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Ubisoft Apologizes For Assassin's Creed
BarbaraHudson writes in with the latest in the Assassin's Creed Unity debacle. This time it's good news. "As an acknowledgment of the botched launch of Assassin's Creed Unity, Ubisoft has offered free additional content to everyone who purchased the title, cancelled the game's season pass and offered a free game to users who purchased the pass. The anticipation for Assassin's Creed Unity was such that the myriad of bugs and technical issues experienced at launch felt like an even greater slap in the face for gamers. In a blog posted yesterday, Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal & Toronto said: 'Unfortunately, at launch, the overall quality of the game was diminished by bugs and unexpected technical issues. I want to sincerely apologize on behalf of Ubisoft and the entire Assassin's Creed team. These problems took away from your enjoyment of the game, and kept many of you from experiencing the game at its fullest potential.'"
I suspect that this was not the cause of the failure to find the raging pile of bugs in the PS4 and XBox One versions, since there isn't much hardware variation among released models.
Much more plausible (if still an example of terrible testing practice) with any bugs in the PC version that can be linked to a specific GPU driver version or the like. Even there, though, PC gamers(of the type interested in new-release action games) may not have the newest hardware; but tend to be fairly good about updating GPU drivers and DirectX runtimes.
Usually, testers find these things and management decides that they can be fixed with a patch later, because missing the ship date would cause marketing problems.
Sometimes they get away with that. Sometimes the problems are worse than management thinks and a debacle like this happens.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Let's put it this way: When a game doesn't suck publishers generally don't embargo reviews until 12 hours after release...
Even games that end up releasing in pretty dubious shape often manage to score fairly positive pre-launch press through some combination of assurances that 'those little issues won't be in the final version, just see the promise!' and the degree to which the reviewer depends on the goodwill of the publisher for future access, so if reviewers aren't allowed to talk about it even after it is on the shelves, you might want to run away. Maybe pick it up for $20 a year from now, if they actually do fix it.
There is a reason they want you to buy the game before any reviewers or other users start commenting on it. It's what enables them to sell broken crap like this. They've already got your money.
The hype train, preorder bonuses, review embargoes are all meant to allow them to get away with selling broken crap. That's exactly what they've done. All the complaining in the world won't do a whole lot about that, now.
If you really want to put a stop to companies like EA and Ubi doing this - never preorder a game. Any game worth buying on launch day is still worth buying two weeks later, and you'll save yourself quite a lot of money by avoiding duds.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I am loath to join the general chorus of hate for Ubisoft and EA. Complaining about these companies being too focussed on commercial success and not enough of user-entertainment/"art" seems futile: they are, first and foremost, commercial companies.
Nonetheless, considering it strictly as a commercial proposition, should the senior executives of these companies not be worried that their brand has negative value?
When I see news of a game, knowing that it is going to be published by Ubisoft - or, to a lesser extent, by EA, makes me shy away. I am less likely to buy. I am less likely to follow the hype, for fear of being sucked in by it, because I expect to be disappointed. I am less likely to engage with their product or marketing in any way, because of the poor track record that they have establish, the negative brand value that they have created.
If they bought a small publishers, and published the very same game through that new label, I would be more likely to engage with and buy their product for that reason - as long as I was not aware that Ubisoft (or EA) lay behind it. Knowing that they are there, I expect to be disappointed.. That's negative brand value in action.
This is not just a gamer whinge. I would think that was a customer reaction that ought to concern senior commercial management, and shareholders in these companies.
Unespected?
Their news embargo basically equaled a goddamn GAG ORDER and they really want to convince us that this wasn't because they knew all along what a train wreck they were about to sell and to prevent he media prom warning the customers??? It was fraud, plain and simple and they now want to get people to accept some of their other crap as compensation so they won't be able to join a class-action lawsuit.
What is missing in this industry that others often have is clear consumer protection laws and an awareness among consumers that they can enforce their rights. A game's entire value is normally in the entertainment it provides. If it simply doesn't work properly, and as a result that entertainment value is dramatically reduced, then it isn't fit for purpose.
The situation is complicated because these laws vary widely with jurisdiction and over time. For example, here in the UK, there have been several relevant changes to consumer protection laws this year specifically to close gaps and clarify rights in the context of digital content. The bottom line, though, is that like any other purchase, you are entitled to get something of satisfactory quality for your money, and if you don't then the vendor who takes that money will normally have some obligations to replace/repair/refund to fix the problem. (Don't assume you can just go in and demand a 100% refund every time without giving them any other chance to fix things first, though; I don't know any jurisdiction where the law is that one-sided.)
Of course with software there is always a question of what constitutes a reasonable quality since there will inevitably be bugs, but a lot of these games ship with such obvious and sometimes entirely game-destroying howlers that I don't see how the vendors have a leg to stand on.
If someone orchestrated a mass campaign where a significant proportion of the customers of one of these games did actually assert their consumer rights and claim a reasonable fix-or-refund remedy, even just once, I expect the shockwaves through the AAA game business would be felt for a long time.
Unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen, and next year the same hard core group will probably pre-order the next destined-to-fail-at-launch edition of each big franchise, thus further confirming to the games companies that their current practices are commercially acceptable. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.