Ubisoft Monetization Director "Ashamed" and "Sad" at Gamers and Devs Wishing Company to Fail

Ubisoft's Monetization Director has vented on how gamers and devs seem to be wishing ill-will to Ubisoft, and are happy about its hardships.

[Kaii]

The actual audacity of this prick, shove your monetization schemes up your ass.
Zero respect for a position that solely exists to nickel and dime its players, fuck you.

[thorstein]

Better headline: Guy in boat says to 1,700 employees who were dumped overboard since 2022, "we're all in the same boat."

[CommonSense7]

I thought they wanted gamers to get comfortable not owning their games. Don't hate the player hate the game

[Killer2020UK]

"Technically, guys, technically, we're all still in the same ocean..."

[Cacabunga]

Company touched the peak of greed and bottom when it comes to customer care..

So why should i care? And where are the games?

[lukasmain]

I do believe Ubishit was the first dev team to put micro-transactions into single player only AAA games. Revolting. Wonder if we have this douche to thank for that

[Oni]

All I remember is horse armour in oblivion being the first.

[lelo2play]

Ubisoft Monetization Director complaining that gamers are wishing the company to fail. I think there should be a joke somewhere in there, but I just can't think of one...

[Gamingsince1981]

The joke is Ubisoft

[neutralgamer1992]

We want UBI to be sold to someone else so the ongoing family politics and nepotism can finally come to an end. Our goal isn’t for hardworking developers to lose their jobs—only those who push counterproductive agendas. Especially people like him, whose sole aim seems to be finding new ways to extract as much money as possible from gamers.

Don’t blame us, the gamers. Blame yourselves.

Your company has conditioned us to accept not owning our games, moving us away from traditional purchases. It started with your company encouraging us to bypass buying games. Now, you’ve gone out of your way to make characters, like the female protagonist in Star Wars Outlaws, less appealing in-game compared to her real-life counterpart. This clearly reflects the DEI influences and involvement from companies like Sweet Baby Inc., which, by the way, was founded by former UBI developers.

In the new Dragon Age game, there are sliders for body customization. Yet, even at maximum settings, certain female body parts lack realistic proportions. Is everyone supposed to have the same, unvaried body type? It feels like these companies are deliberately ignoring consumer preferences.

It’s unbelievable how many companies are losing hundreds of millions by producing inferior products, only to blame the audience when those products fail. Just look at Disney—they can’t even break even on many of their shows. If you keep telling your customers, “This game or show isn’t for you,” don’t be surprised when we take our business elsewhere. You can’t have it both ways.

Meanwhile, companies in countries often criticized by Western media, like Korea and China, are thriving in the gaming industry by prioritizing talent and experience over agendas. Their gaming markets are expanding without a focus on DEI hiring practices. While there may be cultural differences, over the past 5-8 years, their approach has shown results, unlike the Western trend of prioritizing skin color, pronouns, or sexual orientation over merit

[Games_People_Play]

Totally agree with you.
I used to love Disney, (I mean, Star Wars, Marvel and the Simpsons!) but now I’m conditioning myself to just not care about anything new from those franchises. I will just watch the old stuff, on physical media, and save money.

Disney/larson/zegler are right,
“it’s not for you” anymore.

[Extermin8or3_]

Careful what you wish for, china has way more censorship than anything here in the west. Do remember that the term political correctness actually originated from soviet Russia and communist China.

[neutralgamer1992]

Extermin

Our media has painted them like that. Their products for west have been gaining popularity and the quality shows. End of the day they aren’t into DEI and instead have been promoting based on experience, talent and ability unlike our western companies who are doing ESG and scores and checks from black rock

[PapaBop]

Don't bite the hand that feeds you comes to mind. You know the *beep* has hit the fan when the higher ups are attacking gamers like this.

[raWfodog]

I simply see this as an example of market forces at work, driving the supply and demand of a specific commodity. The ‘supply’ that Ubisoft has been providing lately is not in high ‘demand’ from the consumers. This will hopefully help Ubisoft and other companies to provide their customers with better service and products moving forward.

[neomahi]

I said it in a lot more words but you managed to condense it way down. The same is said for Electronic Arts, Activision, and, well, Xbox.

