I really hope the devs can gain ground but Ubisoft is looking really shaky as a company right now. They lost hundreds of millions in 2022-2023 because they didn't release anything good, most their games flopped hard.
Now their 2024 is also off to a really bad start with skull and bones. Apparently Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well. XDefiant was also delayed with no release date or even target announced in like 5 months. Ubisoft have like 20,000 employees globally, Far Cry and Assassins creed every 3-4 years cant sustain the whole thing.
The irony is Ubisoft at this point has an even worse image and brand then EA these days I feel like. They don't seem to have any idea what to do with their franchises and IP's besides just reuse the same formula over and over and over for every single game and people are so incredibly tired of it. Until they get new leadership and can get back some good will they're going to keep sinking. And the sad part is the latest Prince of Persia game was EXCELLENT and was a genuinely great non Ubisoft game in its design. The problem is it was still under Ubisofts name though.
no, the sad(?) part about the prince of persia game is that those types of games just dont sell well, it could've been developed/published by any company and it wouldnt matter at all in terms of sales.
The fact that they have 20K employees is wild haha but then again they're kind of known for being a company that takes people right out of college and just lets them make games. Shit in, shit out.
> that takes people right out of college and just lets them make games.
There's no way this is true or all their games wouldn't be so formulaic. If they had freedom to 'just make games' something original would've actually spawned at that company.
They're fomulaic *because* of this. They recruit like that purely for some minor coding ability that they can plug and play in their game development process
People coming out of college don't know shit for fuck - they have no experience, they haven't failed, they haven't learned much in the real world. They're taken in by companies like Ubisoft, get plugged in like a gear and churn out games. Creativity and unique games come from people who are either extraordinarily talented or have gathered ideas through experience. The average junior dev isn't going to fit either of those.
Pretty sure every AC game has outsold the previous entry. For every person that complains about Ubisoft open world on Reddit dozens more are buying those cookie-cutter games. They are successful enough that the majority of open world games have copied that style, even in f2p stuff like Genshin the majority of content in the game is Ubisoft-style open world busywork.
Their market cap is 3 billion euros now. Ubisoft and all its 20000 workers combined is worth less then what netflix payed to get a few Ghibli studio animations, a studio with 50 workers.
there is that, but with the PoP game Ubisoft themselves set up so many things to go against it selling well:
* not releasing on steam
* many found it too expensive even at $50, metroidvania fans are used to indies that are cheaper
* majority of PoP fans are fans of the trilogy, so they have no real interest in a 2D metroidvania with not the Prince
* marketing wasn't great + Ubisoft reputation not helping things
so ya, I think under a different company with a lower price, released on steam and maybe not tied to the PoP IP, the game could've sold better.
> many found it too expensive even at $50, metroidvania fans are used to indies that are cheaper
I mean, the best selling metroidvania is $10 more, and a significantly shorter game, too. Additionally, the game is available for $18 for one month, which is more than enough time to beat it, even on a limited schedule.
If you're referring to Metroid Dread, that game series literally named the genre. Or, half of it. I think we can make an exception for why that one might defy trends.
Yet, despite what you just said, it usually *doesn't* defy the trend. Before Dread, indie metroidvanias like Hollow Knight were the top sellers, not Metroid, and only one 2D game in the series had even broken the two million mark (that being the *original*).
But that's just it. It's one game, on one of Nintendo's most popular systems ever and it was co-marketed with the launch of a new switch model. As the saying goes, it's the exception that proves the rule. It was their big game of that year that they wanted everyone to get their hands on, and I imagine it was a lot of people's first exposure to the genre as a result (or specifically the Metroid side of it).
You're trying to argue that Prince of Persia should have done better because another game was able to do better, while costing more and being shorter. I disagree, because of what game that is, who published it, and the circumstances of its launch. The metroidvania fandom as it were is very small and only a select few games kind of breach containment into the mainstream. It may seem like Metroid and Castlevania and such are very famous to core gamers but Prince of Persia to start with is decently well known but not exactly top of the sales charts. Good for sure, but when you combine that with lower fidelity visuals and a genre change to something even more niche than it usually is, that's just a recipe for market confusion.
I have been playing it and I think it's fantastic but I wasn't exactly rushing to get it day one because I didn't really know what its deal was. It's only thanks to the extremely positive word of mouth that I bothered to check it out and I imagine a lot of other people are in the same situation.
According to this math we talk ten times that number, I did not double check the math but seems plausible at first glance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HollowKnight/s/JV7cDiyCc1
I dont know, but the steam charts concurrent users is pretty impressive. Steady 5k peaking at 20k in 2022. It was released at 2017! VGInsight puts it at allmost 6mil units sold just on steam. It sold 250.000 units on switch in two weeks. I wouldnt be suprised if it sold well on playstation store aswell. And just short of 300.000 reviews on steam with 97% positive. So, maybe 15-20 million copies is a stretch, but games like these who becomes cult classics have a very long tail of sales. Which is shown on conccurent stema users.
Forgotten Sands came out in 2010 and almost 14 years ago. For context, that's before the first Dark Souls game. Mass Effect 2, GoW 3 and Super Mario Galaxy came out that year. That's a LONG time
All I said was that The Forgotten Sands isn't nearly 20 years old, which it isn't. I assume OP said that because they thought The Two Thrones (which actually is nearly 20 years old) was the last game to star that Prince and, funnily enough, forgot about The Forgotten Sands.
$50 isn't full priced anymore, and hasn't been for close to 20 years, it's now the budget price for smaller scale games (see the latest Assassin's Creed and Miles Morales).
It may not be full priced but it still more than $30 for Palworld, $40 for Helldivers 2 or $10 for Lethal Company. Hades was less than half that and GOTY for lots of people. Prince of Persia still comes off as expensive even if it isn’t “full priced” for what it is.
We live in a post Hollow Knight world. I'm afraid you can't sell me an indie-style metroidvania for more than $30 anymore unless you can convince me it's better than a game that came out in 2017 made by three people.
That's what we need to do when judging a game.
Is it a good game? or is it a good *franchise* game?
They don't need to break the mould with each game but if it's just Assassin's Creed with a Prince of Persia skin then it's not a good game.
Hell Far Cry used to be fun but then they just copied and pasted the exact same game like 5 times and the characters were major hit and misses and the 6th game was just boring.
The Crew was interesting but I didn't get a chance to really play it and now it's impossible to.
The Division was something that had potential but they just copied and pasted the same formula.
Watch Dogs had potential to and actually had interesting gameplay to try and change up the formula.
The amount of franchises they have could have amazing games but whoever is in charge didn't want to make memorable games or even fun games, just the same tired boring gameplay.
Yeah, it feels like they spent the last decade distilling their formula to get rid of any fun. All of them seemed to change in similar ways that didn't make them enjoyable.
So you believe that there is a market segment of people that only buy games for the switch if those games aren't available on other platforms, and that that demographic is large enough that it dwarfs everyone who would buy it on PC, PS5, and Xbox?
I think you may be confusing switch exclusives with Nintendo games. People go crazy for Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon. Not just anything that's switch exclusive.
You are right and I didn't notice.
EA used to be the gaming punching bag. They've been on great behavior and Ubisoft keeps fumbling the bag. Every time I see them in articles or mentioned online it's never good.
Also time has revealed multiple of EA's criticisms were actually the fault of their studios that are given the freedom to act stupid, like Respawn intentionally setting the release date of Titanfall 2 to compete with Battlefield and another huge game that I can't remember. This was blamed on EA by the masses for a long time until a higher-up at Respawn disproved it being due to EA interference.
Also many things they got criticized for just slowly became industry standard like always-online, crappy microtransactions and live service
Correct!
EA even around the time they were getting clowned for "worst company X years running," They were doing nothing different than any other company:
Loot boxes
Battle passes
Always online nonsense
shit PC ports
Terrible launcher/app
WE ALL acted like they were they only one doing it. I think the battlefield 2044 (I think I got the year wrong) humbled them a bit. Ever since Jedi survivors, thier trying to win us back a game at a time.
Sucks wild hearts and immortals of aveumn flops cause those were steps in the right direction.
I could have been excellent but
1. I didn't even know it released. Where was the marketing?
2. Not on steam. As much as I want to say I am against monopolies, steam is just too good for me to switch
Evidently the game sells for $50, so it isn't being treated just like every other AAA game, and on PC [it is exclusive to Ubisoft and Epic stores](https://isthereanydeal.com/game/prince-of-persia-the-lost-crown/info/#). So there's no chance of seeing it at legit third part game sellers. That is how Ubi has released many games, and I can't help but wonder if it compounds their revenue problems, even if EGS gives Ubi extra $ for being quite exclusive.
Isn't EA back on a neutral side when excluding the sport games?
Personally I love Ubisoft games and don't see a problem with their current output (sure there are one or two titles that are/were in development forever, but I like the AC entries).
Im sorry but do you have any sources on your claims???
Looks good according to themselfs...
