Ubisoft decreased their revenue projections for 2019/2020, as revealed on the most recent earnings call. One of the reasons for it turned out to be the "very disappointing" sales of Ghost Recon Breakpoint during the first few weeks.
"First, it is harder to generate interest fora sequel to a Live multiplayer game, when prior iterations benefited from years of optimization. Consequently, we need to make sure there is more time between each iteration of Live game"
Maybe don't do live service games full stop.
Jeez, the rest of the report is depressing, they are so full of shit.
I mean the GR franchise has been in decline for some time now. AC and R6 have been doing well tho, For Honor is also doing decently, Ubisoft has been developing a lot of new IPs in the recent years as well so I wouldn't say they are doing as bad as bethesda is.
Ubisoft doesn't care about taking responsibility for the low quality of this game. Horrible game design, laughable microtransaction milking, it just shows cluelessness as to what gamers want and where the industry is headed. Forcing people to grind in a full price game like it's a fucking mobile game or else pay them money to not play the game via microtransactions? And they blame it on "There wasn't enough different from previous games, so the unique parts of this game didn't stand out as much" and "It's hard to generate interest on live games" - what a crock of shit. This is executive speak for "I don't want to take responsibility for this being pushed out the door a year before it was ready, with little game design or user testing to make sure it was actually fun and the progression worked"
Well there's no Assassin's Creed game this year, so Ubisoft hasn't completely lost their minds shoving crap out the door before it's ready, they finally learned from AC Unity.
There is hope for Ubisoft because AC Odyssey was good and so was Origins. However their other titles have become stale and don’t seem interesting at all.
What I believe is happening and isn’t exclusive to Ubisoft is that gamers are becoming fatigued of Western games. Remember at the start of Xbox360/PS3 era Western devs put out the best next gen games and Japan was struggling to keep up. Now the tables have turned and Western (Not 1st party Sony devs or some of the other creative ones) devs are having a hard time because they have become stagnant. Indie games are thriving because of the creativity shown in their releases but big AAA games stay the same are are flat out boring. Ubisoft needs to watch devs like Naughty dog to see how to do story telling and create characters we care about.
Edit...also Success can be Double edge sword if you don’t stay competitive.
If you look at the output of regions, Japan devs are still developing more SP games over MP, and the market for SP hasn't shrunk, so with less choice for games, there is more success for those types of games.
Trying to chase after the MP market to have that cash cow game means there is more failure, because the market for MP is limited, and the consumer base isnt always buying new games. They bank on MT to keep engagement because it's cheaper than making a whole new game.
The industry had gone from one extreme to the other, and for publishers that dont diversify their products, they're going to always be playing catch up. If any of the big publishers didnt manage to make at least one cash cow MP game, they'd be struggling right now because they arent making as many SP games to fill in the gaps.
When you make games for the sole sake of profit they're going to be overly-formulaic, generic, soulless, grindfests/borefests. Games with microtransactions CAN be fun but NOT when they're literally BUILT around them.
You'd think they'd know that an oversaturated market is harder to sell games in. Same thing happened last gen when they were trying to push mp, saying that it was too hard to make money on SP games. They said not as many.people brought SP games, which isnt true. It's that there was so.mich choice for SP games that the customer base was spread out more. On top of that, there were a lot of high quality titles to choose from, so the mid tier titles didnt do as well, which effectively killed the mid tier revenue.
The shift of the major publishers focusing on a few high profile MP games in lieu of high quality SP games have left a void in the market, which is why companies that are still making SP games regularly, like sony, square, capcom, sega, etc, are doing pretty well. Not all are making as much as some of these ultra successful MP games, but there are more MP only failure games this gen than last, because the MP market is not as big as the SP market, and since MP requires engagement, there is a shorter window of time for a game to be successful.
Companies want to put their eggs into one basket, and its going to cause then to have losses. Those losses can still be made up with one successful game, but then it becomes a design principle of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks
I dont like any game failing...unless it's terrible. But part of me also thinks things like this are necessary to reign in expectations of publisher and investors. Last gen, it was all about how MP was the future because there were relatively few standout titles that all did gangbusters. This gen, we have maybe 2-3 more standout titles, but the market is wearing itself thin for play time, and growth in the market isn't exponential to the number of games now available compared to last gen.
Publishers couldn't take stock to realize that not all of them could be successful, and they all chased after the huge revenues that could be made with a successful game.
The COD effect was in full force, because they knew people would buy games on a name, and quality wasnt really much of a factor. That would remain true except there are quite a.few high quality games in the MP market now, so people will gravitate towards those, so now the low quality ones fail, or go under the radar.
On top of that, you have people playing these MP games longer due to the content cycle working to keep people engaged. So, instead of having a customer who was ready to buy a new game after 6 months, there still actively engaged, and even more invested in a game forna year or more. This leaves less customers to go around, thus raising the chance of failure. Any MP game that doesnt hit the ground running is probably going to fail without major investment on making it good, and keeping people engaged. Games that can rise from the ashes can be counted on one hand, and tend to be from the devs that dont make excuses, but end up working to fulfill their promises.
It's "very disappointing" that Ubisoft has ignored Rayman and Splinter Cell for years, then continuously release GAAS to poor results (Breakpoint, Division 2), as well as not utilizing the Switch to its full potential (they haven't updated their own website's Switch section in months/years and don't even have a Switch icon for games that are appearing on the system like Gods & Monsters) and not to mention whatever the hell is going on with Beyond Good and Evil 2 (which also is a GAAS title).
They have Assassin's Creed but it's not a matter of if but when they will ruin that again.
"It's "very disappointing" that Ubisoft has ignored Rayman and Splinter Cell for years, then continuously release GAAS to poor results"
Completely agree with you, I'd love to see a new Rayman or Splintercell, as they are two of my favourite IP's of all time.
I think it's a shame that instead of quality products our favourite games are broken up and sold back to us in pieces, but we as the gaming community are equally to blame for this.
If we didn't pay for extra skins, new weapons etc these companies wouldn't see fit to charge extra for what was in the past included as part of the full product.
Ubisoft (amongst others) have viewed MT's as a way to print free money for years now and they've pushed it too far.
I'm really glad it's starting to hit them where it hurts, in the wallet.
At this point, I'm glad they are ignoring Splinter Cell at the moment. They already announced they will only do big, open-world games for the foreseeable future and I would hate to see Splinter Cell bastardised by microtransaction-fueled design.
AC was ruined when Odyssey became a boring slog EXP grind fest, low effort game design.
It has different combat controls than earlier games, but nothing has been improved, still trash combat. Simplified movement controls that take options away from the player. Top it all off with meaningless stories that go nowhere in the overarching plot, its literally just like running on a treadmill going nowhere.
The last AC story that had any real impact was released in 2012. Seven freakin' years ago! I used to love AC, but now I've completely given up.
"First, it is harder to generate interest fora sequel to a Live multiplayer game, when prior iterations benefited from years of optimization. Consequently, we need to make sure there is more time between each iteration of Live game"
Maybe don't do live service games full stop.
Jeez, the rest of the report is depressing, they are so full of shit.
Keep puting your games exclusive on Epic Store and most people Will take a big dump on your games Ubisoft!Fans order rulez!
Dammit.... Used bad pun for Division 2.
Nonetheless, Ubisoft already closed shop on their creative side years ago.
Good.
I hope this sends a very clear message to Ubisoft and serves as a warning to other developers and publishers.
Gamers are tired of low effort, generic, cookie cutter clones crammed full of microtransactions.
It's already on sale here in the UK.