Don't get me wrong, Sony isn't blameless and neither is Nintendo, however, consider with examples such as Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarok, and recently Astro Bot to give a couple of examples, it's a demonstration of: Thanks for taking care of us and we'll in turn do the same. I think it's clear Sony has made efforts with third-party developers for Sony to at least do the same in that capacity as seen with Capcom as the PS4 version of Resident Evil Village and PS5 version of Resident Evil 4 both give free DLC. Capcom may not be giving it away, but Sony is making it seem like it's Capcom. Sony probably paid Capcom for DLC and then asked it be free DLC.

Shoot, when I was a kid, games came 100% on the disc after going through a fine toothed comb (QA Testers). Those from that time knew there were no software updates so devs had to make sure. Today, they finish up a game and before or goes gold, they dissect the game and determine what will ship, or be uploaded to a marketplace, and what they'll hold back for DLC. (You really think they develop post release content?) I hadn't realized it until Street Fighter 6 was about to release when I had seen a documentary on Killer Instinct getting a reboot and how much of an issue it was to develop for fighters as DLC and Street Fighter 6 already had their Season 1 in flux with the first character being available not long after launch. Now, I know the game. In fact, there was a time as well where there was no DLC, it was unlockable content you got by beating the game or accomplishing other tasks that unlocked it which added to replay value.

But, jerks like this.... Jerk, are the ones that killed that off and they answer to even bigger jagoffs that tell them to do it so, yeah, let Ubisoft crash and burn. Same with Electronic Arts and Activision, although Activision is now part of Xbox that are self-mutilating themselves so we may not have to go after that either but, yeah, this guy said it better than me. That's all I have to add to it

[-Foxtrot]

Yeah and you’re part of the reason why

Go figure

It’s not like people are wishing people to lose their jobs, especially out of spite and the like but it’s literally between them continuing being absolute money grabbing pricks or learning the hard way which hopefully sends a message to other companies. Are we supposed to just take it? If we think about every single little outcome we’d never be able to complain.

[Amplitude]

It literally couldn't have possibly come from a worse person in the company, as far as job titles go. Funny that he posted that and immediately set his Twitter to private.

I don't actually want to see Ubisoft fail. I want to see them start making good games again with smaller budgets and less of a focus on monetization and open world nonsense. Prince of Persia, No More Heroes, more games like Scott Pilgrim and more arcadey sports games, Linear single player games like Call of Juarez, the Rayman series is completely rotting away, they could revive Rocksmith without that bs forced subscription that they puked at us in 2022 while removing the actual game from stores, they could fund more indies like Grow Up and Grow Home, make a Steep 2, another South Park RPG...

They've got talent every once in a while but this last - like, 10 years is why people want them to die. If they go out, it sets an example and presumably the IP could be purchased by a company that actually wants to do something with them. That's why people want your company to die, Mr Monetization Director

[Weasel1987]

Open world games is what they do, and they once did good at it. I do not want linear games, open world games are so much more and better, i would take god of war style more so as a "linear" game. It is 2024, tech ia better thats why open world is thriving. Being free to do what you need is much better as a game then invisible walls and one path.

We want good story no bullshit kind of games. No shit activist trying to put msgs into the game and force DEI or any of that shit. Just make the fucken game like how the creators want it. Money grabbing bs, like DLC that has been cut from game to add later is BS. Outlaws story was short as fuck but the DLC will come out and add more. If I'm paying more money that game better be long with stuff to do. They go lazy and copy/pasted shit and that's why it felt so blah. They wanna make more money with less work and game. Fucl that.

[Amplitude]

Weasel buddy I disagree with you hardcore on this one but I guess that's how opinions work lol

So so unbelievably sick of open world games. Most of the Sony first party releases are open world - Horizon, Days Gone, Ghost... Forza Horizon, Ghost, etc. Microsoft even tried to make Halo open world. God of War and Last of Us 2 are even semi open world lol. That I can do but god

Linear games are just full on dead. There's no first party FPS games, no normal racing games in general, no adventure games, just nothing. Idk how anybody would want *more* open world 100 hours of walking through procedurally generated terrain but hey whatever. I actively avoid open world stuff to an extreme right now

Praise be to Astro Bot.

[M3talDiamond]

Well maybe we want to keep our games after paying full price for them its not rocket science

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Yeah we aren't falling for it homie don't guilt trip ppl.

[isarai]

That's rich come from the "Monetization Director", bro ur job is to literally scam us for more money, you don't even have basic humanity and empathy you disgusting troglodyte.

GOD i cant wait for this company to go belly up. Unfortunately, sounds like tencent has them in their crosshairs only going to make things worse

[Tacoboto]

Their latest release had you delete your save file because of a game update when you paid more to play early...

