Ubisoft Stock Has Crashed, Investors Are Going Crazy

[@jopera2087]

Well they got what they wanted, gamers are now comfortable not owning their games.

[@MrRoxBrown]

Havnt played a ubisoff game since Black flag. Havnt looked back since

[@DFDelta]

I have read a variant of this comment under 10+ videos talking about the stock crash, and it is still funny every time Ubisoft has only itself to blame for dying a slow death

[@Vicious0Sephiroth]

Lol

[@Connorthecatsdad]

Savage

[@blairowens8912]

Ha!

[@anonymous-m9p-c9f]

As a former Ubisoft employee, I couldn't be happier to hear this. That was the most miserable working environment I've ever endured in my 30 years of work. I'll never forget the day they let me go: we had just posted record sales numbers and to celebrate, they let the whole team have the next day off. When we returned from our paid 1 day vacation, half the team received notice that we were being laid off. Make record profit. Fire team. Let the people who "deserve" the profit (shareholders and upper management) enjoy their new yachts. They are everything wrong with the gaming industry.

[@skylinefever]

This is why if someone was busted for sinking those yachts, I would vote "not guilty" if I was on the jury.

[@uxtalzon]

@@skylinefever Thanks man, I can count on you👍 I mean um who'd do such a thing?

[@pepijnvandeweerd2089]

Where can I find a list of names?

[@Dagger1Echo]

They used to be my favorite back in the day with the Tom Clancy series now they've just went to s***

[@RobertRory]

@@skylinefever Orcas have been beta testing the Yacht Attack! LARP game. No need for a jury.

[@side7oldtype298]

Ubisoft: "It's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game." Gamers: "I guess it's time for y'all to feel comfortable with not having our money."

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

Wonder how much goodwill and stock price they could recover, if they just apologized sincerely and added all the older AC and other franchise titles back to storefronts like the Sony PS store and steam?

[@suziechapstick8236]

Its too late IMO, they've lost too much customer confidence at this point. If the new Assassin's Creed underperforms or even flops (which is very possible), they're probably finished.

[@nick0875]

Took the customers long enough to figure out that their wallets have significant power over companies.

[@Relhio]

They're not getting your money because the games are bad, not because you actually gave a damn what the corporation said. I want to see you skip on Elden Ring if From Software said something like that.

[@Delinard]

"Guess it's time for y'all to feel comfortable not having jobs"

[@asteroidrules]

What baffles me the most about Skull and Bones is that Ubisoft basically created all of the market for a pirate game with Assassin's Creed Black Flag, took ten years to actually make a pirate game to capitalize on that market, and failed miserably.

[@macrograms]

Assassin's Creed was aggressively mediocre as a franchise so they decided to make terrible games and charge more. Baffling.

[@MorbidEel]

It makes more sense after learning about some of the stuff that supposedly went on with its development. At least in terms of "how" it happened. Still doesn't explain why it happened because it seems like they didn't actually care. My guess on the "why" is that scamming the Singapore government for money was way too easy and they kept it going for as long as they could.

[@bdhale34]

Here;s why Skull and Bones failed....because like almost every other major studio this wasn't some kind of thing they had in the works to tie into anything, this is a lazy copy pasta of Sea of Thieves trying to capatalize on it's success and that's why it tanked, we didn't need another multiplayer pirate game we have lots we already don't play.

[@LilBleachThaGod]

@@bdhale34 not to mention sea of thieves combat is exciting meanwhile skull and bones is just a another click game

[@m4nt1c0r3s]

@@MorbidEel yeah they took like 100 million from Singapores government to make a studio there and create a game(s), then just used the studio for a holiday vacation for the execs, and when the government started asking whats going on and why 15 years nothing has been done they went out and made this crap of a game just to show up something.

[@earlofdoncaster5018]

Ironically for shareholders, it's Ubi's chasing quarterly targets to keep shareholders happy, that's undermined shareholder value.

[@SymbioteMullet]

Sadly no lessons will be learned.

[@grabannon]

​@@SymbioteMulletAll about the short term gain. They're not investing for passion. Make their money and go, they couldn't care if the company survives. Onto the next.

[@tame1773]

A classic in modern investing

[@TheGoodColonel]

Every study on the subject says that the worst thing a company can do for shareholders is to try and maximize shareholder returns

[@ahmataevo]

Only in part. Now, try naming the elephant in the room...

[@vinesauceobscurities]

On one hand the prospects of a hostile takeover by Tencent or private equity has the risk of running the company to the ground, but you can't argue that Ubisoft wasn't already doing that to themselves since the early-2010s. They've shown their growing weakness for years, failed to course correct, and now the vultures are circling over them. It's almost karmic.

[@MisterGreis]

They're already beholden to pretty powerful groups, that's why the smaller firms are so angry that their money is being wasted.

[@DisDatK9]

Its absolutely karmic. They wanted to pretend their consumer base were a bunch of idiots who were too stupid to know what they "really wanted" so they kept abusing that assumption until now when its finally coming back to bite them in the ass. If private equity tears them apart, it would be shitty for the workers, but absolutely the byproduct of years of abusing both the consumer and their employees. This is exactly what we would call their "Just Desserts."

[@NSGrendel]

Do you not understand how much money senior executives make from a buyout? This is not a poor outcome for the executives. The studios will get shafted, but the spice still flows, be it Harkonnen or Atreides that run the harvesters.

[@targard.quantumfrack6854]

@@NSGrendel You meant the Fremen will get shafted?

[@NSGrendel]

@@targard.quantumfrack6854 The Fremen always get shafted. Their fault for not being part of the intergalactic economy. Frankly, they got lucky.

[@glitch200]

1 Nothin wrong with stocks 2 Nothin wrong with stocks! 3 Nothin wrong with stocks!! 4 NOTHIN WRONG WITH STOCKS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH LET THE STOCKS HIT THE FLOOR!

