Ubisoft is Toast

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

The irony to me is that I personally consider EA to be just as bad, if not worse. EA is notorious for releasing lots of half finished, buggy or broken games, pretending they will fix them, and then dumping them. Only their triple A titles get any kind of attention or polish (the sims). Then of course there is EA sports, which releases the same game with a few touch-ups year after year after year after year after year. They also are fans of draconian DRM (though smart enough to back off when the consumer backlash hit). Last they love to release tons of stupid little addons and other crap.

Maybe with one of the giants under more developers will come out and fill whatever vacuum is left behind Until EA snatches them up that is...

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Drifter

In my opinion, Ubisoft is toast:


Ubisoft shares have lost about 90% of their value in only 2 years. They are bleeding money like a slaughtered pig. Their stock value is now hovering around $7.50 per share. They have supposedly cut their staff from 400 down to only 50.

They are infamously well-known for releasing buggy, half-finished games, horrible customer service/communication, draconian DRM, and lack of correctly patching same said buggy, half-finished games. A perfect example is the recent SH5 release. They released only one patch that didn't address most of the hard-coded problems that remained in SH5, then dropped all support. They basically took the money and ran, leaving the paying customers with a still-unfinshed, buggy game. It was probably their plan to do this even before the SH5 release.

I am predicting sometime next year (2011) they will be forced to file bankruptcy. Good riddance. You won't be missed.

..and in the same two years, EA has lost 70% and Sony has lost 45% of its share price.

The drop in stock price has more to do with the ongoing worldwide recession than anything else. Most analysts still rate Ubi has a good long term investment. It will be around for many years for everyone to continue taking shots at...

[mookiemookie]

Seeing what's happened to the SH series has chased me away from Ubisoft altogether. RUSE looked kind of interesting, but when I found out that it was published by Ubisoft, I refuse to even consider buying it.

They fail to realize that by not putting out quality products, even if they're niche products like the SH games, they affect sales of all their product lines.

I doubt they'll be out of business, but I don't doubt they'll be gobbled up by someone if the share price gets low enough.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I doubt they'll be out of business, but I don't doubt they'll be gobbled up by someone if the share price gets low enough.

that is a more likely scenario than bankruptcy.

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Drifter

In my opinion, Ubisoft is toast:


Ubisoft shares have lost about 90% of their value in only 2 years. They are bleeding money like a slaughtered pig. Their stock value is now hovering around $7.50 per share. They have supposedly cut their staff from 400 down to only 50.
...

I am predicting sometime next year (2011) they will be forced to file bankruptcy. Good riddance. You won't be missed.

Ubisoft Romania was downsized from 400 to 50, it is only a tiny portion of the Ubi empire and this downsizing happened I think a long time ago, probably when Romania became part of the EU just after the release of SH3!

This year Ubi shifted 9 million copies of Assasins Creed 2. I don't think Ubi is about to just disappear with sales numbers like that. Although judging by their latest just announced title they deserve to!!

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by krashkart

Those damn companies target the younger people, FIREWALL, not old f$%^ers like you and me. We have to watch our wallets. They don't know what a wallet is yet.

I agree. I think UBISOFT has been King of the Hill for too long.

Only time will tell if their Reputation is all that important to them.

It wasn't with a company like Imron and others.

The ball is in their court now. We shall see how they handle it.

SHV has only been out roughly 3 1/2 mo.

To second guess how they'll handle it is a waste of time and reminds me of a bunch of old ladies wringing their hands and fretting.

The game is playable and modable at this time.

It's when you can't logon and play is when UBI has some legal questions. to answer.

As far as a patch goes if, you haven't seen one by Sept ( 6 mo's ) you can assume support in that area is over.

My BET is a Patch that ends DRM and then allows you to play offline and online on theirs other servers by September.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

As far as a patch goes if, you haven't seen one by Sept ( 6 mo's ) you can assume support in that area is over.

My BET is a Patch that ends DRM and then allows you to play offline and online on theirs other servers by September.

Sounds about right. After the game has been out for 6 months, Ubisoft will have realized most of the sales they can expect from the game. Ubi wont want to keep up the expense of keeping servers online for SH5 forever.

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Sounds about right. After the game has been out for 6 months, Ubisoft will have realized most of the sales they can expect from the game. Ubi wont want to keep up the expense of keeping servers online for SH5 forever.

You are so right.

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

Although judging by their latest just announced title they deserve to!!

I think you missed a few...

Child Of Eden Is Basically Rez For The PlayStation Move, Kinect

Another World Creator Back With A New Game: Project Dust

If yer gonna bash, get yer facts straight.


Don't care about the project Natal, oh sorry, Kinect nonsense, but "Dust" looks promising and actually refreshing.

Ubi ain't going nowhere.

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Arclight

I think you missed a few...
...
If yer gonna bash, get yer facts straight.

Don't get me wrong my post was not so much a criticism of Ubi products in general rather more a statement on the continued glorification and profiteering from the "fallen idol" Michael Jackson. That Ubi got us this far with SH is very much in their credit and I for one am still willing to give them another chance which many here quite understandably are not.

[Arclight]

Sorry, my bad.


The whole "Ubi sux" argument is wearing me down. Not to defend the company; delivering a product in the state the Silent Hunter series is in at release is unacceptable. Doesn't mean everything that comes out of there is bad quality, or signals the end of the company.

Meh the dev teams just need to learn they don't need a crappy publisher like UBI in order to get their games out. Make a good game and people will buy it, you don't need a publisher advertising and hyping it and telling you how to make your game in order to get more sales.

[Rockin Robbins]

If they read the graph they'll merely turn it upside down and say it's a thing of beauty! Guess they showed those pirates, didn't they?

Can't say they don't richly deserve their fate.

[Platapus]

Now I will have to buy some Ubi stock along with some BP stock.

[Reece]

Surely UBI must have someone or even a few people that check the web etc for PR and to see what people think of their games/company, I don't believe a company as big as UBI will totally bury their heads in the ground and ignore what is going on! A DRM patch for SH5 will come out when sales have died off, this will do 2 things:

1) Relieve their server load.
2) For those who haven't purchased the game because of the DRM. (many don't have a good enough internet connection to stay online)

This will give another influx of sales, money is money after all!
BTW, I haven't purchased a game for several months, not because of economic reasons but because of online DRM, I don't like Steam and refuse to install it, so the number of good games available have really dropped, the only thing that seems to have increased is piracy, I am actually considering X-Box, at least that is online DRM free, wonder for how long!! Sad isn't it.