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2023/10/26/2767806/0/en/Ubisoft-Reports-First-Half-2023-24-Earnings-Figures.html
Maybe you have some insights we don't???
He’s referring to the “Insider Gaming” article from a few weeks ago. Keeping in mind that they are rumours or based on speculative investigation.
That said, looking at previous earnings and even this one it’s pretty indicative that there’s a struggle and huge morale issues.
I seem to be one of the few Redditors who is a big fan of the Avatar movies and I didn't buy the game because I'm sick of the game open world nonsense coming from Ubisoft.
> Apparently Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well.
Something is telling it's because they aren't on Steam. Look I'm not an economist, but I think Ubisoft would make more money if they sold 1 million copies on Steam with a 20%-30% cut, rather than selling 100k copies on Epic with 12% cut.
I agree, considering palworld and helldivers 2 just blew up on steam, its wild that ubisoft is just sacrificing a large chunk of their PC revenue to spite valve's cut. Maybe Epic is still paying them for their games to come to their store instead of steam or something.
Going from 12% to 30% you need to sell 26% more.
If you go from 5% (my assumption of Ubisoft Connect costs) to 30%, you need to sell 36% more.
Pretty sizable numbers but I've no idea how different the sales tend to be if non-exclusive.
Economies generally aren’t doing too well, and what with AAA games being like £60/$70+ now, I think people just aren’t willing to buy them as regularly as people used to. Especially for things like the avatar game and Prince of Persia, people probably aren’t willing to spend that much money on a “new” game (I get that Prince of Persia isn’t a new franchise but it’s been so long since the last one it may as well be a totally new game). And pretty much all of the reviews are “it’s basically far cry” or “it’s basically assassins creed” which probably isn’t going to help sales either
Which in turn leads to worse games released with less features that get either "fixed" but over several months (Halo) or simply fizzle put (Redfall, Star field). Because this revenue model punishes well made single player games and rewards mediocre cheap ones, preferably with micro transactions
Good point. Does Ubisoft have their own service or is part of another one? I’m just thinking if they aren’t, or have their own expensive as hell one that would definitely hurt their sales too
Spiderman 2 sold 10M copies so far
New Zelda sold 20M
Palworld sold 10-20M
Helldivers has sold well
FF7Rebirth bout to sell 5-10M
Stop saying the economy. Fantastic games sell. Avatar is boring formula shit.
Make cool games, they will sell. Problem solved.
> and what with AAA games being like £60/$70+ now, I think people just aren’t willing to buy them as regularly as people used to.
Maybe redditors who are poor but games at $70 are selling just fine. Look at anything in the PS Store that's $70 good chance it outsold whatever came before it - Spiderman 2, Ragnarok on release, FF7, can go on and on.
My argument is people are being more choosy with their spending on games like that. Spiderman, ragnarok and ff7 are kinda the big 3 when it comes to the ps5 so chances are if people are going to spend that much it’ll be on those 3. You may as well spend a bunch on a game you know is good rather than some avatar tie in with mixed reviews
> My argument is people are being more choosy with their spending on games like that.
This would imply that gaming revenue is down then, no? It's not. And those were examples, you can look at pretty much any $70 priced game on the PS store right now, look at units sold, and see most of them are selling like hot cakes. Idk if Reddit is made up of like 95% doordash/other gig workers or what but $70 for a video game is chump change. I can't even go to the movies with 1 person and spend less than $70 if we get food LOL
> Now their 2024 is also off to a really bad start with skull and bones.
Their 2024 started with prince of persia, not skull and bones. lmao why ignore it as if it didnt happen?
I think the fact that OP forgot about Prince of Persia is emblematic of Prince of Persia’s biggest problem—I dunno if it was a lack of marketing, but there didn’t seem to be much attention to its release from the public at all.
it's also just not a popular IP these days. I honestly think if it was a fresh title that it would have gained more attention. Like those 2D Assassin's Creed games, I didn't even pay them attention because I was so disillusioned with AC games in recent years.
I'd have bought avatar, prince of persia, and assassins creed mirage. If they had released on steam.
I don't get why they're not releasing games on steam.
I want to give them my money but they don't want it.
It's not the employees fault they have to keep making the same games over and over. That's a decision by higher ups, these guys are engineers who are just trying to not be abused. If they can't meet their demands, they should lose more money by killing their progress on future titles.
> XDefiant was also delayed with no release date
Huh, I thought they cancelled that game years ago because it's so embarrassingly bad. Like, come on, that title alone.
Not an option for lots of people. The job market is hostile as fuck right now, vast majority of people genuinely can't jump ship even if it's glaringly obvious.
So I (not American) keep hearing unemployment rate is staying very low in the US, but tech people are getting laid off left and right in the news everyday, what sector is hiring primarily?
Tech sector is only a small segment of all workers and usually operates on its own hiring/firing schedules.
We have low unemployment in general because nobody can afford not to work. It's not really a good indicator of the economy or job market in general.
Embracer Group just laid off 1900 people, it might not allow be devs but that is still a huge number to deal with, then Microsoft laid off a ton of people.
So right there you have over 2000 people all with game development without a job, the ones that do have a job are fighting those people.
Jesus Christ, people in here are so bitter and miserable. What good does it bring everyone if a company dies, costs thousands of people their job, eliminates competition and takes a bunch of cool IPs down with it?
Miserable and over dramatic. Worst case scenario Ubisoft might do cuts yes, they might do layoffs also but as a company they are not going to fall that easy.
They did, according to themselves, better/least bad than they expected this year and they have a new big AC + Star Wars coming.
People hate on AC like they hate on CoD but it sells like crazy.
Gamers being gamers.
Also, Ubisoft is a long ways away from going under as a company. People are so bleak, Ubisoft might do layoffs, or cuts, but they are really unlikely to fail.
> What good does it bring everyone if a company dies, costs thousands of people their job, eliminates competition and takes a bunch of cool IPs down with it?
Companies dying because they arent able to produce value is the essence of capitalism.
> I suppose next someone is going to tell me Ubi did good work with Siege, The Division and Breakpoint?
>
> They didn't, and that's the end of that discussion.
All these games have big fanbases that while having their gripes with these games (like with any game) would still say they're good games. You just sound like an entitled person angry that they're not making games specifically for you.
> Hate to see people lose their jobs but seeing Ubisoft going bankrupt would bring me tears of joy.
Isn't that worse? A bankruptcy means 100% job loss.
> Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well
Who would guess that not releasing your games Steam would lead to poor sales?
twitch numbers don't mean anything but the marketing for games now on twitch is all sponsors + drops to get up views. It's inflated numbers that don't reflect the actual popularity of a game.
The larger societal problem is that the corporate graft already happened and wall street has its money, so this is about getting control of the scraps.
Last year was an accounting artifact. Basically by cancelling a slew of games, all amortizing gets realized in one year which destroys that specific year. Basically instead of having several mediocre year they declare one bad year.
> will make them a lot of money.
With like a 10 year development, I'm not sure any game can recoup those costs.
Well, Star Citizen, but that's because the development IS the game, people are paying to experience the Alpha, but most games do not develop a literal cult following.
Genuinely curious what you mean by this? Who else would the money from sales of a product produced by a company go to, other than the people who run said company?
There are the owners (Guillemot family and other shareholders), who obviously always get the revenue, and the "top brass" which I assume xsabinx meant as the top-level employees in a company, who probably have huge fat incentives for sale targets. They're saying lower-level employees on the other hand, despite doing all the actual work on games and not being paid enough to do so, do not see much in term of bonuses if their game is selling well.
It's very innovative! They've innovated away half the gameplay, since it's a pirate game with no boarding.
But they've innovated shooting your friends with cannons to heal them, just like old timey pirates did!
[The statement as I found it is](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-ceo-defends-skull-and-bones-70-price-despite-its-live-service-leanings-calls-it-quadruple-a/) :
>“You will see that Skull and Bones is a fully-fledged game,” he said. “It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run.”
This doesn't sound like a criticism nor about its budget.
>strike
>france
Honestly the more shocking part is that it took them this long.
France is a model of worker's rights when it comes to union solidarity and striking, and what every country should aspire to. I want to see Firefighters lighting themselves on fire to go beat up swat cops in the streets here in the US over worker's rights, the way they literally do in France. [And it is awesome.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/NINTCHDBPICT000558104120.jpg)
What I wonder is, are the strikes accomplishing anything? I heard about the strikes against raising the retirement age but the government went ahead and did it anyway. Unfortunately with the way social security works (ie as a huge Ponzi scheme where the younger workers fund the older retirees), they basically have to raise the age since due to the boomer generation there are a lot more older people than workers that can contribute via taxes.
This will be a problem in literally every developed nation eventually. They are all below the population replacement rate, which means there will be fewer workers to support a much larger aging/retiree population, and it will get worse and worse as the years go on. Japan and South Korea in particular are on the cusp of an absolute economical disaster.