Monetization Director has his work cut out for him already and he's attacking people who paid the most lol.

[SimpleDad]

If we gamers have to adapt of now owning Ubisoft games, then Ubisoft should adapt of not owning their own company.

[Extermin8or3_]

I mean that's literally not what the guy said when you see the quote in full context of what he was asked....

[CrimsonWing69]

Monetization Director!? wtf, that’s an actual thing!?

[badz149]

The closes position to the CEO

[LoveSpuds]

Go to Youtube and you'll find whole panels at events such as DICE on the subject of monetisation and how to implement exploitative game design mechanics.

[Lionsguard]

A reputation is earned, not given and Ubisoft's reputation is duly deserved.

[Bathyj]

Used to be a great company back in the Splinter cell earl Ghost recon and rqinvox 6 days.

Then they hit paydirt with Farcry 3 andAssassins Creed and all their games became homogenised 0, bland cookie cutter crap.

[Yi-Long]

Greedy well-paid suit-guy breaks once successful gaming company by making terrible decisions damaging these games with the clear intent of draining their customers and fans dry in every way imaginable, then acts all ‘how dare they!?’ when those fans and gamers collectively turn their back on the company he drove into the ground …

[chicken_in_the_corn]

And he's 100% right

[Profchaos]

I don't think people want to see Ubisoft shut down it's more that were sick of their bullshit that we've spent the last two console generations putting up with and we've voting with our wallets.

Ubisoft during the ps2 og Xbox was one of my favourite publishers with far cry 1 and the original splinter cell games being highlights of the generation.

I just feel the wheels fell off around far cry 4

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

If you don’t want us to wish you harm, then do good.

I recall Chaos Theory never being properly followed up with.

[Hofstaderman]

So he's the monetization director and HE'S disgusted with US? Go choke on a big one you tosser.

[90sGamingWasBetter]

Focus on making good games and not ticking boxes for the 1% of your player base.

[Charlieboy333]

More like 0.1%

[Chocoburger]

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-Z-!
Absolutely laughable this moron has zero self awareness!

His job is to make Ubishit games are grindy as possible in order to coerce people into spending more money via micro-trash-actions for EXP Boosters, Skill Points, Resource Boosters, comical outfits and weapon skins.

Did your job position even exist when Ubishit was a good company? The era before the micro-trash-action obsession? No, your job likely didn't exist back then! It only was created after Ubisoft transitioned into Ubishit!

Guilt trips don't work on me anymore, I'm tired of using "innocent developers" as a shield for being a trash company. Remember this is the same company where many employees are being abused, and disrespected, where multiple internal investigations have occurred. If you give a shit about your co-workers (probably not), then you'd actually focus your efforts on having a better working environment within the company, and not what people say online.

Anyway, burn Ubishit for how you've disrespected us for a decade now, and I hope this "monetization director" (i.e. Douchebag McGee) gets the boot, too!

[senorfartcushion]

Monetisation is the reason why the company is failing financially. Not only does is affect the quality of your releases, it also affects your company margins.

Lie in the bed you made for yourself, dork.

[Extermin8or3_]

On the flip side without the monetisation it might not be able to make the games that plenty have enjoyed over recent years and still sell them for basically the same price (once inflation is adjusted for) as they were 15 years ago. The fact I'd that developing a game- ANY game is alot more expensive than it used to be. People don't like being charged more for a product and resist it fiercely so instead you have people like this guy who's job it is to make up the difference and do it subtly so people don't react as viciously as they would if games just went up in price directly proportional to the increased development cycle lengths and costs.

[ZacultronTheFirst]

I think there should be petition to let these pricks know how much we despise their practices!

[Chocoburger]

There is, its called not giving said company your money anymore. Watching their stock price fall and having all the executives scrambled like headless chickens.

[XBManiac]

Monetization Director... This position scares me, is it Halloween again?

[Demetrius]

Lmao what he really feel bad about is folks are fed up and not giving em their money for average games lol he'll be aite these mfs be having thousands in their bank accounts. Like damn tho, how much more cash do you want idiot, you can't die with the bs. Alot of adults are so cringe and lame nowadays.

