What happened? Mostly fear. Fear to lose money, fear to be an innovator and putting something out that would't make a ton of money, so when they were able to make games that people loved and opened their wallets without thinking twice they started milking the hell out of it, which is why so many people ask them to slow down with franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and the Tom Clancy's name. Meanwhile, they started trying to make their own Call of Duty/Minecraft/Fortnite/Destin y, which led us to battle royales that we never asked, looter shooters that nobody wanted and then they ran into a wall when they noticed that even some of the most diehard fans became unhappy with everything their teams created.
They should have stuck with the quality games that took effort and years to build, games like Splinter Cell, Rayman, Far Cry even Assassin's Creed, and take their time to keep delivering great experiences that, okay, wouldn't make a ton of money like CoD or Fortnite, but would keep them very relevant and with a healthy bank account but instead decided to build a huge killer IP with microtransactions and DLCs and failed at almost every single attempt.
I really like Ubisoft, I grew up playing amazing games like the original Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia Sands of Time, Beyond Good & Evil, but they lost themselves in the last decade. I really hope that they are able to make a huge comeback, but I am not holding my breath, unfortunately...
You're right, they didn't always suck, they've lost their way..... for a long time now.
Most of their titles had good beginnings, they just got milked to all unholy hell. Then they started cookie-cuttering game mechanics amongst their entire library of games, nothing had a unique identity anymore. (I never cared for Watchdogs, never felt it had a good beginning as it came after the copy-paste was in full swing.)
I liken their games to fast food these days. I know its messy, ass quality, but I still indulge every now and then, bc sometimes I'm in the mood for junk. Not that often though, bc it always leaves me feeling regrets.
Once Ubisoft had my respect as a publisher willing to take risks and even challenged for my money against the offerings of Take 2, EA and Nintendo. Nowadays I only buy one of their game every 3 years or so.
The 7th gen happened. Game development costs and time took off like a rocket making niche games suddenly became a giant gamble and the risk was far to high to continue being experimenting and risking millions of dollars as opposed to thousands like in the proceeding generations.
So complacency set in they made a few big hits figured out a formula and realised people would essentially rebuy the same game with a new skin over and over it made development easier and the games would be full of items to prevent trade ins within the first three months.
The games slowly morphed from experimental to a paint by numbers audience test screened and sanitized experience.
They were still making some good small budget indie games at the start of the 7th gen like valiant Hearts but that didn't last when those games were not making millions.
All in all I feel they just made their games via a tick box system and forgot why they make them which is fun. E3 presentations show it off clearly they have lost their way.
I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but I don't think even that is true anymore.
I'm much more looking forward to Jedi: Survivor than anything Ubisoft is making - Ubisoft really doesn't make games like that anymore, unfortunately. Respawn Entertainment have been great for EA.
Their EA Originals initiative has also led to some good stuff. It Takes Two won GOTY and Lost In Random and A Way Out were solid too.
With Ubisoft cancelling so many games, there may not be much worth looking forward to in the coming years.
Jedi saga is the only good game EA makes so I dunno if that makes them a better company than Ubisoft which has a whole catalog of games that are at least decent.
What happened? Mostly fear. Fear to lose money, fear to be an innovator and putting something out that would't make a ton of money, so when they were able to make games that people loved and opened their wallets without thinking twice they started milking the hell out of it, which is why so many people ask them to slow down with franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and the Tom Clancy's name. Meanwhile, they started trying to make their own Call of Duty/Minecraft/Fortnite/Destin y, which led us to battle royales that we never asked, looter shooters that nobody wanted and then they ran into a wall when they noticed that even some of the most diehard fans became unhappy with everything their teams created.
They should have stuck with the quality games that took effort and years to build, games like Splinter Cell, Rayman, Far Cry even Assassin's Creed, and take their time to keep delivering great experiences that, okay, wouldn't make a ton of money like CoD or Fortnite, but would keep them very relevant and with a healthy bank account but instead decided to build a huge killer IP with microtransactions and DLCs and failed at almost every single attempt.
I really like Ubisoft, I grew up playing amazing games like the original Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia Sands of Time, Beyond Good & Evil, but they lost themselves in the last decade. I really hope that they are able to make a huge comeback, but I am not holding my breath, unfortunately...
The problem with a lot of companies . Chasing money with MT’s and such and poor management
The 7th gen happened. Game development costs and time took off like a rocket making niche games suddenly became a giant gamble and the risk was far to high to continue being experimenting and risking millions of dollars as opposed to thousands like in the proceeding generations.
So complacency set in they made a few big hits figured out a formula and realised people would essentially rebuy the same game with a new skin over and over it made development easier and the games would be full of items to prevent trade ins within the first three months.
The games slowly morphed from experimental to a paint by numbers audience test screened and sanitized experience.
They were still making some good small budget indie games at the start of the 7th gen like valiant Hearts but that didn't last when those games were not making millions.
All in all I feel they just made their games via a tick box system and forgot why they make them which is fun. E3 presentations show it off clearly they have lost their way.
Too much milking of AC
I know I'm sick of in game currency in ubi games.