Ubisoft Sellout - Bankruptcy Speedrun Any% Thread

[Tanner Glass]

I'm still not even confident Shadows has been a failure. It's almost certainly underperformed given what Ubisoft needed in its current financial state, but from everything I've seen aside from Yasuke --which I imagine most people don't care about, at least not enough to stop them playing the game-- Shadows is just another Ubislop title and if that's what you like then you'll enjoy Shadows just as much as their other generic output.

I've never played any of the Dragon Age games properly, but from what I understand Veilguard wasn't just bad because of all the embarrassing DEI stuff, it was also a really bad Dragon Age game.

I understand why we're pre-occupied with all the woke stuff on here, but I think the average consumer is content to roll their eyes and still play the game as long as it delivers what they want, gameplay wise.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is a failure just on principle and it being another "Ubislop" game is the core reason why. Assassin's Creed is a franchise that used to move a lot of units and was highly regarded (AC4-Black Flag sold ~12 million copies, allegedly) but hasn't really been so in a long time, with Black Flag releasing a full 12 years ago.

Shadows had a pretty clear core goal - to reinvigorate the stagnating AC franchise, a "return to form" that you constantly see shills talking about. The reality is - even with the massive advertising, the controversies, the delays, and using what should be an extremely popular setting - they have a solidly mediocre game that doesn't really change the formula in any meaningful way. There's only so many times you can expect a playerbase to hear "This mediocre game got a mediocre sequel, that's basically just the same game again" and expect them to run to a store and buy it. There's also a plethora of alternatives to that as well (Game Streaming, Used Game Sales, watching it on Youtube/Twitch) and also "Just replaying the game you like and already own instead and/or is like $8 to buy in 2025". I personally really liked Assassin's Creed but I haven't picked one up in like a decade.

It still has a meandering story that doesn't matter, very generic barebones writing (an Assassin was tricked! Assassins and Templars are fighting over another <OBJECT> of Eden! There's a large group of a shadowy order that you kill the members one at a time!), and a pretty jarring lack of care about the actual setting - where Yasuke is just insanely famous for the era (which has virtually 0 gigantic black dudes, and is a big no-no for Assassins and allies) and sets a really bad tone for the series. It's also really wasted potential because if you're going to break the rule of "the protag should not be someone famous or historical" then may as well fucking shoot for the moon but instead picked Yasuke for pretty clear reasons. Gameplay wise it's basically the same game - which is a formula the never really got right and clearly didn't here. It's a concept done better by tons of games (Rise of Ronin, Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, Way of the Samurai, NiOh, etc) that are cheaper to boot. There's still an in game store on top of all of this - despite how much players dislike it conceptually.

When studios try to "revive" a franchise - they aren't just trying to make a game and sell it. They're trying to raise the entire franchise up with it - which clearly is not going to be the case with Assassin's Creed. The energy from players clearly left after AC4 and this isn't going to be enough to bring them back. Veilguard is another one that clearly isn't bringing the franchise back to prominence either. They wanted this to be like Baldur's Gate 3 - a massively celebrated, awarded, and praised game from journalists and players alike. It simply isn't going to be that.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Assassin's Creed is a franchise that used to move a lot of units and was highly regarded (AC4-Black Flag sold ~12 million copies, allegedly) but hasn't really been so in a long time, with Black Flag releasing a full 12 years ago.

According to this list Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are all estimated to have sold at least 10 million units, so acting like the series hasn't been doing numbers since Black Flag seems a bit disingenuous. Ubisoft have also claimed Valhalla was their "second most profitable game ever" in financial reports, which is less useful than a solid sales figure but more useful than their new favourite 'player engagement' metric.

I'm not trying to defend Shadows or Ubisoft here, I'm just saying it's clear there is still a depressingly large market for mediocre slop, and while more people are aware of DEI than before most still don't care as long as the new game delivers the same bland and predictable experience they've had several times before.

Saying they could just replay the old games is like saying you could just rewatch the old Mission Impossible or Fast & Furious movies instead of going to see the new ones, but these movies continue to be successful because people still want more even when they know they're basically going to get the same experience again with some elements slightly tweaked.

 

[Tanner Glass]

According to this list Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are all estimated to have sold at least 10 million units, so acting like the series hasn't been doing numbers since Black Flag seems a bit disingenuous. Ubisoft have also claimed Valhalla was their "second most profitable game ever" in financial reports, which is less useful than a solid sales figure but more useful than their new favourite 'player engagement' metric.

I'm not trying to defend Shadows or Ubisoft here, I'm just saying it's clear there is still a depressingly large market for mediocre slop, and while more people are aware of DEI than before most still don't care as long as the new game delivers the same bland and predictable experience they've had several times before.

Saying they could just replay the old games is like saying you could just rewatch the old Mission Impossible or Fast & Furious movies instead of going to see the new ones, but these movies continue to be successful because people still want more even when they know they're basically going to get the same experience again with some elements slightly tweaked.

