Ubisoft is Dying and Now We Know Why

Ubisoft has been in a sad state recently.

The studio that used to be a staple of high-quality videogames has become another example of a greedy gaming company that’s looking for any opportunity to squeeze as much money as possible from their players while delivering soulless cash grabs.

For years gamers have expressed their disappointment towards many of their games that have been either boring, repetitive, excessively monetized, or overpromised and underdelivered.

An example of this would be the infamous Skull and Bones which was promoted as a “quadruple A” game that vowed to give players a genuine pirate-like experience which was believable since Ubisoft also made Assassins Creed Black Flag.

But they somehow messed up and delivered a title that at best could be described as an overpriced mobile game for pc.

I’m not saying all this because I’m some kind of hater. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

I used to love Ubisoft.

As someone who loves stealth mechanics in games, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry 3 were a dream come true for me when I played them for the first time and these titles marked Ubisoft as one of the best game development studios for me.

But things have changed.

During the past few years they have released one flop after another, said some ludicrous statements on social media and interviews, and kept getting involved in controversies that damaged whatever good reputation they had left.

It’s sad to see how one of my favorite game development studios has fallen out of grace and out of touch with its community to the point where they no longer listen to feedback and label it as complaints from “loud angry Western gamers”.

We know all this thanks to this video by Legendary Drops:

I highly suggest you give this video a watch because it shows how deep the hole Ubisoft has dug for itself truly is.

In that video, we can see the reality of what is happening inside Ubisoft from the eyes of some of their developers confirming that they are not listening to any criticism and that their work culture is terrible, to say the least.

Not adding emojis at the end of a sentence can end up in HR meetings, suggesting to add good-looking characters is met with distrust and senior game devs are getting fired and replaced by less experienced juniors who are then tasked with creating games from genres they have never played with engines they have never used.

It sounds ridiculous but that seems to be the reality of the situation.

However, the saddest part is how much their games have fallen off.

For the most part, their new games have become reskins of older titles with a few changes here and there. Enough to make them different, but not enough to make them stand out and players have noticed.

The competition hasn’t made it easy for them either.

More and more single, double, and triple-A titles have been popping off, gaining serious popularity and outselling them by a lot.

Some examples of these are:

• Lethal Company
• Elden Ring
• Palworld
• Space Marine II
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Helldivers II

What is their secret?

Developing and delivering a game that is fun, exciting, marketable, and that isn’t asking for money at every opportunity it gets. In other words, they are following the forbidden formula of “make good games and the money will come.”

But most importantly, they listen to their players and don’t go around pointing fingers saying that their games failed because of angry gamers who don’t want to buy an overpriced boring mess.

After all, if you make enemies out of your customers they won’t buy your stuff.

I thought that was common sense.

Final Thoughts

The adversity of having good-looking characters, the reluctance to push boundaries, the entitlement to ignore any feedback, the arrogance to push their morals to their players and blame them for their failures, and focusing on selling to critics instead of players is killing their games.

That and having a work environment that is hostile to creativity and excitement for the sake of playing “safe” has turned their most popular titles into an empty shell of what they used to be.

The sum of all of these things has caused the massive decline of Ubisoft and I’m not sure if they can recover from this mess but one thing is certain, if they keep this up they will eventually disappear.

I just hope that if they do go broke another company run by developers and not suits buy their best IPs because it would be a shame for them to be lost because of corporate greed.

Anyway, that’s all for now.