MWEB GameZone Writes: "Thanks to the terrible reception received by Assassin's Creed Unity, both from critics and the larger public, Ubisoft has seen its stock price plunge by nearly 10%.
Ubisoft and companies like them would only stop acting like jerks if their bottomline was affected and until that happened, us gamers would just have to bend over and take it. There just aren't any negative consequences for acting this way, or is there?"
In recent years, Ubisoft has canceled several games, one of them being a project code-named Renaissance.
In a very intriguing and interesting move, 16 Ubisoft titles can now be purchased on the Xbox PC Store. Of course, this is a first as Ubisoft PC titles have never been purchasable on the Xbox PC Store previously.
Ubisoft announced its financial results for the fiscal year 2024-2025, and they're not good, but Assassin's Creed Shadows is doing well.
Three companies keep showing their true faces and telling us who they are but for some weird reason we refuse to believe them. Even when everything they show just makes their greediness even stands out more
Keep messing with the consumers and keep being greedy. Keep telling your consumers to get comfortable now owning your games and we will. You only have few IP's that gamers care about anyways so
"soon enough tencent will buy you out. They already own 49%. Keep deleting games from gamers libraries and getting sued over it instead of making offline play possible for the crew" it's sad that I believe in 10 cents more than UBI because atleast tencent knows how to run a proper business
These executives can taking millions and bonuses and stock options yet they fire those actually making the games without thinking twice. Gaming has become so greedy that their own greed will be their downfall. Companies like Capcom have realized making good quality games and treat gamers with respect
AC series started with a soul but now it's just a soulless empty option world with icons filling the game map. They make their own games so grindy so that they can see the XP boosters to even the odds. As a gamer in my 40's all I want to know is when did gaming just stop being about Fun and all about greed. Double XP weekends selling cosmetics and dances. I use to be a big sports game guy when I was in my 20's the other day I wanted to play NBA 2k and after doing some deep research I realized the best NBA game was 2k17 and NBA 2k25 at $9.79 I couldn't pull the trigger on that 2k25 for how egregious the micro transactions were. So much of the fun is behind a pay wall
True words, buddy.
Q: "So how many units did Shadows sell?"
Ubisoft: "Well, look, we ... it's been a busy week."
For over a decade, the price of video games remained steady. We paid $50, then $60 for full, content-rich experiences. Developers found creative ways to deliver incredible games without charging more. From the PS2 era through the PS4/Xbox One, pricing consistency gave players a sense of value and trust.
But then came the jump to $70 during the PS5 and Xbox Series X launches—justified by "rising development costs." And now, barely four years later, we’re seeing $80 price tags becoming more common for standard editions. At this pace, by the time the next generation of consoles launches around 2027, $90 games could be the norm. And with a behemoth like GTA 6 on the horizon, a $99.99 base price wouldn’t be shocking at all.
Yet we’ve also seen proof that this kind of pricing isn’t necessary for success. Look at the recent launches of Expedition 33 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Both released at $49.99 and have been met with strong sales and positive reception. These games show that there’s still plenty of room for high-quality, mid-budget (AA) titles that offer great value—and gamers are more than willing to support them at fair prices.
But here’s the problem: the big publishers don’t care. If we as consumers keep paying for deluxe editions, early access, and overpriced base games, they’ll keep pushing the limits. They’re not going to back down unless we speak with our wallets—because that’s the only language they listen to. If they see record sales, they’ll take it as validation.
It’s frustrating when these same companies report record-breaking revenue and profits—yet still complain about tariffs, still find excuses to raise prices, and still hand out bigger bonuses to their CEOs. If they’re doing so well financially, why are they passing more of the burden onto players?
It’s because gaming has become the second biggest entertainment market in the world. And with that comes attention from hedge funds, investors, and boardrooms focused on short-term profit, not long-term player trust. To them, your passion is just a revenue stream. They care about quarterly numbers, not the health of the industry or the joy of the experience.
And unless we—as players—take a stand, the greed won’t stop. The monetization will grow, the price hikes will continue, and the soul of gaming will keep slipping away. The choice is ours. We can either keep paying more for less, or we can push back. One purchase—or one refusal to purchase—at a time
"And unless we—as players—take a stand, the greed won’t stop."
And that's the tough part about it.
Look at those annual figures showing billions and billions of money being spent on the most ridiculous add-ons, DLCs, pre-release accesses, even pre-orders, digital deluxe crap, etc.
I mean - we've stood together at times. I don't say it didn't happen before.
But within all of our communities there's so much passive aggressive defensiveness.
Look at the debates regarding physical vs digital.
Publishers can't keep a straight face reading our discussions in which many people abandon physical.
Playing straight into the cards of publishers out there.
Like I said gamers are the biggest issue with gaming. We may united on a issue but as soon as our favorite gaming franchise gets a release we will support it. If there any doubt Mario kart will be one of the best selling games on switch 2?
Things we use to unlock by simply playing a game has not be sold to us as extra content
I think people arebgetting tired of the formula. We see it in sales. People just want fun again.
Even the $130 ultimate editions of UBI games are only a bit less grindy and they still beg people to buy helix coins throughout the whole experience.
It's a travesty what 2K did to NBA 2K.
It really is because NBA 2K is simply unplayable without spending money and you can't even respec for a new my player you are required to spend again
When you don't disclose units sold... and your stock goes down... how is this doing well?
"According to the company, Assassin’s Creed Shadows achieved the second-highest Day 1 sales revenue in franchise history, following Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. It actually had the best Day 1 performance of Ubisoft’s history on the PlayStation Store."
Ubishit burned so many bridges with fans, releasing filler dreck that was purposefully designed to push you towards micro-trash-actions. It didn't have to be this way, they could have respected us players more, instead of making players waste countless hours of their life just to see stupid "experience points and resources numbers go up" and attempt to profit off us in such a disrespectful way. I stopped supporting them a long time ago. Keep burning bridges, and keep burning your company from within.
Any game (be it Ubisoft or any other company) with an unnecessary shoe-horned in experience points system, endless resources collection, and a micro-trash-action store that sells you boosters that alleviate the grind.
They do it on purpose to nudge players towards spending more money, and its something I refuse to support. Nearly all modern Ubisoft games have experience points and skill trees these days, not because it makes the games better, but because it can potentially make them more money by exhausting people into giving in and buying boosters.
Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon and more series are offenders of this game design blight.
I see. And I agree. I dont like these trends either. Although I dont remember AC having paid upgrades (given that my last one was black flag)
The best thing would be for gamers to hold back on purchasing FC4 UNTIL reviews are out. Stop with the pre-orders on all Ubisoft games
I think it is good that their stock has fallen. They deserved it.
I always enjoy Ubisoft games to be honest.
I have Unity on the way from my rental company, here tomorrow so I can judge that for myself.
I don't know much about the business side of things, but they make great games.
Hoping Far Cry 4 is good, the demo at EGX was terrible, but it was just a fort mission and those are boring anyway.
I cant believe they are trying to charge £50 for AC Unity on PC. To put it into perspective, thats around 78 US dollars. I'm happy to pay extra for a game that has more than the usual 8 hour campaign, but it sounds like this thing is full of bugs, glitches and performance issues, its almost as if they are testing the waters to see how far they can push their customers and to see how much they can get away with.
They are going a bit crazy as of late.
The gaming industry needs to collapse again a'la Atari 1980's game crash style. This way consumers can weed out the good from the bad in terms of who delivers quality software over quantity. If a collapse does happen I can see a lot of companies disappearing into oblivion.