Note
This article doesn’t intend to hurt the company it’s a feedback to help bring back the game maker we once loved by learning from past mistakes.
Is Ubisoft Scared of Winning
Have you seen a firm that's great at making cool things, knows it's top in games, but also acts against its own good. A place that picks losing, and sticks to it hard. If you think this can't be real, then join me on a trip through Ubisoft's odd world.
In this trip, we find a hard truth: company choices don't always come from logic or making money. What you'll read next isn't only about cash; it’s about very strange choices that make you ask if they really want to win.
Dropping Gold: The Tale of the Forgotten Heroes
I haven’t seen a company so good at making lovable characters, only to get rid of them or ignore them soon after. This makes no sense at all.
Vaas Montenegro: In 2012, Ubisoft brought us Far Cry 3 and Vaas, a bad guy we'll never forget. Vaas was excellent, from his voice to his dark charm. He drove the game's fame. Did Ubisoft use this win. No. They used the same Far Cry 3 play style for years, but left Vaas behind, only to bring him back oddly in Far Cry 6 ages later. Think about a game add-on about Vaas’s past. Ubisoft didn't.
Well-Liked Assassins: Ezio Auditore was such a hit, he had three games. But after him. Edward Kenway from Black Flag was a big fan pick, a hero who should've had more games. Ubisoft’s answer. To drop him after one game. It was like fans' praise didn’t matter. Same with Bayek from Assassin's Creed Origins. He was a great lead who made the game feel new, yet was swapped out fast. Why make heroes that people love, only to ditch them when they do well.
A Story Lost: The Bad Guy Gone in a Comic
Think about playing a game series for ten years. You know the back story, and you wait for the final face-off with the main bad person, Juno, built up since the first game. You expect an epic last battle.
Then, suddenly, Ubisoft just says: "Oh, sorry. We ended her in a comic."
Yes, you heard it right. In a comic. This shows a deep lack of respect for players who spent years in the games. Not all read the side comics. To push the top point of a long tale to a side story is to say your time doesn't matter.
A Show of Tricks: Let-downs and Lies
When someone messes up badly, others usually keep quiet, think it over, and maybe say sorry. Ubisoft goes another way: they push on even harder.
Watch Dogs (2014): The E3 show had graphics that looked out of this world. The hype was huge. What gamers got was a whole different, much worse game a big let-down that felt like a lie.
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| E3 Vs. Origin Game |
Rainbow Six Siege (2015): Did Ubisoft learn. Nope. Next year, the same thing with Rainbow Six Siege. The first show was misleading, much less wow than the real game.
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The Division (2016): You'd think they'd stop. But no. Again, with The Division. An amazing trailer, but the real game. A big step down. This wasn’t just a slip; it was a planned, repeated trick.
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Family Ties, Copying, and Top Jobs
The tale grows more odd. The head man of Ubisoft has a kid who once ran a bit of the firm, a mobile games part. His lone work was on a game named Elite Squad.
This game got known for using a logo just like the one from the big group, Black Lives Matter. The upset made Ubisoft say they were sorry for taking it. Then, the boss's kid said he was going out to look for new chances.
The stunner. Not long ago, they said that this same kid is now head of a new mix between Ubisoft and Tencent a place that will deal with big games like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.
It's high-level family tie favor. How can a guy with such a past be given the top works. It’s run like a family shop, not a huge money firm.
Bad Acts and Sorry Words
Ubisoft keeps making whole groups mad and then says sorry in a weak way. They don’t change; they just say sorry later.
With Assassin's Creed Shadows, they put a black man as the face for Japanese culture. Many from Japan found this rude and as wiping out their culture. The game also changed holy old sites, so Ubisoft had to quickly say sorry to Japan.
Why do this from the start. Rather than bring in pros to learn and show a culture well, they’d rather push their view, no matter how wrong, and handle the mess later. They stick to being wrong.
Leading Unliked Moves: Anti-buyer Ways
Not leading with new ideas, Ubisoft often seems happy to start the worst trends.
- Making money: They keep adding small buys, skins, and shops to full-price, $70 games. This isn't a no-cost model; it asks players to pay first and then keep paying.
- The "AAAA" Game: The full field sees "AAA" as top big-money games, but Ubisoft made up "Quadruple-A." It's a vain, empty word meant to make their games seem bigger.
- You Don't Own Your Games: They famously said buyers don’t own their games, just a "license" that could end any time. This made many mad and led to court fights, as players who paid full price were told they could lose their games forever when servers closed.
- Live Service Everything: They want to make each series a "live service" game, a style many gamers don’t like, ignoring calls for full, story-led games.
End: A Firm at Odds with its Own Wins
It’s clear. Ubisoft leaves lots of cash and good feelings aside by dropping what works. They make their players mad with tricky ads and anti-buyer acts. They mess up on culture and put wrong people in huge roles.
They know how to make top games. They know what fans like. Yet, they keep picking another way a way of being hard, lots of bad talk, and hurting themselves. It looks like they live in a make-believe world, out of touch with the real world, or they are, for some hard-to-get reason, a firm that really loves to lose.
