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[Topher]

As the Prince of Persia Metroidvania team disbands, Baldur's Gate 3 dev says if Ubisoft wants "subs over sales" then "developers must get used to not having jobs"​

Ubisoft's approach "just isn't sensible"

---

Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael 'Cromwelp' Douse is calling out Ubisoft for its subscription-based approach to games following the company's changes to the team behind Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Following Ubisoft's recent decision to disband the team behind Prince of Persia Metroidvania entry The Lost Crown in favor of transferring them on to games with better sales potential, Douse explains why he believes the company's subscription-based strategy is "broken" in a lengthy post. "The last notable game on their platform was arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021," writes the Larian lead, going on to address why there should've been a Steam release for The Lost Crown.

"The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn't perform," he continues, "so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn't be launching their store all too much." Had the game dropped on Valve's platform, Douse thinks things might be different. "If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong."





The director calls Ubisoft's approach "such a broken strategy." He continues: "The hardest thing is to make a 85+ game - it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn't be done as it was." In a follow-up post, Douse also goes on to make a very good point - if a company wants to stand behind its subscription-based model, then it should come as no surprise when sales don't work out the way that they could've if a game had launched normally.

"If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (sub above sales)," he says, "then the statement 'developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game' (platform strategy above title sales) is also true, and that just isn't sensible - even from a business perspective." While I'm not a dev myself, I am a frequent purchaser of games - and I certainly agree.

As the Prince of Persia Metroidvania team disbands, Baldur's Gate 3 dev says if Ubisoft wants "subs over sales" then "developers must get used to not having jobs"

Ubisoft's approach "just isn't sensible"

www.gamesradar.com

---

 

[Gaiff]

Get used not to what? Come on man, don’t keep the suspense up…

 

[Topher]

Get used not to what? Come on man, don’t keep the suspense up…

damn character limit. I put the full title in the post

 

[March Climber]

damn character limit. I put the full title in the post

If it's possible to change, a good way to fit it in a title change would be changing Prince of Persia Metroidvania to PoP: Lost Crown.

 

[Loomy]

The amount of self inflicted damage this industry does to itself is mind boggling.

 

[Topher]

If it's possible to change, a good way to fit it in a title change would be changing Prince of Persia Metroidvania to PoP: Lost Crown.

Thanks. I'll report it and see if a mod can make the change

 

[Crayon]

Ubisoft is pretty useless.

 

[LectureMaster]

Well, Isn't this exactly the same guy claiming SW Outlaws is the best game in years? I blame him for not buying enough copies to support Ubi.

 

[March Climber]

On a side note, the silliest pat of all of this Ubisoft News is the fact that they said they are planning a new Rayman game right afterwards.

 

[DryvBy]

damn character limit. I put the full title in the post

NeoGAF supports click bait articles. We're mainstream now.

 

[Topher]

NeoGAF supports click bait articles. We're mainstream now.

 

[ap_puff]

Well, Isn't this exactly the same guy claiming SW Outlaws is the best game in years? I blame him for not buying enough copies to support Ubi.

I mean, that's his personal taste. Doesn't mean he doesn't have a point here. The subscription strategy is something an MBA from a community college would think up.

 

[ReyBrujo]

"If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (sub above sales)," he says, "then the statement 'developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game' (platform strategy above title sales) is also true, and that just isn't sensible - even from a business perspective." While I'm not a dev myself, I am a frequent purchaser of games - and I certainly agree.

I tried re-reading this five times and still can't make heads or tails. How "gamers getting used at licensing games" is related to "developers making good products get fired"? They are just two random statements unless he is putting the blame on developers' fate on gamers.

My logic brain considers this a modus ponens, "If P, then Q. P. Therefore Q". The truth table for this is pretty simple, the statement is always true except when P is true and Q is false. In this case, "Gamers should get used to not owning their games" being true, then if "developers making good games should get used at being unemployed" is true it's a truth, but if it's false (that is, developers making good games aren't fired) the statement is false (therefore, it's an invalid statement cementing his point about the fact that developers will be fired). I just can't make any sense of it.

