Ubisoft is OK

[UltraMega]

This is an OP-ED about some of the recent struggles Ubisoft has faced. 

 

Context Summary:

Spoiler

Ubisoft, once a titan of the gaming industry, has faced a series of challenges in recent years that have put the company's future in question.

. From underwhelming game sales to financial losses and internal restructuring, Ubisoft is now exploring strategic options to navigate its current predicament.

. CEO Yves Guillemot has acknowledged the need for a renewed focus on creativity, innovation, and a player-centric approach to regain its footing in a rapidly evolving market.

. As Ubisoft grapples with these issues, the gaming community watches closely, wondering if the company can reclaim its former glory.

 

 

Ubisoft is getting a lot of flak lately, but I think some of their recent moves are actually positive for the company overall. I don't think anyone here really cares one way or the other, but I see a lot of news about this that isn't being properly represented so I just wanted to put some logic out there.

 

Ubisoft is dropping dead weight and freeing up resources 

 

Ubi has been knows to enter strange development agreements. I suspect that is why they just released an NFT game. Not because they think NFT are still viable as the news about this suggests, but rather because they probably had a contractual agreement to deliver the game. Ubisoft did have such an agreement for the game "Skull and Bones", and when they finally got that out it, it rid Ubisoft of that obligation and logically also freed up some resources. I suspect the NFT game is the same; getting a contract out the door to free up company resources. 

 

 

Ubisoft has some games in development that have been in dev for years that we have not seen yet. They are taking their times to bake something good, or at the very least they are taking the right approach. 

 

Ubisoft should be in a good position now. They have an extremely capable game engine and a lot of newly freed up resources to take advantage of it. I think Ubisoft's stock will recover in 1-3 years, and may gain significantly if they are able to deliver a true next gen single player game. 

Edited November 13 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

Just some added context to my meaningless Ubisoft rant:

 

Ubisoft Released New Official Survey for the Next Ghost Recon!

 

 

Just further evidence that Ubisoft might actually be trying to make a good game in the future.

 

Ghost Recon Wildlands was in dev for 5 years before launch. The following game had a larger team, but was only in dev for ~18 months before launch. 

 

Here's hoping the next game gets both plenty of time and a full dev team. 

 

 

I'm not a particular fan of Ubisoft. I think they get more hate than they deserve sometimes, but they have clear and obvious faults. I do think their ups and downs are interesting to follow though. Ubisoft always seems to be well intended but still misses the mark in ways that are just always so... Ubisoft.

Edited November 14 by UltraMega

[bonami2]

Still waiting on beyond good and evil 2

[SamsTechStuff]

I would generally /agree here. They are large enough to absorb a flop'd game and have plenty of IP they can leverage and clearly have planned already. I don't dislike the games they make and will probably pickup their most recent release in a sale eventually. I like my games in the sub ~$20 range

Edited November 14 by SamsTechStuff

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, SamsTechStuff said:

I would generally /agree here. They are large enough to absorb a flop'd game and have plenty of IP they can leverage and clearly have planned already. I don't dislike the games they make and will probably pickup their most recent release in a sale eventually. I like my games in the sub ~$20 range

I don't think they've had just one flop. It's been a long time since anyone called Ubisoft "innovative" or really putting out something new. They've in many way phoned it in a lot.

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

I don't think they've had just one flop. It's been a long time since anyone called Ubisoft "innovative" or really putting out something new. They've in many way phoned it in a lot.

 

Ubisoft has had a lot of games that didn't meet general expectations, and the expectations are never that high. I can't think of any games that were major flops except for Skull and Bones, and a lot of lots of mini flops to go with it.

 

 

Some of the more recent ones:

 

Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Far Cry 6

Watch Dogs Legion 

Skull and Bones

Star Wars Outlaws

[SamsTechStuff]

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

I don't think they've had just one flop. It's been a long time since anyone called Ubisoft "innovative" or really putting out something new. They've in many way phoned it in a lot.

I was thinking more along the lines of Concord scale. Ubi doesn't* always release great games but, they seem to keep on chugging with enough sales. Hoping there's some game launch that is too tempting to pass up but right now, I feel like the winner of game launches this year will be Blizzards Classic WoW re-relaunch 

Edited November 14 by SamsTechStuff

[UltraMega]

1 minute ago, SamsTechStuff said:

I was thinking more along the lines of Concord scale. Ubi does always release great games but, they seem to keep on chugging with enough sales. Hoping there's some game launch that is too tempting to pass up but right now, I feel like the winner of game launches this year will be Blizzards Classic WoW re-relaunch 

Oh yea, I'm sure that will be huge among those who played wow. 