[@targard.quantumfrack6854]

It has been quite some time last time I listened to this one, thanks!

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

Reminds me of Iraq war montages

[@bdhale34]

We haven't had anything except a decrease in buying power since the invention of the stock market. Not saying it's related but the trend is a mirror in opposite directions and it seems to always dirrectly match. Market booms, buying power shrivels.. every single time. The people literally keeping everything working suffer while 2% investors and otherwise well offs act like the price of eggs didn't just double overnight because they don't feel it, and they don't feel it until people stop buying as many eggs and the value of the company goes down because they aren't even selling enough of their overpriced eggs to cover what they made when they weren't gouging. Market only booms if the companies are making money, they only make money by selling more or selling for more, 9/10 they pick the second one and it always leads to less buying power for people.

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

@@bdhale34 I'm convinced many of corporate boards are being controlled by nepo babies. Dumb ones. Who meddle. offing the golden goose, instead of being hands off.

[@skylinefever]

Everything went to shit when family businesses became cyberpunk corpos. The family business has to actually do what makes money long term. Line go up next quarter foolishness was not common.

[@kattuzra]

Ubisoft has 21k+ employees and Nintendo has 7.7k employees. Just let that sink in.

[@DrNoBrazil]

Also check the % of overweight employees with blue hair in each company. Just let that sink in.

[@hillariat2147]

And half the nintendo staff are copyright lawyers😂

[@PointsofData]

​@@DrNoBrazil What does wokeness have to do with this?

[@PlusOne2Crit]

Can we stop pretending like Nintendo are saints? It's 2024. We all know the shit they've pulled / tried to pull over the years.

[@hippieyoda1993]

@@DrNoBrazil you really are as thick as biscuits if you think coloured hair is the reason hundreds of millions are being flushed down the drain

[@Sharpie360]

Make trash? Stocks crash.

[@zanmagoroku2259]

Needed everyone to adopt that phrase 5 years ago.

[@NoChance-oz4dd]

Go woke go broke

[@JunkYardCardGuy]

​@@NoChance-oz4ddStop with that trash phrase

[@1Orderchaos]

@@NoChance-oz4dd Woke has little to do with it. It's all about mismanagement. Woke is just a boogeyman word that people use as a petty insult.

[@Braxifen83]

so as someone who spent 18 months working on Skull & Bones (with almost 4 years in the company), this is completely unsurprising. the people at the top constantly hamstring the creatives trying to get the good games made. their entire Editorial section having full Yes or No control over all the projects has always been a time bomb for the company.

[@Goochen]

Did you work in Singapore? I understand the french management coming over there was a nightmare.

[@McDLT999999999999999]

Was it as woke as we imagine?

[@stuartmorley6894]

​@@McDLT999999999999999yeah that's the problem. Wokeness. As opposed to crap games. You do realise that outside a tiny minority nobody cares as long as a game is good? If you actively avoid good games because they are "woke" and will play bad ones just because they aren't then you have your head on wrong.

[@McDLT999999999999999]

@@stuartmorley6894 You are the one that doesn't get it. If the game is woke then the company is probably woke. If the company is woke that means they are hiring people because of their identity instead of their merits. Which is guaranteed to produce an inferior product. It's very simple but probably too many logical steps to follow for the midwits.

[@jjoshaugh]

@@McDLT999999999999999 I saw a KZbinr send a question to one of the devs of Saints Row asking them whether "woke" was the problem and he said "nope." While there was a loud minority in the studio that basically objected to everything, they weren't the problem, not on their own at least. If it was just them they would have been gotten around. It was corporate being money hungry and micromanaging to maximise being safe and guarantee profits. that were the real problem.

[@joshrosario1269]

Another thing no one considers is that everything is becoming expensive but most people aren't becoming richer, so we cant buy a game when we can buy a weeks worth of groceries instead

[@IntegerOfDoom]

I'd like to know where you're buying a weeks worth of food for the price of a game.

[@MrQwertyman111]

@@IntegerOfDoom I suppose loads of places around the world. I'm originally from Poland, data for 2023 shows that most people spend under 300 USD per month for food there. Look at the price of games and do the math. Yeah, a game from Ubisoft is worth a week of food, and Poland is no longer a cheap place to live. So it's most likely much worse in poorer countries, and "weeks of groceries" might actually be a thing.

[@abso9639]

with 70$ I can live 2 weeks here where I am from

[@branch7628]

​@@IntegerOfDoom you're clearly a poor person with no money management skills

[@samadi101]

I've been saying this for a while. We have a consumer economy but the consumers have less and less disposable income. Sooner or later something has to give.

[@kokosan09]

my heart goes out to these poor, poor investors, especially those who had zero issues when Ubisoft swept the abuse allegations under the rug.

[@Nick-ue7iw]

Post nut clarity is not abuse.

[@Joe90h]

Honestly surprised they didn't oust Yves Guillemot sooner. Like, probably not at the peak of the allegations because investors don't care about that, but Ubisoft have been shedding value for years at this point.

[@eotikurac]

how low is your T, bro

[@ti-lo5hy]

Bro understands..I want social justice for adults who willingly made the wrong choice, I don't want fun games to play! I love puritanism!

[@gurriato]

Muh abuse!

[@DizzyPanda25]

I genuinely think the indies games market is the reason almost every triple AAA game project has been a flop. People are fed up with live service slop, filled with predatory monetization, FOMO tactics to sell them, filled with “convenience” items that only have to exist because the company want more money on top of a $70 price tag.

