Ubisoft Sellout - Bankruptcy Speedrun Any% Thread

[Testicular Blister]

my badge of honor

 

[Deus Exica]

Ubisoft+ seems like the better argument to make but, as with everything else in this wretched industry, trying to find out how many subscribers Ubisoft+ actually has seems to be impossible.

The way I look at it is, if Ubisoft had SOLD 2 million copies full price there is no way they'd be playing semantics games with the fucking count. They'd be singing it from the rooftops, journos would be telling gamers to rope themselves, there'd be BBC Yasuke posting everywhere, you'd never hear the end of it.

Players, zero social media presence that isn't clearly paid for, and the Tencent acquisition deal paints a clear picture that this thing was a gigantic flop.

 

[p1138]

The way I look at it is, if Ubisoft had SOLD 2 million copies full price there is no way they'd be playing semantics games with the fucking count. They'd be singing it from the rooftops, journos would be telling gamers to rope themselves, there'd be BBC Yasuke posting everywhere, you'd never hear the end of it.

Players, zero social media presence that isn't clearly paid for, and the Tencent acquisition deal paints a clear picture that this thing was a gigantic flop.

No they wouldn't. For that number to matter, they would have needed to sell 2 million copies just through their own ubisoft web store on PC. The reason being is that all of the platforms take a cut for digital distribution and of course you've got manufacturing and logistics costs for physical copies.

To announce they only sold 2 million copies at full price, meaning for most they only pulled in about $40 a copy, that would come up to 80 million dollars. The delay alone from the end of 2024 into spring 2025 cost them another 20 million dollars on top of a budget just over 200 million, and still doesn't account for the delay from February into March(or marketing beyond the 2 million we know went to streamers). 2 million copies for a game with a budget like this is an utter failure, and exposes another repeated problem with bloat in the game industry.

The simple reality is, they would have needed to sell 5-6 million copies to break even. The same shit happened with Veilguard, and is why they didn't want to admit to only selling 1.5 million or so copies, as anyone doing some incredibly basic math will know that it confirms it was a failure.

Space Marine 2 on the other hand had a budget in the 50 million range, bragged that they hit 4.5 million players in a month(shit metric but still better than ACS and DAV), and hit their 2 million player count within 24 hours of launch, apparently claiming they've sold 6 million copies in the months since. At $60 MSRP instead of 70, let's go with a simpler number(because I'm too lazy to subtract 30% from the cost and they don't have their own webstore to sell it through and make the full margin anyway) and say they alsomade $40 a copy. That's 240+ million on a 50 million investment and why Space Marine 3 was greenlit already(which is an added developmental benefit because you retain staff instead of laying them off, to keep them on for the next project thus retaining experience and knowledge).

 

[Oliver Onions]

Players, zero social media presence that isn't clearly paid for, and the Tencent acquisition deal paints a clear picture that this thing was a gigantic flop.

I don't know I'd go so far as to say it was a gigantic flop but it has definitely under-performed for the reasons you stated.

I still think it'll eventually manage to shift maybe 6-8 million copies (mainly once the heavy discounts start) but given that AC in Japan is what fans have been asking for since the series started this thing should have been setting sales records. It's crazy they fumbled such an easy win.

 

[Deus Exica]

For that number to matter, they would have needed to sell 2 million copies just through their own ubisoft web store on PC

There is no world where they wouldn't have just said 'sold' in the event they actually sold 2 million copies. I don't care if that still wouldn't have been enough, they would be using the proper word because it conveys success and fomo. Players is blatant mealy mouthed bullshit.

this thing should have been setting sales records. It's crazy they fumbled such an easy win.

They got fucked in their ass by Ghosts of Tsushima, which is an AC game in all but name and iconography. As a longtime AC fan and Samurai Kino appreciator that game sated a hunger in me I'd had since watching old Kurosawa films at 13.

There was virtually no need for a Japanese AC following that game. I was genuinely surprised to see them even bothering given how obvious it was that Suckerpunch has, ironically enough, just suckerpunched them and stolen their 'break glass in case of emergency' setting.

As salt in the wound, even though it was very niche, Rise of the Ronin came out quite a ways before this turd dropped with the heavy historical setting and even more RPG elements and Souls-like combat and was pretty good as well, so the setting was even more crowded.

I am sure the game will still probably crawl towards 4-5 million sales over the course of its lifespan, but will anybody be buying the microtransaction armor sets and XP boosters this time? Dunno. That's where the real money was at for Valhalla and such.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Ghosts of Tsushima,

Rise of the Ronin

And Nioh 1 and 2, and Like A Dragon: Ishin. Not to mention the option to LARP as a samurai in Dark Souls and Elden Ring (you could even create your own Yasuke, if you wanted).

I don't think I've seen a developer this late to the party since that bizarre Rambo rail shooter that came out in the final days of the PS3/360 then subsequently disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

[p1138]

There is no world where they wouldn't have just said 'sold' in the event they actually sold 2 million copies. I don't care if that still wouldn't have been enough, they would be using the proper word because it conveys success and fomo. Players is blatant mealy mouthed bullshit.

Yes, "players" is mealy mouthed bullshit. But the fact is, ACS selling 2 million, 3, or even 4 million copies is a miserable flop and they would never admit to that. They'll tout the "players" number because no one knows wtf it means, but actual "sold" any idiot who has made it past Jr High can understand 2 million would be an utter failure. Pitiful numbers like 2 million copies of ACS sold is shit that gets people asking wtf happened in an investor call while the ubisoft rep tries to make excuses for it about "shifting markets" and dumb crap like that.

 

[RandomGibberish]

>Space Marine 2 only cost $50 million

Isn’t it funny that Ubisoft could have made 6 small games with AC Shadows budget that would have had to only sell 1.5 million copies to break even.