 

IDK about winner of game launches this year though. Stalker 2 is looking like it might take that crown. Really looking forward to that game. One game that looks like it really got all the time and attention it deserves. 

[damric]

I'm about to go all-in on Rocksmith+

 

It might look expensive but it's actually cheap asf if you look at equivalent studio equipment it offers.

[UltraMega]

22 minutes ago, damric said:

I'm about to go all-in on Rocksmith+

 

It might look expensive but it's actually cheap asf if you look at equivalent studio equipment it offers.

I hadn't looked at Rocksmith+ before. That actually looks really cool.

 

More learning should be gamified. 

[damric]

22 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

I hadn't looked at Rocksmith+ before. That actually looks really cool.

 

More learning should be gamified. 

Yeah I originally looked at it for Michele since she is learning. Then I was like whoa this software pretty much has studio options that are worth thousands. 

[UltraMega]

Side note, this is a pretty interesting video on one of Ubisofts larger controversies. It does a good job breaking down what went right and wrong with what was perhaps Ubisofts first big flounder. It's interesting in particular because WD1 was Ubisoft's best selling game ever at the time, and it was actually a great game that was overshadowed by the E3 demo issues, which themselves were a result of not having final dev hardware from Sony for the ps4. 

 

 

I personally really enjoyed WD1. The plot was a breath of fresh air in that it was dark and gritty with no happy ending. The protagonist wasn't a good guy, he was a guy fully focused on revenge to the detriment of any personal relationships he had in his life. The plot felt a lot deeper and more realized than any other Ubisoft game I can think of.

 

WD1 is one game I would actually really like to see get a remaster. In this age of remasters it would be awesome to see a game that was supposed to have better visuals at launch get the remaster treatment.

Edited November 14 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

This has nothing to do with Ubisoft today, but it's an interesting video. 

 

 

 

There are no modding tools for this game. Mods took a really long time to roll out for this game, and a lot of the mod content is basically just restoring things that were cut. Given how this game got a lot of hate for not living up to the E3 demo that was targeting unfinished PS3 specs at the time, it's interesting to see how much was cut. A lot of fine details was cut or broken, there was apparently a much better driving physics model that existed in a recently discovered beta version of the game that Ubi decided to cut in favor of a really dumbed-down driving physics model which has now been restored via a mod. That's one of the most interesting aspects about this to me. I lot of open world Ubisoft games have bad driving physics, so knowing that Ubisoft chooses to make it this way rather than it being something their engine just doesn't support is a weird and interesting thing to know. I guess some people prefer simple driving physics in games that aren't solely focused on driving, but I don't think GTA5 would have been so popular if it had simplified driving physics. 

 

Anyway, Watch Dogs 1 is just an interesting note in gaming history at this point. It's one game I'd actually like to see get remastered. 

[Kaz]

There is a problem with Ubisoft games.  After spending significant time with Farcry 3 and Wildlands, every other game is just more of the same.  Their engine is dated and the AI is comically bad.   Exploring the world can be fun and the story may be interesting, but the actual combat gameplay is so repetitive it's no longer fun or challenging.  It also doesn't help when they re-use assets multiple times.  In wildlands I'd encounter the same compound designs in multiple places, and the plot voice line for missions was identical at multiple points in the game.  Getting the same voiceline for taking out 2 of the top baddies is a joke.  Everything leads up to this, but it's just copy paste, they can't even be bothered to make it a good experience.

 

In Farcry 4, there was a point where I come out of a cave and enemies are waiting.  I simply retreated back around the bend and held that angle, all 5 enemies decided to chase me and put their head in exactly the same spot as they round the corner.  That's the kind of stuff that would never happen IRL, but I've had the exact same thing happen in Ghost Recon.  Ubisoft wants to make stealth viable, but anyone who understands the stealth mechanics has already beat the game, because it's just so easy to exploit.

 

Ubisoft's AI is the same stuff we saw 15-20 years ago.  The graphics have improved, but enemies are still as dumb as rocks.  Modded Farcry 3 was more fun than Farcry 4, because the mod at least changed the AI and how encounters happened.  In the mod, if I started a firefight other vehicles in the area would be radio'ed in and I'd quickly end up with enemies all around which made me be a lot more considerate about the fights I'd start.

 

Siege is still one of the most innovative games of it's time, I'm just not a fan of their marketing.

[Snakecharmed]

I remember how BS the Far Cry 1 AI was. I was "hiding" in brush that apparently only existed for client-side rendering because the enemy sent over a half dozen mercenaries in a beeline at me from 500m away firing assault rifles with marksman precision after I took out a mercenary with a single round from a sniper rifle. The AI was so nonsensical that a 5-year-old could script more realistic combat strategy and logistics.

