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UBISOFT is dying - market shares collapse by 85% from 2021 to 2025

Alebrije

Member
At this point, if Ubisoft dies, nothing of value will be lost.
Maybe some other company, more competent, can pick up some of their IPs and make a better job.
Agree , current UBI is an empty shell...none of their IPs would be missed if they dessapear tomorrow, well maybe AC and The Division.
 
As a rule I try to avoid trying to argue with juvenile internet trolls but just for old times' sake:


A company doesn't 'hate' anything. It's not a human. It's a business. If by 'company' you mean its shareholders or board, do you have any actual examples of one of them saying this?


You broke your own rule by being judgmental of the people discussing in this thread. BTW, I'm certainly older than you, something I regret but can't do anything about.

What I can do is clarify some points that shouldn't need clarification.

By "company" I mean the people in charge of it, from the board to business unit managers. And yes, they stated the words I mentioned. And no, I don't care if "the world goes that route". I will criticize EVERYONE who supports that idea. Ubisoft, Sony, Nintendo, whoever.

As for those poor people who would lose their jobs, what I truly regret is the talented ones who lost it before them. Those who made great games, who were pro-consumer, and to whom, one day, some higher-up told them that a less capable person would take their jobs for reasons. It's hypocritical to feel sorry for the useless bunch who cannot produce a bugless videogame in 8 years while forgetting the ones who gave Ubisoft its prestige.

The same is happening in the gaming and cinema industry, where hacks are replacing the real pros in creative positions. So no, zero pity for them. That trend is harming the market, leading it to a huge crisis and ultimately provoking thousands of layoffs and shutdowns.

If Ubisoft went down, someone else would take its place. A better one, probably.
 
It is kinda sad that an entire company has to die due to those in it forcing their agenda rather than focusing on making a great game first and foremost. Even worse is that they will just go to another company and infect them until they go out of business as well and the cycle will continue. It does not matter how many of these DEI games fail and how much money these companies lose. It's like this is the outcome they want only so they can point the finger at gamers and have their gotcha moment.
 

Sentenza

Member
Between going woke and pushing GaaS features in every game, it was a sure fire recipe for failure.
Being the Herald of creative bankruptcy in game design didn't help, either.

Almost every single one of their games since Assassin's Creed became their flagship IP were so similar they started sharing gameplay loops even between different series (i.e. "camp clearing" in AC or Far Cry).
 

Solarstrike

Member
While on the Ubisoft front, apparently Assassin's Creed Origins on Steam will not run on the new Microsoft update (version 24H2). According to IGN, many people are experiencing crashes, freezes, etc.



Edit: I can confirm that, at least for me, the game now doesn't run. Man, 2025 off to a swell start already
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Man alive, no wonder gamers have a bad rep. Go back and read what I said - it's fine for people to vote with their wallets, but actively hoping that a games company goes bust and for thousands of developers to lose their jobs is just pathetic.
You don’t have to actively want them to stay in business - that doesn’t mean you should hope for their demise.
Of course I am hoping for their demise. Not because I want them to suffer, but because I want them to become an example of 'What NOT to FUCKING DO when you are a video game publisher'.

They stopped trying appeasing their customers and become focused on pleasing their shareholders. Well, I sure hope those shareholders are going to help them find new jobs now.
 

Klayzer

Member
A cautionary tale, as a company, you'd be wise to keep the wants of your consumers in mind. If not, over time, this could happen to your business. A steep gradual decline.

Publishers and devs, should be concerned.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
"Let's all cheer for all videogame developers and publishers to go out of business."

I don’t understand so-called gaming enthusiasts.

When a company has been producing nothing but garbage for 15+ years and has spent years being adversarial to its core customers, why would those same people want them to stick around? They're incapable and - perhaps more importantly - unwilling to create anything of merit or that doesn't drag people's favorite franchises through the mud. We're better off with Ubi shuttered and their IPs going somewhere else.

The only reason you don't see more praise for it is because nobody wants the new home to be Tencent.
 

Warspite

Member
Ubisoft we're brilliant on the Xbox 360 GRAW 2, Rainbow Six Vegas, Far cry 3, Splinter Cell Assassin Creed 2 & Brotherhood, Family Game Night what happened to ubisoft.

What a catalogue when you think about it, so many different type of games to dive in an out of, now when you hear Ubisoft game, all you think is "what type of generic open world game are we getting this time"

Rainbow Six Vegas with no brown filter and modern lighting system would be great but we are never getting that.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
As for those poor people who would lose their jobs, what I truly regret is the talented ones who lost it before them. Those who made great games, who were pro-consumer, and to whom, one day, some higher-up told them that a less capable person would take their jobs for reasons. It's hypocritical to feel sorry for the useless bunch who cannot produce a bugless videogame in 8 years while forgetting the ones who gave Ubisoft its prestige.

Expecting that massive open world games can be completely bug free is weird and illogical, tbh.

A lot of Ubisoft’s current travails comes from shoddy leadership decisions, including a push for live service games, failure to greenlight diverse content from their IP and rushing out games like Star Wars Outlaws. The technical talent themselves are probably as good as they’ve had.