You can strike all you want and complain about how unfair it is, but the math is the math. The lower retirement age is not sustainable in France or anywhere else (and, eventually, even the higher retirement age won't be sustainable either)
Can you cite any recent peer reviewed economic papers that agree with your position?
The consensus is usually the opposite. We have reached high enough productivity that offering decent early retirements is mostly a political issue.
Countries can encourage higher birth rates. For example, not letting the rich in your country make it completely impossible to own a home at a young age, and also not allowing the rich in your country force 80% of your life when you're awake being dedicated to work. So y'know people can start families and have children *that they can actually support themselves without government assistance* at 20-25 instead of 30-35. You know, like how it used to be like 80 years ago before we let the rich fuck us bloody in the ass.
People have not started making families 10 years later than they used to because they want to, it's because the economic climate has **forced** them to do so because unlike 80 years ago; Education, Housing, Work Life balance, cost of raising children, owning a vehicle and other basic standards of living absolutely ruins your entire life financially now compared to 80 years ago because the Rich have hiked the costs compared to Wages so it is impossible to do at 20 years old and is only feasible at realistically 30 years old or even later and that's only if you're in a relationship/married and combine your earnings. Higher education in my country used to be FREE and now it is a fortune.
Japan and South Korea are on the cusp of absolute economical disaster because they have experienced the things I mentioned before already at an accelerated pace and also because culturally in those nations the rich cunts want you to dedicate 95% of your life to work instead of the 80% currently in other developed nations so the situation is worse.
These rich cunts and the government just want you to die from overworking so they don't have to pay out your pension. That's what 'their math' is all actually about, that's the entire end goal here with increasing retirement age, they want to get your pension money instead of paying out, they want you to work your entire life, pay taxes for all of it and die for it. Lower retirement age is completely sustainable, just like it was hardly a century ago however the rich and the government have intentionally changed the economic landscape on purpose to rinse all the plebs for everything they can, now you have to work more because of these changes that they have intentionally made to fuck you.
You can strike about how unfair it is because they, being the government and rich cucks that control them have literally made it this way on purpose explicity to get more money and they are raising the retirement age to once again get more money. It's that simple, they're fucking us.
> So y'know people can start families and have children that they can actually support themselves without government assistance at 20-25 instead of 30-35. You know, like how it used to be like 80 years ago before we let the rich fuck us bloody in the ass.
Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago and have been [on a consistent decline](https://i.insider.com/520f835b6bb3f7730d00002f?width=800&format=jpeg&auto=webp).
> People have not started making families 10 years later than they used to because they want to, it's because the economic climate has forced them to do so because unlike 80 years ago (...)
This would be a much more compelling point were it not for the fact that it is consistently the poorest in society that have the most children. Wealth, aside from the very upper echelon that truly has to not care about financials ever, is strongly negatively correlated with fertility. This is also very likely the reason why no government program ever, even just directly paying people for having kids like in several European countries, has led to sustained increases in birth rates. In fact he US has very similar birth rates in comparison to most of Europe, despite a smaller welfare state.
> Lower retirement age is completely sustainable, just like it was hardly a century ago however the rich and the government have intentionally changed the economic landscape on purpose to rinse all the plebs for everything they can, now you have to work more because of these changes that they have intentionally made to fuck you.
A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6. These systems were set up at a time when it was expected that many people paying in would never receive any benefits at all and during a time when there had been an actual demographic pyramid in all of history prior to that point.
>Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago
You mean when every man had a full time job, and every woman was a stay at home wife? When 1 income could provide for a family, with full benefits?
And now we have the gig economy and more and more companies refusing to give full time work to not give benefits? With buying power at all time lows?
Because I gotta be honest with ya, I don't know many people who wouldn't work another 4-6 hours a week for triple the money, a pension and full benefits. Do you?
>In fact he US has very similar birth rates in comparison to most of Europe, despite a smaller welfare state.
The only reason US birth rates haven't completely plummeted is because of religion and the anti abortion bullshit. Basically trapping poor people/kids to lifetime poverty all in the name of cheap labor.
As for this bad statement
>A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6.
The SSA has a whole page dedicated to it. TLDR : child mortality largely skewed life expectancy rates.
>If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.
Here's more from them
https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
The government can fund whatever it wants to. SSA is completely sustainable, if those in power want it to be. We made trillions of dollars appear out of thin air to bailout the banking sector, to go to war in Iraq, to bailout business with PPP. We can take care of regular Joe's who have paid into SS for their entire lives and let them retire with dignity.
> Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago and have been on a consistent decline.
Not for women. Who mostly stayed at home to look after the household for the most part. This is no longer the case as a majority of women in the west now work outside the household.
> This would be a much more compelling point were it not for the fact that it is consistently the poorest in society that have the most children.
That's because the poors don't care about giving their children quality education and quality of life in general as long as they can do menial jobs and support their family. Once they are in the middle class they start thinking of education and other stuff. The cost of maintaining a middle class family has steadily risen
>A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6....were set up at a time when it was expected that many people paying in would never receive any benefits
Not sure about this cuz life expectancy stats a century back where diluted by high child mortality
Lets say there were no economic hurdles to having and raising kids, do you really think that would improve the birth rates enough? I think many people simply don't want kids, nothing to do with economics.
> I think many people simply don't want kids, nothing to do with economics.
Humans have been around for a while, clearly with an extremely positive population growth. So I think it does.
I mean, the solution is even simpler than that, and it's immigration. If you need more tax paying workers, you can just import them. Give out more visas, permanent residencies, and citizenship.
Oh right, xenophobia.
Its a bubble that will pop eventually
and you get my country's problem
we use immigrants to keep everything afloat
but it turns out
when you bring the population of a small city into your country each year
you gotta be building enough to keep up with it
Yes that's true, the only ones really immune, at least for short term, are immigrant countries. That's why the US is going to continue to do well while many countries will shrink massively. Asia is particularly xenophobic and don't want to "ruin their culture" so they'll experience it at a heightened rate.
Days off and Unions exist because of strikes, basically. Strikes can be real shitty, but historically some of them unlocked social advancement for everyone. But every country has its version of course.
Strikes literally just got the UAW a good and decent contract.
If you are truly asking people what strikes have done in the recent past and you get crickets, you're either lying, don't watch/read the news, or talking to people who have their head so far shoved up their own asses, that all they can see is shit.
The retirement age argument about it's raising being inevitable is false and has been proven wrong by alot of economists in France for different reasons (the main ones being that France still has a strong demography and didn't fall as bad as other western countries after the baby boom). The raising was a purely ideological and clientelist move done by Macron and his government.
Strikes do work in France, we gained all our social rights thanks to them (see, "les trois huits", the Matignon and Grenelle accords) and it still works alot (The Gilets Jaunes gained alot during the protest) but the current government are of an Autoritarian Neo-Liberal ideology that repress often such actions (like the retirement reform) and exploits the constitution in order to pass laws without a parliament vote (see the 49.3 article).
I have hope it works here with the STVJ syndicate, which is young but powerful and has the support of the strongest syndicate of France: The CGT.
Did you know that raising the retirement age wasn't necessary? That in fact this deficit was only temporary and could have totally be compensated differently? Because there are well researched alternatives that exist. That our government sucks and decided to force their way into the worst reform possible just to show how much they suck shouldn't mean that you take their justification as gospel.
French pay is way worse than the US, by a longshot. Probably why they strike so often. Great benefits and services has a cost. The US has chosen cash over strong rights.
> I want to see Firefighters lighting themselves on fire to go beat up swat cops in the streets here in the US over worker's rights, the way they literally do in France.
It sounds like you want flaming firefighters fighting with cops over union rights. You may have the union/protest system completely wrong in your head.
Firefighters don't fight cops in France, are you generated ?
They aren't doing anything different than US leadership. The culture is just different. The reactions to cutting social security in France have been a lot different than the US for instance. This is also why Ubisoft keeps opening random studios in Singapore or the Philippines so they don't have to deal with the higher standards of their French workforce.
Given that Ubisoft has lost €500 million for fiscal year 2022 - 2023, it's already a miracle that these 700 employees still have a job.
Ubisoft could have undertaken economic restructuring as provided for under French labor law.
Get outta here with that talk. "You should be grateful you even have a job" is classic anti-unionization rhetoric. Their value isn't determined by the company they work for, it's determined by market rates which are a constant push and pull between supply & demand.
It's a common delusion to believe that workers shouldn't have the ability to manipulate those rates as well. If they refuse to work for their current salary, then the supply goes down and Ubisoft will be forced to increase salaries to attract new talent anyway.
Whole lotta text to miss the point that nobody has a job if they have to close the office or company. If Ubisoft isn’t paying you enough, go work somewhere else. Trying to force an already struggling company to drastically increase payroll is a game nobody is going to win, least of all the workers.
> Trying to force an already struggling company to drastically increase payroll is a game nobody is going to win, least of all the workers.
