How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ubisoft? | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 412

[@desertgsrider1]

Even before starting watching this I was wondering how long it would take Hoeg to mention "Skull & Bones" Lol.

[@siddharthshishulkar8992]

9:50

[@CmoIsDaNam3i]

🦴☠️🦴

[@Gr8saiyaman88]

Shout-outs to ZombiU. While the gameplay could've been better, it offered a unique sense of tension via a blip on the gamepad representing an enemy you couldn't see on-screen but knew it was waiting just around the corner.

[@kadabur]

SS+ witha great cast of characters. An aside, i like seeing/hearing more from Hoeg! And of course having The Hugh Hefner of Hawaii on is a great combo!

[@HoegLaw]

Thank you much! And thanks for watching!

[@kadabur]

Glad to see u doing better man!

[@brendenbowers]

Saying Ubisoft needs to cut like crazy is just saying you would rather everyone be contractors, because that's what everyone else does and why their head counts look so much lower.

[@Oliander712]

Sounds good

[@creese16]

I feel like I’m the only one looking forward to AC: Shadows hahaha. It’s my junk food gaming series, they’re just cozy and fun. I definitely wish I was getting to play as a Japanese man native to the culture for this game, but Naoe looks cool too and I’m curious how the dual protagonist narrative will work in this one.

[@jesuswenceslao4909]

😂😂😂 at Gene being sad he has to play a Japanese girl in the Japanese AC. That shit was hilarious.

[@EvanThePoet]

I hate the “oh it’s great when you space it out and play it in spurts” for Valhalla. That’s never been done with an AC game, and it’s such a dumb way to even play the game. If I get a game I want to play it currently, I look foreword to it. I don’t buy a game and think “this is gonna be awesome to finish in 6 months”

[@S1X_Bucks]

Im with Colin on the black Samurai in AC. They clearly went out of their way to do that.

[@rainmaker6261]

If they so desperately wanted a black protag, they could have just done an AC set in Africa and faced two percent of the backlash they got here. Hell, even an AC with an escaped African American slave protag could have been interesting.

[@James-u1y]

@@rainmaker6261even if it was their vision for the game originally it still feels like a missed opportunity to get that traditional experience that people were clambering for so many years ago, if it was a setting no one was really wanting it would be less of a thing but the fans wanted something akin to a normal Japanese story but with the AC spark this entire time I think that's why the outrage is much bigger than usual.

[@sam805236]

Many of us called it out early on and we were called racists

[@XxZannexX]

@@sam805236 Not saying you were one of those people, but there were a ton of bad actors who were being racist from all sides about this topic. You couldn’t (and still can’t) have an open discussion on either side. I agree with you that Shadows does pander overtly.

[@WhiteWillMadeIt]

it is a little odd, i bet the discussion on the decision was something along the lines of "black people like anime and ninjas". They absolutely could've done something different but apparently they don't think an Assassin's creed game set in Sub-Saharan would sell very much. Zulu setting would be great for It.

[@616Entertainment]

I just watched the Seinfeld episode where George recommended singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” as the warning for the approaching girlfriend, hahaha. We’re spoiled with weekly Gene, but more and more Hoeg is always a plus.

[@StephenTheZ]