[DreadfulHero]

I don't want Ubisoft to fail, I want their current business model to fail. And I'm not even hating on their games. People were bitching how AC Odyssey was pay to win and that wasn't true at all. But Ubisoft has released a ton of great games in the past. I don't even hate the new ones (well, the new AC games, at least) even if I'm going to always complain about their bloat. But people are getting tired of the Ubisoft formula, and Star Wars proves that. Now, I'm not sure how well Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown did. I guess if it didn't do well then I'm not sure who we blame for that one. Gamers for complaining about Ubisoft but not buying their games when they actually DO try something different? Ubisoft for releasing it in the thick of the RPG madness of the winter of 2024? Maybe a bit of both? They sincerely need to stop trying to turn their single player games into hackneyed GaaS though. Things were fine at first. But too much is never enough with these companies. They can never just make a good amount of money and thrive. No, they have to answer to investors who always want more, more, more, and eventually it'll be the death of them.

[Rebel_Scum]

If you read the actual post he’s got a valid point if he’s referring to the pieces of shit that want Ubisoft and the whole AAA industry to collapse.

Yeah wont it be great when all those people lose their jobs.

[garos82]

i dont want the whole industry to collapse. gaming is my primary hobby, i barely watch series and movies. having said that , i want Ubisoft to fail and idiots like this monetization director to lose their jobs.

[Rebel_Scum]

Likewise in that I want Ubisoft to fail but not go out of business. Would be much better if they can turn it around and go back to making really good games.

[BlaqMagiq1]

I'm extremely happy they're failing and he can eat a dick. That company NEEDS to fail to understand who has the power, and it's definitely not them.

[YourMommySpoils]

Is this their next step, blaming the community, after banning people from speaking the truth on other forums.

[Hedstrom]

Not half as ashamed as gamers are over Ubisoft!

[Rainbowcookie]

Yeah blame the consumer rather than your greed and crappy monetization. Rather than your rehashed ideas and pandering and rather than looking after your employees. Yeah play the blame game...

[Baza]

He’s part of the problem. No one cares your “sad”. When Tencent cleans house he needs to go.

[Killer2020UK]

"Monetization Director Sad" 🎣

The world's first Quadruple 'A' AAAAsshole?

[Oni]

The monetisation director of all people....lol, go fuck yourself.

[DefenderOfDoom2]

Speaking for myself, I want Ubisoft to make amazing video games . People complaining about Ubisoft , including me , is just feedback on what Ubisoft is putting out . Work with us Ubisoft and please listen to to the feedback. We're just trying to help .

[gold_drake]

lool

the Monetization guy is sad, that his practices are unwelcome and hated.

so sad.

[TrueRican69]

I hope it do collapse for being greedy and making s***** games

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Ubisoft could be so much better if they would just listen to what gamers want. They definitely have the IP with games like Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon. Instead they pump AC games left and right. I do not wish the downfall of Ubisoft I only wish they would listen to gamers.

[Psychonaut85]

You reap what you sow. No sympathy

[GhostScholar]

This is easily the most toxic comments forum on the internet. News flash, companies all monetize. They are businesses designed to make money. This doesn’t make them evil. All devs, all plastic box makers, and all publishers are doing what they do to make money. If you don’t like it just don’t buy the product. Ubisoft has made some of my favorite games of all time but that doesn’t mean they care about my wallet. They just want what’s in it. This doesn’t make them evil it makes them a business. Grow the f up.

[-Foxtrot]

With the shill talk you've just said, boot licking a multi-million dollar company who don't give a shit about you as a consumer. No. You grow the f*** up.

[GhostScholar]

How am I boot licking when I said companies don’t care about any of us? The problem is we are in a troll/grifting culture. Everyone is a victim. It much more fun to talk about what you hate because honestly you don’t even know what you like. You just chase trends to try and be a citizen of the world when really you’re just a whiny bitch lol

[Michiel1989]

ok lets follow your advice, if a company makes a shit game just don't buy it and if these forums are so toxic why are you coming here? Jus't dont visit the site.

Us not liking the direction they're going in does not invalidate your opinion that some of your fav games are made by them, I'm not sure what the issue is. We're not gonna stop commenting on it just because some people fav games are from ubisoft. Maybe go to the ubisoft discord where they'll probably censor anything even remotely critical said about ubisoft, it's a safe space for you.

[GhostScholar]

Any where I go is safe for me lol I don’t mind being disagreed with. You want to be a sheep be my guest.

[franwex]

Fair enough. We simply won’t buy the products then. If they fail, they fail.

[victorMaje]

You lost me at Monetization Director.
I hope Ubi developers land on their feet, I hope others will learn from Ubi’s inevitable downfall, as for this guy, I wish him warm excrement to the face.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Even if they didn't wish you "ill-will", even if gamers were unhappy about Ubisoft going broke, you're still burning the company to the ground yourselves. Maybe make good games, stop pushing the message, stop nickle and diming us, and treat your customers better?