[@RusticRonnie]

Naw its the fact that the top 3 spenders on video games have less spending power. Yes Indie games have closed the gap with AAA, but that usually just leads to new AAA developers. This is something else

[@mesterjess]

I have a friend at Ubi, and they would mention how lavish their corporate parties would be...for one of their most recent, Ubisoft rented out an entire island! I mentioned how that seems like a major unnecessary expense, especially since they haven't had a commercially successful game in at least 5 years. They say "Yeah, Ubi treats us very well." 😬 I wonder if those who got laid off would've traded not having that party for another year's salary at Ubisoft? Man, it's like Ubi's TRYING to destroy itself for some reason with this excessive spending, dirt-quality game releases, and frontman Yves telling gamers to "get used to not owning their games." It's the only logical explanation imho, factoring in everything we know.

[@YeahYeahBeebisI]

"it's like Ubi's TRYING to destroy itself for some reason" seems like every big corporation is doing that, now. Disney's been my recent hyper-fixation, in that regard. You'd think these corporate leaders could... lead? instead of putting out the most baffling changes shrouded in buzzwords. (and I'm not spewing the anti-woke BS. I mean the disability accommodation cuts, that wrongful death lawsuit in the news, and price hikes across the board...) How do these executives see this turning out for them? You can beat down the consumers with the "get used to it" BS, but you need those consumers to survive. They're using the same predatory tactics they use for food and housing, ignoring the fact that people don't NEED video games... saying that as someone who has never bought from Disney or Ubisoft, and have no plans to.

[@LeeDynastyEunuch]

This is correct. It is the same for the Singapore Ubisoft Studio. They are fine throwing parties around and showing it off on social media to show how well they are doing rather than focusing on getting their games right. It doesn't help that the staff at Ubisoft are getting too comfortable with the treatment they are getting.

[@isaiahcolon6941]

It’s like a laundering scheme, these middle men keep finding ways to take all the profits and do nothing, if so much of us cared you’d think we would do something about it

[@earlofdoncaster5018]

If Ubisoft were a movie company their lead actor would be Steven Segal, their director would be Uwe Boll and their executive producer would be Harvey Weinstein.

[@frankieb9444]

Ubisoft is so bland and repetitive their movies are acted, directed and produced by Neil Breen.

[@ectothermic]

@@frankieb9444 That's an insult to my man Breen. His films may be janky and weird but it's entertaining content. Ubisoft is well-oiled and ironed slop machine that produces nothing interesting.

[@TheAYM91]

@@ectothermic The last few movies from Breen are unwatchable. He's gone deep in the spectrum.

[@hansjuker8296]

Uwe Boll and Weinstein made some good films. Seagal has 1 or 2.

[@traveler263]

Uwe Boll is a fucking genius lol

[@KaijuAKD]

I don't believe CEOs are stupid, repeating mistakes for decades. I think it's a scam, stock manipulation. Announce the next Fortnite/League of Legends/Overwatch, price of shares goes up, CEOs dump stocks, get those fat bonuses. Game comes out, is shit, stocks take a dive, they buy the stock back, fire 70% of developers, announce the next hit game... and the cycle continues

[@bluedistortions]

This

[@Lizarino]

this sounds crazy enough to be true

[@bluedistortions]

@@Lizarino Anyone who claims to be stupid, while making massive amounts of money, many times their salary, consistently and at every turn, is not stupid. They're very good at what they do, and that's corruption. The "stupidity" is a shield from prosecution and public backlash. That's politicians and corporate heads.

[@GeometryEX-hp9zs]

What you said is what any senior executive of a listed company of any size would do. They would cash out a large amount of money using stocks. They don't care if it destroys their products or company. They will make a lot of money in the process and then walk away.

[@PointsofData]

What you described is stock manipulation and is illegal. Yes it would be stupid to do that, esp over and over, since 1) if the company has a board they'll fire the CEO and 2) yeah they might walk away with money now since it takes time to do an investigation, but eventually they would recieve jail time. And don't hit me with "SEC/FTC do nothing", people rarely follow up on cases to see what happens, yes people do go to jail for this.

[@LarryJ602]

It's not just games, it's almost all forms of entertainment. Just like the letter said, they are making products for investors, not customers. They don't have a Target Audience, they just have standards for investors.

[@johnlarsen0512]

Ubisoft has been straight up hostile to gamers for 20 years now. I remember when Silent Hunter 5 came out, a Single Player only game, and it needed constant internet connection to send data constantly to Ubisoft to run, or it would close shut it self down. The pirated version of Silent Hunter 5 was in actuality a superior product to the Ubisoft 60 dollar original, and the CEO came out claiming gamers were awful people for wanting to not share all their data with Ubisoft for playing a singleplayer game. It was shortly after this that Ubisoft claimed there was no future in PC gaming. I havent played a Ubisoft game in 14 years since I dont want to support a company that both in action and speech has nothing but scorn and hatred towards me.

[@wyqydsyq]

Yeah the degree to which Ubisoft uses anticonsumer practices makes EA and Activision-Blizzard look like good guys by comparison. I'm honestly amazed it's taken them this long to start circling the drain. I guess it takes a while for the majority of consumers to understand what's going on

[@naapsuvaimne740]

wont buy any of theyr games like i havent bought any EA games like over 20 years

[@johannderjager4146]

I'm excited for the sequel to the videogame crash of '83. May new companies rise from the ashes.

[@RusticRonnie]

That isn’t what happened in 83, the market was healthy outside of the US… this is global. What we are seeing is AA Devs becoming the AAA devs, like madfinger going from mobile games to a major player in the industry.

[@mightylink65]

We're already in the middle of it, there's so many AAA live service failures this year and a record number of devs being laid off. This is the very definition of a crash. Only unlike the previous crash it's only a AAA crash, thank god for indie developers keeping the industry going.

[@MSpotatoes]

I'm not comfortable owning Ubisoft games.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Well, you don't own them.

[@cyh6092]

One of many AAA gaming companies I've boycotted for years. Doing my part.

[@craneteam87]

that company allowed rampant sexual harrassment and not of those at the top had to take responsibility. i hope the company goes under

[@christesterman]

They make it so easy to boycott.

