Skull and Bones Currently Unavailable to Pre-Order via PS Store, Refunds Issued

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Skull and Bones Currently Unavailable to Pre-Order via PS Store, Refunds Issued

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Skull and Bones, the long-in-development nautical nastiness simulator from Ubisoft has hit another squall, with reports that the PS Store has automatically refunded some customers' pre-orders. Further, as of the time of this writing, pre-orders on the PS Store have been disabled for the title, with potential pirates only available to wishlist the title and not lay down any of their hard-earned booty.

As reported by PlayStation LifeStyle, users on Reddit and Twitter noted that their pre-orders had been refunded, but curiously, without an accompanying explanatory email. In both cases, it was the Deluxe Edition of the game that had been refunded. It has been theorised that Skull and Bones' recent delay may have caused the issue, with the title's now nebulous release window of 2023 triggering something on the back end
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It's dead, Jim.
 
Skull and bones truly lives upon it's name.
Coffin Dancing GIF
 
> the title's now nebulous release window of 2023 triggering something on the back end

probably. since the date is now unknown and since sony charges digital pre-orders immediately, it creates a financial liability for them. technically (financially), whenever you pre-order something and pay in full in advance the company has a debt, or liability to you. normally with a known date it's easy for them to track when that liability is "fulfilled"/off the books and it's not a big deal. when the date remains unknown though, it can be somewhat of a headache to track on the books.

plus, why are you letting sony sit on your $70 for 6+ months? even if it's truly disposable income to you, make that money work for you while you wait. invest, put it in a CD, even a low-yield savings is better than letting Sony sit and make interest on it.

ps don't preorder games digitally. they never run out!
 
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I had a friend text this to me a few days back, not sure if it's accurate -- but it would explain why the game has never been outright cancelled and just keeps getting postponed forever.

 
Hard to believe this started off as a single player expansion to Black Flag. Now it's this undying Pirate mmo that no one wants.
 
Captiosus said:
I had a friend text this to me a few days back, not sure if it's accurate -- but it would explain why the game has never been outright cancelled and just keeps getting postponed forever.

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If this is true they should just release it in whatever state it's in and just swallow the failure because make no mistake this game looks like utter dross.
 
Kacho said:
Hard to believe this started off as a single player expansion to Black Flag. Now it's this undying Pirate mmo that no one wants.
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Ozriel said:
Nah. Seems to be going for entirely different things.

Their downfall is that they never seemed to be able to figure out what exactly they were making.
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To quote the same guy from reddit as last time.

So it started as an Assassins' Creed expansion. Then became a MMO. Then became For Honour with ships. Then became The Division with ships. Then became a rogue-lite survival. And now who the hell knows what it is
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I'm just going by the spiel on their own website.

Experience the dark and dangerous seas, the thrill of taking on threats with cannons and other weapons is one that truly needs to be felt. You can sail alone or with friends and choose to make allies or foes out of them. As you complete a variety of contracts from vendors, local factions, and kingpins in the world, you'll gain access to more resources and opportunities on your journey to becoming an infamous pirate.

Am sorry if I've made incorrect conclusions on it being like Sea of Thieves based on that.
 
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Nitty_Grimes said:
I'm just going by the spiel on their own website.

Experience the dark and dangerous seas, the thrill of taking on threats with cannons and other weapons is one that truly needs to be felt. You can sail alone or with friends and choose to make allies or foes out of them.

Am sorry if I've made incorrect conclusions on it being like Sea of Thieves based on that.
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Except you don't play as a pirate. You play as a ship. It's basically World of Warships with a different skin.
 
Nitty_Grimes said:
I'm just going by the spiel on their own website.

Experience the dark and dangerous seas, the thrill of taking on threats with cannons and other weapons is one that truly needs to be felt. You can sail alone or with friends and choose to make allies or foes out of them. As you complete a variety of contracts from vendors, local factions, and kingpins in the world, you'll gain access to more resources and opportunities on your journey to becoming an infamous pirate.