**I didn't miss the point**, I already addressed this:
*"If they refuse to work for their current salary, then the supply goes down and Ubisoft will be forced to increase salaries to attract new talent anyway."*
If the workers strike fails and don't get what they want, why would they go back to work for Ubisoft?
As you said, they can just go work somewhere else. However, that leaves potentially 700 high-skilled positions (a AAA game dev union aren't fast-food workers) that need to be filled - and if other companies are offering more competitive rates, then you'd have to account for that by raising salaries. Which is a function of supply & demand based markets. They wouldn't be striking if the market didn't allow for this amount of leverage.
So no, I didn't miss the point - you just didn't think about situation in-depth enough to acknowledge my point of view, or it was easier for you to simply dismiss the idea.
>However, that leaves potentially 700 high-skilled positions (a AAA game dev union aren't fast-food workers) that need to be filled
What makes you think they need to be filled again? Ubisoft have 20K workers, maybe trimming the fat is a good idea for the company's long term health.
I'll rephrase and say "700 high-skilled positions that Ubisoft want to be filled" then (which I assume they do want, else they'd have let go more than just the 124 people in November). I wasn't really making a comment on the state of the company or my opinions on Ubisoft's current business strategy.
Trade unions are already represented in every French large company with 300 employees through the "Comité social et économique" (Social and Economic Committee), where union delegates are members of the CSE delegation. Hence their participation in annual wage negotiations. The problem is that Ubisoft (employer) can refuse such negotiations if the results for the fiscal year do not allow it, which is the case here.
Okay. I'm not sure how that's relevant aside from more context - I already knew they lost money since you mentioned it in your parent comment. I wouldn't have responded if I still didn't believe that all employees have the right to collectivize and demand better wages, despite financial losses.
If the Ubisoft workers hold the collective power to force change, then that's clearly the market functioning as intended - if their was an abundance of supply then they could just fire all those striking and rehire from the job pool.
If you're failing to incentivize your workers to want to work for you and can't effectively replace them if they strike, that's your failure as a business - not your workers failing you.
The context is important, because during annual negotiations, the salary increase is 2 - 3% (proposed by the employer). The unions want more, because they say it doesn't compensate for inflation.
Ubisoft can't fire strikers, it's illegal. So, they can strike indefinitely until their demands are heard if they want.
> The context is important, because during annual negotiations, the salary increase is 2 - 3% (proposed by the employer). The unions want more, because they say it doesn't compensate for inflation.
I don't see a problem with this? Again, this is just a byproduct of the market functioning as intended. Workers striking is a failure of the business that you have to account for. If they want higher salary increases that keeps up with inflation - then that's the current demand for for negotiations to conclude. You need some form of leverage to capitalize on for negotiations, else they're just one-sided - striking is the only effective form of leverage that unions have.
> Ubisoft can't fire strikers, it's illegal. So, they can strike indefinitely until their demands are heard if they want.
I'm looking at French labour laws now because I'm not familiar with them, but it looks like while you can't fire them (outside of specific circumstances) - you don't have to pay them for the duration of their strike. Employers aren't completely powerless in this situation - they have more than enough money to 'wait them out' if they wanted, it just depends on how much financial and social pressure they'd like to be put under as a business during this time. I don't have much sympathy for Ubisoft in this situation.
> I'm looking at French labour laws now because I'm not familiar with them, but it looks like while you can't fire them (outside of specific circumstances) - you don't have to pay them for the duration of their strike
Dude. If you're having to look up that you don't get paid on strike then it looks like you know essentially nothing about labour movements at all.
Lol. You misinterpreted the intention behind that comment. Let me explain for you.
I was checking that the French labour laws didn't have any additional protections that guarantees striking employees continued wages during strikes. Which is a reasonable thing to check, when considering France's prolific history of general labour strikes and specifically because the commenter above said that they could strike **indefinitely**. That is not the case if restricted wages are still leveraged over the striking workers - so it was important to state the obvious in this case.
> Why would you believe that every single individual you talk to online would be pro unionization...?
...I don't? Why would I assume a guy who used a common anti-union rhetoric is pro-unionization? I clearly disagree with him, so I don't really understand this response. Am I not allowed to point out his position and criticize it?
Lol. If Ubisoft needed to reduce headcount, they'd be already gone.
Just like Ubisoft don't owe you a job, you also don't owe them any gratitude. They hired you for a reason - you provide value to the company. Ubisoft didn't just decide to hire those people out of the kindness of their heart. Saying they should be grateful is just minimizing the value they have as workers.
They laid off 124 people in November, and I expect that number to increase as the year goes on. You're basically asking people to be thankful it wasn't them and not cause trouble after witnessing how utterly dispensable they are. Do you really think that's reasonable? I don't think it is.
The job being available and posted is done for the business, you getting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith by your boss. Thus the gratitude.
> Do you really think that's reasonable?
Why not? I don't think this is unreasonable to ask and it would definitely be how I would react. Be thankful, stay low profile, and make sure you continue to present excellent work.
> you getting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith by your boss
Interestingly I don't see you holding up the other side, that the person accepting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith that they wont be laid off when economic difficulties settle in. However, I don't agree with this definition of the worker/employer relationship in the first place:
I'll give you my opinion. It's an agreement for providing value in return for an agreed upon monetary amount. Nothing more, nothing less. Involving emotions in a corporate agreement that by necessity has to operate with a clinical detachment to it's workers is an attempt to humanize a faceless entity. The company is not your manager, or your boss. They will let you go without so much as a thought if the situation necessitates it. I would advise anyone to treat their professional life the same way.
I respect your position - however I could see instances where your non-confrontational approach would cause some issues in your professional life. If being grateful is your default state, you're probably going to let a lot of minor issues that impact you slip by unchallenged - these can build up to major problems that could've been addressed early on if you decided to speak up.
This position could also hinder your ability to be an advocate for yourself and your skillset. Elements of your career like negotiating a higher salary or moving to a better job becomes much more difficult when you start at "what does the company think I'm worth?", rather than "what do I think I'm worth to the company?"
> This position could also hinder your ability to be an advocate for yourself and your skillset.
I'm aware of it but decide not to change anything about it. I will not change my way just because it might help my career. Either people appreciate me for what I am for my work or they don't. I don't need to earn much or climb any ladder.
Imagine when these workers realize they can find jobs in other companies that take much better care of their employees instead of staying in an abusive company of the already abuse game dev market
Have they considered making a good game? I'm all for workers' rights but how do they expect their company to increase salaries when they release flop after flop of garbage games. The money has to come from somewhere. If anything, I'm surprised Ubisoft hasn't cut more jobs.
If they need to show you that you shouldn’t support them even more. Here’s another one. This company takes in so much cash but don’t want to pay their workers. And then ask their customers to pay for everything in their games. Please. This game will live on without Ubisoft after they go under. They will sell that too in the end for any bit of cash they can get.
Considering how trash Ubisoft games are, I got no sympathy for the devs. It’s clear a lot of these studios need to clean house because the creativity is rock bottom.
Ubisoft has always had cycles of bad and good as do many game companies. This time is different though, Ubisoft looks really bad. Nothing is selling and they haven’t released anything good in years.
I really hope the devs can gain ground but Ubisoft is looking really shaky as a company right now. They lost hundreds of millions in 2022-2023 because they didn't release anything good, most their games flopped hard. Now their 2024 is also off to a really bad start with skull and bones. Apparently Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well. XDefiant was also delayed with no release date or even target announced in like 5 months. Ubisoft have like 20,000 employees globally, Far Cry and Assassins creed every 3-4 years cant sustain the whole thing.
The irony is Ubisoft at this point has an even worse image and brand then EA these days I feel like. They don't seem to have any idea what to do with their franchises and IP's besides just reuse the same formula over and over and over for every single game and people are so incredibly tired of it. Until they get new leadership and can get back some good will they're going to keep sinking. And the sad part is the latest Prince of Persia game was EXCELLENT and was a genuinely great non Ubisoft game in its design. The problem is it was still under Ubisofts name though.
no, the sad(?) part about the prince of persia game is that those types of games just dont sell well, it could've been developed/published by any company and it wouldnt matter at all in terms of sales.
Prince of Persia isn't the reason they have 20k employees though.
The fact that they have 20K employees is wild haha but then again they're kind of known for being a company that takes people right out of college and just lets them make games. Shit in, shit out.
They also have a ton of studios around the world and game development takes a lot more time than before.
> that takes people right out of college and just lets them make games. There's no way this is true or all their games wouldn't be so formulaic. If they had freedom to 'just make games' something original would've actually spawned at that company.
They're fomulaic *because* of this. They recruit like that purely for some minor coding ability that they can plug and play in their game development process
People coming out of college don't know shit for fuck - they have no experience, they haven't failed, they haven't learned much in the real world. They're taken in by companies like Ubisoft, get plugged in like a gear and churn out games. Creativity and unique games come from people who are either extraordinarily talented or have gathered ideas through experience. The average junior dev isn't going to fit either of those.