[@AlexMax2742]

Is it really a boycott if you're not actually giving anything up that you wouldn't have otherwise bought? The only Ubisoft Original I've played in the past decade is TrackMania 2020 and that's has everything to do with Nadeo and not Ubisoft.

[@brianm.595]

I've been boycotting them since uplay launched.

[@sinjin8576]

Is commend you if it wasn't so goddamn easy. They make trash slop it's so easy to ignore.

[@ferrouswheel2677]

It's cute watching them tell us to pay 120 bucks for a game when most of us are struggling to afford groceries. Grocery stores are gouging us, we aren't going to waste money on "ok" games.

[@LiterallyJustAnActualPotato]

Grocery stores aren’t gouging you. There’s a whole economy that dictates what the prices are at the grocery store (unless you’re shopping at Whole Foods or something). Im not saying someone isn’t gouging you along the way, but it’s not the literal grocery store where you buy the groceries lmao.

[@TechTusiast]

It is your overspending that keeps you poor. Prices have risen everywhere and our salaries are lower than those of americans and fuel is dirt cheap in USA. Even yourtaxes are way lower. We dont have huge debts with high interest rates as you should always spend less than you earn so money does not go to waste and thanks to our higher taxes, our education and healthcare are designed to help people, not make as much money out of them as possible. Perhaps stop complaining about taxes and start complaining about insurance companies, hospitals and schools. Using credit or debt to buy stuff, car or something else that does not hold value is your own fault. You do not "deserve" an expensive car or a large house. You deserve what you can afford.

[@Nick-ue7iw]

Grocery chains are reporting record profits. Stop the cap.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@Nick-ue7iwturns out people buy food no matter how espensive

[@parafitality2730]

​@@Nick-ue7iw sorry but we also need our dividends to buy groceries

[@Demilak]

Another thing about 7/10 games not being able to compete in the current market that you didn't mention: these games are also competing against older 9 and 10/10 games.Theres a ton of games that I want to replay because they were just amazing, or i heard amazing things about and just never got to play and have been able to pick up on sale for $5. These games are also competing for that same portion of my time.

[@HangerHangar]

I see AAA devs as being in a MAD/Cold-War style "price war", where a lot of the business side are stuck under the belief that the only form of competition is spend amounts. Whether it's shear size, asset count, play hours, and advertising spend. The ultimate result is that slop like an UBI/FPS-Bro game can really only compete with its neighbors by demonstrating those absurd spending amounts to consumers.

[@Preston241]

Good analogy

[@randomrandom450]

Can someone think of the shareholders !?!? 😢

[@toukoenriaze9870]

tencent will be happy to buy out the other like 95% of their stock cheap and make it an even bigger shit show for money

[@pinedamartin5767]

Financial speculation, CEO greed and an obsession with satisfying shareholders are destroying every industry.

[@skylinefever]

CEOs and other MBA types can only think about how many short term moves they can make until their golden parachute is inflated.

[@larsgrugenhiem1001]

All that and no mention of The Crew... They introduce NFT's into a another live service game. Then after that failed spectacularly, they prove the gamers right at how worthless the idea was by revoking the license to The Crew. The brothers have not only lost sight of what gamers want. They've forgotten that in the end, it's the gamers that keep the company alive.

[@dlxmarks]

I swore off Ubisoft and EA titles about 7 years ago. It wasn't intentional; I just stopped playing overhyped AAA games.

[@thevalorousdong7675]

They axed the crew servers without an offline mode, now their stocks are axed XD

[@LM-nb7rj]

Deserved

[@joshanonline]

The outrage seem to work now because there's tons of other content around and their games were bad. Otherwise, people would accept it all as usual. gamers have no self-control, sadly. But I am the conditions for this to happen were met. Love to see it.

[@iandavis8725]

The crew was 10 years old, an online game and no one was playing it. How long you want it supported for?

[@Matt__B]

​@@iandavis8725 It was a game that didn't need to be online-only, at least for the single player mode. Also, there are online games over thirty years old that you can still play thanks to some combination of releasing the source, letting people run their own servers, and community reverse engineering. We really shouldn't have to stand for publishers pulling the plug on games like Ubisoft did when these alternatives exist.

[@briochepanda]

32 °44′21.4″N 105°59′21.7″W Get the shovels ready, gang.

[@Preston241]

Alamogordo New Mexico?

[@nuvotion-live]

@@Preston241 infamous video game burial site

[@Preston241]

@@nuvotion-live ah. Thanks.

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

We bury ubisoft stock certificates next to ET from 1984?

[@LaserStorm117]

This is exactly what I was thinking about with Concord. It's an impressive feat risen to when your product is better off in the landfill with ET.

[@topdamagewizard]

Kira right. Personally I call them my "Podcast games" Live Service games are games I play while listening to the news. Then there are my "book" games. Games that have my full attention for a couple of hours then I put them back on the shelf. I don't have time for 7/10 "book" games. The Crash is here and hopefully it takes down the Ubisoft, EA's and Blizzards of the world.

[@moister3727]

Right on the spot!

[@LiquidSwords66]

Amen. Our most valuable asset is time. Why spend our finite time on this earth playing mediocre video games?

[@giantninja9173]

Well unfortunately Microsoft bought Blizzard so with that behemoth of a resource pile behind them they can make trash for years to come

[@Mephitinae]

I always called them "movie games". Not all of them are boring, but when the action feels like padding between cutscenes, then I could simply watch a movie, which would be cheaper.

[@mosh.4245]

I don't get why we call them 7/10 games lets be real they are 5/10 at best they are boring unimaginative slop. We are too nice to games like Star Wars Outlaws.

[@noname-gp6hk]

Absolutely nothing of value will be lost when they shut down. Never feel bad when people who hate you fail.

