AAA game industry today: "Pay us $70 to play our game. Now pay us $10 more to not have to play it."

It's called "Skull & Bones" because the game is barely a skeleton of what Black Flag was.

It's called Quadruple-A because it makes you want to shout "AAAA!"

Ubisoft talking about using AI to write NPC dialogue shows how much they value both artists and players. They see you as nothing more than a mindless content consumer, one so uninterested in quality that you can be sold randomized gibberish pumped out endlessly by a machine.

You could say that Ubisoft's unyielding dedication to live service games and microtransactions has become something of a "sunken" cost fallacy

Fun fact: Quadruple A is a term in baseball used to describe someone who was really great at the college level, but crashed and burned hard when they got into the pros. I remember coming across this fact online when reading a review for a bad game that called it a quadruple-A experience.

The ship is sinking. It's keeping itself above water, but sooner or later, its stamina bar will run out. And yes, apparently, ships have stamina bars. According to ubisoft.

The funniest thing is, a mere 8 days before the release of Skull and Bones, a Live Service game, made by a then nearly unknown company, Helldivers 2, was released, and that one exploded simply by... being a good game.

You tell them Cookie Monster

Arlo talking down on AAA gaming is becoming one of my favorite genres

The crew may be bailing water, but the captain is helping by drilling another hole to let the water out.

I thought the people of these comments should know KZfaqr Ross Scott (Accursed Farms) the creator of some of the oldest Machinima on the platform has put together a campaign to make governments create laws against Live service games, using the termination of The Crew and Ubisoft as the major focal point but his scope includes all companies that do this. If you would like to get involved there are 3 videos on his channel that cover what you can do depending on what country you live in, the more people get involved the more likely it is to see action.

"I used to genuinely think they were a cool company, I didn't really know anything about them." Cut. Print. Beautiful.

“It’s hard to sink a ship this big” Pretty sure that’s what they said about the Titanic and the Bismarck

Skull & Bones was a good idea when the scope of the game was on par with For Honor. A small game specifically for fans of the naval combat. The problem is that they took this niche concept and decided it would be a AAAA super blockbuster that everyone in the world wanted to play.

I interviewed with Ubisoft about 3 years ago to work on the Splinter Cell remake. They gave me a vibe that once the game would be finished that they were going to lay people off. During the interview, I said, don't hire me if you plan on laying me off in one years time. I couldn't get a straight answer from them, so I pretty much knew the deal. I have friends who still work there, and they've told me terrible things about Ubisoft. They try so hard with their whole DEI BS, but its just a front for their toxic culture.

When Ubisoft sinks you can be sure that the people keeping it afloat right now are going to be drowning on the lower decks while the ones who set the bad course will be taking the safety boat that just so happens to be loaded with the remaining treasure.

We all knew skull and bones was going to be a disaster. All it took was the knowledge that they were being my forced to finish it by the Singapore government

I really fuckin hate to see it because there are soooo many talented enviromental designers in ubisoft. Its seriously the one thing they always nail 100%

Being french, I think the end of Ubisoft is great news. While we do have smaller cool companies making nice games, Ubisoft is sucking a lot of local talents, and waste their potential. If/when Ubisoft falls appart, a ton of devs will join/build new companies and produce nice stuff.

To add to the analogy. Ubisoft is not only run by a captain who is sinking his ship for treasure while hurting his crew. The treasure he finds at the end is "The friends we made along the way." While all the crew lays beaten and dead with the captian unharmed and confused and underwhelmed at their prize.

Honestly kind of an insult to sinking ships

They crippled Black Flag recently too. It's unplayable past a certain point without a mod to fix the once online part of the game and if you use that mod, your newly attached Ubisoft Connect account will get banned and without the ability log-in, the game simply won't launch making it online only... despite the online portion being no longer supported... Basically, I'm not shocked and I just hope Steam/modders can undo their evil nonsense.

I'm new to the channel and I have to say, the conceit of a blue monster pretending to be a man operating a blue monster is just beautiful.

"I'm not a fan of evil people. It's just...not my thing" Bless you Arlo.

You either die a hero or live long enough to become a Triple-A Game company.

Skull and Bones' development is reflected in the game. They started going strong(literally just remake Black Flag for next gen), made some bad moves due to poor choices early on(the quest marker was in the wrong spot) then ran out of steam and had to slog for way too long to reach their destination(they ran out of stamina). Then once it was all said and done, they realized that they had spent a ton of money for a pile of poop, just like we did buying the game.

Even the Titanic didn't sink as fast as Skull & Bones.