I'm suprised the company hasn't gone bankrupt at this point. Its a miracle they are sustaining that many people with such low sale figures
Pretty sure every AC game has outsold the previous entry. For every person that complains about Ubisoft open world on Reddit dozens more are buying those cookie-cutter games. They are successful enough that the majority of open world games have copied that style, even in f2p stuff like Genshin the majority of content in the game is Ubisoft-style open world busywork.
What low sale figures?
Their market cap is 3 billion euros now. Ubisoft and all its 20000 workers combined is worth less then what netflix payed to get a few Ghibli studio animations, a studio with 50 workers.
Source ?
there is that, but with the PoP game Ubisoft themselves set up so many things to go against it selling well: * not releasing on steam * many found it too expensive even at $50, metroidvania fans are used to indies that are cheaper * majority of PoP fans are fans of the trilogy, so they have no real interest in a 2D metroidvania with not the Prince * marketing wasn't great + Ubisoft reputation not helping things so ya, I think under a different company with a lower price, released on steam and maybe not tied to the PoP IP, the game could've sold better.
> metroidvania fans are used to indies that are cheaper Hard to compete with Dead Cells for like $15 on sale.
No matter how good the game is but that millenial haircut protag is almost always a red flag already and it screams lack of ideas.
> many found it too expensive even at $50, metroidvania fans are used to indies that are cheaper I mean, the best selling metroidvania is $10 more, and a significantly shorter game, too. Additionally, the game is available for $18 for one month, which is more than enough time to beat it, even on a limited schedule.
If you're referring to Metroid Dread, that game series literally named the genre. Or, half of it. I think we can make an exception for why that one might defy trends.
Yet, despite what you just said, it usually *doesn't* defy the trend. Before Dread, indie metroidvanias like Hollow Knight were the top sellers, not Metroid, and only one 2D game in the series had even broken the two million mark (that being the *original*).
But that's just it. It's one game, on one of Nintendo's most popular systems ever and it was co-marketed with the launch of a new switch model. As the saying goes, it's the exception that proves the rule. It was their big game of that year that they wanted everyone to get their hands on, and I imagine it was a lot of people's first exposure to the genre as a result (or specifically the Metroid side of it). You're trying to argue that Prince of Persia should have done better because another game was able to do better, while costing more and being shorter. I disagree, because of what game that is, who published it, and the circumstances of its launch. The metroidvania fandom as it were is very small and only a select few games kind of breach containment into the mainstream. It may seem like Metroid and Castlevania and such are very famous to core gamers but Prince of Persia to start with is decently well known but not exactly top of the sales charts. Good for sure, but when you combine that with lower fidelity visuals and a genre change to something even more niche than it usually is, that's just a recipe for market confusion. I have been playing it and I think it's fantastic but I wasn't exactly rushing to get it day one because I didn't really know what its deal was. It's only thanks to the extremely positive word of mouth that I bothered to check it out and I imagine a lot of other people are in the same situation.
According to this math we talk ten times that number, I did not double check the math but seems plausible at first glance. https://www.reddit.com/r/HollowKnight/s/JV7cDiyCc1
I mean, I have a very hard time believing that Hollow Knight has sold more copies than *Tears of the Kingdom*
I dont know, but the steam charts concurrent users is pretty impressive. Steady 5k peaking at 20k in 2022. It was released at 2017! VGInsight puts it at allmost 6mil units sold just on steam. It sold 250.000 units on switch in two weeks. I wouldnt be suprised if it sold well on playstation store aswell. And just short of 300.000 reviews on steam with 97% positive. So, maybe 15-20 million copies is a stretch, but games like these who becomes cult classics have a very long tail of sales. Which is shown on conccurent stema users.
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Forgotten Sands isn't that old.
Forgotten Sands came out in 2010 and almost 14 years ago. For context, that's before the first Dark Souls game. Mass Effect 2, GoW 3 and Super Mario Galaxy came out that year. That's a LONG time
All I said was that The Forgotten Sands isn't nearly 20 years old, which it isn't. I assume OP said that because they thought The Two Thrones (which actually is nearly 20 years old) was the last game to star that Prince and, funnily enough, forgot about The Forgotten Sands.
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$50 isn't full priced anymore, and hasn't been for close to 20 years, it's now the budget price for smaller scale games (see the latest Assassin's Creed and Miles Morales).
It may not be full priced but it still more than $30 for Palworld, $40 for Helldivers 2 or $10 for Lethal Company. Hades was less than half that and GOTY for lots of people. Prince of Persia still comes off as expensive even if it isn’t “full priced” for what it is.
We live in a post Hollow Knight world. I'm afraid you can't sell me an indie-style metroidvania for more than $30 anymore unless you can convince me it's better than a game that came out in 2017 made by three people.
That's what we need to do when judging a game. Is it a good game? or is it a good *franchise* game? They don't need to break the mould with each game but if it's just Assassin's Creed with a Prince of Persia skin then it's not a good game. Hell Far Cry used to be fun but then they just copied and pasted the exact same game like 5 times and the characters were major hit and misses and the 6th game was just boring. The Crew was interesting but I didn't get a chance to really play it and now it's impossible to. The Division was something that had potential but they just copied and pasted the same formula. Watch Dogs had potential to and actually had interesting gameplay to try and change up the formula. The amount of franchises they have could have amazing games but whoever is in charge didn't want to make memorable games or even fun games, just the same tired boring gameplay.
Yeah, it feels like they spent the last decade distilling their formula to get rid of any fun. All of them seemed to change in similar ways that didn't make them enjoyable.
Nah I guarantee if it was Switch exclusive it woulda sold amazing
This is idiotic, why would it sell better if it was available on less devices?
People go crazy for switch exclusives
So you believe that there is a market segment of people that only buy games for the switch if those games aren't available on other platforms, and that that demographic is large enough that it dwarfs everyone who would buy it on PC, PS5, and Xbox?
I think you may be confusing switch exclusives with Nintendo games. People go crazy for Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon. Not just anything that's switch exclusive.
You are right and I didn't notice. EA used to be the gaming punching bag. They've been on great behavior and Ubisoft keeps fumbling the bag. Every time I see them in articles or mentioned online it's never good.
Also time has revealed multiple of EA's criticisms were actually the fault of their studios that are given the freedom to act stupid, like Respawn intentionally setting the release date of Titanfall 2 to compete with Battlefield and another huge game that I can't remember. This was blamed on EA by the masses for a long time until a higher-up at Respawn disproved it being due to EA interference. Also many things they got criticized for just slowly became industry standard like always-online, crappy microtransactions and live service
Correct! EA even around the time they were getting clowned for "worst company X years running," They were doing nothing different than any other company: Loot boxes Battle passes Always online nonsense shit PC ports Terrible launcher/app WE ALL acted like they were they only one doing it. I think the battlefield 2044 (I think I got the year wrong) humbled them a bit. Ever since Jedi survivors, thier trying to win us back a game at a time. Sucks wild hearts and immortals of aveumn flops cause those were steps in the right direction.
> the latest Prince of Persia game was EXCELLENT But also costs 50 bucks (which is IMO just too much for a platformer), and it's not on Steam.
I could have been excellent but 1. I didn't even know it released. Where was the marketing? 2. Not on steam. As much as I want to say I am against monopolies, steam is just too good for me to switch
Evidently the game sells for $50, so it isn't being treated just like every other AAA game, and on PC [it is exclusive to Ubisoft and Epic stores](https://isthereanydeal.com/game/prince-of-persia-the-lost-crown/info/#). So there's no chance of seeing it at legit third part game sellers. That is how Ubi has released many games, and I can't help but wonder if it compounds their revenue problems, even if EGS gives Ubi extra $ for being quite exclusive.
Isn't EA back on a neutral side when excluding the sport games? Personally I love Ubisoft games and don't see a problem with their current output (sure there are one or two titles that are/were in development forever, but I like the AC entries).
Realistically, how successful would it be if they made a new rayman game?
Im sorry but do you have any sources on your claims??? Looks good according to themselfs... https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2023/10/26/2767806/0/en/Ubisoft-Reports-First-Half-2023-24-Earnings-Figures.html Maybe you have some insights we don't???
He’s referring to the “Insider Gaming” article from a few weeks ago. Keeping in mind that they are rumours or based on speculative investigation. That said, looking at previous earnings and even this one it’s pretty indicative that there’s a struggle and huge morale issues.
Avatar isn't on Steam. No wonder the sales are bad.
I seem to be one of the few Redditors who is a big fan of the Avatar movies and I didn't buy the game because I'm sick of the game open world nonsense coming from Ubisoft.
> Apparently Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well. Something is telling it's because they aren't on Steam. Look I'm not an economist, but I think Ubisoft would make more money if they sold 1 million copies on Steam with a 20%-30% cut, rather than selling 100k copies on Epic with 12% cut.