[@dracoknight9066]

The only thing to regret is their IPs. They have so many good game IPS, yet they are incapable of making a SINGLE good game from them. For fucks sake how do you even manage to kill of Heroes of Might&Magic franchise? They already had golden formula with 3 all we needed were some upgrades, yet instead they ego out and try to reinvent the wheel.

[@Xport9]

@@dracoknight9066 Money got through their heads, when Far Cry/Assassin's Creed was making them bank, thinking they could do no wrong, but boy, the irony is they are indeed wrong.

[@zzzzzzz8473]

untrue , trapped in these projects are good works , some great environments , plants , creatures , that some team of artists developed , and their work is being lost in these failures of management and design . at least with Paragon for example epic released all the source art .

[@serioserkanalname499]

@@dracoknight9066 Someone will buy those in the bancruptcy proceedings and we'll all be better off for it.

[@wub9044]

Rayman.

[@Goose8585]

Nail on the head dude. We have more games than ever coming out all the time, while also havign a bunch of games from the past releasing new expansions, updates etc, and then we also have the old games we play. I have like 3 ARPGS i rotate between seasonally, then i have other long term games like WoW or Counter Strike, then i have all the other small games i play with friends like amongus, chained up, fall guys etc.... And then I have to find time to play single player experiences like Witcher 3, BG3 etc.... Too many long term/seasonal/live service games will cause all the developers and SPECIALLY, the expensive AAA devs to probably see some harsh changes.

[@Meanlucario]

Honestly, I was excited for Outlaws before I saw the pricing and was reminded what type of company Ubisoft was.

[@endorenna7106]

I'm STILL excited for Outlaws, tbh. It looks like an average, but fun game, and it's the first skin of a Ubisoft game I've had any interest in for a while. But... I can't really justify getting it at full price with the season pass. Plus, knowing that the DLC will come out sometime, I'd be better off to wait until that comes out and play the whole game. I know myself, I don't really go back to replay games when they get neat DLC. So, game+season pass on sale is gonna have to be it for me, even with how much I REALLY want to play a Star Wars game with a lead that is a lady non Force user, with a freaking cat lizard pet. That's just my cup of tea. But noooo...

[@Meanlucario]

@@endorenna7106 Same.

[@j00bs]

Ubisoft has gone Ubilimp

[@argonnas01]

If you think investing in Ubisoft was a bad idea, imagine the employees that got paid in stock options as bonuses

[@knee0036]

As the great Total Biscuit said...buying a game at release gets you the worst version of the game for the most money. Wait folks, it pays off.

[@lammatt]

Are traps gay? John totalhypocrite Bain tells people to get cancer and die. Guess what? He got cancer and died. Karma

[@AC-hj9tv]

Bro is right

[@isaiahcolon6941]

Yeah but it’s the hype and the battle pass crap that won’t come back that entices us

[@dafff08]

Shareholder value is one of the worst things that happened to capitalism. It makes products worse, destroys companies and a lucky few make big money, while many may also lose their savings.

[@hippieyoda1993]

It didn’t ‘happen to capitalism’ lol, capitalism created the conditions that caused it to be conceived

[@skylinefever]

It's what capitalism does when it finds a financial incentive to exploit. If there were honest incentives for the bigshots, we would get more honesty.

[@felixsimon2]

Ubisoft: "It's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game." Gamers: "It's about feeling comfortable with not owning your company."

[@skylinefever]

If people are going to tell us to own nothing and be happy, make sure those people also own anything. They can show us the happiness we are supposed to have.

[@MahBones]

Their climb in value also coincided with a massive increase in social media coverage of the games industry, KZbin was a much smaller place in 2015. This lead to increased scrutiny of all areas of the company and comments which were directed towards investors and not consumers becoming common knowledge within the games space. A few years prior the same comments may have gone unnoticed but a general sentiment shift has caused a lot of pushback against publishing studios practices and direction. Combine this with the decline in disposable income and companies without a lot of mindshare or bad publicity are feeling the impact.

[@kaizerlock8287]

*CEO makes bad games to satisfy shareholders **Shareholders attempt takeover Before, it's "shitty games covered in gold", now it's going to be literal shit...

[@spookyfey]

people's wallets are really strapped. Gamers can't afford all these subs, nickel and diming, or even to spend the money on a base game for their precious time to be wasted

[@isaiahcolon6941]

Yeah I got mk1 now I can’t get nothing else for awhile and there’s nothing to do in that game

[@rawrrxgnome]

‘Current layoffs not aggressive enough’ and ‘hire a new CEO’ in the same sentence is CRAZY

[@BarefootCM]

Upset shareholders are just professional Bag-Holders. Even just lay-people have been aware that Ubisoft was focusing on short term shareholder gains at an obvious eventual long term problems. Yet they held on to shares they had or boughy more

[@Preston241]

Short-term profits over long-term health hurts the company and gamers, but never the executives.

[@Speederzzz]

If you're an investor, you buy, you squeeze and then you sell. There is no need for long term investments if you can keep moving on

[@McDLT999999999999999]

The employees got paid for years while the investors lost 80% of their money.

[@TheCatherineCC]

Or the international private equity firm wearing a slovakian hat that will do the standard PE looting of the company if they take over.

[@GeometryEX-hp9zs]

In fact, top management, wherever they are, are the most corrupt and dirty people. They are short-sighted and ignorant. But they are greedy and have no moral bottom line. They use their power to exchange for a lot of money. They don't care about whether there is a future or not.

[@PointsofData]

How are gamers hurt by this at all at this point, when we have such a wide variety of games to choose from? That's very dramatic to say, worst that happens is you're hurt emotionally or you're disappointed in a product lol.