 

[Generic]

As the Prince of Persia Metroidvania team disbands, Baldur's Gate 3 dev says if Ubisoft wants "subs over sales" then "developers must get used to not having jobs"​

Ubisoft's approach "just isn't sensible"

---

Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael 'Cromwelp' Douse is calling out Ubisoft for its subscription-based approach to games following the company's changes to the team behind Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Following Ubisoft's recent decision to disband the team behind Prince of Persia Metroidvania entry The Lost Crown in favor of transferring them on to games with better sales potential, Douse explains why he believes the company's subscription-based strategy is "broken" in a lengthy post. "The last notable game on their platform was arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021," writes the Larian lead, going on to address why there should've been a Steam release for The Lost Crown.

"The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn't perform," he continues, "so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn't be launching their store all too much." Had the game dropped on Valve's platform, Douse thinks things might be different. "If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong."





The director calls Ubisoft's approach "such a broken strategy." He continues: "The hardest thing is to make a 85+ game - it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn't be done as it was." In a follow-up post, Douse also goes on to make a very good point - if a company wants to stand behind its subscription-based model, then it should come as no surprise when sales don't work out the way that they could've if a game had launched normally.

"If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (sub above sales)," he says, "then the statement 'developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game' (platform strategy above title sales) is also true, and that just isn't sensible - even from a business perspective." While I'm not a dev myself, I am a frequent purchaser of games - and I certainly agree.

As the Prince of Persia Metroidvania team disbands, Baldur's Gate 3 dev says if Ubisoft wants "subs over sales" then "developers must get used to not having jobs"

Ubisoft's approach "just isn't sensible"

www.gamesradar.com

---

Of course a publisher will defend selling products at $70.

And for bizarre some reason the gaming community supports paying 3-4x more for games (funny how no other community is like this)

 

[Generic]

I tried re-reading this five times and still can't make heads or tails. How "gamers getting used at licensing games" is related to "developers making good products get fired"? They are just two random statements unless he is putting the blame on developers' fate on gamers.

My logic brain considers this a modus ponens, "If P, then Q. P. Therefore Q". The truth table for this is pretty simple, the statement is always true except when P is true and Q is false. In this case, "Gamers should get used to not owning their games" being true, then if "developers making good games should get used at being unemployed" is true it's a truth, but if it's false (that is, developers making good games aren't fired) the statement is false (therefore, it's an invalid statement cementing his point about the fact that developers will be fired). I just can't make any sense of it.

It's just a publisher defending selling his game at $70 (soon $80). His argument doesn't even make sense since people don't own digital games (Steam agrees)

 

[XXL]

NeoGAF supports click bait articles. We're mainstream now.

 

[Topher]

I tried re-reading this five times and still can't make heads or tails. How "gamers getting used at licensing games" is related to "developers making good products get fired"? They are just two random statements unless he is putting the blame on developers' fate on gamers.

My logic brain considers this a modus ponens, "If P, then Q. P. Therefore Q". The truth table for this is pretty simple, the statement is always true except when P is true and Q is false. In this case, "Gamers should get used to not owning their games" being true, then if "developers making good games should get used at being unemployed" is true it's a truth, but if it's false (that is, developers making good games aren't fired) the statement is false (therefore, it's an invalid statement cementing his point about the fact that developers will be fired). I just can't make any sense of it.

Believe his point made in the previous tweet was clearer:

"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong."

It's just a publisher defending selling his game at $70 (soon $80). His argument doesn't even make sense since people don't own digital games (Steam agrees)

Believe he is talking about sales revenue vs subscription revenue. Not licensing ownership.

He is not wrong. If the game had been sold day one on Steam then could be a chance that team would still be employed.

 

[Punished Miku]

Ubisoft having a sub service has nothing to do with people not buying a platformer for $50. The sub probably helped it. People were refusing to buy the game.