I don't fully disagree with Colin's take about there being too many modern games when you compare it to like the NES for example, BUT, one huge thing you overlook is that the gaming audience has grown as well. When you remove the cultural touchstone games that defined their generation and sold insane copies (like Mario Bros on the NES selling 40 million copies) what is considered a huge success has gotten bigger every generation until basically the PS4/XB1 era where it seems like we've finally hit the cap (due to the fact all ages of people play games, the only growth now is with third world countries.) Back in the day a NES game was considered a massive success if it sold 1 million copies, there was just less people playing games. But these days a game selling a million copies is considered relatively niche. Like no one is going to call Metaphor a mainstream game for example even though it's sold better than like the vast majority of NES titles. Simply put, more people than ever are playing games and the market is so crowded because we all have different tastes. Like yes, 10+ million of us might gather to play the new Resident Evil or whatever, but when that's done we scatter in all different directions like roaches, heading back to our own little niches. Even as a fellow "insane" person who spends $1000+ a year on games, I would bet money that I have very little overlap in what I bought this year when compared to the $1300 or whatever Colin spent. Basically I don't think it's fair to link the failures of a company like Ubisoft to the simple fact that the market is crowded. The issue, frankly, is that most of their games are just kinda shit when you consider how much they cost and the competition. Or even if you disagree that they suck, the market does not. Let me put it this way: if we magically went back to where only like 100 games came out each year I would not just start buying Ubisoft games because that is all I had access to. I would simply just find something else to do with my time. Because you know what? We already went through all this. When the AA market collapsed during the 360/PS3 gen I didn't just start buying a bunch of Ubisoft (or other equally boring AAA games.) I kinda just stopped participating with modern mainstream gaming. I spent more time playing my DS, PSP, and PS2 than I did playing anything new. And then around 2010ish when the indie scene started to explode like crazy I basically became a Steam only gamer. I did not get back into console gaming until the PS4 Slim came out and 2017 rolled around and revived the AA market and indies started to become more normalized on consoles. If Ubisoft wants out of the hole they're in, they need to make games people actually want to play. And a big part of that is actually giving your games realistic budgets/sales expectations. PoP Lost Crown is awesome but expecting a metroidvania based on a dead franchise to sell multiple millions of copies is just bad budgeting/management. Because that game did not sell bad, it's one of the best selling metroidvanias of all time. Ubisoft just had dumb expectations.

[@quezcatol]

Ubi soft is also retarded- fans like me bought every ghost recon, splinter cell and rainbow six- and now all they do is push out assassins creeds game. They lost fans like me.

[@tinteeth96]

Sorry gene, but someone burying a written line about a pandemic isn’t agile, that’s probably 20 minutes work to implement

[@tripprowe1695]

Yeah agreed, basing an entire argument on that was flimsy and weird.

[@jakejameslugo]

This was a fantastic convo between you guys. Keep up the great work, kudos!

[@Titanicwasaninsidejob]

If Gene just wants to cut Hoeg off you guys should really just make a separate show for that. I like how Colin positions a question to Hoeg, specifically because of his insight he could provide on the topic, but then Gene interrupts with his "I actually have a lot of experience on this." Gene, learn to shutup sometimes.

[@mwm1145]

Two games I highly recommend checking out are Buckshot Roulette and Crow Country, they both have that ps1 aesthetic and are some really awesome games that would have been massive if they came out in the Limbo era of indies.

[@cuccamunga]

7:40 Hate to be that guy but actually 2020's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 is the first video game to acknowledge the pandemic. To explain why there's no pedestrians in the School level, there's a giant screen that reads: “We wish you and your families good health and safety during this difficult time. With help from our community, we will be working towards a new normal in the fall. Families can drive by and say thank you and goodbye to your teachers before summer break. Thank you all for your hard work and patience this year as we faced the challenges with learning from home!" COVID masks are also an accessory you can wear in the character customizations.

[@ItsNewYokio]

People ignore the fact there is a Japanese main protagonist in shadows…

[@BLonsdale912]

That doesn't fit the narrative

[@mrshmuga9]

Yeah, and yet who gets shown off all the time in trailers or gameplay? Not her, lol. Not that it matters. It’s still jarring (especially compared to other games in the series), and it’s so hackneyed with the American hip hop remix* of Japanese music, and the general inaccuracies of Chinese letters/iconography instead of Japanese. If they had actual experts or anyone doing basic background checks, they wouldn’t need the internet point out they’re wrong. Not to mention they were constantly saying Yasuke was a “real samurai” and it’s “historically accurate”, when it’s just based on fan-fiction from some Westerner. There’s barely anything actually written about him. *As if all black Americans are from the ghetto. Heck, it doesn’t even make sense because hip hop wouldn’t have been a thing back then, and he’s not even American, he’s African. But they didn’t use traditional African instruments or music styles. If you had an African AC game hundreds of years ago, and there’s some random Japanese guy there, it’s be equally as jarring. People can’t ignore how ridiculous it looks when these games at least tried to be authentic to the time period, with historical characters on the side. It’s like the Family Guy scene with the mafia and the increasing volume of the trumpet player. It’s too prominent to just ignore it and pretend it’s not there. Especially when it’s very likely you’ll either play both or they’ll both be involved in the game. It’s not an RPG where you pick one and that’s the only version of the hero that exists.