[OneLove]

What a ridiculous headline. Who even admits they have a monetization department even though we know it highly likely exists.💀

[GhostScholar]

Every company in the history of ever has a monetization department lol it’s called marketing genius lol that’s just the new term for it I guess.

[PRIMORDUS]

We want to own our games we pay for, let us download them to our drives (PC) in ISO format so if they go offline we can still play them because we have control. If not well I will get what I can for free.

[myDorazio]

Thought experiment for Stevy Chassard: some new hires replace the white frosting in your beloved Oreo cookies with Limburger cheese. How do you feel?

[TheColbertinator]

This guy must have hated what Rainbow Six Patriots was going to be about.

Leeches and parasites feeding off the system amidst hundreds of layoffs, never happy to have "more than enough".

No Splinter Cell
No Beyond Good & Evil
DRM on single player games
Star Wars Outlaws rushed out with bugs with no care for gamers but only shareholders.

[Scissorman]

It sucks that there are thousands of talented employees who will no doubt bear the brunt of upper management's mishandling of the company. In an ideal world, every one on top who makes the most money and makes all the bad decisions should be ousted, leaving the talented, hard-working staff behind. But that's not going to happen. So if it takes the entire company to fail to teach these out of touch C-suite level employees a lesson, then so be it.

[Flewid638]

He's wrong, but this is still the most down-bad, basement dwelling generation in the history of gamers.

[Kassanova07]

Fuck you Stevy, stick your Monetization Director methods efforts up your arse!

[Fonsecap]

Gamers wishing the company to fail? This guy must be joking, they release dog shit games and they think they won't fail? We were suppose to support their games even if they suck? Excuse me pal but I find it very hard to earn my money, unlike you. Ask any gamer if they wanted Ubisoft fail 15 years ago when you released great games like the ezio trilogy and Rayman games, you know good and fun games, no one would want that, but now, with these copy pasted games full of monetization, you bet your ass we want you to fail, I wish that EA would fail too but that's another matter.

[Azurite]

Later: "It was swamp gas not gaslighting."

[jambola]

People want it to fail to show them and other companies that this stuff can fail
to not encourage it going forward
people don't want to see shitty practices encouraged

[Elantregaless]

"Monetization Director"
Ubisoft needs to get used to people not buying any of their games.

[DaniMacYo]

LMAO. Spoken like a true narcissistic greedy rich A hole.

[GrmpyolGamer]

Wanting it to fail and acknowledging that it is failing are 2 different things

[jjb1981]

"Monetization Director" says it all. This dude is The Clown. I'd rather be stuck in a dark room with Pennywise.

[Trilithon]

welcome to the internet. This guy should know better than to acknowledge the haters. its 2024, and even hate generates engagement, views and clicks on articles etc. haters gone be all over this trying to get their points

[Extermin8or3_]

Most of these comments are a classic case of "tell me you didn't actually read the article/comments without telling me you didn't read what was actually said"

Hint: He isn't actually talking about Ubisoft per se he is talking more broadly across the gaming industry and gamer community about people's behaviour online. He has a point. At no point does he say that people should buy their products if they don't like what they have done or are doing. He kinda has a point. It's one thing not to buy the product. It's another thing to actively hope that the whole company collapses. Personally I just hope they move back to greeting better games as a result of their poor sales lately but there are alot of people who do want companies like Ubisoft to crash and burn. No one is forcing you to buy their products.

[maelstromb]

Monetization Director = more like "Demoralization Director." Yep, I think that sums up his role at the company.

[northpaws]

Then make better games... Not these brain dead repetitive open world games with XP booster...

[garos82]

learn to mine you absolute useless man. i wont call you a dev because your clearly arent

[franwex]

“ How can you wish a company to fail simply because they do not cater to you or that the product does not please you is beyond me.”

I don’t want Ubisoft to fail. I simply don’t buy Ubisoft games as they don’t cater to me or don’t please me. Apparently I’m not the only one Ubisoft games don’t cater to or please. How about making games that cater to me or please me?

I actually went back and checked to see the last Ubisoft game I bought. It was years ago. South Park Fractured But Whole. I even paid full price and pre-ordered it. Oh and the Crew 2 when it was in sale for like $1. I really consider not buying it too as the first game is essentially useless.

[HyperMoused]

Yes im sure people are sad a human parasite thinks gamers should be ashamed