"They said we couldn't do it, they said we shouldn't do it, they begged us NOT to do it, but we did it anyway!" - Ubisoft probably

Pirate games more fun than skull and bones: 1. Sea of thieves 2. Actually pirating black flag on a PS3 emulator 3. Becoming a pirate irl

"Some people are having fun..." There's no accounting for taste...

*Man... I missed games like Oblivion... (even if he started with the Horse DLC stuff)* You paid around $10, and get tons of quests, npcs, elements, classes, races, dungeons, loots, spells creation, and all that... While here, you pay 7x more, to just.... travel in an ship...

To be fair: the AAAA moniker is technically accurate. The phrase we associate with big budget titles and superior quality actually originated as a business term describing budget size, and if there's one thing that Skull and Bones has shown us, it's that if you want to build a build a money bonfire, it's gonna take a LOT of cash.

Honestly, a pirate game is an idea that writes itself. Spiritual successor to black flag. Customizable player character captain, give em a backstory if you wanna be spicy. Customizable lead ship. Baldur's Gate 3 style of npc crew and crew management. Maybe give it a supernatural potc style undercurrent/subplot as a differentiating 'upgrade' to black flag. Boom done. If it needs multi-player, set that in a secret sea beyond the coral reef or something so you're not trying to make your main ocean both a plot AND a crowded wifi arena.

So wait... you're telling me UBISOFT... of all devs do not know what the definition of insanity is? Oh the irony.

A large portion of big western devs are sinking ships. Bioware, Bethesda, Sony, Ubisoft, Blizzard - the list goes on~ Meanwhile overseas devs such as Cdprojekt Red, Owlcat, Larian Studios, Atlus and Squeenix are cleaning up.

The Ubisoft that made Rayman 2, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Assassin's Creed 2 is long gone and I just have to accept that. Sigh.

22:20 'companies don't want a lot of money... companies want ALL THE MONEY' Arlo just encapsulated corporate greed at its core

I love that instead of a drawn avatar you use a puppet. Its adorable

I think we all used to like gaming companies at some point, it's until a specific CEO takes over and takes the direction of the company in terms of "How can I make the most money off of this?" rather than "How can I make this game the best?"

There’s a part of me that wants Ubisoft Milan (or whichever division does the Mario Rabbids game) just breaks off from Ubisoft taking the Rayman Rabbids IP with them to save them from Ubisoft’s clutches 😭

It's crazy how Kingdom Hearts III is like 10% pirate simulator, and that's the most fun part of the game, and Ubisoft makes an entire pirate simulator that's a flaming disaster. How do you get shown up by a fraction of another game that isn't even the same genre?!

A Great man once said, "If it's not fun, why bother"

Someone said, these companies aren't big because they are good, they are big because they are big

Insert overused “if buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing”

My friend worked at Ubisoft. When he said that he had a friend who loved Starlink in a meeting one of his bosses laughed and said "you found the entire audience who is enthusiastic about Starlink!"

Just stumbled onto this channel and gotta say, love your writing and the muppet theme.

15:42 I will NEVER unhear the foghorn association with Skull and Bones. Thank you, Arlo!

Ubisoft has also destroyed Just Dance. They turned it into a live service, stripped out many functions, made so many features behind their Just Dance+ subscription, a service that has less than half the songs in their previous Unlimited service. They deleted customized playlists. They put the previously free kids mode behind a paywall. They turned a party game into a single player game by only allowing one player's scores to be retained. They removed the World Dancefloor multiplayer mode. They stopped porting over songs from Unlimited into JD+. They made new season maps available only to JD+ despite saying they will add free content all year long. Most people I know that play Just Dance are sticking with 2022+Unlimited, but Ubisoft will turn off Unlimited soon. I know most gaming sites and channels blow Just Dance off, but it is probably Ubisoft's biggest cash cow and now they are chasing that game's loyal players away. The developers say most changes came from the execs. They said they know the current live service game is majorly lacking but they can't do anything about it. It seems like Ubisoft execs are determined to destroy all of their successful franchises.

Sly Cooper 3 walked so that Black Flag could run. Meanwhile, Skull n Bones is trying to fly, but is looking to have as much lift as a lemming.

30 minute videos of Arlo roasting corpo gaming companies are amongst my favorite kind of Arlo videos.