I'm not sure where that list is getting it's data, but the data I was using was as follows. Whenever a company hides the data I always just assume it's not good and move on. There's a lot of "shell game" happening with Ubisoft using non-sales metrics - such as engagement, players, and played time instead of "we sold x amount of copies". The few data points we have (concurrent players on Steam) indicate that it's trending worse than Veilguard was.

Here is a list of FIRST WEEK SALES:

1. Assassin’s Creed: 1.24 million
2. Assassin’s Creed II: 3.27 million
3. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: 2.15 million
4. Assassin’s Creed Revelations: 2.22 million
5. Assassin’s Creed III: 3.52 million
6. Assassin’s Creed IV: 2.36 million
7. Assassin’s Creed Unity: 2 million
8. Assassins Creed Syndicate: 0.92 million
9. Assassin’s Creed Origins: 1.5-1.7 million
10. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: 1.4-1.5 million
11. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: 1.7million
12. Assassin’s Creed Mirage: 1.4-1.7 million

Here is a list of 4 MONTHS POST LAUNCH SALES:

1. Assassin’s Creed: 5 million
2. Assassin’s Creed II: 9 million
3. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: 7 million
4. Assassin’s Creed Revelations: 7 million
5. Assassin’s Creed III: 12-13 million
6. Assassin’s Creed IV: 11-12 million
7. Assassin’s Creed Unity: 9 million
8. Assassins Creed Syndicate: [no data]
9. Assassin’s Creed Origins: 6-7 million
10. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: 5-6 million
11. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: [no data]
12. Assassin’s Creed Mirage: 5 million

Fast and The Furious is actually a really good example/metaphor because like Assassin's Creed - it also had a huge shift in focus and quality. It used to be a fun and stupid movie about cars, racing, and realistic low-level crime and then suddenly changed the formula around 5 or 6 to be this insane over-the-top absurd action series. They alienated fans of the old series in the same way that Assassin's Creed did. If you liked Fast and The Furious 1-5 then you can't look to FATF 6+ for the same experience, you have to get it elsewhere. There just hasn't been a 1:1 "spiritual successor" for Assassin's Creed 1-4 yet, but should one arise - the series is going to get buried.

You're right that there are people that will see "Assassin's Creed" and go "Oh, yeah, I think I like that" and get it - but that audience segment is getting smaller each time for every person that goes "Oh but I got <recent title> and it wasn't very good, I'll pass".

 

[ZMOT]

I'm not trying to defend Shadows or Ubisoft here, I'm just saying it's clear there is still a depressingly large market for mediocre slop, and while more people are aware of DEI than before most still don't care as long as the new game delivers the same bland and predictable experience they've had several times before.

that will never change, otherwise mcdonalds and pop music would've been extinct by now. and just like mission impossible there's comfort knowing exactly what you gonna get, the bond franchise has been doing that for decades (until they decided to get super serious bourne 2.0 to the point literally killing bond, then selling it to amazon).

however in this specific case you also have to put it into context what year valhalla released, what also happened that year and the overall media landscape, like a certain tv series being in it's sixth and final season.
could ubisoft replicate that? probably, japan and anime have never been more popular, and like you said there will always be an audience for slop - but even that slop needs to have some entertaining quality, which all the AAA(A) slop factories have forgotten for years.

 

[Oliver Onions]

You're right that there are people that will see "Assassin's Creed" and go "Oh, yeah, I think I like that" and get it - but that audience segment is getting smaller each time for every person that goes "Oh but I got <recent title> and it wasn't very good, I'll pass".

Yeah I'd agree it's definitely a case of diminishing returns for all these legacy series (same reason I believe the MCU would still have tanked if they hadn't gone full woke). I've experienced it first-hand: I've played all the Far Cry games since 3, but after 6 I gave up on the series because it was so lazy and soulless, and everything they changed to try and 're-invigorate' the franchise only made it worse.

I think the same will probably happen with Shadows but I also think it'll be one of those cases where enough people will still buy it in order to learn that lesson so it's probably not going to be a failure on the scale of anything we saw in 2024.

The biggest problem is they've now played their ace by using the Japan location, so the next AC game has nothing left to bait people with unless they finally do the Current Year arc they teased with the first couple games, but that would really just be Watch Dogs. I guess they could also stretch out the Japan arc like they did with Ezio, too, but that only worked because AC II was such groundbreaking game.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

"This mediocre game got a mediocre sequel, that's basically just the same game again" and expect them to run to a store and buy it. There's also a plethora of alternatives to that as well (Game Streaming, Used Game Sales, watching it on Youtube/Twitch) and also "Just replaying the game you like and already own instead and/or is like $8 to buy in 2025". I personally really liked Assassin's Creed but I haven't picked one up in like a decade.