[@Oliander712]

Only half the time.

[@ladymayaN7]

Great conversation, guys! Btw both TLoZ Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass are pretty solid, I did not like that tone. 😐

[@HoegLaw]

Love Spirit Tracks, but if you include the DS games there’s no question Zelda was pretty ubiquitous.

[@nicolasray1571]

Every ideology has a tendency for its followers to believe that it's the most righteous thing in the world. It's a core feature of ideology. What makes progressive ideology seem different today is that it's claiming outsized ownership over right and wrong. Which feels contradictory to the whole idea of being open and receptive to different perspectives.

[@James-u1y]

Ideologies on the right and left these days are very contradictory to the values we had placed significance in, sure some values change overtime but it seems ridiculous what the rights views are and the left extremes being overbearing its a messy clash of ridiculousness, things have been taken to extremes for engagement and the people who prefer to ignore nuance follow whatever their told is right, at least it seems this way.

[@memes3751]

@@James-u1y left this want healthcare and people to be equally treated the right would like healthcare taken away and people not to be equally treated which one is worst you centrist. Mind you I’m a Marxist. I hate Democrats, but I hate Republicans more.

[@StarTraffic-z1o]

Confederate minded folks are banning books in Texas and Florida and with a straight face say that their freedom is being restricted.

[@thelemetric]

hope you are feeling better colin.

[@ChrisWTube]

I’m pretty harsh on Ubisoft these days because of how they have handled their IP over the last decade or so. Most of their long standing IP have strayed so far from what made them great

[@anthonydevetis7221]

Are we just going to keep letting Colin pronounce Yves Guillemot incorrectly? No one has corrected him 😂

[@GenePark]

lol i actually forgot how to say his first name so it’s why i kept saying mister g instead

[@salmark9080]

Who cares , screw Yves lol I always think of that Ys jrpg series

[@G_Rad_Ski]

I try to only buy physical games but I have PS+ and Game Pass which more than takes care of my exposure to indie games and the time I have to play games.

[@jimcarrey2866]

1:02:01 Not when you do that at the expense of your current customer. By preaching to the customer through an existing franchise as if the devs knew better, because they're in a higher moral ground. They found the modern audience and left a larger, paying one, behind.

[@TheHOOfan1]

I don't think Jedi Survivor would have bombed like Outlaws....Jedi Survivor was a great game. Even the people who like Outlaws kind of seem to think it is just okay

[@James-u1y]

Yeah outside of the tech issues the only problems I heard of were some combat nitpicks and that loot was lame, otherwise awesome experience.

[@dtanobo]

Yeah I don't agree at all with that sentiment. Jedi Survivor came out during the dislike for Star Wars and people still loved it. Outlaws may have been more successful if it was released years ago but it wouldn't be switching places with Survivor.

[@deathproof8732]

I find it weird that they seemed to model their character after George Floyd. At least, thats the rumor from inside Ubisoft studios. He was japanese until the whole George Floyd riots and they changed him to get those kudo points.

[@Jon-eo1lz]

41:55 I have literally had the Longest Journey installed on my PC since I got it 8 years ago. I should probably get to it…

[@HoegLaw]

You should!

[@willux22]

Sherbrooke is a city in Québec Gene

[@SUREILLBYTE]

Been waiting for this one!

[@TGBahr]

Finally the elephant in the living room with AC Shadows has been adressed! I have nothing to add.

[@tamim3319]

Ya I disagree that Outlaws did poorly because Star Wars is not hot right now. Survivor came out last year and was a top10 best seller. Ya there has been the Acolytes show but Star Wars sentiment has been terrible the whole decade so far. I also think people are outgrowing the repetitive Ubisoft open world formula. Ya Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, heck even Tears of The Kingdom have elements from Ubisoft games but they also have some more in depth systems which make them unique games whether its the stance based combat of Tsushima or the enemy designs of Horizon or the godhand in ToTK.

