Preying on the downfall

 

Oh Ubisoft- dost thou know how oft thy name touches these lips? How thy form and art enshrouds in my dreams? Dost thou shudder with a start, with the patter of my words when I call to address? Does thou even know why? Does anyone really understand why- why they come to hate? I mean it has to be a difficult thing to accept for anyone- no? To be fair and honest perhaps even the most robust and affirmed person of sound heart and fair mind would struggle comprehending the singularly outward expression one would need to drum up to drive such a fervour as could be described being 'hated'. That's no simple distaste afterall- no sir! It takes passion, it takes effort- it takes love turned rancid and sour. To truly understand oneself enough to comprehend hatred one would need to take that very hatred into themselves, and become of it in some small way. Few are that sturdy, it surprises me little that Ubisoft is not.

But why do I speak of them? Simply because Ubisoft is up against a wall of late, as I'm sure you are at least passingly aware. I think that the direness of the situation is oft exaggerated- I don't think the U from France is really facing the abyss about to tumble off into insolvency- but I do believe they are in a bit of a pickle that is about to prelude another disastrous turn of trite that will be oh so profitable and oh so toxic in the mouths of quite literally everyone else operating this industry we love so dear. Assassin's Creed Valhalla made all the money Ubisoft could ever want and that game was a frank disaster on wheels remembered fondly only by those who dropped it after a couple of weeks or those who literally play nothing else but the franchise. Those with perspective and enough self-hatred to stick it out- know the game for the war crime it is. But still it made the money. More than that, it made all the money. Assassin's Creed Shadow will not be a flop. Doesn't matter how much controversy it digs up- it just ain't happening.

But that doesn't mean Ubisoft itself is safe- well, at least not in the way that I sure Yves and his posse would like, at least. Because Ubisoft have been on a bit of an edge of late- from disastrous decisions that made them look like total clowns in the public eye, to incredulous flops that still baffle my mind to this day. The apparent revelation that Star Wars Outlaws sold only a million copies in it's first month is nigh-on unbelievable to me- I cannot imagine a franchise like Star Wars selling so poorly with that much marketing behind it. And I mean a million sales is not bad but I can just imagine my face if I was an investor behind a Ubisoft collaboration with Star Wars looking at numbers like this and I can imagine the disbelief. (Thank all the gods I'm not.)

Ubisoft are being hounded of late, by internal forces who are absolutely the worst-case scenario for everyone involved and without- and then some, apparently welcome, investor money from China looking to swoop up ownership. And all the while fans, former and current, are looking on in fascination and in some cases, excitement that Ubisoft might be undergoing the one thing it's bitterly avoided for over ten years now: Change. For some that change comes in the form of walls being teared down and structures being rewritten- and that is an end they cheer on. And maybe some even further just want to see Ubisoft suffer and burn. Honestly, I see shades of myself in all angles of that conversation. Even the conservations who just want everything to stay the same.

But what is it- to prey on the downfall of another? Cruel? Vindictive? Twisted? All of them above, of course, and more. One such Ubisoft spokesperson commented as much in a speech that went viral on the topic. Cutting it down for the sake of brevity, he essentially bemoaned a disgust at being part of a community like ours, where Ubisoft are looked down upon and disgraced simply because they make products that aren't to our tastes. Also he claimed the discourse went beyond gamers and stretched to other industry players looking down on poor Ubisoft- he sees it himself on LinkedIn. Wait a second... on LinkedIn? What kind of non-psychopath uses LinkedIn as social media? Who is this guy?

Oh, it's the head of Ubisoft monetisation. Literally the very reason himself why Ubisoft is so despised. No wonder he would strawman an argument with all the wit of a class clown trying to argue with the teacher about why he doesn't deserve a fail for the test he refused to hand in. What kind of actual simpleton thinks Ubisoft is disgraced because of 'games that aren't made for us', Ubisoft don't make genre games- they make their titles for everyone: that's kind of the problem! The reason why Ubisoft sees hatred even from their peers, is because they are the Mister Beast of the video game world. They denigrate the entire art form with big budget, big audience, lazy wastes of talent, time and money infused with the worst practices, cementing the worst development trends and monetised like a dictator fuelling a war of conquest on the mainland. 

What makes this worse is that the man in question, the very one clutching his pearls talking about how toxic the industry he is actively trying to ruin is to him: that man is the problem. His job is one of the most important in the industry- he has to balance the extremely delicate relationship between commercialism and artistic integrity that allows this culture to thrive and survive. Yet with single player time savers, over-priced special launch editions, braindead NFT trend chasing- he and his ilk have screwed it up again and again. We're looking at a man incapable of performing his job, unworthy of continued employment, complain about unfair treatment. Buddy, if the world was fair you'd be on the streets- so wind in your chin a bit, eh?

In full honesty, I don't want Ubisoft to collapse. I think a company the size of Ubisoft suddenly going bankrupt would literally cause a crash in the game market, and I don't want that. What I want is for Ubisoft to learn and improve- but over the past years they have implicitly demonstrated an unwillingness to improve internal or external practices unless held to the fire. They would still mistreat their own workers if their conduct wasn't plastered across headlines and brought to courts, and they will still grind this market into dust if they don't fall down on their face and taste the dirt now and then. It's a shame, no one should have to fail utterly in order to learn a lesson. But when you're dealing with monsters, sometimes seeing their own reflection isn't enough to drive the lesson home- sometimes you have to rub their face with the muddy water until they get the message- and I won't apologise for that.