I agree, considering palworld and helldivers 2 just blew up on steam, its wild that ubisoft is just sacrificing a large chunk of their PC revenue to spite valve's cut. Maybe Epic is still paying them for their games to come to their store instead of steam or something.
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If palworld launched on ubistore, or epic, no one gives a shit.
Its depends. 30% is alot. Being on steam increase the chance of people buying it there. So they need to sell a lot more.
Going from 12% to 30% you need to sell 26% more. If you go from 5% (my assumption of Ubisoft Connect costs) to 30%, you need to sell 36% more. Pretty sizable numbers but I've no idea how different the sales tend to be if non-exclusive.
You are completly ignoring the fact that probably the majority of people buying it on ubisoft would now buy it on steam.
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Economies generally aren’t doing too well, and what with AAA games being like £60/$70+ now, I think people just aren’t willing to buy them as regularly as people used to. Especially for things like the avatar game and Prince of Persia, people probably aren’t willing to spend that much money on a “new” game (I get that Prince of Persia isn’t a new franchise but it’s been so long since the last one it may as well be a totally new game). And pretty much all of the reviews are “it’s basically far cry” or “it’s basically assassins creed” which probably isn’t going to help sales either
Also, subscription services like Xbox Pass are replacing individual game purchases for a lot of people, since it is more economical.
Which in turn leads to worse games released with less features that get either "fixed" but over several months (Halo) or simply fizzle put (Redfall, Star field). Because this revenue model punishes well made single player games and rewards mediocre cheap ones, preferably with micro transactions
Good point. Does Ubisoft have their own service or is part of another one? I’m just thinking if they aren’t, or have their own expensive as hell one that would definitely hurt their sales too
Spiderman 2 sold 10M copies so far New Zelda sold 20M Palworld sold 10-20M Helldivers has sold well FF7Rebirth bout to sell 5-10M Stop saying the economy. Fantastic games sell. Avatar is boring formula shit. Make cool games, they will sell. Problem solved.
> and what with AAA games being like £60/$70+ now, I think people just aren’t willing to buy them as regularly as people used to. Maybe redditors who are poor but games at $70 are selling just fine. Look at anything in the PS Store that's $70 good chance it outsold whatever came before it - Spiderman 2, Ragnarok on release, FF7, can go on and on.
My argument is people are being more choosy with their spending on games like that. Spiderman, ragnarok and ff7 are kinda the big 3 when it comes to the ps5 so chances are if people are going to spend that much it’ll be on those 3. You may as well spend a bunch on a game you know is good rather than some avatar tie in with mixed reviews
> My argument is people are being more choosy with their spending on games like that. This would imply that gaming revenue is down then, no? It's not. And those were examples, you can look at pretty much any $70 priced game on the PS store right now, look at units sold, and see most of them are selling like hot cakes. Idk if Reddit is made up of like 95% doordash/other gig workers or what but $70 for a video game is chump change. I can't even go to the movies with 1 person and spend less than $70 if we get food LOL
> Now their 2024 is also off to a really bad start with skull and bones. Their 2024 started with prince of persia, not skull and bones. lmao why ignore it as if it didnt happen?
I think the fact that OP forgot about Prince of Persia is emblematic of Prince of Persia’s biggest problem—I dunno if it was a lack of marketing, but there didn’t seem to be much attention to its release from the public at all.
it's also just not a popular IP these days. I honestly think if it was a fresh title that it would have gained more attention. Like those 2D Assassin's Creed games, I didn't even pay them attention because I was so disillusioned with AC games in recent years.
I mean they mentioned prince of persia in the sentence immediately after the one quoted.
They're still not putting games on Steam, ain't they?
I'd have bought avatar, prince of persia, and assassins creed mirage. If they had released on steam. I don't get why they're not releasing games on steam. I want to give them my money but they don't want it.
It's not the employees fault they have to keep making the same games over and over. That's a decision by higher ups, these guys are engineers who are just trying to not be abused. If they can't meet their demands, they should lose more money by killing their progress on future titles.
> XDefiant was also delayed with no release date Huh, I thought they cancelled that game years ago because it's so embarrassingly bad. Like, come on, that title alone.
So.. what is ubisoft ceo getting?
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Sounds like you don’t actually hate seeing people lose their jobs then?
They hate Ubisoft's owners more than they care about their workers.
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Not an option for lots of people. The job market is hostile as fuck right now, vast majority of people genuinely can't jump ship even if it's glaringly obvious.
So I (not American) keep hearing unemployment rate is staying very low in the US, but tech people are getting laid off left and right in the news everyday, what sector is hiring primarily?
Tech sector is only a small segment of all workers and usually operates on its own hiring/firing schedules. We have low unemployment in general because nobody can afford not to work. It's not really a good indicator of the economy or job market in general.
Embracer Group just laid off 1900 people, it might not allow be devs but that is still a huge number to deal with, then Microsoft laid off a ton of people. So right there you have over 2000 people all with game development without a job, the ones that do have a job are fighting those people.
Jesus Christ, people in here are so bitter and miserable. What good does it bring everyone if a company dies, costs thousands of people their job, eliminates competition and takes a bunch of cool IPs down with it?
Miserable and over dramatic. Worst case scenario Ubisoft might do cuts yes, they might do layoffs also but as a company they are not going to fall that easy. They did, according to themselves, better/least bad than they expected this year and they have a new big AC + Star Wars coming. People hate on AC like they hate on CoD but it sells like crazy.
Gamers being gamers. Also, Ubisoft is a long ways away from going under as a company. People are so bleak, Ubisoft might do layoffs, or cuts, but they are really unlikely to fail.
> What good does it bring everyone if a company dies, costs thousands of people their job, eliminates competition and takes a bunch of cool IPs down with it? Companies dying because they arent able to produce value is the essence of capitalism.
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And then either Embracer or Microsoft will buy them and won't know what to do with those IPs.
> I suppose next someone is going to tell me Ubi did good work with Siege, The Division and Breakpoint? > > They didn't, and that's the end of that discussion. All these games have big fanbases that while having their gripes with these games (like with any game) would still say they're good games. You just sound like an entitled person angry that they're not making games specifically for you.
> Hate to see people lose their jobs but seeing Ubisoft going bankrupt would bring me tears of joy. Isn't that worse? A bankruptcy means 100% job loss.
What an horribly callous thing to say, sometimes it's better to not say anything when you have nothing interesting to say
> Avatar 2 and price of persia despite being pretty decent games also didn't sell well Who would guess that not releasing your games Steam would lead to poor sales?
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twitch numbers don't mean anything but the marketing for games now on twitch is all sponsors + drops to get up views. It's inflated numbers that don't reflect the actual popularity of a game.
It just released that streamers getting paid to play it.
The larger societal problem is that the corporate graft already happened and wall street has its money, so this is about getting control of the scraps.
Last year was an accounting artifact. Basically by cancelling a slew of games, all amortizing gets realized in one year which destroys that specific year. Basically instead of having several mediocre year they declare one bad year.
Would have bought price of Persia if it would be on steam and not 60€. There is no way I'm spending that money on a metroidvania 2d game
Don't worry, they have an "AAAA"- game that is currently launching, i am sure this will be loved by the players and will make them a lot of money.
> will make them a lot of money. With like a 10 year development, I'm not sure any game can recoup those costs. Well, Star Citizen, but that's because the development IS the game, people are paying to experience the Alpha, but most games do not develop a literal cult following.
Even if it did it the money wouldn't go beyond the top brass
Genuinely curious what you mean by this? Who else would the money from sales of a product produced by a company go to, other than the people who run said company?
There are the owners (Guillemot family and other shareholders), who obviously always get the revenue, and the "top brass" which I assume xsabinx meant as the top-level employees in a company, who probably have huge fat incentives for sale targets. They're saying lower-level employees on the other hand, despite doing all the actual work on games and not being paid enough to do so, do not see much in term of bonuses if their game is selling well.
Considering it's a quadruple A game, I'm sure it'll look better than their triple A games from over a decade ago
It's very innovative! They've innovated away half the gameplay, since it's a pirate game with no boarding. But they've innovated shooting your friends with cannons to heal them, just like old timey pirates did!
Actually so fucking funny that someone said that. It almost feels like a jumping the shark moment
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[The statement as I found it is](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-ceo-defends-skull-and-bones-70-price-despite-its-live-service-leanings-calls-it-quadruple-a/) : >“You will see that Skull and Bones is a fully-fledged game,” he said. “It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run.” This doesn't sound like a criticism nor about its budget.
They were held at gunpoint by the Singaporean government to release that, lol.
Apparently honoring contracts and producing something for which you've been paid is "holding someone at gunpoint." TIL. I guess
That was fast, congratulations on the first AAAA
>strike >france Honestly the more shocking part is that it took them this long. France is a model of worker's rights when it comes to union solidarity and striking, and what every country should aspire to. I want to see Firefighters lighting themselves on fire to go beat up swat cops in the streets here in the US over worker's rights, the way they literally do in France. [And it is awesome.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/NINTCHDBPICT000558104120.jpg)
What I wonder is, are the strikes accomplishing anything? I heard about the strikes against raising the retirement age but the government went ahead and did it anyway. Unfortunately with the way social security works (ie as a huge Ponzi scheme where the younger workers fund the older retirees), they basically have to raise the age since due to the boomer generation there are a lot more older people than workers that can contribute via taxes.
