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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.'"
Really? They were unexpected? Testing didn't bring ANY of these issues up?
I could understand a few bugs might slip through the cracks but I would have thought a game publisher would not have these kind of issues after launching many games without major bugs. (I have no citation on this, by I would figure that most of their games aren't this bad on launch day).
The net effect of these ludic-buggy games is that the actual game disk itself is entirely worthless for playing the game. Pretend that while browsing for 8 bit NES games, you finally found a game you wanted- say The Guardian Legend, a truly top-tier title. You grab it for cheap, walk it home... and instead of instantly booting into Miria racing towards Naju, it instead needs an overnight update from a service that hasn't existed in a decade to work properly, or at all.
These bugs are a feature to companies like Ubisoft and EA. The apology is only issued because the launch was truly and shockingly ludicrous- enough to get mocked world wide, in articles such as Cracked's:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-...
That are well outside of the normal area of video game journalism / forums / reviews.
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.
I've put in a few hours of gameplay with it (PC version), and the game definitely has some bugs, but on a decent gaming computer it is the most ambitious game in terms of graphic content on the screen that I have ever seen. The number of rendered objects is crazy, and the number of NPC on the screen at once is astounding. Sure a few NPC pop in and out (before the patch) and some people go through the floor. But that happens in Borderlands the PreSequal just as much if not more, and it is a much less demanding and ambitious game. Ubisoft fucked up with the launch, and should have tested it on older hardware. But it is hard to believe they can get that much stuff on the screen with the lighting effects they have, and still have it run at all. It is not the buggiest game I have ever bought, but it does have the most graphical content by far, and the frame rates are very playable. (Intel i7 3.3 GHz with 12 GB ram and Geforce 7800 GTX)
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Just like video stores, and music shops are slowly dying out, big publishing houses like UbiSoft and EA will slowly lose ground to indie games and people publishing their games via steam. I say good riddance.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
I saw nothing in that post which reflects what you claim.
If you want to go on a posting vendetta against someone, expect to get marked as a Troll because that's what you're doing.
If you want to get legit votes, keep your criticism for his viewpoints in articles related to the subject, or in replies to posts where he brings it up.
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.
When you have the hype machine going a year in advance aimed at a certain date, promotion contracts with Gamestop and such for a certain date, and even something simple like shelf space at Walmart for a certain date, changing that date is not without consequences.
Digital distribution tends to make this easier, but this is predominantly a console game and so retail matters.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
It was by no stretch the first blunder on their side. UBIsoft is already pretty much synonymous with "the company that can't really release anything right". Their reputation among gamers is even worse than EA. And that's quite a feat in some twisted sort of way.
Of course people who enjoy a certain franchise (aka fanboys) will continue to buy their favorite line of games. But only so long. I don't really see much of a preorder potential for the next Sim City game after the blunder with the most recent one. Granted, it was not only a release problem, the game was atrocious too. Way to burn a much beloved title, EA. But I ramble. I cannot really speak for the quality of AC from a gameplay point of view, i.e. whether the game would be a diamond or a turd if it wasn't for the glitches, bugs, crashes and whatnot, because I already dodged that bullet. Mostly due to recent experiences with UBIsoft and not wanting to preorder with them anymore.
I can only imagine that they now noticed a serious dip in preorders, and that's really something studios do NOT enjoy. Preorders are, from a studio's point of view, golden sales. Not only can you 100% predict them (because you already HAVE not only the data but also usually the money), they are essentially a free loan, they are completely independent of eventual reviews (that may or may not be favorable), in other words, preorders are what you want. It's like subscriptions for newspapers, they're also beloved and treasured (and hence usually either discounted or bundled with some nice gifts). Considering what newspapers have to do to sweeten the deal, studios get off VERY cheaply for their preorders. Usually, if you get anything at all, it's some additional graphics to look at or some other stuff that doesn't really cost them a dime, while at the same time people pay (in advance) at least release time prices.
People will only do that, though, if they have a reasonable expectation to get what they want. If you drop the ball once too often (as UBIsoft, IMO, did with AC), people will stop trusting you to deliver. And they will instead only buy after they see some facts that your product is satisfactory, and given the "unbiased" way major reviewers work, today most people will actually wait for reviews from their peers or people they trust before buying a game they aren't so sure about.
And by then not only could they have waited for the price to drop, they could also have seen something else they want and bought that instead!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> 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
Even greater? So the release of an anticipated game itself is a slap in the face apparently.
I'm so annoyed by this entitled gamer culture, that speaks of "slaps in the face" when a game doesn't work 100% flawless at launch. These "gamers" generally don't know anything about programming, they have no respect for the incredibly complex kind of applications these "games" are. The developers always have to up all the graphical and AI capabilities, plus they have to support every platform, console and PC, under the sun. This amount to a gargantuan programming task under very tight deadlines, all because the "gamers" are waiting for their preorders, and then when launch day comes they speak of "slaps in the face".
Fuck off entitled gamers and your dumb "community", write your own games, I bet you you couldn't even program a tetris.
Wah! Poor developers. It is too much to expect them to be able to deliver a bug free product. Hmm, back in the days before internet or even BBSs, there was no possibility of "bug fixes". Many games were cartridge based. It just had to work. Period. Even into the 90's games had to be production ready before they could be released because updating was not possible. Now that most of the world is connected, we think it is okay to have buggy software because it can be fixed byt downloading a patch. Call me old fashioned, but I don't accept that.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
could someone please explain to me then why reviews like these aren't a major scandal all by themselves?