I'm not trying to defend Shadows or Ubisoft here, I'm just saying it's clear there is still a depressingly large market for mediocre slop,

I don't even think that this game passes as Mediocre Slop, The Series High Point is "Mediocre Slop" but games like the First one and Shadows are much worse than Mediocre.

 

[30+GameOvers]

It takes a lot of effort to kill a franchise with such an interesting premise, so props to Ubisoft for that. They really tried!
Also, I can't believe anyone here is still falling for "official numbers" of copies sold. Are you forgetting that Ubisoft were caught botting their numbers not too long ago? Or how all the billions that supposedly own this game were never numbers "bought", since it's obvious the game probably didn't even sell a million worldwide and that would be a lie they would get sued for?
Ubisoft games never sell as well as they claim they do, always assume these are optimistic(read: false) numbers.

 

[p1138]

It takes a lot of effort to kill a franchise with such an interesting premise, so props to Ubisoft for that. They really tried!
Also, I can't believe anyone here is still falling for "official numbers" of copies sold. Are you forgetting that Ubisoft were caught botting their numbers not too long ago? Or how all the billions that supposedly own this game were never numbers "bought", since it's obvious the game probably didn't even sell a million worldwide and that would be a lie they would get sued for?
Ubisoft games never sell as well as they claim they do, always assume these are optimistic(read: false) numbers.

When was ubisoft caught botting anything? The only time I ever saw someone claim that and actually specify anything was regarding their older games and player counts on steam, which happened to coincide with sales(also charted on steamdb).

edit: Person claiming Ubisoft was botting numbers here:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/ubisoft-sellout.129360/page-107#post-20875734

Myself showing that the user was full of crap using steamdb here:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/ubisoft-sellout.129360/page-107#post-20874676

A game seeing an increased player count, while the game has been on sale for 50% off, is not proof of "botting". It's proof that some people will be willing to give anything a try if it's cheap enough.

 

[fat kid]

I don't know about player counts but Ubisoft was caught botting youtube comments and upvotes back in September.

 

[p1138]

I don't know about player counts but Ubisoft was caught botting youtube comments and upvotes back in September.

Sure, they were doing that with obviously botted firstname.lastname<4digit number> accounts all posting the same shit because they probably paid a PR firm to do it, and weirdly enough most of the profiles were white women aged 25-35, you know... "gamers" lol.

I meant regarding "numbers" and the only instance I've ever seen of ubisoft "botting numbers" was the team player count thing because someone lied about when the sale price of the games had been discounted. Why ubisoft would put older games on sale on steam, and then bot the playercount for older games to coincide with the sale makes no fucking sense.

 

[ParasiteSteve]

People talk of sales, but in which country. Because a sale in India is not the same as a sale in Australia (I think that's one of the most expensive). Then factor in currency conversion, I would be very interested to see how well the game actually makes real potato money, or American money if you want, but something that has a real global understanding of what it means in terms of profits.

Not to mention, anything UBIsoft puts out is suspect anyway, its not like they havent lied over and over again in the past about sales, trailers (cough, watchdogs) etc.

I dont think its a complete failure like Concord or shit like that. But I do think it had a very underwhelming income, and its not going to turn the franchise around. Factor in the psychotic costs they seem to have with making games, its going to be difficult for a well liked game to actually turn a profit these days.

Crazy when you consider smaller AA games with fractions of that budget outsell it by the truckload. I think the Woke shit is not the problem, its just a symptom of a company that is dying for any kind of relevancy. Hoping to latch onto something other than the game to shift some fucking units, then watching it fail because its just yet another fucking ubislop game.

 

[30+GameOvers]

When was ubisoft caught botting anything? The only time I ever saw someone claim that and actually specify anything was regarding their older games and player counts on steam, which happened to coincide with sales(also charted on steamdb).

edit: Person claiming Ubisoft was botting numbers here:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/ubisoft-sellout.129360/page-107#post-20875734

Myself showing that the user was full of crap using steamdb here:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/ubisoft-sellout.129360/page-107#post-20874676

A game seeing an increased player count, while the game has been on sale for 50% off, is not proof of "botting". It's proof that some people will be willing to give anything a try if it's cheap enough.

see

I don't know about player counts but Ubisoft was caught botting youtube comments and upvotes back in September.

This isn't anything new, just the latest part in Ubisoft trying to hide their implosion in popularity. Anyone who think they're putting out accurate numbers on anything are naive, simple as that.

 

[p1138]

see

This isn't anything new, just the latest part in Ubisoft trying to hide their implosion in popularity. Anyone who think they're putting out accurate numbers on anything are naive, simple as that.

Botting youtube comments is not botting "numbers". You said numbers, which ones, where? They've never stated sales number for ACS, and can't lie about sales numbers in their shareholder meetings(they can just obfuscate them with other statistics).

