I have so conflicting thoughts on ubisofts. I really like a lot of their games and they do support them for a long time after launch but their management keeps doing really weird & terrible decisions all the time.

The problem with big AAA companies are that they’ve grown “too big”. They have to profit a considerably huge margin every game to satisfy the execs and investors and that lead to predatory-trend chasing-cash grab of games decisions we see today

It's no secret Ubi became another EA a long time ago. As a person with passion for good video games I always wonder how do such companies still manage to exist.

I worked for Ubisoft from 2015-2019 straight out of SGD. I am surprised they have not announced massive layoffs after so many cancelled games. During my time with them, there would me a lot of layoffs after a game shipped, literally all the contractors would be fired and also at least half of the QC employees no matter if the game made a lot of money. The crazy thing is that in a few months when a new game would start development some of the laid off people would be rehired. Volt also would take some of their money so basically it was a dead end job for them and there was no way to better themselves. Ubisoft would take advantage of all of the new devs that just finished school because the studio I worked for had a ton of 4 years universities and community colleges around. Ubisoft would hire people and keep maybe 1/3 and fire the rest right before 3 years so they would not get bonuses or more pay. It was pretty disgusting. For anyone that wants to make games and really wants job security your number 1 bet is to be a competent programmer. Do not under any circumstance do QC because that is bottom of the barrel and they are always exploited and the first ones to be fired. Artist are almost always contracted from China/SK so if you are an artist in America or Europe you are also in trouble because the competition always works for no money.

Saddest part is you could make a video like this on just about every AAA publisher out there right now.

Ubisoft made some of my most favorite games back in the early 00's. I hope they turn around but they also are completely responsible for the situation they're in.

They're finally hitting the ramifications of their paint by number game design. The fact is most of their games feel the samw: big open world with tons of markers to do the thing at. The ones that aren't like Siege and For Honor have their own issues that ubisoft hasn't addressed and seem content with keeping their head in the sand.

Im calling it, it is the era for indie games. Triple A companies are getting too greedy just trying to grab money and releasing broken crappy games. With the amazing tools now available to everyone through things like Unreal Engine, very soon we will see great games from actual players who want to play great games.

The biggest problem with any company is that if the company is doing shit it’s usually due to a lack of right direction and leadership from the person running the company

Love you Gameranx

Its really not too surprising to see the publishers with 1 huge franchise propping them up and a complete unwillingness to try new things rather than just put out a bunch of the same thing over and over run into issues. This has kinda been a long time coming.

Clearing up some info, Mario and Rabbids did not do poorly. All they said was that it underperformed over Christmas and the week after Christmas. It most likely sold extremely well. Gotta keep in mind that their expectations for the game might have been in line with a Square enix outlandish sales number.

Sad to hear Sparks of Hope isn’t selling. Many Ubisoft IPs started out as tightly designed single player experiences and have since been bloated into games as service formats. Over time many of the games have become far removed from what players actually like and it’s been so long that players are voting with their wallets.

About time we acknowledged the fact that the developers of many of the industry's leading franchises who used to be really special have been taking Ls for years now

Great vid! But you forgot they also have Avatar game coming

Really good video would love more of these update videos

I think they had no option but to delay skull and bones after the push back they got after the gameplay reveal. I don't think the reason is "polish and balance" but more on the line of reworking the systems in there entirety because nobody wants to be gathering resources with their ships canons and have cutscenes on land rather than explore on foot.

11:08 For me it's also about not being scummy and rooting out the abusers in the company. The main reason why I haven't been interested in buying Ubisoft products lately is because of the mobile game-like monetisation schemes and the lacklustre reaction to abuse allegations.

Thanks for the insight, but I think there's more to the story that we don't know. I feel like there's a bigger thing happening that gonna affect the future of the entire Ubisoft - creative people or important employees that move to other companies. I hope it's not true, but I'm guessing they lack these key people at the moment. I believe that behind the scenes, huge studios like Microsoft tend to "buy" (steal) everyone, or at least these key people from other studios, or something like that. What is happening now in France, huge protests (for changing the retirement age from 62 to 64 and high cost of living) also adds a lot of tension through employees, and it does add a level of uncertainty to the whole industry.

