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Ubisoft director blames gamers, says they've been exposed as 'non-decent humans'

Sure you don't care when you were the one who brought up going against gamers paying their bills after getting triggered. Gamers don't dictate salaries, first of all. Secondly, are they really gamers or are they fake fans who only care about cultural wars?


1 - How Ubisoft invests its money is irrelevant. They can raise devs salaries, buy yachts or hire hookers. None of my business. What is factual is that consumers, aka gamers, are paying for the party. Nobody else does.

2 - As said, the media noise is not hurting Ubisoft. This guy comes out because the company has lost 90% of its market value. One year ago the online noise was pretty much the same as today, but they were financially healthy so this brave monetization director didn't feel the urge to lecture us on how this hurts everybody.
 
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Nvzman

Member
Gamers spend money, but they don't decide on the salaries of developers nor do they help developers pay bills like some weirdos have others believe. There is no such thing as only pro-gamer. That's the reality.
Hey genius, where the fuck do you think the money comes from?

It comes from the people buying your product, AKA the thing that keeps your company afloat. How do you get them to spend money on your product? You give it a competitive edge, something that makes it stick out from the competition. So you are supposed to design your product to be attractive to consumers. This is a basic economics life cycle lesson.

Guess what? Ubisoft has made the same exact bland, cookie-cutter shit with zero compelling reason to buy it for most people. I said it before and I'll say it again, you can only make the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich over and over again until you desire actual variety. Except in this case, the peanut butter and jelly has been slowly rotting out until now its nearly inedible.
 

Three

Member
Are you saying that because people feel differently than you do their feelings are "wrong" and they ought not to have them? So now you feel it necessary to not leave them alone to feel the way they do, instead you need to correct them, thus wipe those types of feeling out of existence, and in effect you are doing exactly what you scold them for.

As a sports fan, I mostly root for the teams that I like, but I also know other fans seems much more passionate about rooting for the teams they hate to lose. Both are equally valid forms of fandom expression.
What?
I'm saying that feeling of wanting something to die when you can ignore its existence is strange. I didn't know people cheer on publishers like sports fans in competition but cool.
 

Alebrije

Member
GZDk7tLbYAAnyjh
And some people still think they do not live on a bubble. This guy is the example of it. Ubisoft Will implode soon.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I totally agree with what Steve chassard wrote.
You have to have serious disorder on your head to wish a company failure

And unfortunately, this concerns a bunch of people here.
Maybe if gaming employees stuck to making good games and didn’t push politics or mouth off to gamers on social media, then gamers would be more chill.

Lots of products fail in the world, yet how many people and head office employees battle each on Twitter when it comes to cars, food or clothes?

For something like sports, fans go nuts and literally boo teams and players in their face. Given how often it’s done, it’s actually very rare athletes or coaches or owners fight back against fans for a bad performance. They seem to have enough guts to take it.

Gamers wouldnt be as loud if devs stopped pushing politics and gaas and shoddy quality (patch mania). It wasn’t like this before in gaming. Most other industries improve their products over time with zero messaging. Gaming improves in some aspects but can be junk in other aspects, and purposely change things up for no good reason (media is like that just like Joker 2 musical bomb). And that doesn’t include political messages piled on by egotistical employees.

So added up, when a game fails people love it. Not only did they save themselves $70, but if a game studio doesn’t want to make something the paying customer wants then people laugh at incompetence.
 
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I totally agree with what Steve chassard wrote.
You have to have serious disorder on your head to wish a company failure

And unfortunately, this concerns a bunch of people here.


It's a good thing that bad companies are expelled from the market. The valuable people will move on and find new jobs. The money available in the market will go to other companies more deserving of our money and time. The only ones losing are the bad workers/execs who made the company fall and pathetic white knights posturing online. Those are the ones needing their heads checked.
 

Nvzman

Member
I totally agree with what Steve chassard wrote.
You have to have serious disorder on your head to wish a company failure

And unfortunately, this concerns a bunch of people here.
I don't wish the company failure, I do genuinely hope Ubisoft somehow regains actual talent and develops compelling video games again, for one.
However, I don't consider it a "serious disorder" to wish a company failure when the company in question has been openly telling their core audience to go fuck themselves. They shot at the consumers first, you reap what you sow.