 

[30+GameOvers]

Botting youtube comments is not botting "numbers". You said numbers, which ones, where? They've never stated sales number for ACS, and can't lie about sales numbers in their shareholder meetings(they can just obfuscate them with other statistics).

They can lie about numbers all they want, just not to the shareholders. Hence, the three million "engagements" instead of "copies sold". Just like everyone else sweeping up for Ubisoft, you're a bit slow on the uptake.

 

[p1138]

They can lie about numbers all they want, just not to the shareholders. Hence, the three million "engagements" instead of "copies sold". Just like everyone else sweeping up for Ubisoft, you're a bit slow on the uptake.

I've been shitting on ubisoft consistently in this thread you illiterate nigger. Use the search function in this thread and find ONE instance of me posting anything in support of ubisoft.

Either explain wtf you're talking about, preferably with a source, or stop with the bullshit. There's plenty of legitimate complaints about this retarded fucking company, we don't need random nonsensical bullshit in the way of the conversation. This is just like when morons were claiming that Ubisoft might even remove Yasuke from the fucking game with the initial delay. Or SmashJT being retarded enough to fall for an obviously fake email.

 

[30+GameOvers]

I've been shitting on ubisoft consistently in this thread you illiterate nigger. Use the search function in this thread and find ONE instance of me posting anything in support of ubisoft.

Either explain wtf you're talking about, preferably with a source, or stop with the bullshit. There's plenty of legitimate complaints about this retarded fucking company, we don't need random nonsensical bullshit in the way of the conversation. This is just like when morons were claiming that Ubisoft might even remove Yasuke from the fucking game with the initial delay. Or SmashJT being retarded enough to fall for an obviously fake email.

There is no need to lick up Tencent's sloppy seconds, Ubisoft will never be taken seriously ever again neither will their brands. You're way too late on this bandwagon.
You make consistently retarded posts in threads I see you in, so I can only assume what you wrote here is of similar quality to the last few posts you made.

 

[p1138]

There is no need to lick up Tencent's sloppy seconds, Ubisoft will never be taken seriously ever again neither will their brands. You're way too late on this bandwagon.
You make consistently retarded posts in threads I see you in, so I can only assume what you wrote here is of similar quality to the last few posts you made.

So again when asked for evidence, you choose not to provide any.


So lets see.
Calling you out.
Pointing out ubisoft's lame youtube comment bots
Asking you what the fuck you were talking about.
Calling Assassin's Creed Shadows a crap game
Calling Ubisoft a crap company along with EA/Bioware
Pointing out how repetitive ubisoft's open world slop has gotten.
Pointing out a rumor that had been floating around
Pointing out the bloat in the credits for ACS and other ubisoft games
Calling out the development times and budgets as being bloat
Pointing out that even if ACS sells 5 million copies it's still a failure
Pointing out they hadn't even sold 2 million copies via their own marketplace to maximize their profits
Commenting that retards on bluesky touting the "players" number is useless
Pointing out that the closed studio was a smaller studio that did work on a number of games
Pointing out how low their stock value is, and that some listings have it at fractional 1/5 shares
Stating that if a publisher shuts down, there's nothing to keep the online component of their games running
Stating that as shitty as China is, they probably can't do worse than ubisoft, that's not exactly praising china especially since I start with calling them shit.
And pointing out that it's too early for bulk layoffs.

But yes, I'm busy sweeping for ubisoft because you want to act like a dumb nigger that can't fucking read.

 

[Adam Basile Woodrow]

Assassin’s Creed Unity: 2 million

It's funny to see that ubisoft weren't really honest with their numbers back in 2014 because they included rouge in the calculation

 

[Maude Snew]

There's only so many times you can expect a playerbase to hear "This mediocre game got a mediocre sequel, that's basically just the same game again" and expect them to run to a store and buy it.

You'd think so but the same morons buy the same sports game with a roster update every year and bitch and moan in the same way how it's the same shit and it doesn't even occur to them that it will stay that way until they stop buying it. At least with those everyone knows they're shit but I can't tell if that's better or worse than the shit games that have free defense force morons on the Steam forums dogpiling everybody who brings up any kind of problem and clown rating negative reviews. It's all insanity.

 

[Tanner Glass]

You'd think so but the same morons buy the same sports game with a roster update every year and bitch and moan in the same way how it's the same shit and it doesn't even occur to them that it will stay that way until they stop buying it. At least with those everyone knows they're shit but I can't tell if that's better or worse than the shit games that have free defense force morons on the Steam forums dogpiling everybody who brings up any kind of problem and clown rating negative reviews. It's all insanity.

The sports game at least have the excuse of "Online play gets forced onto the new version" each year so if you want to keep up, you're kind of forced. Plus some hackneyed new feature, roster updates, rule updates, league updates, etc.

These don't even have that excuse.