[@mikepike7139]

Im genuinely surprised. Had so little faith i expected them to sucessfully sell copypaste, buggy, overpriced, microtransaction laden garbage forever

[@RobTheSquire]

Hmmm who knew that saying to the all the gamers that you no longer own the games you've bought over the years and that you have to pay per month to play them would make them less money instead of more...There's nothing wrong with a subscription service but taking our game collection that we've had for ages from us is very wrong.

[@Nr4747]

Publishers owning almost all larger game developement studios has destroyed gaming (for the most part) because many important decisions are no longer made with the players in min but instead are made with the shareholders in mind. Ironically, both, gamers and shareholders, lose out in the long term with this mindset.

[@ninochaosdrache3189]

Yet larger publishers are the only reason why we have good looking games. I don't want every modern game to look like it was made in the 80s.

[@emperorfaiz]

@@ninochaosdrache3189 Artstyle over graphic as always. Beautiful graphic don't mean anything when the gameplay is bad or subpar. I really glad more gamers having better standards priotizing gameplay more than graphic.

[@gs8494]

When the corporate drama is levels above the games they produce. Ubisoft, the publishing equivalent of lying on the floor and somehow managing to fall off.

[@yeashsomewhat]

Time for a new gritty reboot: Rayman We’ll finally find out how he lost his arms and legs

[@andy9518]

Hit the nail on the head. The big boys have got lazy as their budgets have got bigger. I see it as similar to the big companies in Hollywood spending millions to try and kickstart the next franchise. Both industries big players have got their attention so much on the bigger, long term revenue that they forget to just make a good movie/game in the first place.

[@disabledcable685]

Prince of Persia on switch is so good I can't believe ubisoft made it. Avatar was actually nice farcry clone too, but everything else has looked like straight up ass.

[@BaconNationChannel]

Funny enough, if Prince of Persia was made by an Indie it would have sold.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@BaconNationChannelgood game zero content could have solde fair 15 dollars

[@BaconNationChannel]

@@lolasdm6959 totally agree, the price was too high for this kind of game.

[@isaiahcolon6941]

Avatar was a really big let down their ai couldn’t compare to farcry’s

[@PlanetJeroen]

I can still get sad over this .. when they release the original AC, that was so freaking amazing .. then the last decade or so, it's just been milking every last penny out of the name.

[@maskharat]

While the og AC was a good game, it was riddled with broken promises. I followed the AC development for 3-4 years. Pretty much since the first news of development. They announced and promised so many new and revolutionary features that the final release was one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

[@yetanotheraccount3361]

I remember thinking the first AC was mind blowing. Funny how things change lol

[@somechinesedude5466]

​i personally don't like AC & prefer they kept going with prince of persia instead Smaller maps with fixed interaction that you can sequence break if the game is competent is always better over open world catch em collection

[@targard.quantumfrack6854]

@@maskharat Ubi meddled with the creatives and the project.

[@2BAMaster9]

The mobile gacha market is about to run into the same problem in the next few years. No one has time for all these live service games doing the exact same things

[@midori_the_eldritch]

They already run on a fast cycle, usually 2-4 years. I doubt they would notice.

[@aggromonk9154]

Don't forget that the Alpha test for The Division Heartlands did so poorly that they scrapped the whole project. I'm sure that wasn't cheap. Ubisoft deserves this. Their mid games and absolute greed brought this on. Let them Eat Cake.

[@Marine5D]

Personally i won't even consider buying any of their games ever if they are not addressing and fixing 2 things: 1. Infamous line "gamers should get used to not owning games" 2. Killing games like "Crew"

[@xelldincht4251]

They had similar problems a couple years ago when Ghost Recon Breakpoint bombed hard. Ubisoft deserves it. They have the money to make great games and instead, they make the same slop 3:56 Wow, that is even a bigger failure than Concord

[@SpeedFreak1972]

problem here is that tencent has also a stake in Ubisoft and guess who will buying that stock when shareholders sell …

[@Aereto]

And since it's all microtransaction hell, Ubisoft is no more once fully owned by Tencent and can never bring its value to what it once was

[@laz0rbra1n]

why is that a problem? tencent is a very decent owner, not interfering with development.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@laz0rbra1nyellow peril

[@ILikePi31415926535]

Why should we be concerned if a mediocre game company is bought by a mediocre game company?

[@SpeedFreak1972]

because the relationship between tencent and the chinese government … it’s making a lot of people uneasy

[@ThaGamingMisfit]

So basically even the sheep who blindly bought every AAA garbage game now actually activated some brain cells ? I never thought these times would come. These AAA companies have thrived pure on their name for decades, while so many better games come out from smaller developers but the sheep refuse to look outside the AAA box. Maybe the era where good games get rewarded has come?

[@RusticRonnie]

To be fair… they will still buy assassins creed. They don’t know this IP so they don’t care. Also don’t call children sheep… you are talking about kids

[@mitrovarr]

I think part of it is that Ubisoft has a reputation now for bring really greedy and stingy - holding back key content for more money, deliberately making games worse to sell time savers, etc. This damages the quality of their games and prevents them from being great even if the talent and budget was there.

[@s7robin105]

Too many mid to bad games and this was the expected result. The last game I bought at launch was the last Watch Dogs game. The newest game I am playing is Outlaws but only with the subscription because the asking price was too high. They either need to stick to smaller scale games like Mario Vs Rabbids or they will just collapse and be bought out by Sony or Microsoft at this point.

[@adamfrost3722]

Great video. The fact that you’re able to translate this kind of thing and make it interesting is impressive.

[@Wizardi1111]

There's no point in buying games at release, paying more for a worse version of a game. I got a big wishlist of older games that I'm waiting on bigger sales like at least 70%, those are the good double or triple A games. Also, I sometimes spend 10bucks on something like a humble choice monthly bundle where it has some good games for example I got Nioh2 for 10bucks when it's only ever been on sale for 50% off for 35. Then I also snagged Sifu, High on Life, Blacktail all three together for only 10bucks. So I have a big backlog of great games I can always play, that are better than those 7/10's that are coming out.