This is the loudmouth arrogant company waiting for GTA6 to raise games to $80. Larian can kiss my ass and you all can have fun with the world they have in store for you. The amount of shit these guys talk is staggering.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Give this man a TRUE.

 

[Loomy]

On a side note, the silliest pat of all of this Ubisoft News is the fact that they said they are planning a new Rayman game right afterwards.

Them not capitalizing on the massive Switch install base and pumping out Rayman games over the last 10 years tells you how much they actually care about the franchise.

 

[March Climber]

Ubisoft having a sub service has nothing to do with people not buying a platformer for $50. The sub probably helped it. People were refusing to buy the game.

This is the loudmouth arrogant company waiting for GTA6 to raise games to $80. Larian can kiss my ass and you all can have fun with the world they have in store for you. The amount of shit these guys talk is staggering.

I think of it like certain musicians and directors. When they make classic albums and movies, sure, they can talk all the shit they want and boast, because they walk the walk.

But once they don't walk the walk anymore...

 

[Punished Miku]

I think of it like certain musicians and directors. When they make classic albums and movies, sure, they can talk all the shit they want and boast, because they walk the walk.

But once they don't walk the walk anymore...

I guess. They've made 1 type of game 3x. They just sound like assholes to me.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

I think of it like certain musicians and directors. When they make classic albums and movies, sure, they can talk all the shit they want and boast, because they walk the walk.

But once they don't walk the walk anymore...

BG3 is good game but I think influencers/reviewers oversold it.

Now people just come and praise it, even if they haven’t played it. Has created an enigma around the game.

 

[March Climber]

I guess. They've made 1 type of game 3x.

So have Rockstar North, but if The Bens had suddenly appeared 15 years ago on social media and said 'Yea, we ARE that good' as GTA4 just skyrocketed into the stratosphere in sales, I would look at him like:

 

[XXL]

I guess. They've made 1 type of game 3x. They just sound like assholes to me.

 

[Topher]

 

[BennyBlanco]

Ubisoft having a sub service has nothing to do with people not buying a platformer for $50. The sub probably helped it. People were refusing to buy the game.

This is the loudmouth arrogant company waiting for GTA6 to raise games to $80. Larian can kiss my ass and you all can have fun with the world they have in store for you. The amount of shit these guys talk is staggering.

who is “they”? this is one guy who works at Larian and is active on Twitter. i don’t even know what he does there, but you make it sound like the entire company is sitting around in a conference room and approving this guys tweets.

 

[LRKD]

I don't think Steam would've saved Prince of Persia. The zoomer hair cut doomed the game. It definitely could've been a huge help on their sales in other games though, everyone I know hates the Ubisoft launcher on their games on steam that use it, and no one buys games off their store.

For pc players it really is steam or nothing for the large majority of games. Only a few really big games can go without steam, and lets be real, like if they rereleased minecraft on steam, most people who are still interested in the game would double dip, and there would even be new purchases they wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and there would be 0 future sales on the microsoft store. If Fortnite released on steam tomorrow, epic store would be uninstalled off of every pc by the end of the day.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The guy doesn't understand "critical acclaim".

First, it's not all that important anymore. PoP was a 60 dollar Metroidvania. It needed to be waaaaaay better than a tier below Hollow Knight to succeed.

Secondly, it scored an 86 on metacritic. That's not impressive. 41 games scored an 86 or higher on Metacritic in 2023. Most people buy 2 or 3 games a year. If critical acclaim does exist, it starts somewhere in the low to mid 90's when scores start to get rare.

 

[BigBeauford]

Hollow Knight has really changed the game @ $15.

 

[Jaybe]

One problem with subscriptions is it’s hard to attribute the revenue specifically to a new title. You would count the $15 bucks for a new subscribers following the game’s release in that month if the new user played the game, and then maybe a fraction of the $15 if it is played later as a mature catalog game, but that amount is going to be minuscule versus the employee count at some of these studios. It’s why Netflix cuts down so many original series that aren’t immediate viewership hits and why they have allocated more spending towards low cost reality shows. Same thinning of studios will continue to happen with games under this model moving the industry more towards either blockbusters (or attempts at blockbusters) and less costly indies.