If anything I genuinely question the mental state of individuals or collaborative groups who refuse to accept constructive criticism (and actually ACT on it, not just "we're listening") or criticism of their work and immediately deflect to sexism/racism/homophobia. Its completely unprofessional and immature, especially those that lash out in tantrums on social media.
 
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Felessan

Member
Sure I agree he could do with thicker skin but I'm sure you don't appreciate that hostile behaviour either. Especially if your existence doesn't cause anybody harm. I suspect you're in the armed forces so that's a little different to simply creating a product and trying to sell it and people being hostile towards you. Hating their existence is just weird. I haven't bought many Ubisoft products and I'm not interested in their work but I'd never cheer on them going under.
Actually he should be gratefull because he is receiving a proper feedback, and he as a director should look for a feedback that can tell what exactly is wrong with his game.
Game can underperform for various reasons bad positioning against target player base, bad quality, bad perception, insufficient marketing, wrong monetization approach etc. And from gamedev point of view it is important to know whether gamers did not buy game due to indiffirence (not interested in genre/setting/visual presentation etc) or they actively skipping it (bad performance, bad design choices, repulsive elements etc).

if devs stopped pushing ... gaas
People like gaas though, just not on this forum
 
Why the fuck should I care if a company fails or not? If you don’t make products I want to buy, you deserve failure from my spend. If you make products I want, you deserve spend. This is not a disorder of the mind issue, this is capitalism at work.

My same thought.

It's fucking weird to clutch at pearls for a company that doesn't make shit you want. Like emotionally manipulating consumers into a purchase. Make shit I want, I will give you money. Make shit I really like, I will hype you to friends and give you money.
 
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Some people are wondering why a certain portion of the gaming community are wishing for the downfall of Ubisoft? Just take a look at the various inflammatory statements coming from them, add in the whole Sweetbaby stuff originating from them, then add in the part where they also get into politics and social issues, and finally they also make bad products now, that's the crucial part. There's your answer.

BTW, I am not wishing for their downfall, but I can understand why others are.
 

Three

Member
Actually he should be gratefull because he is receiving a proper feedback, and he as a director should look for a feedback that can tell what exactly is wrong with his game.
Game can underperform for various reasons bad positioning against target player base, bad quality, bad perception, insufficient marketing, wrong monetization approach etc. And from gamedev point of view it is important to know whether gamers did not buy game due to indiffirence (not interested in genre/setting/visual presentation etc) or they actively skipping it (bad performance, bad design choices, repulsive elements etc).


People like gaas though, just not on this forum
There is constructive criticism then there is "I hope your game fails and Ubisoft go under". I don't think these fall into the same category. If there is something people dislike about a product by all means they can share what they dislike. Hoping a game tanks or the company goes under isn't constructive criticism though.
 

Tams

Member
There is constructive criticism then there is "I hope your game fails and Ubisoft go under". I don't think these fall into the same category. If there is something people dislike about a product by all means they can share what they dislike. Hoping a game tanks or the company goes under isn't constructive criticism though.
Lol, this is a gaming forum.

Employees of big companies do not care for our opinions here, so why should we care about them? The best, and really only option we have is to vote with our wallets.

And now some of their employees dare to have hissy fits over it. Bloody lol.

Just as they have no obligation to listen to our suggestions and advice; we have no obligation to provide any.
 
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Alebrije

Member
Don't think UBI Will dissapear but Will be reduced almost half of it's current size. The cash flow they have could be just enought to keep the company afloat just for basic operarion.

It's impossible to keep a company the size of UBI with those mediocre games. Hope they get smaller and focus on their most important IPs. And stop developing games like Avatar or SWO,

Sales-per-employee.png


Those are 2023 numbers , 2024 most be worse due to sales of AC.Mirage, Avatar and SWO.

Metascore-vs-Sales.png


They need to implode for their good.

Source
 

tkscz

Member
Has saying things like this ever helped? Like I'm being serious is there a single example of a creator, games or otherwise, that went out after a project failed, blamed the customer and that ended up with the next project doing better?

