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[CLICKBAIT] Ubisoft CEO blames gamers for poor sales of Star Wars

"don't like it, don't buy it" ok. *cries* "why didn't you buy it?"
Sad Will Ferrell GIF by First We Feast
 

Nok Su Kow

Member
Wasn't aware I was running a charity for Ubisoft........

Not to sound entitled it's Ubi's job to make something I (and others) want to buy in my case they haven't done that

It's that simple
 

Klayzer

Member
No wonder the gaming industry is fucked. A lot of gamers seem retarded and overreact to everything :

"In today's challenging market and with gamers expecting extraordinary experiences, delivering solid quality is no longer enough. We must strive for excellence in all aspects of our work."

They're saying that providing a bug free, good performing game is not enough because gamers want extraordinary experiences and they must strive for it. Somehow that has turned into this angry mob.
Like I said before, many on this site doesn't even play/like video games. Their here just to post their (not so hidden) political ideology, disguised as gaming opinions.
 
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CEOs, like Yves, in the industry are so detached from the gaming community its unreal. The have no pulse on it. I guess, this is what it looks when you start to believe your only customers in this chain are shareholders/investors.
 
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digdug2

Member
Fuck you, Yves. I was already put off by Ubisoft products but now it's official: I will never buy another Ubisoft game. Not new, not when it's half price a month after release.

Blame yourself for hiring people who are hiring uninspired game creators.
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I would argue the $70 tag hasn't been justified for a lot of games either. If they want the 100+ open world, best graphics etc, then sure, but if your game is not chasing that, the lower price tag could benefit it. Like indie, it needs to be scalable.
Indies I think are the ones that most deserve the $70, same for people trying new IP and/or risky concepts.

Greater risk must mean greater reward… otherwise… I fear we are seeing what it means. This is not to talk about inflation and consumer expectations that have grown a lot too.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
CEOs, like Yves, in the industry are so detached from the gaming community its unreal. The have no pulse on it. I guess, this is what it looks when you start to believe your only customers in this chain are shareholders/investors.

It's scary how disconnected these CEOs are from their customers. And it happened FAST too!
 
I think there are 3 ways to interpret his quote.

Retard: “Yves blames gamers for SW outlaws failure”
Nomtard: “Yves blames the studios ambition for being too low”
Protard: “This dude just said that SW outlaws is ‘solid quality’ with a straight face?”
 
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kikii

Gold Member
Like I said before, many on this site doesn't even play/like video games. They're here just to post their (not so hidden) political ideology, disguised as gaming opinions.
fixed for u :p anyways game is bad and thats it, i'll buy it next year when its patched for 5euros ^^
 

ahtlas7

Member
We have another genius CEO on our hands. He has figured out the reason his game didn’t sell is because customers didn’t buy his lousy product. No wonder he is in charge.
Calculating Figure It Out GIF
 

Filben

Member
Even if it was solid: no, it's not enough if you ask for 80EUR and it's again open world and there are so many other games, similar or not but at least equally good but cheaper or even better.

This is not a difficult concept. If they aren't able to grasp that no wonder they underdeliver almost every single time now. If you don't know your audience how do you want to sell millions?
 

ZehDon

Member
Disney blames the fans for the failure of its Star Wars TV Shows.
Ubisoft blames the fans for the failure of its Star Wars games.
Ubisoft is not Disney, and Disney is not Ubisoft.
Not every gamer is a Star Wars fan, and not every Star Wars fan is a gamer.
Not all Star Wars gamers watch the TV show, and not all Star Wars TV Show fans play the games.
Therefore, the only constant is Star Wars itself.
Thusly I hypothesise Star Wars is the problem and not the fans.
 
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Videos like this and the video comparing stealth from older games just tells me that they have hired people who don't how to make games....to make games. Forget about the main character for a moment, for me the rest of the game is the problem.
When core gameplay mechanics are worse than 1998 Thief stealth, its bad, real bad. Gone backwards more than a decade. And some shill claimed on twitter it is as good as Splinter Cell, I wouldn't even put this in the same category as 1998 game tbh.
 

BlackTron

Member
industry sure has a love/hate relationship with customers. Make sketchy products or nickel and dime with mtx and they wonder why gamers push back. Lol

Disney got screwed. They purchased all the real fans from Lucasfilm, but a real fan would buy anything. It's like people don't even understand their place in this deal, won't someone show them the contract? Do they not understand how business works?
 

BbMajor7th

Member
"We made another mediocre entry in the already bloated-to-bursting open-world action-adventure genre and attached it to an IP rinsed to obliteration."