Am sorry if I've made incorrect conclusions on it being like Sea of Thieves based on that.
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From what they have shown, the character selection screen, and how they have described the game in trailers and in the game overview, you are not wrong in characterizing it like you were. He's wrong in saying it is just about the ships — if that is true, then so is Sea of Thieves about just the ships lol. You get to select your character and you can even 'emote' with other players when you are not on a ship. This is shown in the stuff they have shared. With the emote, they are likely trying to show some of the social aspects they are going for.

Given the trouble-some state the game seems to be in, it might change to become something else but from what they have shown us, it is basically Sea of Thieves with 18+ rating. :D

EDIT
You can see see that here:



I have played Sea of Thieves (I didn't really enjoy what I played). With Skull & Bones, Ubisoft is expanding on what they did with Black Flag. If Skull and Bones is just about "ships" and you playing as a "ship" then one could say that is what Black Flag was too. Point is, that is just a ridiculous statement to make.
 
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The Singaporean government is financially involved with this game.
They'll put a hit on employees and management if Ubisoft kills this game.
 
sainraja said:
I have played Sea of Thieves (I didn't really enjoy what I played). With Skull & Bones, Ubisoft expanding on what they did with Black Flag. If Skull and Bones is just about "ships" and you playing as a "ship" then one could say that is what Black Flag was too. Point is, that is just a ridiculous statement to make.
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it basically is Black Flag but without the off-island exploration, the only time you'll see your avatar is when walking around the small island hubs...when on the ship you're just controlling the ship (outside of setpieces like fishing), whereas with Sea Of Thieves you were always an avatar and could walk around and off the ship freely
 
funkygunther said:
it basically is Black Flag but without the off-island exploration, the only time you'll see your avatar is when walking around the small island hubs...when on the ship you're just controlling the ship (outside of setpieces like fishing), whereas with Sea Of Thieves you were always an avatar and could walk around and off the ship freely
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I don't really get this silly distinction that ya'll are trying to create.

From what they have shown us, you can easily reach both conclusions, sure, but given that they have shown us that you can be off your ship in a town taking contracts etc, shows to me that there is more to the game - how are the missions structured? The overall scope of the game hasn't been fully shared with us anyway. The ship in both games is being controlled by the character you select to play as, how the game itself handles that interaction doesn't matter....and my next statement explains why...

Games don't have to be exact replicas of each other for someone to find similarities. The part I was questioning, the part that was being 'shut' down.
 
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sainraja said:
I don't really get this silly distinction that ya'll are trying to create.

From what they have shown us, you can easily reach both conclusions, sure, but given that they have shown us that you can be off your ship in a town taking contracts etc, shows to me that there is more to the game - how are the missions structured? The overall scope of the game hasn't been fully shared with us anyway. The ship in both games is being controlled by the character you select to play as, how the game itself handles that interaction doesn't matter....and my next statement explains why...

Games don't have to be exact replicas of each other for someone to find similarities. The part I was questioning, the part that was being 'shut' down.
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In Sea of Thieves you are in control of a character on the ship, whether that is you turning the boat or hoisting the sail, or firing a cannon or whatever. You get off the wheel, you walk to the cannon, you walk to the sail etc. In Skull and Bones (and Black Flag) once you're on the boat you are the boat. That's the difference.
 
funkygunther said:
In Sea of Thieves you are in control of a character on the ship, whether that is you turning the boat or hoisting the sail, or firing a cannon or whatever. You get off the wheel, you walk to the cannon, you walk to the sail etc. In Skull and Bones (and Black Flag) once you're on the boat you are the boat. That's the difference.
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Yeah, I know that about Sea of Thieves. I don't know how you got that about Skull & Bones (that you can't do anything on the ship) but even if that is the case, it doesn't mean YOU are the ship. You do have a character that is in control of that ship.

I mean, if you have played Black Flag, then you know you are not just the ship; here is a clip, you can control the ship and walk around on the ship and get in combat in the ship:




I don't think the original point was that Skull & Bones is EXACTLY like Sea of Thieves. So obviously certain things will be different.
 