There's a really cool video by Friendly Space Ninja called 'The inevitable fall of blockbusters', and I think some of its points might apply to AAA games as well. Basically the film market is imploding on itself, because super expensive blockbusters used to be rare once/twice in a year events. However, now every studio wants to put out their bigass big budget franchise, but ppl just don't have the time/money/energy to buy tickets for all of them, so they are flopping left and right. Full disclosure I am no expert, but it would make sense to me why the game dev workspace is so toxic and frustrating rn. Big budgets, fast releases, grinding their artists to the bone, mediocre gameplay and sales. You just can't keep up a system that's destined to eat itself alive o.o

*This is important:* I'm surprised you didn't talk about *The Crew.* Ubisoft is not simply stopping support, not simply delisting the game from stores, but Ubisoft is *intentionally breaking the game.* Meaning that *every single person who purchased this game will not be allowed to play it anymore because Ubisoft simply decided this to be the case.*

Fromsoftware's ship: sailing over the waves through the power of slow, steady, well done work, pioneering and exploring new lands with extreme success and bravery Pokémon Company: A tiny boat full of holes with a rope tied to Nintendo's mother ship. Capcom's: full of fans rowing with the power of friendship

This vid was randomly recommended to me, and you would not believe how loud i cackled when this puppet fella came on screen

I'm a 35 year old man that just received a lecture on evil business practices from a muppet and I'm here for it.

The Singaporean government deserves a round of applause for managing to force Ubisoft to reap what they sew

Absolutely love this trend of content of Arlo not pulling punches on exposing this screwed up industry. Keep it coming, good stuff.

Every time Ubisoft releases a game now, the only thing that runs through my head is, "And the crowd has gone mild"

7:33 I don't think I've ever seen Arlo be so unapologetically blunt before. 😂

It's amazing, given the time it's taken to make Skull & Bones, that another company didn't look at the reveal, see the fan outcry, make the game people were asking for themselves, and release it BEFORE Skull & Bones.

ubisoft makes the highest budget shovelware ive ever seen

The way you talk and emote your puppet is so similar to shows like Sesame Street and Elmo's World, I love the effort and dedication to the craft!

You're pretty spot on. I think the bigger picture you are missing here is this: Ubisoft is not really a games company. It is a games-focused investment portfolio. This is generally true of all businesses at the macro-level. Beyond a certain point, owners and investors are only interested in a company as an investment. They have no understanding or regard for what the company makes or how they do it. What they want is to sell their stock for more than they paid for it.

I have never seen Arlo go in so ruthlessly on a company before and I am absolutely here for it

This video was hilarious and insightful but let's not sleep on how impressive Arlo's puppeteering is. Between the AAAA moment and the cell phone bit at the end I thought it was as professional as the Muppets. Super impressive work. I don't know what training Arlo has with puppets but I so wish I could do that!

Red Steel is now a cult classic. One of those games that got hate when released, but now are seen as great titles. Try playing it again.

Helldivers 2 is the new standard for the live service model, but I'm betting good money the suits will not adopt it any time soon. "Make player centric games and take the time to make them good? Are you insane? Why would we delay profit for tomorrow when dumb fans will buy any rush job we put out today?" -CEO of a game studio, probably.

Every time I've heard Ubisoft refer to the idea of a "AAAA Game," all I can think is Spinal Tap. "....This one goes to 11."

I'm reminded of an old Doctor Who quote. "Everything has its time and everything dies" (2005).

I squealed aloud when you mentioned Beyond Good And Evil, I played that game and became obsessed with it back when I rented it for the GameCube, and that alone should date how long I've wanted some answers for the after-credits cliffhanger. I lost faith when the style changed to hyper realistic. The game had a strong aestetic that contributed to its overall tone. Also making Jade's uncle super gross, eating flies and shit, like... yes he's a pig man but he was never like *that.* He had enough shame to swear Jade to secrecy about how the jet boots are fueled, I can barely imagine the guy hawking a lougie. This is my first video of yours but I'm subbed now. 😊

I have 8 consoles set up in my living room. The newest of these is the 360. I am happy with this arrangement.

Anyone remember Ubisoft's NFT attempt? They were only two companies to really jump in on that craze, along with Squeenix

Vaas: Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again expecting... shit to change...

I like to think of the rising trend of "1 year later" game reviews as the true day one reviews because actual day one games feel like beta tests for the sole purpose of bringing in money to fund their sinking ship until they can potentially release a hopefully finished product a year later (other wise known as the "no mans sky effect")

I once heard a joke that whenever a game is in development Hidetaka Miyazaki the CEO of FromSoftware spends the entire time adding poison swamps. The rest of the company’s job is to remove those swamps before the game comes out. Anything they don’t get to stays in the game. I feel like Ubisoft is like that. All the developers are trying their best to make good games without the suits noticing, if any of the suits do notice they ruin it however they can. Good Ubisoft games are good in spite of Ubisoft’s best efforts.

