Ubisoft couldn't even make the "passive income from old games" formula work.
They needed to shove UPlay into every game, that made it run worse and made people not want to buy things even at a steal price. And then they realized what games people actually wanted and priced them up. Black Flag should not be 40$ full price over a decade after release, nor should its regular sale price still be like 12$. Yet they know its the only one people will really buy, so they try to milk it the hardest (and its noticeably higher priced than games before or after it too) until people just move on.
Ubisoft couldn't even make the "passive income from old games" formula work.
They needed to shove UPlay into every game, that made it run worse and made people not want to buy things even at a steal price. And then they realized what games people actually wanted and priced them up. Black Flag should not be 40$ full price over a decade after release, nor should its regular sale price still be like 12$. Yet they know its the only one people will really buy, so they try to milk it the hardest (and its noticeably higher priced than games before or after it too) until people just move on.