There has to be at least one example of this paying off big somewhere because I don't understand why they're still allowed to do it.
 

Three

Member
Lol, this is a gaming forum.

Employees of big companies do not care for our opinions here, so why should we care about them? The best, and really only option we have is to vote with our wallets.

And now some of their employees dare to gave hissy fits over it. Bloody lol.

Just as they have no obligation to listen to our suggestions and advice, we have no obligation to provide any.
Who's saying you have an obligation to provide any suggestions or advice or that they frequent gaming forums for this? I'm only pointing out constructive criticism and wishing the death of a company are completely different things.
 
Has saying things like this ever helped? Like I'm being serious is there a single example of a creator, games or otherwise, that went out after a project failed, blamed the customer and that ended up with the next project doing better?

There has to be at least one example of this paying off big somewhere because I don't understand why they're still allowed to do it.

Public blaming and shaming of the customer base has never worked to turn anything around, or if it has ever worked, I can't think of it.

It isn't a tactic made from shrewd marketing. It is a bonehead moment of weakness that some executive/talent blurts out some shit on social media/interviews and then the company then has to play crisis pr for after the fact to stem the bleeding. It's a self inflicted wound ontop of the inciting issue and never works.
 
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Tams

Member
Who's saying you have an obligation to provide any suggestions or advice or that they frequent gaming forums for this? I'm only pointing out constructive criticism and wishing the death of a company are completely different things.

What do you think 'constructive criticism' is?

But why should we bother if they won't listen? A good number of us come here to moan and mock stuff. Why? Because it's fun and cathartic.

You come across as one of those toxic positive people. Everything must be positive!

Mike Myers No GIF
 

Three

Member
What do you think 'constructive criticism' is?

But why should we bother if they won't listen? A good number of us come here to moan and mock stuff. Why? Because it's fun and cathartic.

You come across as one of those toxic positive people. Everything must be positive!

Mike Myers No GIF
I'm not the one who's saying they should be grateful for feedback. That was somebody else:
Actually he should be gratefull because he is receiving a proper feedback, and he as a director should look for a feedback that can tell what exactly is wrong with his game.
Game can underperform for various reasons bad positioning against target player base, bad quality, bad perception, insufficient marketing, wrong monetization approach etc. And from gamedev point of view it is important to know whether gamers did not buy game due to indiffirence (not interested in genre/setting/visual presentation etc) or they actively skipping it (bad performance, bad design choices, repulsive elements etc).


People like gaas though, just not on this forum
I'm just saying I don't think it's the "feedback" that's a problem because "I hope your company goes under" isn't really feedback or 'constructive criticism' . I'm not saying you or anybody else is obliged to give them feedback. Hope this makes sense to you now.
 
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Felessan

Member
There is constructive criticism then there is "I hope your game fails and Ubisoft go under". I don't think these fall into the same category. If there is something people dislike about a product by all means they can share what they dislike. Hoping a game tanks or the company goes under isn't constructive criticism though.
Why do you think feedback should be always constructive? Buying game for the most part is not a rational constructive decision, people do not create a math model of value of particular game against its price and determine their own tolerance levels. No, people just ~feel~ that game is desirable enough for its price or even simply impulse (emotional) buy it.

I'm not the one who's saying they should be grateful for feedback. That was somebody else:

I'm just saying I don't think it's the "feedback" that's a problem because "I hope your company goes under" isn't really feedback or 'constructive criticism' . I'm not saying you or anybody else is obliged to give them feedback. Hope this makes sense to you now.
It IS a feedback, and more important - it's a most natural and thus most honest one.
And gamedev should want this type of feedback as it shows what emotions your game induce (as emotions are buying power of games) to understand where exactly planning went wrong, to learn and hopefully not make the same mistake again. And as I said before, different reaction means different things and mistakes in different parts - indiffirence is one thing, rage is another, disgust, contemp - all are different. Reaction itself is not enough as vocal minority might not represent all players, but with other metrics available to gamedev it should give a proper picture. This is why gaas games have CM that should have very thick skin and listen to community woes constantly even though its very often degrade to whinning, rage, threats of quitting and insulting. Because for gaas games it's really important to maintain understanding of their playerbase as players are their lifeblood, and loosing them means death of the game.
And rationalization of emotions in "constructive criticism" is just random bullshit 90% times. Players often have wrong ideas in their rationalization, as they lack knowledge and experience, what drives emotions and makes game good. This is why reaction alone is not enough, because players often over-react initially, but when they try it, they like it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Why do you think feedback should be always constructive? Buying game for the most part is not a rational constructive decision, people do not create a math model of value of particular game against its price and determine their own tolerance levels. No, people just ~feel~ that game is desirable enough for its price or even simply impulse (emotional) buy it.