When your sole USP is the license, you have to make damn sure it has the draw. The first question Ubisoft should have asked Lucasfilm during the licensing talks was just how hard Lucasfilm was planning to mine that IP in the next five years because even a cursory glance at their roadmap would have told you that it was likely to be tapped out by the time the game launched.

Even if the game was highly polished, this game would have struggled. The ideological insistence by C-Suite executives that intellectual properties can grow and expand exponentially without limit when every data point and common-sense argument suggests otherwise is mind-boggling.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I'll never understand how we went from companies making something people want to buy, to actively hating their customer base and telling them off. There's only one way this can end.
the turn was gamergate 2014 then Trump 2016. This is just undeniable. You see a massive shift in output across all these entertainment businesses in that timeframe.
 
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FewRope

Member
When core gameplay mechanics are worse than 1998 Thief stealth, its bad, real bad. Gone backwards more than a decade. And some shill claimed on twitter it is as good as Splinter Cell, I wouldn't even put this in the same category as 1998 game tbh.
You are looking it wrong, the general public doesnt want to get challenged with games, look at Elden Ring and the constant whinning from the normies who tried it for the hype. In reality, triple A publishers are aiming for the literal DSP like player, even in a developers talk they showed a clip of DSP being a fucking retard and basically saying this was the core demographic. Games like Thief still exist (look at Gloomwood), they will never exist in the AAA space, like ever again.
 
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BlackTron

Member
You are looking it wrong, the general public doesnt want to get challenged with games, look at Elden Ring and the constant whinning from the normies who tried it for the hype. In reality, triple A publishers are aiming for the literal DSP like player, even in a developers talk they showed a clip of DSP being a fucking retard and basically saying this was the core demographic. Games like Thief still exist (look at Gloomwood), they will never exist in the AAA space, like ever again.

Ehhh...kind of I guess. Mechanics and challenge don't necessarily go hand in hand. Nintendo games are often not challenging enough, but you play them anyway because they have fun or fresh mechanics that feel good to play.
 

FewRope

Member
Ehhh...kind of I guess. Mechanics and challenge don't necessarily go hand in hand. Nintendo games are often not challenging enough, but you play them anyway because they have fun or fresh mechanics that feel good to play.
Yeah but Nintendo games I think are outside of the videogame bubble, unironically seen as "kid games". The "adult triple A" its design around the player being a retarded person, with the rare exception of Fromsoftware
 

BbMajor7th

Member
the turn was gamergate 2014 then Trump 2016. This is just undeniable. You see a massive shift in output across all these entertainment businesses in that timeframe.
I think the pushback against consumers is slightly more recent. Certinaly the shift of focus for companies happened mid-way through the last generation but the idea that audiences themselves are behind the failure is more novel. It seems to be how the industry is rationalizing the failure of what it continues to insist are excellent products and bullet-proof market strategies. It's pure hubris: there's an absolute refusal across the industry to admit they were wrong.

The reason, I think, is that this has all gone beyond rationale - it's purely ideological and increasingly at odds with reality. For example:

'If women and minorities can see themselves fairly represented in console games, we'll expand our market immensely, sell millions more consoles and games, and make the world a better place.' In reality, a huge shift in that direction hasn't meaningfully expanded the market and, rather than enfranchising massive new audiences, has alienated parts of the existing audience, all while stirring up a bitterly factional culture war among ordinary people.

'Popular IPs can and should print money forever and keep getting more popular with every new entry.' In reality, big IPs are experiencing declines across all industries, with quantity-over-quality driving not only ever-diminishing returns but also a real-time loss in value as attachment to and excitement for these IPs gives way.
 

NickFire

Member
I only read first post, so maybe there’s more comments I didn’t see. But the basic premise that gamers have high expectations that weren't met isn’t controversial to me. It’s also not audience blaming. It was the devs who failed the audience.

I do think there’s more he should be saying about why they missed the mark here of course.
 

BlackTron

Member
Yeah but Nintendo games I think are outside of the videogame bubble, unironically seen as "kid games". The "adult triple A" its design around the player being a retarded person, with the rare exception of Fromsoftware

Games with decent fun mechanics can't be for the retarded person? Bad gamers can't tolerate anything but poor design? N isn't asking anyone to be a rocket scientist with a lot of their games. I don't think the bright kiddy colorful graphics are a requirement for it.
 

Ammogeddon

Member
These people are insufferable. They’re failing at their job, simple as that. It’s like it across all entertainment sectors. We are not obliged to buy your shit. Make something decent and people will buy it.

And they can’t blame toxic gamers. Most customers don’t give a flying fuck about culture wars, let alone know about them. People just aren’t interested in buying the same rote stuff every year.
 