It's quite fascinating that swiss apprenticeships (at least future electronic and automation workers) get teached exactly this behavior of electricity to avoid unwished side efects in circuit design. But of course don't must be able to calculate it in this detail, in the end we use some simplicated rules as correctly stated in the video. Keep on with such videos it's always a pleasure to view it! Before soomeone asks yes if we study this fields we will even calculate this effects but at least in my case for more practice relevant examples (but as i studied at a university of applied science and not fully in electric field I may am not the best reference)

With the CEO's comments, it is no surprise things are a mess. Sucks for the workers there, but it is not really a surprise after the bloated games, NFT decisions and general dumb actions

You guys are so consistent with your uploads, much love!

When a game company has significant delays (Like Skull & Bones) if gives players like me pause. Although I am absolutely excited to see something come of this game, at this point I am VERY skeptical about buying it on release. Most likely I will wait 5 or 6 months to buy it so I can see how it's received and how it performs. In fact, at this point I never actually buy ANY game on release - nor do I per-purchase them... I wait 30days minimum post-release to see how the company handles all the inevitable bugs & crashes that come with a new release.

1 YEAR LATER .... 613 people playing Skull and Bones in real time. Cost 200 millions + 20 to 40 millions in publicity. Dev 10 years, Ubisoft Studio's involved = 6

Ubisoft: *in trouble Microsoft: *heavy breathing

The problem with Mario and Rabbids is that the vast majority of the people that bought the game, did so for the novelty of the experience given their admiration for the characters. The idea of a sequel would have no appeal to such a person; Unless they bought into the entire turn based tactics genre at that stage, there was no way there were going to invest in a sequel.

Falcon ! great voice !! i wish you the best this year !!

I will say this I played the technical test of skull and bones a few months ago. It was pretty fun. But I also wasn't expecting a lot. But it looks promising whenever it comes out.

I love that this video reminded me of the types of editorial articles I'd read in gaming magazines back in the 90s. Not sure who wrote it but kudos to both you and Falcon on that.

They need to polish and balance the in-game cash shop… I stopped playing Ubisoft games when they started their live service model for single player games.

I’m kinda glad to hear they are doing qt on it. If AAA games would spend the extra time making the game as bug free as they could would be great.

Aww man. I really would have liked a vr splinter cell game. But yeah, everybody has their wants and wishes. Still it was nice having a video on this topic. Thx guys

Thanks for keeping me updated on gaming news Gameranx.

I swear Falcon's narrations sounds like a cool uncle that is passionate about video games and the way he expresses his love for video games is very informative.

Sparks of Hope didn’t sell as well because people saw how cheap the original went on sale for after barely a year and decided it was worth it to wait for a steep discount

I Love the Sneaky Clip of Jamie Hyneman Polishing Shit at 4:40 😂😂😂

It’s honestly insane and sad seeing this company as shell of it’s former self ..like at this point what games do they actually have planned to release this year and where is beyond good and evil 2

I want an Assassin’s Creed/Prince of Persia crossover dammit! The dagger, the hourglass, and the medallion could easily turn out to be Pieces of Eden and maybe The Prince had previously unknown training from the Order of Assassins but was forced to go separate ways because time displacement. It’s too perfect not to make it a reality.

Dude... you are just now informing me of Mario and Rabbit game. I didn't even know it existed. Lol

I actually grew up with a some of their games, their Disney games on PS1, Tarzan and Donald Duck, then a little later I played some of one of their PoP on pc, the one with time travel, and a lot later I played through ACIII when it came out, it was the first mature game I played, kinda made an impact on my gaming life. But that was it. Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure I finished Rayman Origins. The only Rayman game I played.

I have conflicting feelings about the remark on the 7 canceled games having no investment. The public knows little to nothing about them, so there's no external hype, but it could be heartbreaking internally. Besides that I used to be a big fan of Ubisoft games, just not really the last decade. Thanks for this breakdown Falcon!