[@GeometryEX-hp9zs]

I replayed Crysis 1-3. I found that they are still excellent shooters. Although Crysis 2 seems to be missing a voice actor. The story of the game is connected to all three games. The story goals are unified. The content is explained clearly. The current Call of Duty series seems to be just a name, and they don't even dare to make historical content. My game wish list actually has no games after 2020. The AAA games made in 2012-2015 are of good quality, and it seems that it is difficult for games now to reach the AAA level. They just pile everything together and lack real soul.

[@arrogantbandit1]

For me it's mostly the attitude of the studio's and Devs. "The sky is green!" No it's not. "You and 9/10 people are just colorblind"

[@ImNealHunt]

I know exactly what went wrong at ubisoft. They made really bad games.

[@Tsuchimursu]

You've described me well. I've been playing war thunder for a decade with my buddies. We will play core keeper, new world, once human, terraria or something else for a few weeks or months to take a break, but always return back to war thunder. We aren't in a hurryvto be free quality testers so we usually wait for a sale before we buy a new game to get a better experience for cheaper.

[@LtColShingSides]

But they're leading the AAAA gaming space!! How could this happen?

I am very comfortable not owning my own Ubisoft games - They have to get used to not having access to MY money. Over-all it this is a win-win situation 👌

[@MrShidimaOne]

This is what hedge funds do. They get in and try to earn there money. They try to split up a company or take it private so they can get a load of money and leave the company ruined.

[@s81n]

The biggest thing the industry can do is to get the project management, the MBAs, the business people, OUT of creative development. They’ll never belong there and they only ever drag the creative/technical people down. Let the game developers develop. Stop putting them in countless meetings because “YoU wAnT mEtRiCs…” Business people shouldn’t be force-directing game development to hit silly, meaningless metrics. I feel bad for the devs here. Nothing is worse than having management ruining your goals/visions for the sake of ridiculous deadlines and constantly pushing stuff out.

[@AC-hj9tv]

Too bad they have all the money

[@RedB3ardTV]

They doomed Ubisoft when they made a mockery of Tom Clancy’s name with the crappy follow up of siege, the CEO said we need to get used to not owning our games (I instantly cancelled ubi+ and uninstalled all my Ubisoft games and launcher), and just continuing to release average games and as much as I enjoy AC even I can admit, they all feel the same after syndicate. Couldn’t happen to a nicer AAA company. 🤷‍♂️

[@GeometryEX-hp9zs]

If they can always tell the real history, then there is actually nothing wrong with the single gameplay. The problem is that they abandon the original authenticity. If you want to create non-existent history, you must explain to the players what does not exist at all. Otherwise, this will have a lot of adverse consequences. I originally liked this game not because of the assassination. It was because they told the real history. I am very interested in that history.

[@dougray30]

I think they invested all their money on E2 tiles....

[@ectothermic]

With Indie games blowing up and new studios cropping up all over the place to make passion projects that actually mean something "AAAA" development is just not worth it anymore. At the very least buying from "AAAA" publishers isn't worth it, hasn't been for a while, unless it's something that looks really really impressive and even then at a discount. Who wants to pay $70 for yearly slop when you can buy 5-6 games with that much money. They might not all be the next cultural icon but the value to price ratio is far better.

[@PointsofData]

I don't even understand what quadruple A means and what seperates it from triple A. Triple A makes sense in that it's a big budget production, basically as high as you can get with support. Quadruple A is...including the latest tech gimmicks and absurd graphic settings??? Doing live service, which indie games do???

[@ectothermic]

@@PointsofData AAA has always been an investor attraction and never about the gamers. It's an old term credit unions used that became a symbol of how much was being spent on a game. Hence when Skull and Bones came out it was "AAAA". That's my understanding.

[@crunchyfrog555]

Couldn't happen to a nicer company. Why do companies never ever learn that when you put out a shit game or two, your next game even if it's good is going to have it's sales affected? In Ubisoft's case, they haven't had a good game, as it's been a continual decline into slop. So about fucking time. What's even worse though is Tencent being part of this. China is going through a massive economical collapse atm, where banks and businesses galore are packing up. People aren't getting paid and can't draw money out. If Tencent pull out, go tits up or whatever, it will only hasten things.

[@PlusOne2Crit]

Ok stop pretending like every single game they've put out is an utter piece of crap. A lot? Sure. Hell I'd even say most. But all? Absolutely not. Hating on their games is the popular thing to do, I get it, but they can, and have, released great games.

[@crunchyfrog555]

@@PlusOne2Crit But they are - they're all samey which weakens the pool of ones that are better, because it gets to a stage where you play one, you play them all. Ig you're correct, then why are their sales so poor and people are fed up with exactly what I'm saying? And I am taking the global approach of comparing it to the WHOLE history of gaming since the start, not just recent years.

[@Doc-Glock]

I'm still going to look at Ubisoft as the massively desperate company that reportedly had a dozen Battle Royale games in development.

[@rrc3]

If you purchased Ubisoft at IPO and did nothing with it, you've now lost 20% of your money DESPITE 4x split. Ubisoft isn't cooked. It's well done. The only question is who is going to end up with the IP.

[@alexgruia88]

I disagree with your statement that Ubisoft peaked in the pandemic. The chart you are latterly sharing at 1:31 shows them in a grow spree starting with 2010-12 with a peak in 2018 which makes perfect sense. My friend, Ubisoft is in a continuous downfall since 2018, the pandemic in 2020 gave them a slight boost but it was inevitable taking in consideration the path they choose.

[@RH-zn7mp]

When you make shit games based around milking the consumers wallet as hard as possible, it is normal that nobody wants to buy your shit games.