Just gotta say, your puppetry is just so good in this video. The frustration motions feel so damn genuine.

I bailed on Ubisoft years ago. Truth be known, it is very challenging to find a AAA game you really want to play, enjoy playing - that does not get yeeted. In the side bar videos to this one, there's a video asking, "Is 2024 the Year the Game Industry Collapses?". You know, it just might be for these AAA producers.

Hey Arlo, I'm a new viewer and I love your vids! I noticed that the captions are missing some lines spoken - is it based on an older version of the script? I was a part-time captioner and a rule that was really hammered in is that captions should follow everything being said in the final cut. Many Deaf people and others that rely on captions are missing some of the flavor and character that you bring! It may not seem like a big deal but it greatly enhances the experience for those who need it.

S&B should have been a standalone expansion in the same vein as Blood Dragon, which was Ubi's very successful experiment from the same year as BF. Keep the engine, keep the core mechanics, just paint over the existing game with a new map and some extra ships/upgrades then give it a basic campaign. At most expand the overworld to have a better market/faction/bounty system in lieu of a premade campaign... then sell it for $30 - $40.

As someone who played the original beta and then the new ones I can say that my interest in S&B sank so fast there were no survivors. It was like my interest was HMS HOOD and Ubisoft delivered a direct hit to my magazine.

My prediction for the future of Ubisoft CEO: "It's just...good business..." VP: "Abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship!"

I can't even imagine how soul-crushing it must've been to be a game dev working on Skull & Bones.

Fun fact about Prince of Persia: The lost Crown. One optional boss in the game turns invincible due to a bug and unbeatable until you reload your savefile if the boss jumps to the left. It's also has some other fun minor bugs like climbing away from walls and at one point you can get out of bounds.

I wish games went back to the old PS2/GC/XBOX era mindset, just make a good game under a reasonable budget and ship it out, they don't need to be AAAA games or live services, just good games that people want to buy

The saddest part about beyond good and evil 2 taking the vaporware crown duke nukem forever is that at least duke nukem had the excuses of going through thr hands of multiple different developers.

Ubisoft really turned into Abstergo Interactive Entertainment

2:30 the law of everything good must come to an end doesn’t apply to my 1993 toyota pickup. Try relying on that, it will never let you down

Ubisoft shot themselves in the Foot after they blatantly said Gamers should feel comfortable not owning the Games they paid for, so...

The great thing is gaming culture doesn’t need the gaming industry. Because entry to the market is lower than ever. Even if the infrastructure of the old guard completely evaporates, games can and will still be made

Lol you not only need a chronometer and a sextant to determine your location but a complete nautical almanac, with the listed declinations and greenwich hour angles of some celestial bodies for every hour in your time period, which all has to be recognized, and the sight reduction tables to calculate the body's calculated height from which you can project how far off you are from your assumed position. I know it from Ubisoft's Silent Hunter 5. You know what, a realistically moving starfield is the feature what we hardcores appreciate, while 90% of the casuals dont really care because its a huge pain in the a..

Fun fact. Singapore has corporal punishment in their justice system. Specifically caning, and they have caned employers for abusing workers. Specifically for molesting them. This seems like a good first step in cleaning up the video games industry. Though Yves might not survive if lashed for all the instances of abuse under his management.

What will happen first? (a) Arlo gets curtains for the weird window. (b) The Switch 2 is released.

This whole video basically describes modern Disney as well

Love the metroid prime music in the background. Automatically a great video!

Biggest sign a company under pays their employee is their lack of willingness to change their course of actions for the sake of keeping the company afloat. They must've made a retirement sum from witholding enough money to be this comfortable to not to properly react to their massive amount of negative feedback

Arlo: I used to like Ubisoft. **paper mario music fades in**

Courier: "So you have no idea what you're doing." Fantastic: "Naw, man, I know exactly what I'm doing. I just don't know what effect it's gonna have."

Those 7 - 10 years made rockstar released another great title. And what did they do with that time? Burn and burn money because they're too blinded to live service

One perfect example of how Ubisoft is working is the new settlers game. After settlers 4 they tried new things and that was never really liked so with the newest iteration they got the original creater, made a 90% or so finished game, showed it to the public, everyone loved it, they said screw it, made the original creater leave (creative differences as usual) and started from new and after enormous costs released a shitty game that barely anyone plays. Meanwhile the original settlers creator is working on his version and the early access is already recieving tons of positive feedback.