I’m still mad at this company for not making a remastered or anniversary edition of the original Rayman games. They keep ignoring that classic character. Rayman 3 is my favorite game and they keep pretending it doesn’t exist. Making a remastered edition of the game would be a massive gold mine but they keep on wanting to make more AC games that get a bit repetitive & confusing at times lol 😂

I. love how Falcon didn't even mention Beyond Good and Evil 2 at the end.

ubisoft needs a new leader who can make better decisions for the company and give projects to the team who are excited about the project and can deliver on time if any project takes longer than usual then let other teams help them to make it on the deadline for any big projects like skull and bones and Beyond Good & Evil

You know what doesn't help a profit decrease? Cancelling 7 games.

That Star Wars project sounds amazing, but I'm worried it'll be delayed or canceled all together. Scary times for ubisoft and Star Wars fan big time.

Nicely delivered.

Id be down for an Open Galaxy SW game, but if they do, i feel like they gotta use BOTH Legends and Cannon planet lore, cause i feel they could do something BIG with that, its gonna take a SHIT ton of work, but theres already easy to access videos on both sides of the lore :)

When Falcon couldn't think of any other AAA-game that has been in development this long I was subtly reminded and saddened by the memory of Beyond Good and Evil 2 supposedly still getting released some day

“they’re not in any danger of folding…” I wouldn’t be so sure about that. They tried to be acquired by other companies and got rejected 😂 that says a lot about their situation. I do hope they make a comeback because competition is good but they really have to make an effort.

They need to massively scale down their live service stuff and just focus on good narratives. Even ditch the open world stuff. Massive open levels with a hub world seems to be something they can pull off well.

How did one of Ubisofts biggest releases coming out not get mentioned, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora? Its planned for this year or early next. My guess would be next winter(2023-2024). It's done by the studio behind division and now following the Huge Success of Way of Water this could be the big cash flow boost Ubisoft needs.

Never forget "Beyond Good and Evil 2", by the same publisher and developer team. A forever upcoming game from my childhood.

And this is why I trust gameranx for unbiased gamer news

Thanks for the video, Falcon! Here's hoping they get their shit together! :)

Keep up the great work, Falcon. Although I personally think that ubisoft has waay too much that is reliant on skull and bones, assassins creed and open world star wars game, because of that I think if those three (in a perfect world) all do great than they will be fine just like you were saying, but if it doesn't do you or anyone else think that could be the end of them?

It almost as if "time savers" and gameplay designed to push you to buy them was a disgusting idea, and now they are reaping the rewards of people avoiding their trash.

I can’t remember a time I was excited to play a new Ubisoft game

Ubisoft has made some games that i really liked : some of the AC games, Splinter Cell series and some Ghost Recon games.

Mario+Rabbids Spark of hope is actually really fun to play. A great iteration of the Xcom games that has some really good stuff in it. I'm surprised it didn't get more popular, it's a great game for the switch.

The consistency you guys have is amazing.

Aaah. My daily dose of Gameranx. 🙏

No mention of the nft's?

Id honestly be down to see a full blown reimagined splinter cell series as activision did with the modern warfare franchise but thats just me personally! 😊

In the words of Shigeru Miyamoto, "A bad game is bad forever, a delayed game is at least has a chance at being good."

Random fact: Ubisoft Singapore started developing Skulls and Bones back in 2013, it was originally gonna be a Black Flag spin-off/expansion and an MMO named "Black Flag Infinite", but that idea was later scrapped

The problem is that everything is dependent on their stock doing well, and investors see any direction other than "up" as a reason to jump ship. No company can perpetually raise their profits. They will have better years than others. A 10% decrease doesn't NEED to mean the end of the world. As you said, Ubisoft hasn't been pushing as many games out recently, which means their sales will obviously be lower over the past year. Shareholders see that drop, though, and they panic sell, which lowers the value of the company even more, but the difference now is that is is based on fake value.

Can't forget about the upcoming Avatar game they're making as well. Lot's of exciting titles that they'll hopefully deliver on

It's sad that guillemont basically owns this company. You cant kick him out that easily but he's the biggest problem.

I am still waiting on the Sands of time remake

We already need a part 2 to this

I’m really sad about Sparks of Hope not selling well. I loved it, really didn’t see any major performance issues that ruined the game for me (still looks amazing Imo), and ultimately it’s sad to see it most likely not getting any future support.