[@RomanBellic-ez5fh]

You know how to make the best live service game ever? It’s simple, make a good single player game without drm or online connection requirements, update it frequently for free and eventually release a good dlc

[@ThePalebloodDoll]

have a mutliplayer/co-op mode and maybe pvp as well depending on the type of game there is as well (of course with the option to just play offline by yourself)

[@RomanBellic-ez5fh]

@@ThePalebloodDoll I was talking about something like No Mans Sky have done or other games that adds a little bit of content and fixes every big uptdate(BeamNG Drive is another example), but yeah not mentioning the rest, pvp(without battle passes and micro transactions ) and coop.

[@ThePalebloodDoll]

@@RomanBellic-ez5fh ah i see, thank you for elaborating

[@Boomer04888]

I'm eager to hear some PR rep or executive come out and tell us why it's all the gamers' fault.

[@sp0nge1337]

Ubi-losing money if you invested now.

[@joshuaroefs9279]

I love seeing executives (people whos jobs produce 0 tangible financial value for the company) fire the people who actually make the thing the company sells then wonder why they have little to sell and why what they have is so dog shit. Wanna save the company as the CEO? Reduce all executive pay to 10% of what it is. That already saved more money than firing 1000 of the people whos work provides immediate real financial value.

[@DmT922ha]

Outlaws was a 5 at its best, a 3 at its worst...The recent Alone in the Dark was a 7/10 but I get what you are saying, there was no space for that game either, even though it was pretty good..

[@s7robin105]

For me outlaws is a 7/10 but I'm biased since I enjoy the setting. But overall it was not as good as it could've been if they actually tried harder

[@GothPaoki]

Alone in the dark was a huge mess especially narratively. 7 is too generous.

[@RomanBellic-ez5fh]

that’s the best real outcome given the conditions, I mean, it serves as an example for other companies as well. Maybe they get bought and get better idk

[@MosestheGrey]

Dude its pronounced Ubisoft not Ubisoft :P

[@lammatt]

Tomato tomato

[@SebastianSkadisson]

That's actually how a hedgefund operates. Infiltrates share holder meetings, rides some sentiments in order to disrupt the company, and then it begins.

[@peterdean653]

Stopping kids saying first

[@askmitch]

First reply to first comment

[@bobloblaw2958]

Thank you.

[@AcornElectron]

Imagine this worked, can we get this pinned to the top of every KZbin video please. With the caveat that “x views in x minutes, bro really fell off” is added.

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

but now you said "first" you sly dog lol

[@Guiltless765]

Ubisoft will never get another dime of my money. They lay off everyone but the woke destroyers.

[@kyle4545]

Well time to buy some puts till they go under

[@jesuszamora6949]

The big-budget gaming industry's chickens are coming home to roost, particularly in the west. The games are getting more and more uninteresting, when they even DO come out, and now fewer and fewer games are being bought. The pandemic boon only delayed the inevitable, but a house built on SO MUCH SLOP can only stand so long. All the while indies, Nintendo, and smaller Japanese companies are practically printing money, because there's always room for a well-made campaign between live service slops. Sega probably makes money on stuff like Shin Megami Tensei V, and while games like this would probably fare better at $40. Good games that aren't on live services will always have a place. There's a good reason Baldur's Gate 3 isn't on any subscription service, and it's because that Larian needs that money more than the subscription service peddlers do. The funny part? I don't think there's any way for the big-budget western industry to course-correct. Too many disconnected suits who don't care about gamers or gaming, too many people who only want quick returns. I'm guessing that shareholder letter was written by someone who isn't exactly great with English. At least they didn't use ChatGPT.

[@notsmirkis]

i agree with all the negative towards ubisoft but sea of thieves is not free...

[@NSGrendel]

It's insanely puerile to think that gamers have any impact on the games industry. I used to be a commercial analyst. You guys buy $60 games. Venture capitalists spend $2Bn. Their input is more important than Greg from Wyoming.

[@o00nemesis00o]

It's awfully nice of the venture capitalists not to ever want their money back.

[@NSGrendel]

@@o00nemesis00o You spend money to change the world to make it fit you. Your money is a reflection of your time and worth. Now imagine being born where you could achieve any reasonable thing with your time - but you need to spend money. But the thing is - you basically earn money at the rate you spend it. I used to be a commercial analyst on a big game. Then I did real boy analysis for insurance companies, utilities and such. The people you beg to give you another month. There are plenty of people as rich as Elon who don't ride around Wall Street on a skateboard - in fact richer - but who studiously remain anonymous because acting like a puppet for the masses is exactly the opposite of their intention. If you make $2Bn a year from divested companies and went to school with the right people, you can push what you want. Media has recently got into gaming - so it has the diversity crap now - because that's what large venture firms are pushing. Why is largely foreign (Chinese/Russian) money pushing such contentious content? That's for you to work out.

[@NSGrendel]

@@o00nemesis00o TL:DR - at the top level, they are all moving pieces around a board whose numbers change and who they are vaguely informed of. No one actually cares. Why would they? These are mostly numbers, not reality after all.

[@irishsage2459]

7/10 for a current day Ubisoft game is extremely extremely generous. 4 or 5 out of 10 is more accurate

[@Tobiichi_Origami_25]

Ubisoft is like the king of mediocre games...

[@funnylumpy]

Let them go bankrupt. I will never trust that company ever again.

[@harrydbastard]

Turns out calling people bigots instead of delivering quality games didn't work. Who knew?

[@chattychatotchannel]

in game dev what they taught us is the hard thing about developing a game is you're competing with EVERY game already in existence like why would someone play your game over say minecraft where people are loyal to and have a modding community? over all the old games that are updating and the new games with huge financial backing

[@alessandricedric1995]

Deserved

[@dh1148ify]

Ubisoft investors deserve to lose all of this money after pushing the company in this direction for so long.

[@topdamagewizard]

Late State Capitalism go brrrrrrrrrr