Lets all laugh at an industry that never learns anything teeheehee
A French company that hates their customers is, like, the most stereotypical French thing to exist that isn’t a cigarette and coffee for breakfast.
It turns out consumers aren’t totally mindless drones that just buy whatever you publish because you’re Ubisoft, Ubisoft.
I swear they’ve been incredibly cocky in recent years while simultaneously producing bad games, and broadcasting their stagnation and unwillingness to take risks on anything that isn’t a new revenue stream (as if being formulaic profit hounds is a strength).
I swear MBAs ruin everything. Infinite growth is a horrible horrible idea. I wish we could break out of this cycle of every big company trying to market themselves as the company that cracked the code on the infinite money glitch. The code is … make a good product and be decent to your customers; it’s an ancient code, and it’s so annoying that so many C-suite folks can’t see it.
I think about this post from last year a lot:
Navok noted that if a game costs $100 million to make over five years, it has to beat what the company could have returned investing a similar amount in the stock market over the same period.
Thinking about that quote, it sounds nonsensical
At the outset, all businesses seek to grow faster than the average/stock market. Five years later, half will do better than average, and half will do worse than average.
Saying that the half that did worse should have instead invested into the market, five years ago, is kind of meaningless.
What makes it make even less sense is imagine they could magically somehow have invested instead of creating something. Fast forward a few cycles of businesses swapping over from not beating the average and instead of actually creating anything, everybody is only investing. Except, none of them are actually creating anything.
… If he wants to be a hedge fund exec, he should just go do that. The point of a business, contrary to the Chicago School MBA nonsense, is not to generate profit. It is to make a good or service that would otherwise be impractical for an individual, in a financially sustainable manner.
Most investors are going to care about what kind of return they’re making. It’s the capital they provide that pays the paychecks.
If you want to do volunteer work on video games – I have – then that’s not an issue. But typically games are made by paid workers, and those workers won’t work without their paychecks. So they’re going to need to attract investors.
Most investors are going to care about what kind of return they’re making. It’s the capital they provide that pays the paychecks.
Maybe that’s the problem. Valve did pretty well for themselves, even before steam, without putting investors in charge of their direction.
If you want to do volunteer work on video games – I have – then that’s not an issue.
I have indeed worked on my own and others projects without financial gain but that’s orthogonal to my point.
But typically games are made by paid workers, and those workers won’t work without their paychecks.
The games industry is full of chronically under-compensated workers. Again, nowhere did I advocate for people to work for free for commercial enterprises or anything of the like.
So they’re going to need to attract investors.
That’s a pretty good example of the False Dichotomy fallacy. There are numerous alternatives that don’t involve prioritizing profit over the product or service that a business produces.
Boohoobisoft
One of the biggest video game publishers in the world and they still can’t seem to get good voice actors, animators, writers, or general game designers.
We talk about AI slop, well Ubisoft make video game slop. Quantity over quality, get a new entry in [popular series] out every year, milk the shit out of it with mtx and force shitty DRM on consumers.
Fuck Ubisoft. Genuinely wouldn’t even waste storage by pirating their games.
The real cost of Ubisoft games is your time
It’s sad because this company used to make good games.
I think their only good modern game is Anno 1800 and that is soon a 5 year old game.
I’m not sad. Ubi doesn’t respect it’s customers anymore. Let them sink.
A few people said that last year’s Prince of Persia game was pretty good. But I didn’t play it.
The 90s and 00s version of Ubisoft was phenomenal. Remember the original Far Cry, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Rayman? Everyone loved those games, and they were actually innovative.
But now Ubisoft is formulaic and seems hostile towards the people who buy their games.
Prince of Persia: the Lost Crown was probably the best Metroidvania I’ve ever played. A lot of critics agree.
Ubisoft dismantled their team after they didn’t meet sales expectations.
The game itself was amazing and made its way onto a lot of Game of the Year lists. If it underperformed, it was either a failure of their marketing department, or a failure to set realistic sales goals.