[@HoegLaw]

I like Outlaws more than Survivor, but there’s a host of things that hurt Ubisoft here: the beginning parts are really harsh/clunky at onboarding the player, they did not market it as primarily a stealth/splinter cell type game, general culture war swells (incl re Star Wars), and perhaps even saturation of the Star Wars brand. It’s truly a special game though by the end.

[@S1X_Bucks]

I would have played it if it had the elements of Star Wars that make it actually Star Wars. Light saber and force powers. If they changed the names of planets and species, it could have been an original IP instead of what seems to be a cash grab.

[@echozero_]

Game companies are obsessed with Star Wars, moreso than the actual audience of Star Wars. The IP is not nearly as valuable as it is percieved.

[@8eege]

Let the stock price get low enough that the executives can no longer justify giving themselves DEI bonuses.

[@TwistedHunter]

Livermore residents are crying right meow.

[@andrerook4367]

Liverpool 😂

[@Yazeed99]

I disagree with Gene that what esport players think of makes or breaks a live service game. I honestly got tired of multiplayer games after they all got "esportized" with overwatch being the last game for me. Love the first few months of that game, but once the sweats got the hang of it I quit. It's why I think it's best to play multiplayer games when they launch, so you get the best of it while the fun lasts And while yes Concord was trying to be an esport game, that wasn't the road to becoming a "good" game. I'm sure last of us online was amazing, but it didn't fit that esport formula, which is a shame because I would've loved it

[@GenePark]

everyone says this but can’t seem to actually describe what “rivalry” mode was about. it is a third of the game, the marquee mode, and no one wanted to play it.

[@BouttaGoToBed]

Concord is a good game? If it was it would still be around. Coming from someone who plays a ton of FPS games, it was garbage. Not only did a bring nothing new it felt bad to play. Sure it worked but that’s the least it should do.

[@tamim3319]

Because Chris is the local FPS person and he kept saying it feels very good. Which is very weird because it looks extremely slow and lethargic. Maybe Colin is going off the reviews since it did review well among critics but imo critics are completely useless for multiplayer games. Just look at the low metacritic that Helldivers 2 has despite being one of the best multiplayer games and seems like a game that will live on and have a community for a long time.

[@HoegLaw]

Not everything that’s “good” finds a market, just as surely as “trash” sometimes finds success.

[@salmark9080]

@@HoegLawright but those are exceptions to the mean! Respectfully. I think it’s more accurate to say it looks like a competent shooter without an edge to differentiate itself in the market.

[@BlakingBad]

Does anybody else think Rick Hoeg sounds like Rick Beato??

[@allforhim2009]

Colin is so timid anymore to just say how he feels, and it’s weird. It’s not a controversial take to say “Why the hell is the main character black in the new Assassin’s Creed game based in Japan?”.

[@maybe_coleman]

for what it’s worth as a black man i’ve never played assassin’s creed and the only reason im checking out shadows is because there’s a black main character

[@Oliander712]

Nice way to make decisions imo

[@DemonKrem726]

Say it louder because they only love talking about people not wanting to play games because of it instead of the people who do

[@claytonriley1137]

Assassins creed has never had a main protagonist that is a historic figure. Thats the problem. Gene knows watsup

[@DemonKrem726]

I miss when game complaints was about actual gameplay instead of a hour about crying about how the characters look

[@ScaryPeet]

Portugal mentioned.

[@BZN-u9v]

Where did he purchase that hat. Someone please enlighten 😅

[@mrshmuga9]

I think he got it from a Nintendo press event or something. I remember him talking about it, but forget the details. Maybe it was when Nintendo bought that baseball team?

[@ThousandairesClub]

*too much money has been lost and there's no promise of innovation* 👎

[@eaglechopper]

The problem with ubisoft - they forced every IP into ' open world' and it feels all too similar, the last far cry was so mid, star wars was mid crap, skull forced live service, AC peaked best at black flag which we want a remake or sequel. If the reports are true, they keep firing/letting go all their best experience staff , replaced with unexperienced cheaper people, hence why everything recent games are all a mess buggy/unfinished. + problem with FF7 remake - selling the game in 3 parts, asking 105$ per game, 300$ + for the whole game, thats a big ask imo..in this age.

