage (Score:3)
There's an industry-wide boycott of Star Wars properties after Kennedy decided to sacrifice the lore at the altar of The Message for Disney.
That's not necessarily Ubisoft's fault.
I am puzzled by the investors' "buy high sell low" strategy though.
Not attached personally; I was out at Midichlorians.
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Weird how people who whine about negative review bombing never talk about positive review bombing or reviewer bias to give favorable scores to keep getting free copies of games.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
To be fair (Score:2)
Listening to investors is what got Ubisoft in this terrible predicament to begin with. Investors like AJ Investments doesn't know jack shit about the video game industry nor what it takes to make a successful game.
unusual number of user reviews with clear negative (Score:2)