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Tom Henderson - Ubisoft's Board is Launching an Investigation Into The Company

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
Lotta folks still pointing to woke stuff as the problem is amusing to me. I stopped being impressed with Ubi's output well before anyone got triggered by woke stuff. For me, it was just bloat. Like, they were spending so much money to pack games with so much boring samey content in order to create the illusion of having a more comprehensive experience. In the end, it was just padding the length. Seriously, I stopped playing Valhalla about mid-way. It just felt like work to play it. Like a job to check off items from a list. I haven't seen anything to make me think this has ceased to be the case, so I've just kind of lost interest in their games.

Anyway, I doubt this investigation will do much. It won't be aimed at giving us gamers the games we want. It'll be aimed at giving the investors the money they want. I'd put betting money that they just want better monetization, not better games.
Even the ‘metroidvania’ stuff in 2D games often passes off as bloat.
 
Why should anyone here be offering advice - let their massively overpaid leadership figure out why no one wants their agenda ridden trash products.
No one is required to buy stuff they don't like, you can insult and blame them all you want - The entertainment industry in general is literally the worst example possible to standardize morality in the first place, just make your product and keep your politics out.
Any smart organization is hopefully realizing this because you can't please everyone anyways - even 1% of people that scream on twitter who probably haven't left the house in 5 years.
 

xanaum

Member
The Ghost of Yotei teaser yesterday really shook things up at the Assassin’s Creed Shadows studios, huh?
 

Kacho

Gold Member
Lotta folks still pointing to woke stuff as the problem is amusing to me.
I dunno man. Look up the reviews for Far Cry 6 and you'll see a bunch of "wow this is woke garbage" in there. They need to change up something in that regard. I think the wokeness started seeping in with Odyssey. All of the sudden 50% of the enemies were female. Then you see Outlaws and 70% of everything is female. Hard not to notice this stuff when it's so blatantly obvious and negatively impacts player immersion.
 
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solecon64

Member
Although I hope it would happen, I kinda doubt that there's going to be a lot of changes at the top level. Instead, I think this investigation is just going to come up with some very bigoted (but also very warranted) solutions to Ubisoft's problem. 😆

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Bombolone

Gold Member
Ah, the adults have arrived.
You love to see it.
Between a rock and a hard place.
I can feel the panick. Feels good man.

I will regurgitate a contribution made in this thread.
Ubisoft should be studied for how far and how much they fucked up. They were doing so well then for some reason we are at a $10 share price. Wtf.
 

Retrofluxed

Member
Additionally, as a result of listening to player feedback on other topics, our new releases, starting with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, will again be available on Steam on launch day, in addition to being available on first parties’, Epic’s and Ubisoft’s stores.
Haha, get fucked Ubi. Gabe does nothing and keeps on winning.
 

xanaum

Member
The Ghost of Yotei teaser yesterday really shook things up at the Assassin’s Creed Shadows house, huh?
 

Atrus

Gold Member
Their stock has fallen 62% in a year, 33% in the last month. Obviously management has to do something about that.

A major Star Wars IP and major in house IP underperforming is going to hit hard given how long investors have wait to see payoffs. It’s about the annualized rate of return.
 
They're so fucked.

It's honestly a little shocking to see what a pile of shit this company has become. It was a long time ago, but during the 2000s when they were putting out the first trio of Splinter Cell games, Rainbow Six 3 and Vegas, the PoP trilogy, the Ghost Recon games - did anyone expect them to turn into this? They were easily among the best western publishers back then.

So... what happened? It can't just be the activists. I guess the cynical answer is that Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 provided such a solid blueprint that there wasn't a need to try anymore, but to go so completely downhill with essentially every franchise they ever built is kind of shocking. But the strategy hasn't worked for years, and the absolute refusal to course correct is something that should be studied.

Which, I guess, is exactly what their shareholders are going to be doing.

And don't forget the Prince of Persia trilogy they released back then. In the 2000s Ubisoft was one of the greats. Ideology, missmanagement, and naïveté lead them to the bottom of the barrel.

Do anyone remember when the company's CEO said that NFTs were their future, even gifting some to their incredulous staff at a celebration?
 

SkylineRKR

Member
It didn't help matters but Ubisoft started to sink way before woke. The rather stale sequels like Division and Watch Dogs got, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon being mismanaged over a decade ago, Far Cry being copy pasted and Creed getting P2W antics not to mention their new IP copy the same cookie cutter formula from their old.

Ubisoft makes the most boring and predictable games on the market for a good while now. The last new Ubisoft release i bought was The Division i think. And it was handled poorly.

The best one i actually bought last year. Driver San Francisco for my PS3. Play that instead.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Just pull the plug.
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New leadership is needed anyway, let someone else take helm of the company.
 

Von Hugh

Member
They have been on a steady decline for the last ten years. Making formulaic games and disrespecting the fans and gamers does not bode well.

Add the recent DEI hugging into the mix, and this is the result.
 

KINGMOKU

Member
Ubisoft with their woke DEI infested crap were clearly pushing a politcal ideology. I am glad the global gaming community fought back with their wallets.

Woke is destroying the entertainment industry including gaming. The movie industry is already infested beyond redemption. But I still see hope for this sector.
Oh no, no, no. It's just "bugs". HUGE bugs in the gameplay, thats why it was delayed.

Coincidentally, I just dyed my hair purple.
 

Fake

Member
'Everyone can enjoy.' (Not everyone is enjoying)

Why he need to make this claim when their games are already for everyone? Unless they are not?