If Ubisoft went down, someone else would take its place. A better one, probably.

There’s no congestion. Any AAA studio that would be ready to ‘take Ubisoft’s place’ would have already been in existence. Where did you get the idea that there’s only a fixed number of AAA studios that this world can support?

If Ubisoft shuttered, we’d have one less AAA publisher and thousands of devs thrown out of jobs.
 

Hugare

Member
When its dismantled and IPs sold off hopefully we will have some decent companies producing new Splinter Cell, Rainbow 6 and Rayman games
Splinter Cell made by some unknown developer from Embracer with AA budget

You'll love to see it

Ubi has a lot of talent, and it can pump some games that are huge in scope. Few companies can make games of this size.

Assasins Creed, Far Cry and etc. would be better with who? Sony? That arent even focused on making big singleplayer games from their own well stablished franchises?

Microsoft? Which studio from them?

Who else? Embracer? THQ? (lol)

Dont think we would be better if some other company owning these IPs. I just want Ubi going back to form.

They have what it takes, but their executives are freaking idiots.
 

Dick Jones

Gold Member
..... I was being sarcastic.

If I pay 120 euros for the Ultimate Edition, I shouldn't expect a 7/10 game.
Of all publishers, Ubisoft games are likely to lose value the quickest with sales. Paying 120 dollarbucks for a Ubisoft game is more on you. I would recommend Ubisoft games on sale but not full price. You know what you are getting with a Ubisoft game. I think the last one I got full price was Ass Cream Liberation when buying my Vita.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
They can fix this by making another official Splinter Cell sequel or remake. But no, they would rather bet on expensive licenses like Star Wars that would either make or sink their entire company.
Not enough money potential making a SC game. Doesnt seem like the type of game that has SW branding or GAAS mtx potential.

If anything, the Tom Clancy name will be tagged to a another GAAS game like Xdefiant again.

maxresdefault.jpg
 

Soodanim

Member
I won't ever cheer for Ubisoft's demise, but I wouldn't be shocked.

I used to enjoy their games. Still do enjoy some of the older ones.

But I don't buy their games since moving to PC because they force their awful launcher and I want to suffer that miserable software as little as possible. I seriously would buy more if they were content to just sell games like anyone else not named EA or Rockstar (two others I don't buy from, as it happens).

I don't feel like I'm missing out on a great deal from what I've seen. Assassin's Creed for example went downhill with 3 (last one I played) and then took all manner of turns that I never expected to the point that I don't really recognise the franchise. Shadows has its own controversies - another nail in the coffin.

Ubi could probably turn things around if they had leadership that recognised the key to success isn't whatever they're doing, but it doesn't look like that's happening any time soon. Shame, really. They've been around quite some time and made some of the most recognisable franchises in the industry.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I won't ever cheer for Ubisoft's demise, but I wouldn't be shocked.

I used to enjoy their games. Still do enjoy some of the older ones.

But I don't buy their games since moving to PC because they force their awful launcher and I want to suffer that miserable software as little as possible. I seriously would buy more if they were content to just sell games like anyone else not named EA or Rockstar (two others I don't buy from, as it happens).

I don't feel like I'm missing out on a great deal from what I've seen. Assassin's Creed for example went downhill with 3 (last one I played) and then took all manner of turns that I never expected to the point that I don't really recognise the franchise. Shadows has its own controversies - another nail in the coffin.

Ubi could probably turn things around if they had leadership that recognised the key to success isn't whatever they're doing, but it doesn't look like that's happening any time soon. Shame, really. They've been around quite some time and made some of the most recognisable franchises in the industry.
For me, I dont play UBI games at all except old ass HOMM games which I think UBI owned New World Computing (I forget).

On paper, I should like UBI games since they are open world and typically pretty grounded games. But I never bothered because every time I see a UBI game (even going back to their racing games on Xbox 360), all I see in every preview video is a shit load of HUD, icons, and cut scenes. For Honor was atrocious. It's supposed to be some medieval melee game and there's so much crap on screen you'd think it was a sci fi MOBA game.
 
Rayman, Assassin's Creed and Far Cry were massive parts of my adolence. I was completely obsessed with AC up until Unity.

The direction they've gone since then, I will just shrug my shoulders. Nothing of value will be lost, except maybe the Black Flag remake. But they'd probably still find a way to fuck that up too.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I mean… Ubisoft has become synonymous with every single industry trend that long-time gamers have come to hate in the last 15 years.
They backed themselves into that “AAAA or bust” corner and then they stopped delivering.
They’re also the perfect example of what happens when greed and the mind virus combine.

I don’t want Ubi to fail, but a good dose of humble pie and some hefty resizing is in order to bring them back on the right course.
 
How in the actual fuck does Ubisoft have 18k employees?

They want to survive, they can start by quite literally decimating their employee count. A company like Ubisoft should have 1,800 employees not 18,000 what the fuck Ubisoft

The amount of bloat in the company must be unreal like they are working on 1 game total right now (AC Shadows) what the fuck do 18,000 people do all day there probably nothing which is why they are going bankrupt
 
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ungalo

Member
The only real topic is that the bloated open world slop has shown its limits even for big publishers.