FewRope

Member
Games with decent fun mechanics can't be for the retarded person? Bad gamers can't tolerate anything but poor design? N isn't asking anyone to be a rocket scientist with a lot of their games. I don't think the bright kiddy colorful graphics are a requirement for it.
Can a game like Thief be for an average gamer nowadays? I personally dont think so
 

Reaseru

Member
Of course he has to blame gamers for not buying his games. Who is he going to blame? The modern audiences they make the games for, who don't buy games?

:messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
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"ceo blames lack of customers for lack of sales"

i stopped playing outlaws because the chibi zelda with gamecube animal crossing graphics is a vastly better game and somehow has better looking character models
 
You are looking it wrong, the general public doesnt want to get challenged with games, look at Elden Ring and the constant whinning from the normies who tried it for the hype. In reality, triple A publishers are aiming for the literal DSP like player, even in a developers talk they showed a clip of DSP being a fucking retard and basically saying this was the core demographic. Games like Thief still exist (look at Gloomwood), they will never exist in the AAA space, like ever again.
I'm not saying was to be as difficult as Thief, I'm saying Thief's AI and stealth mechanics seem more advanced than that of Star Wars Outlaws... I'm talking that game which is 26 years old, more than a decade, has better gameplay core mechanics, like it's an actual working game, you can playthrough and guards are looking for you and even catch you. And you can actually pick things up, they won't drop off while you're walking down the ladder or if you watched vids I posted eariler Kay is standing beside dead Storm Trooper with gun in the hand, Storm Trooper just looks at her at he hops on a bike and drives off. Or she picks up dead Storm Trooper gun on a watch tower, climbs down the ladder and drops the gun up the watch tower. This game has worse core gameplay mechanics than launch Cyberpunk. And they won't patch it, there won't be an redemption arc. And they claim it's AAAA premium polished game. They seriously want to shift the blame for a shitty product on us gamers 🤡. At least CDPR didn't cover it's ass, apologiesed, they did refunds, they even refunded opened up blurays without a receipt if someone lost them here in Poland - that's at least a bare minimum. Ubi has got no standards at all.

That kind of core mechanics of gameplay, you know. Not talking about challenge here or handholding, which is another matter altogether. You've missed my point, maybe my post was not so clear as I thought it was :).

Add up to that that game has clearly an agenda, and well no shit it didn't sell.

And people laugh that I'm dropping money on sales on an older games on gog. I seriously want to replay older games with HD MODs than drop any dime on subpar products. Plus I'm dead tired of politics in games.

No wonder new Warhammer does alright. Doom Dark Ages I presume will sell like hot cakes. And other fun games no agenda games, not necessarily a shooter or another Souls type of games. Just games that feel like games and have an actual working core gameplay mechanics.
 
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FewRope

Member
I'm not saying was to be as difficult as Thief, I'm saying Thief's AI and stealth mechanics seem more advanced than that of Star Wars Outlaws... I'm talking that game which is 26 years old, more than a decade, has better gameplay core mechanics, like it's an actual working game, you can playthrough and guards are looking for you and even catch you. And you can actually pick things up, they won't drop off while you're walking down the ladder or if you watched vids I posted eariler Kay is standing beside dead Storm Trooper with gun in the hand, Storm Trooper just looks at her at he hops on a bike and drives off. Or she picks up dead Storm Trooper gun on a watch tower, climbs down the ladder and drops the gun up the watch tower. This game has worse core gameplay mechanics than launch Cyberpunk. And they won't patch it, there won't be an redemption arc. And they claim it's AAAA premium polished game. They seriously want to shift the blame for a shitty product on us gamers 🤡.

That kind of core mechanics of gameplay, you know. Not talking about challenge here or handholding, which is another matter altogether. You've missed my point, maybe my post was not so clear as I thought it was.
Yeah, I agree with you about the core design. Probably is a combination of both pathetic game design, bloated dev team and internal burocracy that makes everything feel so dull. Because everything has to be created from a market study, creative death as to speak (I dont know if I'm making sense lol)
 
Yeah, I agree with you about the core design. Probably is a combination of both pathetic game design, bloated dev team and internal burocracy that makes everything feel so dull. Because everything has to be created from a market study, creative death as to speak (I dont know if I'm making sense lol)
I'm no native speaker but I understand what you mean. We have to vote with are wallets hopefully sometime, sooner than later things will get back to normal.

I suspect it will go down as it already is those blockheads insulting their actual customers, trying to spin it in rasism, bigotry or whatever but we mustn't let them get to us, play smaller games, replay old titles with hd mods, get into emulation.

Get a second hobby, maybe audio, I started listening to CDs beside Vinyl for example.