Is he admitting their games never supouse to be for everyone or he is not even in the company to keep an eye of what have been happening inside the company?
 
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Whoever invited sweet baby inc on board should be immediately fired.

No further investigation required.
It is not just them. The employees are infected with the mind virus. Probably a loud minority of weirdos , with a blend of people to afraid of being called an "xxx-aphobe or xxx-ist" to speak out. Hence the loud minority of creepos win and also install SBI to help out. It was never SBI, that just gives normies something to rally against. You really think without sbi they are going to stop?
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
This is good news.

Isn't what we all want? For companies to look inwards and course-correct?

I think the success of games like Black Myth Wukong also had a huge impact and forced these Western devs to rethink their strategy.
 

mdkirby

Gold Member
We'll see. Actions not words are needed now.
This is open to interpretation. It could be that they believe their actions have been in service to this, and they are doubling down. Or it could be read as “yeah sorry we’ve been cramming our games with a specific agenda and telling people not to play them, we’ll stop doing that”….its very vague
 
This is good news.

Isn't what we all want? For companies to look inwards and course-correct?

I think the success of games like Black Myth Wukong also had a huge impact and forced these Western devs to rethink their strategy.

Real talk, the one two punch of Concord's historic failure happening at the same time of Wukong's crazy heights has created ripples. At the end of the day, these fucks just want to make money. One is a cautionary tale, one is a path forward.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Member
This is good news.

Isn't what we all want? For companies to look inwards and course-correct?

I think the success of games like Black Myth Wukong also had a huge impact and forced these Western devs to rethink their strategy.
When the board is getting involved it most of the time means the management misrepresented, if not outright lied about the state of the company.

I don’t think people get it. This is not about “we made a shit figurine for AC Shadows”, but “you lied about the state of the company”.
 
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Tams

Member
Ubisoft are not beyond saving and we should not be wishing for their downfall.

This is a great opportunity for a cleaning out of the company. I hope it works.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Ubisoft are not beyond saving and we should not be wishing for their downfall.

This is a great opportunity for a cleaning out of the company. I hope it works.
They're too into it to course correct. They can get better in 5 years or so but not without going through a long and painful process
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Aside from politics, UBI has around 20,000 employees.

There is no way there isn’t lots of fat to cut. I bet you could fire up to 5,000 of them and it wouldn’t make a difference.
 

HogIsland

Member
Consequently, we decided to delay Assassin’s Creed Shadows to February 14, 2025. The game is already playable and of high quality, and has all the features the team wanted to integrate into this ambitious experience. This unusual decision at such an advanced stage is motivated by our desire to offer an optimal experience from launch on all platforms and various PC configurations, and to remove the small frictions we typically used to address in post-launch title updates. We will also use the extra time to complement the experience with a few high-impact secondary quests that will bring even more memorable.

Rockstar, take note. The ground has shifted quickly.
 

Bernardougf

Member
So, which is it? “Player-centric” or “shareholder benefit”?
Both... fucking listen to what most gamers want (mostly straight man) and therefore you sell more and the shareholders benefits.

It really isn't rocket science... you got artists and etc to do the development.. the easiest part should be targeting a pretty obvious and estabilshed target audience.
 
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Assassin's Creed Shadows is just masking Ubi's bigger problem - from the comments, some people are completely blinded by the DEI stuff -- Ubi's rinse and repeat gameplay is the far bigger problem; a common problem in the AAA space.
 
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Saber

Member
I feel like this is a similar case with Star Wars Battlefront 2 when they forced microtransactions beyond the tolerable levels, to the point of being incredibly toxic and predujicial, resulting in damage to the brand, sales and perception. Its the same case here, but in this case it was social agenda and trashing other country culture. This only show how much of the hand was forced.

But I dunno about you guys, but whats gonna surprise me here is that people on gaming media(including this forum) gonna put the blame on gamers. Its aways the gamers fault.
 
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Maybe they need to look at their team...

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Many of those types of people are the ones actively ruining the industry. Purging them and their twisted agendas will restore some sense of normalcy again. The sad part is companies like UBI fully embrace hiring these lunatics and that is the bigger problem. Let this expose them and hopefully start a movement to get rid of these vile hateful nut jobs along with the management hiring them. They have ruined many games and the franchises they are a part of with their woke bullshit agendas.
 
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dottme

Member
Real talk, the one two punch of Concord's historic failure happening at the same time of Wukong's crazy heights has created ripples. At the end of the day, these fucks just want to make money. One is a cautionary tale, one is a path forward.
We were lucky to get stuff like Wukong and Space Marine 2. They cannot claim it is an industry wide issue.
Some people are going to need to dig and find excuses. And then apply some corrective action. Too much money got wasted and it should move the needle.
 

ultrazilla

Gold Member
DEI is the cancer that is bringing Ubisoft a quick demise. If the board's "investigation" doesn't recommend that they get rid of
DEI indoctrination, the company is cooked.

Here's a few "major" companies who stopped drinking the DEI Kool-Aid and came to their senses before they lost their company:

  • Molson Coors.
  • Ford Motor Co.
  • John Deere.
  • Lowe's.
  • Harley-Davidson
  • Brown-Forman.
  • Tractor Supply Co
I don't want to see Ubisoft go under. I really hope they turn it around.
 
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Begleiter

Member
It's hard to imagine the situation can be fixed at this stage. They have massive teams working on big, broken games that take ages to make. Even if you excised all the problem elements, we'll be years from seeing a benefit.
 
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