Sure, for some games they made lame choices that actively hurt the games. But it's still not the main issue. They can't expand forever with that stuff. Too costly, too time consuming, and eventually people get bored. And it's honestly a good thing that they get bored.

Now Ubisoft also had commercial failures with games that don't fit this description at all, like Mario Rabbids, or Prince of Persia. I'm not expecting them to believe the problem is the open world trend that still saved them with Valhalla. But it is. This crazy belief that this formulaic roadmap for games could work forever is what destroyed the AAA industry.
 

The Cockatrice

I'm retarded?
Agree , current UBI is an empty shell...none of their IPs would be missed if they dessapear tomorrow, well maybe AC and The Division.

I disagree. I'd miss them despite their recent decisions. AC franchise has more hits than misses and even the misses were enjoyable to a lot of people. Same goes for Far Cry. Same goes for The Division. Thats a lot more games than all the other studios and yet people are celebrating them shutting down just because of 2 fails? How about instead we should hope they change their DEI-affiliate shenanigans and they go back to what we loved about their games instead?
 

Goliath77

Member
This makes me sad. Ubisoft are such a long standing company with decades of game history. Titles such as Defender Of The Crown and BAT on the Atari St in the late 80s, titles such as Speed Devils on the Dreamcast not to mention Rayman, Business Tycoon, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell , Rainbow Six etc etc.

Such a big impact on my gaming youth, very very sad if they go down but they need to get back to listening to what the players want.
 

Rush2112

Member
Assassin’s Creed Shadow should have been an easy win but they had to botch with their progressive forced diversity bullshit.
Yeah I’m not buying it. AC as a franchise is pretty much milked dry. Valhalla underperformed, Mirage underperformed, shadow pre-sales underperformed. It’s done.
They tried the white skin shade in valhalla, it failed. They tried the brown in mirage, also failed. The black skin shade in shadows also failed. All three skin shades failed. So it’s the game.
 
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hinch7

Member
Between going woke and pushing GaaS features in every game, it was a sure fire recipe for failure.
Chasing the wrong trends. Clearly. 2024 has been a massive turning point for DEI so bad timing I guess. And also the chase for GaaS in an oversaturated market with non fresh ideas. So many copycat games and needless push for AAAA ship battle PVP with Skull and Bones; something everyone but Ubisoft can see was going to fail.
 
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Zacfoldor

Member
Ubisoft is the most out of touch company that exists on the planet today.

It's like the family that runs Ubisoft only runs it so they can make their own personal game decisions, and a big part of that is making sure to NEVER hear any other opinions, because that would spoil the fun. Then the family seems to stop liking gaming and fell out of touch with it, but also loved the power that being the key decision maker gave them, and so just ignorantly ran the company into the ground, and now want to sell it but ONLY to someone who agrees to let them keep all the decision making power.

I'll be honest here, if this company belonged to someone else I think it would be much better off. I think the founders have an agenda that is not entirely to do with gaming, and it hurts the success of the company.
 
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ToneyJ

Member
Yeah I’m not buying it. AC as a franchise is pretty much milked dry. Valhalla underperformed, Mirage underperformed, shadow pre-sales underperformed. It’s done.
They tried the white skin shade in valhalla, it failed. They tried the brown in mirage, also failed. The black skin shade in shadows also failed. All three skin shades failed. So it’s the game.
maybe, but Assassin's Creed Japan was supposed to be THE one.
 
To be fair, an open world Star Wars game is a pretty safe bet on paper. How they managed to botch that needs to be studied.
It goes back to their creatively bankrupt game design mechanic that has been the same since the era of Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon. You can throw any license at them. Having them to develop a fun, innovative game is near impossible challenge.

Which makes it even more tragic, considering they wouldn't have to change much on Splinter Cell type of game.
 
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Soodanim

Member
For me, I dont play UBI games at all except old ass HOMM games which I think UBI owned New World Computing (I forget).

On paper, I should like UBI games since they are open world and typically pretty grounded games. But I never bothered because every time I see a UBI game (even going back to their racing games on Xbox 360), all I see in every preview video is a shit load of HUD, icons, and cut scenes. For Honor was atrocious. It's supposed to be some medieval melee game and there's so much crap on screen you'd think it was a sci fi MOBA game.
Wasn't it Ubi devs that were commenting about what is necessary from HUD design when Elden Ring released and was incredibly successful with far less than they spent time including?

At least in AC games you could customise the HUD and take away element piece by piece. Not all games give you that much customisation.
 

CosmicComet

Member
I'm down for a major player in gaming to go under. Maybe it will shake up the market so that not every western company leads with the same retarded focus group mindset.
 
What annoys me most is the 'no it's the children who are wrong' attitude of their higher ups.

Yves Guillemot genuinely believes games like Star Wars Outlaws are in the same bracket of quality as Assassins Creed 2 and Far Cry 3. They are beyond saving.
 
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