[@jzrzzz]

Answer: You do not.

[@MUSQUIZanimation]

Bro. If they made Assassin’s Creed about racism and had genuine nasty racism in it, I would’ve bought it. At least then, it would’ve been interesting.

[@Fahrenheit38]

Didn't Ragnar have a Twitter meltdown when whatever the Dreamfall Chapters came out over criticism that his game has Europe being mostly Muslim I'm whatever timeline the game takes place in? Am I thinking of the right guy ?

[@Marthastewart209.]

It's Dublin California and Livermore California. There is no Liverpool California in the bay 😂

[@feileahy7211]

For the love of children timestamps I’m poor and tired

[@Gdog637]

Theres some magic when these three get together man

[@AgentMoler]

I unfortunately abandoned Spider Man 2 halfway because the politics were so OVERT and the pandering the devs were doing was altering the story too much for me to just ignore it. I found this to be a shame because the gameplay was fun and I enjoyed part 1 a lot but Sony’s first party games are just too woke for me now. I probably won’t be buying anymore of them.

[@mrshmuga9]

I played it all the way through, and it only gets dumber. My problem aside from that, is that it doesn’t fell all that new. While I don’t really care for Miles’ abilities, they really should’ve kept him for the sequel. A few more special moves and QoL improvements don’t do much. There’s footage that they wanted Venom to chase you throughout the city, and throw you through destructible walls. With the voice actor saying 90% of his lines were cut. All the hype leading up was pointed at Venom, and he’s really only in like the back third of the game, and you get ONE measly level to play as him. And when Venom does come along, they basically do every possible thing you could do with him. There’s no room to move up. Teheran basically stole the plot of the one Beenox game where Venom “takes over the world” which is stupidly now as it was back then. But at least back then games didn’t take 5 years to make, and you actually got to play as Venom as a main character in a number of them. None of this tease stuff. Honestly, it’s lame to introduce other “Spider-Verse” (variant) characters. Peter and Miles are simply not different enough to split the story and make them playable, and neither are most of them. At least Shattered Dimensions had different levels for them, even though their move sets were basically the same. Instead, they should’ve had Peter team up with other Spider-Man-centric (or Marvel) characters like Black Cat, or maybe a reformed villain or Captain America. Do something different the other games didn’t do. Plus, you wouldn’t have to split the story between them. It would be Peter’s story as the focus, with the other character involved from time to time. Wasted opportunity.

[@codybishop7526]

“Politics” lol. Go ahead and keep hiding behind the “politics” label. We see you though.

[@ethan-scott]

Wait what was political about Spider Man 2?

[@Oliander712]

​@@ethan-scottprobably all the 100% liberal-aligned flags, slogans, sentiment and sensibilities crammed into every other corner of the game.

[@Cream_Sleaze]

I just don't need to play a spiderman game ever again. The graphics on the movie spiderman 2 blew my mind then too.

[@jaxsonburch-eo1vz]

Star Wars outlaws is not a good game. The game is a heavily reliant on its story which is poorly written. The facial animations don’t help that at all either. Side quests?😂 And yes Kay is ugly. Weird choice to make your main female character ugly but ok. And the combat is mediocre. You have the vast Star Wars universe to choose any kind of story to make and you give us a smuggler story? Why can’t we play as a bounty hunter, Jed, sith, mandalorian, etc.?

[@biggiebutters2251]

Appealing to less than 10% of a fan base that will mostly likely alienate the other 90% is going to be a failing business model. Ubisoft along with every other company that has pushed DEI are doomed to fail!

[@preyingocelotgames4397]

Lol where are you getting those figures?

[@biggiebutters2251]

@preyingocelotgames4397 I was being conservative with those %. Keep denying reality!

[@Mr.SodaJerk]

You don’t have to compare everything to politics Gene.

[@preyingocelotgames4397]

But he allowed to if he wants to. Free speech.

[@Ragucci25]

Outlaws IS NOT a UbiSoft checkbox game. Colin would know if he actually played it.