Great work, I would hope they capitalize on the Tom Clancy work. The Division series is fun and it’s “constant” fun. Not a roller coaster, but a place to go to play or play with others.

Just an Idea, maybe a video of what gaming company is doing the best rn??

i have a freind who was excited to see skull and bones and its been so delayed that he never got the chance and thats the biggest bummer

Thanks for the update Falcon. Really appreciated

Change is good to see. As minuscule as it may be in the gaming landscape as a whole, there is still hope.

Can anyone help me out and tell me what the soundtrack in the background is around 3:00?? It’s been driving me insane I know I’ve heard it but idk from where 😅

Don't forget Uplay for PC, almost everybody additional launcher when they play from steam

One of the best channels out there. Way to go Gameranx

Ubisoft just been making half baked and pretty much unfun games Watch dogs series, Far Cry 6, the division, ghost recon, Valhalla. They’re all beautiful open world games but they just don’t click

10:46 wasn’t the first AC set in Damascus Syria?

The Settlers releases this week. It'll be interesting to see how it performs after being announced nearly 4 years ago.

Can we just thank this channel for the best gaming content ever 👍

The issue with Ubisoft is that it separated it's game pipeline from reality, they got attached to a formula and went with it to produce easy money, but as per usual the more time it goes on the more reasons are forgotten and ultimately they forgot what it is that made that formula successful but continue to use it because it used to produce results. It reminds me of the experiment with the 5 monkeys in a cage with a ladder and a banana. They just keep doing what used to work, it doesn't work anymore but they don't know why because they forgot why it worked in the first place. They create these giant open worlds that are nothing but a "playground" with copy-paste activities that don't differentiate from one another, where the graphics is the only interesting thing but after a while they are ignored, then the characters are bland and generic, the story is generic and they just throw systems into the game because "RPGs sell" but they don't even are necessary or simply add a way for them to monetize the game. Ubisoft went soulless, they don't remember how to make good games anymore and that's what has brought about this fall.

It's a good thing, like you said, now every fail feels like a big fail, wich means they'll start to pay more attention to the titles they release.

I recently bought immortals fenyx rising and it's my favorite game in a long time. I hope they didn't cancel a potential sequel for that!

Lille info : a strike is annonced in Ubisoft French studios to obtain salaries raises as it was the case in the Montreal studios on the one hand. On the other hand Guillemot's last public speech created a fear that management is going to get worse and that teams are going to be silently let go.

At this point it feels like most "AAA" studios have become the fast food of gaming. McActivision and Ubisoft in the box have gotten good at pumping out their menu items, but lack the ability to really make anything unique. As a customer, the game that mom and pop shops have been offering, is a lot more complete, fulfilling, and new.

Obviously the open world only AC isn’t being received as well

Perhaps I am the only one but I do hope they eventually reconsider and release a Splinter Cell VR.

The saddest part is that most people keep buying broken products, companies come and go but the customers always remain stupid.

They've been doing weird stuff for a while, but I do think it's admirable that they've supported Valhalla with so much free content. I'm also glad they're listening to the fans in terms of Mirage being much more like the previous assassins games

So according to Ubisoft, sales were surprisingly slow. Im curious what was so surprising about it. To me, 2022 was a dull year for them. I just checked their 2022 releases and I don’t know what they were expecting. All the games we want to play, they haven’t released yet!

im a french canadian amd the way you said "yves" like its spelled eevee is hilarious!!

I love how you present your content. From weekly news, game updates, and top (x) counts, every video is informative and enjoyable. Keep up the great work!

Man I love these kinds of videos. Falcon, you're nuts but you're brilliant.

You didn't mention the announced Avatar game. This could become one of their biggest titles and the start for a big big series. Considering the little information we got so far about it, I guess we'll have to wait a couple more years for that.

That didn't age well with Dull & Bones 😂

Funny story is that I used to have bad PC and I could only play games after 5-6 years of their releases. Now I have good PC but I still wait a couple of years and buy games for 10$ or 20$ on sale because preordering or spending 50$ is just not worth for me.