Considering both Raymans sold like 5 million copies and AC Mirage that is pure AI generated slop still sold 5 million copies.

It would seem that in a situation like this it is harder to lose money than earn money on something like this.

 

[The Last Stand]

View attachment 7177325
Journalists, No one is buying it was "oops an 11 year later accident for Japan!"

I never understood the Japanese's inconsistency with their depictions of sex.

 

[p1138]

>Space Marine 2 only cost $50 million

Isn’t it funny that Ubisoft could have made 6 small games with AC Shadows budget that would have had to only sell 1.5 million copies to break even.

Considering both Raymans sold like 5 million copies and AC Mirage that is pure AI generated slop still sold 5 million copies.

It would seem that in a situation like this it is harder to lose money than earn money on something like this.

That's why I said there's a different much larger industry wide bloat issue in general. Yes, it's absolutely fucking insane that the big publishers all seem to think that a game needs to take 5-10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to produce now. The upcoming Spiderman 3 and Wolverine game budgets are both in the fucking 300 million dollar range before delays and marketing, and somehow all of these games half the credits read like a fucking list of a graduating class from a school in India.

If you actually look at the list of games published by Ubisoft, Activision, and EA back between 1995 and 2010 you'll see that they all usually got tons of games out the door per year and that's what got those companies successful. Now it's in the single digits of games per year(and most of EA's library is just annually iterated sports games) and we're at a point of most of the games being shit and people wondering what the fuck happened to the industry that it's selling more than ever but throwing away more money than ever.

 

[moocow]

I never understood the Japanese's inconsistency with their depictions of sex.

They inherited 40's-era American hang-ups about sex (via Japan's surrender to the Allies in WW2) and are being actively interfered with by the Chinese (e.g. Tencent buying into Ubisoft). Combine that with their innate perversions and you get big-tittied 10 year old lolis getting boffed by tentacles in modern hentais with pixelation of all genitals and nothing else.

And very, very confused messaging in their video games.

 

[The Last Stand]

They inherited 40's-era American hang-ups about sex (via Japan's surrender to the Allies in WW2)

How does one go from pin-ups like Betty Grable & Virginia Mayo to drawing adolescent children in sexual predicaments?

 

[moocow]

How does one go from pin-ups like Betty Grable & Virginia Mayo to drawing adolescent children in sexual predicaments?

It was the US that mandated censorship in pornography in the surrender arrangements (either directly in the document or by imposition of a "morals" committee). It's on us that the Japanese censor their stuff in the first place, and the Chinese are making them even more confused with their own machinations. Not to mention the woke shit that's infesting Japan too.

 

[The Last Stand]

It was the US that mandated censorship in pornography in the surrender arrangements (either directly in the document or by imposition of a "morals" committee). It's on us that the Japanese censor their stuff in the first place,

I'd love to read a source for that. On the one hand, more pin-ups for us. But now, there's a pandemic of anime turning into pedophila.

 

[moocow]

I'd love to read a source for that. On the one hand, more pin-ups for us. But now, there's a pandemic of anime turning into pedophila.

It's somewhat hard to find definitive sources for it, ironically because during the occupation of Japan by the allies we were rather heavy-handed about censorship and discussion of it (note 5). Technically speaking the law they've prosecuted indecency with (that prompted the mosaic censorship in the adult, hentai and ecchi industries) -- Article 175 -- has been on the books since 1907, but they didn't really engage in enthusiastic interpretation of that law until after the occupation began.

The Supreme Command for the Allied Powers did a lot of strange shit during the occupation. Fun little rabbit hole to explore if you ever get bored.

 

[Tanner Glass]

How does one go from pin-ups like Betty Grable & Virginia Mayo to drawing adolescent children in sexual predicaments?

America drops nuclear bombs and vaporizes two of your cities and then your emperor (who you literally thought was godlike and actually divine) surrenders shamefully.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

If the term "incel" is ever applied to an entire nation, Japan embodies it along with a variety of other societal decay fuck-ups, like an expectation of dying alone, insane cost of living, paying women to give you a hug and talk to you over dinner, and wanking off to a variety of perversions that will make Caligula blush.

Given the current state of their society, and how the people there are fucked up in the head all around, Japan not breeding and thus self-removing itself from the gene pool is an act of mercy.

 

[Rezza]

there will always be degenerate stuff, but what I mean is there's a difference between something like an open secret some politician is into twinks (and mentioning it in public gets you v&) and bath houses, and having full blown pride parades

Late, but there was actually a scandal that got buried where a celebrity revealed that she was raped and became a mistress for a high ranking official when she was very young
People like to say that Japan was degenerate for having a very low age of consent (raised a few years ago) despite de facto law that made it higher, but in China the age of consent is still...14. No I'm not kidding, even the push to raise it was only to 16

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

And Nioh 1 and 2, and Like A Dragon: Ishin. Not to mention the option to LARP as a samurai in Dark Souls and Elden Ring (you could even create your own Yasuke, if you wanted).

If you want a proper action game that's a samurai sim, all of that crap doesn't compare to the Way of the Samurai series. I personally like 3 the most but it's because it's the only one set in the Sengoku period. 2 and 4 are set in the Bakumatsu period and 1 is set in the Meiji period where the local samurai clan is basically just a glorified local gang (a glorified crew one may say) that's resisting the new government.

 

[Oliver Onions]

all of that crap doesn't compare to the Way of the Samurai series.

I briefly owned one of those games for PS2 and almost immediately returned it after realising it had some sort of permadeath mechanic and I died in the first or second fight.

It's one of the games I regret giving up the most because in my decades of collecting I have never seen any of the Way of the Samurai games pop up again.