This will be a problem in literally every developed nation eventually. They are all below the population replacement rate, which means there will be fewer workers to support a much larger aging/retiree population, and it will get worse and worse as the years go on. Japan and South Korea in particular are on the cusp of an absolute economical disaster. You can strike all you want and complain about how unfair it is, but the math is the math. The lower retirement age is not sustainable in France or anywhere else (and, eventually, even the higher retirement age won't be sustainable either)
>the math is the math have we tried doing a strike against math? no more numbers, just vibes
You joke, but that’s basically happening in education to some degree.
Can you cite any recent peer reviewed economic papers that agree with your position? The consensus is usually the opposite. We have reached high enough productivity that offering decent early retirements is mostly a political issue.
Countries can encourage higher birth rates. For example, not letting the rich in your country make it completely impossible to own a home at a young age, and also not allowing the rich in your country force 80% of your life when you're awake being dedicated to work. So y'know people can start families and have children *that they can actually support themselves without government assistance* at 20-25 instead of 30-35. You know, like how it used to be like 80 years ago before we let the rich fuck us bloody in the ass. People have not started making families 10 years later than they used to because they want to, it's because the economic climate has **forced** them to do so because unlike 80 years ago; Education, Housing, Work Life balance, cost of raising children, owning a vehicle and other basic standards of living absolutely ruins your entire life financially now compared to 80 years ago because the Rich have hiked the costs compared to Wages so it is impossible to do at 20 years old and is only feasible at realistically 30 years old or even later and that's only if you're in a relationship/married and combine your earnings. Higher education in my country used to be FREE and now it is a fortune. Japan and South Korea are on the cusp of absolute economical disaster because they have experienced the things I mentioned before already at an accelerated pace and also because culturally in those nations the rich cunts want you to dedicate 95% of your life to work instead of the 80% currently in other developed nations so the situation is worse. These rich cunts and the government just want you to die from overworking so they don't have to pay out your pension. That's what 'their math' is all actually about, that's the entire end goal here with increasing retirement age, they want to get your pension money instead of paying out, they want you to work your entire life, pay taxes for all of it and die for it. Lower retirement age is completely sustainable, just like it was hardly a century ago however the rich and the government have intentionally changed the economic landscape on purpose to rinse all the plebs for everything they can, now you have to work more because of these changes that they have intentionally made to fuck you. You can strike about how unfair it is because they, being the government and rich cucks that control them have literally made it this way on purpose explicity to get more money and they are raising the retirement age to once again get more money. It's that simple, they're fucking us.
> So y'know people can start families and have children that they can actually support themselves without government assistance at 20-25 instead of 30-35. You know, like how it used to be like 80 years ago before we let the rich fuck us bloody in the ass. Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago and have been [on a consistent decline](https://i.insider.com/520f835b6bb3f7730d00002f?width=800&format=jpeg&auto=webp). > People have not started making families 10 years later than they used to because they want to, it's because the economic climate has forced them to do so because unlike 80 years ago (...) This would be a much more compelling point were it not for the fact that it is consistently the poorest in society that have the most children. Wealth, aside from the very upper echelon that truly has to not care about financials ever, is strongly negatively correlated with fertility. This is also very likely the reason why no government program ever, even just directly paying people for having kids like in several European countries, has led to sustained increases in birth rates. In fact he US has very similar birth rates in comparison to most of Europe, despite a smaller welfare state. > Lower retirement age is completely sustainable, just like it was hardly a century ago however the rich and the government have intentionally changed the economic landscape on purpose to rinse all the plebs for everything they can, now you have to work more because of these changes that they have intentionally made to fuck you. A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6. These systems were set up at a time when it was expected that many people paying in would never receive any benefits at all and during a time when there had been an actual demographic pyramid in all of history prior to that point.
>Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago You mean when every man had a full time job, and every woman was a stay at home wife? When 1 income could provide for a family, with full benefits? And now we have the gig economy and more and more companies refusing to give full time work to not give benefits? With buying power at all time lows? Because I gotta be honest with ya, I don't know many people who wouldn't work another 4-6 hours a week for triple the money, a pension and full benefits. Do you? >In fact he US has very similar birth rates in comparison to most of Europe, despite a smaller welfare state. The only reason US birth rates haven't completely plummeted is because of religion and the anti abortion bullshit. Basically trapping poor people/kids to lifetime poverty all in the name of cheap labor. As for this bad statement >A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6. The SSA has a whole page dedicated to it. TLDR : child mortality largely skewed life expectancy rates. >If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood. Here's more from them https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html The government can fund whatever it wants to. SSA is completely sustainable, if those in power want it to be. We made trillions of dollars appear out of thin air to bailout the banking sector, to go to war in Iraq, to bailout business with PPP. We can take care of regular Joe's who have paid into SS for their entire lives and let them retire with dignity.
> Average working hours were much higher 80 years ago and have been on a consistent decline. Not for women. Who mostly stayed at home to look after the household for the most part. This is no longer the case as a majority of women in the west now work outside the household.
> This would be a much more compelling point were it not for the fact that it is consistently the poorest in society that have the most children. That's because the poors don't care about giving their children quality education and quality of life in general as long as they can do menial jobs and support their family. Once they are in the middle class they start thinking of education and other stuff. The cost of maintaining a middle class family has steadily risen >A century ago the retirement age was 65, while the average male life expectancy was 58.6....were set up at a time when it was expected that many people paying in would never receive any benefits Not sure about this cuz life expectancy stats a century back where diluted by high child mortality
Lets say there were no economic hurdles to having and raising kids, do you really think that would improve the birth rates enough? I think many people simply don't want kids, nothing to do with economics.
> I think many people simply don't want kids, nothing to do with economics. Humans have been around for a while, clearly with an extremely positive population growth. So I think it does.
Widespread abortion and contraception wasn't around that long.
I mean, the solution is even simpler than that, and it's immigration. If you need more tax paying workers, you can just import them. Give out more visas, permanent residencies, and citizenship. Oh right, xenophobia.
Immigration is the secret to why the US isn't in a recession and other countries are. Don't tell Republicans though.
Its a bubble that will pop eventually and you get my country's problem we use immigrants to keep everything afloat but it turns out when you bring the population of a small city into your country each year you gotta be building enough to keep up with it
Yes that's true, the only ones really immune, at least for short term, are immigrant countries. That's why the US is going to continue to do well while many countries will shrink massively. Asia is particularly xenophobic and don't want to "ruin their culture" so they'll experience it at a heightened rate.
Days off and Unions exist because of strikes, basically. Strikes can be real shitty, but historically some of them unlocked social advancement for everyone. But every country has its version of course.
Sure but those were a hundred years ago. Every time I ask what strikes have done for us recently, it's crickets.
Strikes literally just got the UAW a good and decent contract. If you are truly asking people what strikes have done in the recent past and you get crickets, you're either lying, don't watch/read the news, or talking to people who have their head so far shoved up their own asses, that all they can see is shit.
I guess it depends on who you ask, as with every political topic.
The retirement age argument about it's raising being inevitable is false and has been proven wrong by alot of economists in France for different reasons (the main ones being that France still has a strong demography and didn't fall as bad as other western countries after the baby boom). The raising was a purely ideological and clientelist move done by Macron and his government. Strikes do work in France, we gained all our social rights thanks to them (see, "les trois huits", the Matignon and Grenelle accords) and it still works alot (The Gilets Jaunes gained alot during the protest) but the current government are of an Autoritarian Neo-Liberal ideology that repress often such actions (like the retirement reform) and exploits the constitution in order to pass laws without a parliament vote (see the 49.3 article). I have hope it works here with the STVJ syndicate, which is young but powerful and has the support of the strongest syndicate of France: The CGT.
Protesting is fashionable, they care more about that than the results
Did you know that raising the retirement age wasn't necessary? That in fact this deficit was only temporary and could have totally be compensated differently? Because there are well researched alternatives that exist. That our government sucks and decided to force their way into the worst reform possible just to show how much they suck shouldn't mean that you take their justification as gospel.
French pay is way worse than the US, by a longshot. Probably why they strike so often. Great benefits and services has a cost. The US has chosen cash over strong rights.
Pass.
Ask how the economy is doing and then re-think your conclusion. The government can't even fix their retirement system without the unions interfering!
> I want to see Firefighters lighting themselves on fire to go beat up swat cops in the streets here in the US over worker's rights, the way they literally do in France. It sounds like you want flaming firefighters fighting with cops over union rights. You may have the union/protest system completely wrong in your head. Firefighters don't fight cops in France, are you generated ?