It IS a feedback, and more important - it's a most natural and thus most honest one.
And gamedev should want this type of feedback as it shows what emotions your game induce (as emotions are buying power of games) to understand where exactly planning went wrong, to learn and hopefully not make the same mistake again. And as I said before, different reaction means different things and mistakes in different parts - indiffirence is one thing, rage is another, disgust, contemp - all are different. Reaction itself is not enough as vocal minority might not represent all players, but with other metrics available to gamedev it should give a proper picture. This is why gaas games have CM that should have very thick skin and listen to community woes constantly even though its very often degrade to whinning, rage, threats of quitting and insulting. Because for gaas games it's really important to maintain understanding of their playerbase as players are their lifeblood, and loosing them means death of the game.
And rationalization of emotions in "constructive criticism" is just random bullshit 90% times. Players often have wrong ideas in their rationalization, as they lack knowledge and experience, what drives emotions and makes game good. This is why reaction alone is not enough, because players often over-react initially, but when they try it, they like it.
Very few industries have such open and harsh back and forth on social media. It is a blessing game companies get this. Gaming is one of those industries with shit loads of people and streamers talking and reviewing the games, forums, Discord chat etc.... it's free advertising and feedback. If they wanted to, they could also do demos and betas a year out. But most dont now or they do them too late to release.

Most other companies in other industries have to spend time hiring research companies doing 8 month studies to give feedback on consumer insights. They dont get forums and Twitter chat, they dont do beta tests etc.... At best, they got a final product and do a test city launch. If successful, they roll out nationally. But the product is already done. There's no turning back really unless they scrap and redo stuff.

If game companies still cant understand why a game bombs when all the info is out there on the net for free then there is really no hope. All they got to do is use some intuition from those stubborn head office numbskulls and compile the insights during game development, two year old trailers, and of course post mortem analysis on released games (for future games). They just got to weed through the wacky posters and focus on reasonable feedback they see. Bigger game companies should also have the budget to do traditional focus testing and research too. If some of these big budget games have $50M - $200M of funds available, scraping up $50,000 to do a basic test is a drop in the bucket.

If non-gaming companies can figure out how to make good products with limited or no insights, a game company should have it easy.
 
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I totally agree with what Steve chassard wrote.
You have to have serious disorder on your head to wish a company failure

And unfortunately, this concerns a bunch of people here.

How many developers and companies do you think have gone down the pan because gaming behemoths like Ubi have found a way to get people to sink 120 hours + into a game and pay over £100 for the privilege?

There are going to be people in the industry who will be delighted to see the worm turning.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Product Development


Non-gaming company


Execs "Ok team, we got a good thing going. Sales are great for our new oatmeal cookie. What should we do next year? What's our 5 year outlook?"

Employees "Lets keep it going. We can increase sales going after more retailer coverage, and complement it with some line extensions from R&D lab. We can have the main product surrounded by 3-4 supporting products like chocolate or gingerbread flavours . It'll help our shelf presence with more products and strengthen the brand, since research shows those are two other popular flavours."

Execs "Sounds good. But first, work with finance and manufacturing to ensure projected capital costs, warehouse space, sales and profits work out. Let's revisit later. If it all looks good, lets do it."


Gaming company

Execs "Ok team, we got a good thing going. Sales are great for our new shooter game. What should we do next year? What's our 5 year outlook?"