[@James-u1y]

That's the one thing I think they improved on vastly about Outlaws

[@Moeron86]

Glad to the egregious amount of identity politics being shoehorned into games where they don't make sense, being called out. Long overdue

[@kylecorey6218]

You guys always bring up how Valhalla was bloated, and maybe the story was, but the map was much bigger in Odyssey with way more activities. They did slim Valhalla down. I wouldn't call that a lie.

[@rd_2113]

To 100% Odyssey and all its dlc it took me 270 hours. For Valhalla it took me 380 hours. With that said I love vikings and may have spent more time than needed.

[@kylecorey6218]

@rd_2113 They both took me 2-250 hrs for all story content. Valhalla did get way more dlc. I'm not saying the game isn't long, but they intentionally designed this game with the traditional Ubisoft map bloat complaint in mind. It was part of the marketing. I think the real problem, like Hoeg said, was that parts of Valhalla are kind of boring, despite the cool setting.

[@rd_2113]

@@kylecorey6218 yeah the bloat is probably that it gets kinda repetitive for some people and just the fact that it's over 200 hours. People want 35-50 hours games from them.

[@kylecorey6218]

That's fair. I guess I only bring it up because when people say this, they'll talk about Odyssey in the same sentence like it wasn't a bigger game

[@parapendejadas4913]

Woke = Broke

[@dtanobo]

This sentiment is as cringe as woke stuff

[@youngtexas210]

I think it's unfair to assume Ubisoft put a black person in the game just for virtue signaling given their recent output. I think what's more likely is they realized they were way too late to giving us a Japanese AC game and felt like they had to do something unique to stand out, post-Ghost of Tsushima.

[@quezcatol]

Dude, they literally removed all the cops in spiderman 2 because of BLM - they were being activist.

[@Oliander712]

We'll know after the game releases and people spill the beans. Rumor mill suggests that's exactly the reason.

[@youngtexas210]

@@Oliander712 How would this be confirmed after the game releases? It's not something that would show in the gameplay or be in the credits. Someone at Ubisoft would have to confirm that conversation took place when making the decision.

[@chrisj320ac3]

Why are the comments from a month ago but it says it was uploaded 2 minutes ago?

[@James-u1y]

They have a $1 or $5 podcast called Scared Symbols+ that gets released for free to us later. If you want them the day of they have a Patreon.

[@blindwatcherseye2229]

Xbox brand so tarnished it would hurt call of duty to be associated with it

[@thisisntthewholesomefuture649]

Just annex the French from Canada and that'll save Ubisoft.

[@salmark9080]

Tencent and Microsoft will want all your favorite devs to make everything dumb, modern and bland, “woke”, cringe and then buy it all up before we return the mean. Then everyone will say “what the hell happened”

[@rd_2113]

Valhalla is the best of the AC rpg imo. With that said it was too bloated.

[@firerock277]

Saying a game coming out every 2 years is too often is insane to me, One reason I respect Call of Duty very much is because it to grows its catalog every year with a new entry year

[@Garoth4582]

Do you respect Madden as well?

[@impotenceaura]

It really depends on the market you're serving. People who play perpetual games want and expect content releases very often, e.g. weekly for destiny. But players of large single player open world games probably don't want one yearly, especially if the previous one had expansions and add-ons that were more recent.

[@mrshmuga9]

It is when you’re making a big open-world game. I’m sure they have their methods to make it possible, but it’s still going to be costly. A campaign in CoD is short, and other than that it’s all maps and cosmetics. Granted, they probably spend a lot, but I’d wager that’s more on marketing and only _because_ they make so much money. If they weren’t top dog in sales, they could scale that back and be more cost efficient. There’s a lot more involved in making a world than individual levels. If you mean from a customer side that it’s not too much, I could see that. But I think AC games release further apart than that, don’t they? Regardless, they seem to have found their optimal pace. Because they did it every year and that didn’t work for long.

[@Oliander712]

The average play time people have per week is 5 hours. That means half the population could very well take more than a year to complete Valhalla if they are playing anything else.

[@chipsandip]

Huppy Burffday

[@chriskos7868]

Ubislop is the worst they’ve ever been and Gene and Hogue spend the entire time how good each individual failure has been lmao