 

After the garbage experience that was Far Cry, I was done with that series and any Ubisoft games that involved guns, which essentially meant that I played about a third of the way through the first Assassin's Creed and got bored with that or something—partly due to the repetition—because I never went back around to finish it. Granted, the game that pulled me away from AC was Metal Gear Solid 4, and AC wasn't going to compete with that.

 

About the only thing I can say that Ubisoft did well is that Rabbids were the precursor to Minions. I'll even say their storywriters are generally pretty good from the select few games I've tried out of their catalog. As far as game development, leave that to studios that know how to make games that don't include glaring, immersion-breaking idiosyncrasies.

Edited Sunday at 19:26 by Snakecharmed

[UltraMega]

5 hours ago, Kaz said:

There is a problem with Ubisoft games.  After spending significant time with Farcry 3 and Wildlands, every other game is just more of the same.  Their engine is dated and the AI is comically bad.   Exploring the world can be fun and the story may be interesting, but the actual combat gameplay is so repetitive it's no longer fun or challenging.  It also doesn't help when they re-use assets multiple times.  In wildlands I'd encounter the same compound designs in multiple places, and the plot voice line for missions was identical at multiple points in the game.  Getting the same voiceline for taking out 2 of the top baddies is a joke.  Everything leads up to this, but it's just copy paste, they can't even be bothered to make it a good experience.

 

In Farcry 4, there was a point where I come out of a cave and enemies are waiting.  I simply retreated back around the bend and held that angle, all 5 enemies decided to chase me and put their head in exactly the same spot as they round the corner.  That's the kind of stuff that would never happen IRL, but I've had the exact same thing happen in Ghost Recon.  Ubisoft wants to make stealth viable, but anyone who understands the stealth mechanics has already beat the game, because it's just so easy to exploit.

 

Ubisoft's AI is the same stuff we saw 15-20 years ago.  The graphics have improved, but enemies are still as dumb as rocks.  Modded Farcry 3 was more fun than Farcry 4, because the mod at least changed the AI and how encounters happened.  In the mod, if I started a firefight other vehicles in the area would be radio'ed in and I'd quickly end up with enemies all around which made me be a lot more considerate about the fights I'd start.

 

Siege is still one of the most innovative games of it's time, I'm just not a fan of their marketing.

 

To be fair, the "bait and wait" tactic works on the AI in a lot of open world games. It works in Stalker 2, for example. There's probably a lot fewer games where that doesn't work than games where it does.

 

1 hour ago, Snakecharmed said:

I remember how BS the Far Cry 1 AI was. I was "hiding" in brush that apparently only existed for client-side rendering because the enemy sent over a half dozen mercenaries in a beeline at me from 500m away firing assault rifles with marksman precision after I took out a mercenary with a single round from a sniper rifle. The AI was so nonsensical that a 5-year-old could script more realistic combat strategy and logistics.

 

After the garbage experience that was Far Cry, I was done with that series and any Ubisoft games that involved guns, which essentially meant that I played about a third of the way through the first Assassin's Creed and got bored with that or something—partly due to the repetition—because I never went back around to finish it. Granted, the game that pulled me away from AC was Metal Gear Solid 4, and AC wasn't going to compete with that.

 

About the only thing I can say that Ubisoft did well is that Rabbids were the precursor to Minions. I'll even say their storywriters are generally pretty good from the select few games I've tried out of their catalog. As far as game development, leave that to studios that know how to make games that don't include glaring, immersion-breaking idiosyncrasies.

 

Far Cry 1 was made by Crytek. It's basically the predecessor to Crysis from a technical stand point. Ubisoft only published Far Cry 1, but then they bought the rights to make it a series and everything after was developed by Ubisoft.

[Snakecharmed]

Well then, it looks like by extension most of my criticism for FC1 would have been intended for Crytek, and what still holds are the gameplay experience quirks that knock down good-to-great visual design and generally good writing down a peg with mediocre mechanics and execution.

 

By all standards, AC1 wasn't a bad game; I've played, stuck with, and regretted playing far worse. The problem was that I picked up MGS4 and then Red Dead Redemption before I had a chance to finish it, and after all that, diving into haystacks for the umpteenth time wasn't going to get me back into the game. I guess the series got better with subsequent games, but if you fail to nail it on the first attempt, retaining a player base becomes a far more difficult endeavor.

 

I haven't played anything made by Ubisoft in a long time. What I don't find so easy to dismiss from afar are their anti-consumer business practices that have generated significant controversy in recent years, though I have similar if not stronger criticisms for ATVI—namely Blizzard, leader of my most hated game developers list—for the crap they actually do (or don't do) in their games.