 

[Darkness_Arises]

Believe his point made in the previous tweet was clearer:

"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong."

This is his opinion and may be shared by many people on this forum. I firmly believe that this 'Steam is the panacea of all that ails gaming' talk is simply not true. Many 80+ games fail to find a market even on Steam. In my opinion selling a 2D metroidvania at 40-50$ in the current economic climate is an uphill task. A few people might bite but majority of that customer base is on Nintendo platforms and even they would not have bought this as it does not have Metroid/Mario/Zelda in its name. It might have sold 600,000 instead of 300,000, a 100% increase but still a sub-million failure by most producer metrics.

 

[Robb]

To be fair, when you change your focus to a subscription service, and that subscription service is Ubisoft+, you are doomed from the get-go.

 

[Topher]

This is his opinion and may be shared by many people on this forum. I firmly believe that this 'Steam is the panacea of all that ails gaming' talk is simply not true. Many 80+ games fail to find a market even on Steam. In my opinion selling a 2D metroidvania at 40-50$ in the current economic climate is an uphill task. A few people might bite but majority of that customer base is on Nintendo platforms and even they would not have bought this as it does not have Metroid/Mario/Zelda in its name. It might have sold 600,000 instead of 300,000, a 100% increase but still a sub-million failure by most producer metrics.

I don't think he is saying Steam is some magic bullet, but for a game to be successful on PC then it needs to be on Steam day one. That's been proven time and time again. Holding off in favor of a store and subscription service that barely anyone uses does not make sense and certainly had a negative impact on the game's sales. Would it have saved the team? Maybe, maybe not. He seems to think so and yeah, that's his opinion. Either way, his outrage is directed at the fact that the development team that created what most see as a great game was laid off for what he sees as mistakes on the business side of the equation.

 

[Rentahamster]

MIIIIIIIIIIKE!

 

[hyperbertha]

I guess. They've made 1 type of game 3x. They just sound like assholes to me.

U soft for ubisoft? Damn that's a story right there. Ubisoft made 1 type of game 100x, and badly. Larian made 3 masterpieces.

 

[Physiognomonics]

Fundamentally he is right. The subs system doesn't work for gaming. It still hasn't for anybody. They are all constantly raising the price of their subs (or reducing quality) for a good reason.

On the other hand you have Steam and Nintendo that are still eating fat money.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The amount of self inflicted damage this industry does to itself is mind boggling.

It's hilarious how we had a business model that worked...and somehow they are trying to push these subscription services that clearly aren't going anywhere.

These CEOs haven't realized that videogames aren't tv shows or movies...it's incredible lmao.

 

[Wildebeest]

Deliberately not releasing to the main store where people actually buy games is always going to be a real head scratcher of a decision. You have seen how much content there is on steam? You think anyone is going to be so thirsty for your game they are going to follow you somewhere else?

 

[RCX]

A clear 10-7 round. Throw in the towel.

 

[Astray]

I don't understand the focus on Steam and Steam alone. Steam has countless games that come out and don't sell. You can go around and see games that are very competently made, yet are getting less than 300 reviews.

I think people are just trying to avoid their role in this game's flop with whatever.

It's actually the perfect AA game that people constantly clamor for whenever AAAs are brought up. No platforms were excluded, so it's not even some console war thing, and the game still does badly.

People are far too willing to talk big online and too unwilling to actually pay for the games they supposedly want the market to be filled with.

 

[FewRope]

Phil Spencer gaslighted an entire industry to just accept this bullshit model, he truly is John CEO

 

[StreetsofBeige]

LOL. Game company bashes another game company. That's video game industry for ya.

 

[DeepEnigma]

"Monthly charge me harder, daddy!"

Some of y'all subsexuals.