Employees "Lets keep it going. We can increase sales by adding political messages, having employees bicker with gamers on social media, and complement it with new products from the dev team. We can have the main shooter game surrounded by 3-4 lawnmowers. The team has a good gut feeling mowing grass goes well with gaming."

Execs "I dont know what lawnmowers have to do with games, but I like the idea. Sounds good. Do it. Here's a $100M budget and see you in 5 years."
 
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Stu_Hart

Member
I don't wish the company failure, I do genuinely hope Ubisoft somehow regains actual talent and develops compelling video games again, for one.
However, I don't consider it a "serious disorder" to wish a company failure when the company in question has been openly telling their core audience to go fuck themselves. They shot at the consumers first, you reap what you sow.

If anything I genuinely question the mental state of individuals or collaborative groups who refuse to accept constructive criticism (and actually ACT on it, not just "we're listening") or criticism of their work and immediately deflect to sexism/racism/homophobia. Its completely unprofessional and immature, especially those that lash out in tantrums on social media.
It's no one's business to go to anyone's social media pages and dig up musings and rants, then post it in gaming forums to stir and rile others up with these rage bait topics. It's their personal page. You are not their friend or colleague. Sure, they said some stuff that are questionable, so? No matter what, their next game is still coming out, so what exactly did the anti-DEI fake fans achieve? These guys are too small to influence anything. Ubisoft may be experiencing some turmoil, but they are not going to fail and disappear anytime soon. Star wars outlaws didn't do well not because of these weirdos.
Hey genius, where the fuck do you think the money comes from?

It comes from the people buying your product, AKA the thing that keeps your company afloat. How do you get them to spend money on your product? You give it a competitive edge, something that makes it stick out from the competition. So you are supposed to design your product to be attractive to consumers. This is a basic economics life cycle lesson.

Guess what? Ubisoft has made the same exact bland, cookie-cutter shit with zero compelling reason to buy it for most people. I said it before and I'll say it again, you can only make the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich over and over again until you desire actual variety. Except in this case, the peanut butter and jelly has been slowly rotting out until now its nearly inedible.
Did I trigger you that much, goofy? Money comes from different sources like I've already mentioned, not just sales. Gamers sure as fuck don't determine benefits and salaries, never mind anti-DEI fakes. Now go sit in the corner.
 
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Felessan

Member
If non-gaming companies can figure out how to make good products with limited or no insights, a game company should have it easy.
Normally they should have alpha test (focus group testing), close beta test (a/b testing), open beta test (product trial run) - this is how other industry tests their stuff.
Online games still follow this routine, but SP games at some point decided that it's easier to bullshit customers, put a huge marketing campaign with actual product beying a (hyped) "mystery"
It worked for some time while players had a goodwill towards gamedevs. But devs became more and more detached from players "we know it better", as feedback loop is weak and directly related to current work done, all feedback is way delayed, most.people already moved on to next project. As a result players lost goodwill towards devs, they nomlo ger believe in promises. And things started to crumble.
And instead of correcting their ways devs now blaming customers that they are not good enough.
 

Nvzman

Member
It's no one's business to go to anyone's social media pages and dig up musings and rants, then post it in gaming forums to stir and rile others up with these rage bait topics. It's their personal page. You are not their friend or colleague. Sure, they said some stuff that are questionable, so? No matter what, their next game is still coming out, so what exactly did the anti-DEI fake fans achieve? These guys are too small to influence anything. Ubisoft may be experiencing some turmoil, but they are not going to fail and disappear anytime soon. Star wars outlaws didn't do well not because of these weirdos.

Did I trigger you that much, goofy? Money comes from different sources like I've already mentioned, not just sales. Gamers sure as fuck don't determine benefits and salaries, never mind anti-DEI fakes. Now go sit in the corner.
Dude, you live on another planet.

These social media posts and "personal pages" are still public forums that everyone can see, there's a thing called professionalism, as I had already said. They arent private conversations being leaked, which I would completely agree is unhinged. These jackasses in the industry have no sense of professionalism and seek to directly insult unhappy customers and other gaming audiences by belittling the shit out of them, just like you are doing right now.