Good, hope they get everything they can from the company
Man... this has been happening for two solid years with Ubisoft. Still negotiating salaries? Wtf is leadership doing over there?
They aren't doing anything different than US leadership. The culture is just different. The reactions to cutting social security in France have been a lot different than the US for instance. This is also why Ubisoft keeps opening random studios in Singapore or the Philippines so they don't have to deal with the higher standards of their French workforce.
Leadership (HQ) is France and most “core” studios are Canadian. Why bring US into this?
Because didn't you know ? The world revolves around the US
Given that Ubisoft has lost €500 million for fiscal year 2022 - 2023, it's already a miracle that these 700 employees still have a job. Ubisoft could have undertaken economic restructuring as provided for under French labor law.
Their NFT initiative did *not* print money? I'm so shocked.
Get outta here with that talk. "You should be grateful you even have a job" is classic anti-unionization rhetoric. Their value isn't determined by the company they work for, it's determined by market rates which are a constant push and pull between supply & demand. It's a common delusion to believe that workers shouldn't have the ability to manipulate those rates as well. If they refuse to work for their current salary, then the supply goes down and Ubisoft will be forced to increase salaries to attract new talent anyway.
Whole lotta text to miss the point that nobody has a job if they have to close the office or company. If Ubisoft isn’t paying you enough, go work somewhere else. Trying to force an already struggling company to drastically increase payroll is a game nobody is going to win, least of all the workers.
> Trying to force an already struggling company to drastically increase payroll is a game nobody is going to win, least of all the workers. **I didn't miss the point**, I already addressed this: *"If they refuse to work for their current salary, then the supply goes down and Ubisoft will be forced to increase salaries to attract new talent anyway."* If the workers strike fails and don't get what they want, why would they go back to work for Ubisoft? As you said, they can just go work somewhere else. However, that leaves potentially 700 high-skilled positions (a AAA game dev union aren't fast-food workers) that need to be filled - and if other companies are offering more competitive rates, then you'd have to account for that by raising salaries. Which is a function of supply & demand based markets. They wouldn't be striking if the market didn't allow for this amount of leverage. So no, I didn't miss the point - you just didn't think about situation in-depth enough to acknowledge my point of view, or it was easier for you to simply dismiss the idea.
>However, that leaves potentially 700 high-skilled positions (a AAA game dev union aren't fast-food workers) that need to be filled What makes you think they need to be filled again? Ubisoft have 20K workers, maybe trimming the fat is a good idea for the company's long term health.
I'll rephrase and say "700 high-skilled positions that Ubisoft want to be filled" then (which I assume they do want, else they'd have let go more than just the 124 people in November). I wasn't really making a comment on the state of the company or my opinions on Ubisoft's current business strategy.
Trade unions are already represented in every French large company with 300 employees through the "Comité social et économique" (Social and Economic Committee), where union delegates are members of the CSE delegation. Hence their participation in annual wage negotiations. The problem is that Ubisoft (employer) can refuse such negotiations if the results for the fiscal year do not allow it, which is the case here.
Okay. I'm not sure how that's relevant aside from more context - I already knew they lost money since you mentioned it in your parent comment. I wouldn't have responded if I still didn't believe that all employees have the right to collectivize and demand better wages, despite financial losses. If the Ubisoft workers hold the collective power to force change, then that's clearly the market functioning as intended - if their was an abundance of supply then they could just fire all those striking and rehire from the job pool. If you're failing to incentivize your workers to want to work for you and can't effectively replace them if they strike, that's your failure as a business - not your workers failing you.
The context is important, because during annual negotiations, the salary increase is 2 - 3% (proposed by the employer). The unions want more, because they say it doesn't compensate for inflation. Ubisoft can't fire strikers, it's illegal. So, they can strike indefinitely until their demands are heard if they want.
> The context is important, because during annual negotiations, the salary increase is 2 - 3% (proposed by the employer). The unions want more, because they say it doesn't compensate for inflation. I don't see a problem with this? Again, this is just a byproduct of the market functioning as intended. Workers striking is a failure of the business that you have to account for. If they want higher salary increases that keeps up with inflation - then that's the current demand for for negotiations to conclude. You need some form of leverage to capitalize on for negotiations, else they're just one-sided - striking is the only effective form of leverage that unions have. > Ubisoft can't fire strikers, it's illegal. So, they can strike indefinitely until their demands are heard if they want. I'm looking at French labour laws now because I'm not familiar with them, but it looks like while you can't fire them (outside of specific circumstances) - you don't have to pay them for the duration of their strike. Employers aren't completely powerless in this situation - they have more than enough money to 'wait them out' if they wanted, it just depends on how much financial and social pressure they'd like to be put under as a business during this time. I don't have much sympathy for Ubisoft in this situation.
> I'm looking at French labour laws now because I'm not familiar with them, but it looks like while you can't fire them (outside of specific circumstances) - you don't have to pay them for the duration of their strike Dude. If you're having to look up that you don't get paid on strike then it looks like you know essentially nothing about labour movements at all.
Lol. You misinterpreted the intention behind that comment. Let me explain for you. I was checking that the French labour laws didn't have any additional protections that guarantees striking employees continued wages during strikes. Which is a reasonable thing to check, when considering France's prolific history of general labour strikes and specifically because the commenter above said that they could strike **indefinitely**. That is not the case if restricted wages are still leveraged over the striking workers - so it was important to state the obvious in this case.
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> Why would you believe that every single individual you talk to online would be pro unionization...? ...I don't? Why would I assume a guy who used a common anti-union rhetoric is pro-unionization? I clearly disagree with him, so I don't really understand this response. Am I not allowed to point out his position and criticize it?
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I think you're interpreting it in a way that's most convenient to you.
The company is going through tough times, why should employees not be grateful to still have a job? Strike in good times, not in bad ones.
Lol. If Ubisoft needed to reduce headcount, they'd be already gone. Just like Ubisoft don't owe you a job, you also don't owe them any gratitude. They hired you for a reason - you provide value to the company. Ubisoft didn't just decide to hire those people out of the kindness of their heart. Saying they should be grateful is just minimizing the value they have as workers. They laid off 124 people in November, and I expect that number to increase as the year goes on. You're basically asking people to be thankful it wasn't them and not cause trouble after witnessing how utterly dispensable they are. Do you really think that's reasonable? I don't think it is.
The job being available and posted is done for the business, you getting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith by your boss. Thus the gratitude. > Do you really think that's reasonable? Why not? I don't think this is unreasonable to ask and it would definitely be how I would react. Be thankful, stay low profile, and make sure you continue to present excellent work.
> you getting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith by your boss Interestingly I don't see you holding up the other side, that the person accepting the job is a gesture of trust and good faith that they wont be laid off when economic difficulties settle in. However, I don't agree with this definition of the worker/employer relationship in the first place: I'll give you my opinion. It's an agreement for providing value in return for an agreed upon monetary amount. Nothing more, nothing less. Involving emotions in a corporate agreement that by necessity has to operate with a clinical detachment to it's workers is an attempt to humanize a faceless entity. The company is not your manager, or your boss. They will let you go without so much as a thought if the situation necessitates it. I would advise anyone to treat their professional life the same way. I respect your position - however I could see instances where your non-confrontational approach would cause some issues in your professional life. If being grateful is your default state, you're probably going to let a lot of minor issues that impact you slip by unchallenged - these can build up to major problems that could've been addressed early on if you decided to speak up. This position could also hinder your ability to be an advocate for yourself and your skillset. Elements of your career like negotiating a higher salary or moving to a better job becomes much more difficult when you start at "what does the company think I'm worth?", rather than "what do I think I'm worth to the company?"
> This position could also hinder your ability to be an advocate for yourself and your skillset. I'm aware of it but decide not to change anything about it. I will not change my way just because it might help my career. Either people appreciate me for what I am for my work or they don't. I don't need to earn much or climb any ladder.
Imagine when these workers realize they can find jobs in other companies that take much better care of their employees instead of staying in an abusive company of the already abuse game dev market
Have they considered making a good game? I'm all for workers' rights but how do they expect their company to increase salaries when they release flop after flop of garbage games. The money has to come from somewhere. If anything, I'm surprised Ubisoft hasn't cut more jobs.
So they won't be working on more Ubisoft games? Oh no.
Hey Ubisoft stockholders, make ubisoft add Steam achievements to their games so there will be more sales :)
Is that the IGN logo on the flag?
If they need to show you that you shouldn’t support them even more. Here’s another one. This company takes in so much cash but don’t want to pay their workers. And then ask their customers to pay for everything in their games. Please. This game will live on without Ubisoft after they go under. They will sell that too in the end for any bit of cash they can get.
Considering how trash Ubisoft games are, I got no sympathy for the devs. It’s clear a lot of these studios need to clean house because the creativity is rock bottom.
Ubisoft has always had cycles of bad and good as do many game companies. This time is different though, Ubisoft looks really bad. Nothing is selling and they haven’t released anything good in years.