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Captiosus said:
I had a friend text this to me a few days back, not sure if it's accurate -- but it would explain why the game has never been outright cancelled and just keeps getting postponed forever.
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It's true that the government of Singapore did help them. It is a common practice in many countries, specially in Canada or Europe, where governments help companies who make to make hirings on qualitied/tech jobs, or to attract big companies to open a studio in their country (so to attract investment, talent and knowhow), or to support their cultural industries or startups, or to partially help them in things like to localize games to a small local language, too small that wouldn't be profitable otherwise for the company. In other cases, these goverments give the game companies a loan in pretty good conditions to fund developments.

These helps typicaly are money or tax reductions, and usually have a pretty strict control and aren't paid all at the same time, but instead paid split in different portions when achieving certain milestones.

When not achieving a milestone, the company simply doesn't get the remaining portion of the help, but there's no other penalty other than that. In the case of the loans, if the project goes wrong and the company can't pay it back and instead to shut down the studio, in some cases there's a portion of the debt that doesn't need to be returned.

These things aren't special for this game or for Ubisoft. In fact, typically small and new studios are the ones who get it. And these helps traditionally cover only a small percentage of the funding needed for the game, specially in the big ones.

Ubisoft has a lot of money, so they don't care about these helps and in some countries don't get it. So if they don't get this help, or a portion of it, they won't care. Because for them it's only a small portion of that cost. I think they didn't cancel the game because they simply think that have no reason to cancel it.
 
Instead of giving us a sequel to Black Flag, which is arguably the best AssCreed game imo. They go and waste money on this garbage. Yeah Ubi def deserve to sink, trash leadership.
 
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Nitty_Grimes said:
It was just Sea of Thieves with an 18 rating.
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The naval wars in Assassin's Creed games, especially Black Flag and Odyssey, are among the best ever. This should've been a wonderful spin off from Black Flag and something more suitable for players that want a mature experience.
 
phant0m said:
> the title's now nebulous release window of 2023 triggering something on the back end

probably. since the date is now unknown and since sony charges digital pre-orders immediately, it creates a financial liability for them. technically (financially), whenever you pre-order something and pay in full in advance the company has a debt, or liability to you. normally with a known date it's easy for them to track when that liability is "fulfilled"/off the books and it's not a big deal. when the date remains unknown though, it can be somewhat of a headache to track on the books.

plus, why are you letting sony sit on your $70 for 6+ months? even if it's truly disposable income to you, make that money work for you while you wait. invest, put it in a CD, even a low-yield savings is better than letting Sony sit and make interest on it.

ps don't preorder games digitally. they never run out!
Click to expand...
This is a good post.
 
phant0m said:
> the title's now nebulous release window of 2023 triggering something on the back end

probably. since the date is now unknown and since sony charges digital pre-orders immediately, it creates a financial liability for them. technically (financially), whenever you pre-order something and pay in full in advance the company has a debt, or liability to you. normally with a known date it's easy for them to track when that liability is "fulfilled"/off the books and it's not a big deal. when the date remains unknown though, it can be somewhat of a headache to track on the books.

plus, why are you letting sony sit on your $70 for 6+ months? even if it's truly disposable income to you, make that money work for you while you wait. invest, put it in a CD, even a low-yield savings is better than letting Sony sit and make interest on it.

ps don't preorder games digitally. they never run out!
Click to expand...
This guy gets it. No doubt does finance of some sort.

As for some people preordering, it's going to be one part hype or one part the insane answer I've seen in the past where some people preorder a year in advance in order to keep their budget in line. Prepay for it a year in advance because they straddle the line of monthly finances they dont know if at launch date they will have the money to buy it then.

I enjoy gaming, but if my budgeting is that tight needing to buy in advance, I'd hold off on the hobby a bit or just buy the game later when it's bargain binned for 50% off.
 
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There were a lot of news stories about this in 2021. Here's one. This is kind of funny.

Skull & Bones' design has been so turbulent, that decisions such as "Do you play as a pirate or do you play as a boat?" went round in circles as management tried to decide what kind of game to make.
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https://www.thegamer.com/skull-and-bones-progress/

Captiosus said:
I had a friend text this to me a few days back, not sure if it's accurate -- but it would explain why the game has never been outright cancelled and just keeps getting postponed forever.

Click to expand...
 
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