Your utter stupidity and lack of understanding of how a media business works triggered me, yea. In this line of business, the customer is the main source of money, arguing any other way makes you look like a complete clown, which you've accomplished. The only one who needs to sit down is you, and go sit in a business education class, you have no idea of what you're talking about. Idk what you think you said here that makes you sound intelligent, you sound illogical and ridiculous.
 

Stu_Hart

Member
Dude, you live on another planet.

These social media posts and "personal pages" are still public forums that everyone can see, there's a thing called professionalism, as I had already said. They arent private conversations being leaked, which I would completely agree is unhinged. These jackasses in the industry have no sense of professionalism and seek to directly insult unhappy customers and other gaming audiences by belittling the shit out of them, just like you are doing right now.

Your utter stupidity and lack of understanding of how a media business works triggered me, yea. In this line of business, the customer is the main source of money, arguing any other way makes you look like a complete clown, which you've accomplished. The only one who needs to sit down is you, and go sit in a business education class, you have no idea of what you're talking about. Idk what you think you said here that makes you sound intelligent, you sound illogical and ridiculous.
The bottom line is that social media pages are still their own personal pages. Creating rage bait threads is a dead end that achieves nothing. I do know how devs make $$, so I don't need some cretin to lecture me that it's only about the gamers (I never actually disagreed that sales play a part), never mind fake fans like you who are only interested in ideologies when there are many variables at play.
 

Nvzman

Member
The bottom line is that social media pages are still their own personal pages. Creating rage bait threads is a dead end that achieves nothing. I do know how devs make $$, so I don't need some cretin to lecture me that it's only about the gamers (I never actually disagreed that sales play a part), never mind fake fans like you who are only interested in ideologies when there are many variables at play.
... When did I ever say anything about my ideologies? I said Ubisofts games now are fucking boring and cookie-cutter. Rayman Legends was the last fantastic game they made, and that was 11+ years ago.

I'm done, you're getting clowned on by every other user in the thread and you can't even read properly, you either have to be trolling or intentionally being a dumbass at this point. All of your arguments make zero sense.
 

Stu_Hart

Member
... When did I ever say anything about my ideologies? I said Ubisofts games now are fucking boring and cookie-cutter. Rayman Legends was the last fantastic game they made, and that was 11+ years ago.

I'm done, you're getting clowned on by every other user in the thread and you can't even read properly, you either have to be trolling or intentionally being a dumbass at this point. All of your arguments make zero sense.
You seem ashamed of admitting that you are a drama queen pretending to care about gaming. I don't care what you think of ubisoft games. My arguments made zero sense because you legally disabled clowns don't have the mental capacity to read between the lines and are just as wall-eyed as the ubisoft director that you are bashing. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
I'm not sure, it's slightly strange behavior to want something to die when you can just ignore its existence. Unless it's a threat to you, or something you like. For example I can see not wanting microtransaction games in a franchise you like or some business model that is a threat to another one or whatever but wanting a company to die because of a product they made that you don't like, what does that gain you?

Simply not buying the product is always an option. It's like me wishing Apple dies because they made the iphone. I have no interest in their product or their closed off ecosystem but I simply just ignore it. I don't call Apple scum that should die hoping people lose their jobs. If the product doesn't sell and they go bankrupt I would still be completely indifferent, I really wouldn't care, but wanting that to happen is just hatred.


Sure I agree he could do with thicker skin but I'm sure you don't appreciate that hostile behaviour either. Especially if your existence doesn't cause anybody harm. I suspect you're in the armed forces so that's a little different to simply creating a product and trying to sell it and people being hostile towards you. Hating their existence is just weird. I haven't bought many Ubisoft products and I'm not interested in their work but I'd never cheer on them going under.
Tim Burton Film GIF by Tech Noir
 

StereoVsn

Member
Gamers spend money, but they don't decide on the salaries of developers nor do they help developers pay bills like some weirdos have others believe. There is no such thing as only pro-gamer. That's the reality.
The only reason devs at Ubisoft have a job is because they are delivering the product that sells (or doesn’t sell as demonstrated recently).

It’s weird to think that the customers have nothing to do with employment as will be shortly seen as Ubi starts layoffs.
 
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