From time to time word of mouth will get us titles like Warhammer Space Marine 2, Wukong or whatever- show interest, drop the slop and so on and so forth. For example I just finished Rise of The Ronin and it was quite a breath of fresh air, surely the game had it's issues but gameplay was fast responsive, core gameplay mechanics worked, combat flow was on top, story was okay although a bit confusing at the end, and it seemed grounded - game world felt like it had a solid ground work, there wasn't a mix of stuff which shouldn't really be there. Like they tend to do nowadays to just cater to everyone, sure there was a map revealing mechanics but it sure was quick with totem rising, felt like a such refreshment after the chore of Ubi climb to reveal map mechanic from AC and FC.

And it sometimes had this Witcher 3 kind of vibe. Like it a bit junky but so damn fun and it just clicks. Let's be honest W3 running animations weren't top of industry when it released, this had similar junky yet very familiar gamey fun responsive feel as W3 imho. Graphics wise it did remind me of W3 also and I just forgot about graphics whoring and just got so immersed, thought that they should pump more games with this level of graphics but smoother performance and it would be golden.

Also thought that if CDPR is ever going to go with Open Source Red Engine since source code got leaked, maybe Team Ninja could improve their Katana Engine to actually get rid of it's issues.

While playing Rise of The Ronin I got reminded that graphics aren't everything, immersion, grounded world, art direction, artstyle is everything. And also propely working core gameplay mechanics. They also should absolutely release titles with proper smooth performance and a bit higher resolution, but that didnt bother me as much in Rise since fun games pop rarely these days but I acknowledge its performance and aliasing issues and repitive gameplay segments.
 
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LRKD

Member
I feel like people are way to fast to ship blame to consumers, and not disney for mismanaging the brand for like 10+ years now. Like sorry I throw up a little everytime I even hear about soywars anymore.

I mean, it'd help if ubisoft also just made good games. Like sorry for not wanting to play the most by committee games ever made.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Can a game like Thief be for an average gamer nowadays? I personally dont think so
Yep, I don’t think the attention span is there anymore in younger audiences.

As a different example, Ivy literature programs cut actual full book reading by 1/2 or more on average as compare to say 20 years ago. Kids don’t read and won’t read and we are taking about above 1% in college performance.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Companies blaming customers are just lazy. But also scared of ragging on their own employees who might go ape shit (often tech and gaming companies) who act weird and never want to take blame for anything.

In other industries you don’t have ceos or the avg warehouse guy or desk jobber telling the world the product sold poorly because customers are idiots.

Make a good product at a good price with some half decent marketing and that’s all you can ask for. Best foot forward with a reasonable business plan. Maybe it’ll still sell badly due to other reasons, but you never blame the market or consumers.

Put it this way. If no name indie games with zero marketing except a YT trailer they recorded themselves can have some popular quality games, there’s is zero reason why big gaming companies with 1,000s of employees, tons of resources, tons of marketing, and can even do multi platform launches covering all hardware should fail compared to Joe Schmo making a $15 indie game in Steam.

If they are losing badly against these mom and pop studios (think of it like a greasy spoon diner beating McDonald’s or a local beer bottler beating Molson) it’s not the customers that stink. It’s simply the gaming corporation fucked up.
 
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Yep, I don’t think the attention span is there anymore in younger audiences.

As a different example, Ivy literature programs cut actual full book reading by 1/2 or more on average as compare to say 20 years ago. Kids don’t read and won’t read and we are taking about above 1% in college performance.
Too much hand holding and painted ledges - so modern audiance can't get lost. I replayed Thief's 1-3 with community patches and HDMODs. 1-2 had this freedom, you saw a wooden surface you just knew you can shoot rope arrow in there, when you got immersed, you just had freedom, go in there go through there, try this try that.

T3 had climbing gloves which was a stepdown but it still worked as a gameplay mechanic.

But I agree immersive sims are a niche and since they don't sell like 10mln copies maybe 3-4 tops. Devs should aim for aesthetics, art direction, artstyle and not top notch grapchics, smaller compact budget. Manage expectations and well I think games like Thief, Dishonored would sell.

I personally I'm interested in Clockwork Revolution, Raphael Colantonio (ex-Arkane dev, Dishonored, Drak Messiah of Might and Magic) new game and Judas. Seems like Colantonio team is not bloated, does not aim for top of industry graphics rather than aesthetics, they even got artist from Dishonored to do the sketches of environments and characters. In WolfEye Studios photos I saw studio looked like bunch of dude bros and dudeds- I'm keeping my eye on this guys, since this looks like they could chase after creativity and not check-boxes.
 
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