You know, with how long EA was trying to sell themselves and Dragon Age Veilguard last year, I thought THEY would be in this situation.
But no, they now have Arab Money and might beat COD with BF6 this year and Ubisoft are in free fall. I think Tencent already has AC, FarCry and R6 Siege in a seperate studio so now what's left? The rest of Tom Clancy related licenses or maybe Beyond good and evil won't be vapour ware from now on?
It really is starting to be the end of the "mega publishers" with Microsoft treading water after buying out so many studios too. The writing has been on the wall for almost a decade now.
Lol so the new ballgame is bailouts from sheiks and Chinese fat cats? How long until the foreign investors figure out the company is burning cash to keep fat lesbians warm?
now what's left? The rest of Tom Clancy related licenses or maybe Beyond good and evil won't be vapour ware from now on?
The Clancy stuff you mentioned, Rayman, Prince of Persia, and Trials are the only others I can think of that aren't one-offs. They have nothing valuable enough to sell that would dig them out of their hole, anyway.
Mainland Chinese, for the most part, racka imagination. Hong Kong has done better historically. I heard the Impact gacha games have some good story moments here and there though.
I think the last time I had genuine enthusiasm for an Ubisoft game was Rayman Legends because it felt so wild and vibrant and fun.
And looking at my last played time that was 2015, and it came out in 2013. So it's been a decade since I've cared about them.
They used to have talent who could craft a game so compelling I'd be at work wondering how I was going to get through certain sections of a platform game about a guy that doesn't have arms or legs.
I hear people sing praises for assassin's creed black flag, so I'll see if I can get that used at a local shop for a few bucks for either 360 or PS3, to see what the fuss is about there.
Now Ubisoft is just a place filled with people who work there just to tell me how terrible of a human being I am because I don't agree with their politics of shoving things in my face and demanding my attention when the last thing I want is being preached to by a cult.
Odyssey was the beginning of the end for them. It was a great game (albeit a departure from their normal game structure) but also incredibly woke. It must have been that Ubi's existing talent hadn't all been replaced with DEI hires yet, but there were enough of them to make the game super woke. They went into free fall after this though.
Black Flag was excellent and was before the woke shit took over. Funny thing, in BF there was a real world email that you could read which showed future plans for simulations. The one for AC Shadows was in a different era than the one they ended up using. Meaning they changed the lore to make sure Yasuke could be added in.
Tencent buyout, is my guess. My conspiracy theory is that China has been sabotaging the company to get them a cheaper buyout price. Tencent already picked up a big chunk of Ubis best IP for dirt cheap.
When Russia did such a good job in the cold war getting buy-in to do DEI initiatives (or specifically, planting the seeds of it in academia to filter down across two more generations of social poisoning), I don't think China needed to do much. Oh they might've. For sure. But it probably wasn't a lot of effort.
Yasukesisters... I was assured that AC Shadows was a huge success and definitely not a colossal flop that doomed the entire company...
Can't wait for "AC shadows was a financial success, chuds!" crowd to explain this away.
You know, with how long EA was trying to sell themselves and Dragon Age Veilguard last year, I thought THEY would be in this situation.
But no, they now have Arab Money and might beat COD with BF6 this year and Ubisoft are in free fall. I think Tencent already has AC, FarCry and R6 Siege in a seperate studio so now what's left? The rest of Tom Clancy related licenses or maybe Beyond good and evil won't be vapour ware from now on?
It really is starting to be the end of the "mega publishers" with Microsoft treading water after buying out so many studios too. The writing has been on the wall for almost a decade now.
Judging by your words, I think a viable strategy would not be to dissolve some of these fruitless publishers, but sell them off for really cheap.
Didn't all the good IP use to be firmly American?
I hate this new world.
Wake me up when it's the 90s again.
Lol so the new ballgame is bailouts from sheiks and Chinese fat cats? How long until the foreign investors figure out the company is burning cash to keep fat lesbians warm?
The Clancy stuff you mentioned, Rayman, Prince of Persia, and Trials are the only others I can think of that aren't one-offs. They have nothing valuable enough to sell that would dig them out of their hole, anyway.
I think Tencent only got a minority interest in those IPs. I'm guessing they'll now just take full ownership. Or at least majority interest.
The ching chongs will be more than happy to buy their IP's
They night actually make money with them! (Or more likely turn them into gatcha simulators)
Mainland Chinese, for the most part, racka imagination. Hong Kong has done better historically. I heard the Impact gacha games have some good story moments here and there though.
Kong is gone.
“ I told you last year that we could take out Ubisoft, that it had 3 vulnerable games, and that if we voted with our wallets, we could send a message.
Looks like it completely worked.”
https://x.com/grummz/status/1989368779936338204
I think the last time I had genuine enthusiasm for an Ubisoft game was Rayman Legends because it felt so wild and vibrant and fun.
And looking at my last played time that was 2015, and it came out in 2013. So it's been a decade since I've cared about them.
They used to have talent who could craft a game so compelling I'd be at work wondering how I was going to get through certain sections of a platform game about a guy that doesn't have arms or legs.
I hear people sing praises for assassin's creed black flag, so I'll see if I can get that used at a local shop for a few bucks for either 360 or PS3, to see what the fuss is about there.
Now Ubisoft is just a place filled with people who work there just to tell me how terrible of a human being I am because I don't agree with their politics of shoving things in my face and demanding my attention when the last thing I want is being preached to by a cult.
Odyssey was the beginning of the end for them. It was a great game (albeit a departure from their normal game structure) but also incredibly woke. It must have been that Ubi's existing talent hadn't all been replaced with DEI hires yet, but there were enough of them to make the game super woke. They went into free fall after this though.
Black Flag was excellent and was before the woke shit took over. Funny thing, in BF there was a real world email that you could read which showed future plans for simulations. The one for AC Shadows was in a different era than the one they ended up using. Meaning they changed the lore to make sure Yasuke could be added in.
I'm old as fuck so I played Assassin's Creed 1.
Ubisoft peaked on the release of AC2 - That was 2009.
Tencent buyout, is my guess. My conspiracy theory is that China has been sabotaging the company to get them a cheaper buyout price. Tencent already picked up a big chunk of Ubis best IP for dirt cheap.
When Russia did such a good job in the cold war getting buy-in to do DEI initiatives (or specifically, planting the seeds of it in academia to filter down across two more generations of social poisoning), I don't think China needed to do much. Oh they might've. For sure. But it probably wasn't a lot of effort.