If their customers are going to have to get used to not owning games they paid for, I guess Ubisoft is going to get used to not having money 🤷🏻
Ubisoft announces studio closure as it lays off 185 staff
Submitted 3 days ago by simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world
https://www.eurogamer.net/ubisoft-announces-studio-closure-as-it-lays-off-185-staff
Comments
qx128@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Scolding7300@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Works for steam tho
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
In addition to Steam not being subscriptions, Valve has so far not screwed over their users. The way the Ubisoft exec suggested that we should change our attitude really showed what they in plan
Lemminary@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Gross. Good riddance!
Nilz@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
“review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders”.
Ah there it is. That’s the only thing that matters anyway.
9bananas@lemmy.world 2 days ago
fyi, in case someone isn’t clear on the difference:
stakeholder ≠ shareholder
stakeholders are basically all people involved, including staff, and even stuff like landlords, janitors, citizens (sometimes things like parents), etc.
it’s anyone with a stake in an organizations operations!
example: a city decides to create a new bus route. in this case, stakeholders include the local residents, the companies involved in creating the route, the companies supplying the buses, the mechanics needed to keep the fleet running, etc., etc.
there’s a usually a LOT of stakeholders, and typically you don’t always include everyone in every little decision because it quickly becomes unmanageable. so only the most relevant ones are included in most decisions, and who exactly that is depends on the project.
shareholders on the other hand are what everyone is probably thinking of, and that’s the people (“people” being used generously here) only interested in next quarters profits. you know! the parasites!
of course the message is still bullshit and nothing but coded corpo-speech for “shareholders”, but i thought some folks might be interested in knowing the difference anyhow.
even if, in this case, it’s only important to highlight the extra special bullshit they put into the statement…
Nilz@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Good point and thanks for pointing it out, I misread it. A shareholder and stakeholder aren’t (necessarily) the same indeed.
The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Goodwill with your playerbase doesn’t show up on a quarterly report, but without it your company is sunk.
It’s incredible that a company with the resources of Ubisoft couldn’t figure that out, even with people shouting it at them daily.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I think when all these famous studios were interesting, they still by inertia functioned the way people with actual skills founded them. I’m thinking of BioWare, Black Isle, Obsidian, but reading the history of any famous video game studio gives that impression. It was a rather personal business in 90s and early 00s, it seems.
Then the “professionals” came and started “fixing” everything, and something about today’s computing makes me personally deeply disgusted of anything advertised there.
I don’t want a shooter not better than a hundred Q3 clones, but taking 50GB disk space. I don’t even want it with “photorealistic” (no they aren’t) graphics. I don’t want CK3 because it’s slow and has too much bullshit happening, the secret of success is in quality of content more than amount, and more is not always better if a player gets bored with small events. I admit, I haven’t tried Hogwarts Legacy, put from what people say its open world is as useful as Daggerfall’s map the size of England, because most things on that map are all the same, though as a dungeon crawler Daggerfall is still better than typical modern game. And Star Wars - its Expanded Universe mostly came into existence in the 90s, it’s designed the way very convenient for all kinds of video games, or any entertainment and any secondary art at all, and George Lucas approached that theoretically before making the first movie (the “obscenely huge profits” part he may or may not have considered, but it came as a welcome bonus, I suppose), and still every modern time Star Wars game is just not interesting to me ; my favorite one is KotORII, so there is, of course, a gap between me and the majority, but it’s still baffling how didn’t they even try to make an X-Wing remake.
One can go on. People want to play interesting games. Very few people play games because of “more, better, wider” in ad. The whole idea of a game is to be interesting. It’s entertainment. It’s not “I’ve got a new iPhone and you don’t” dick size contest. Some game being very technically cool, but absolutely bullshit in gameplay, writing, UI design, character design, location design etc, - is not entertaining. Some other game being technically a visual novel (not necessarily), but with all those things done well, - it is entertaining.
So, making a good game doesn’t even require a lot of very competent and very stressed CS heroes working since dawn till dusk to the extent of their ability.
kautau@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Simplified: capitalism made these studios shitty, just as it’s done for gestures broadly
eronth@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I think the big “issue” is that there’s a notable lag between loss of goodwill and loss of income/profit/value, and there’s an even bigger lag between trying to fix goodwill and returns on that. It makes it too hard for any profit-first company to get right.
The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I think you’re absolutely right. When these studios go public and start having pressure from shareholders, it starts the gradual decline in quality.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 days ago
External MBAs taking over running businesses will either result in this or making a billion dollar company through the heavy exploitation of their workers and the consumers. I think the vast majority are the former though.
Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It feels like a complete bloodbath with the job situation in the gaming industry in the west.
The worst thing is none of the executives are getting fired (in a proper more manner, no golden parachutes and clawbacks on any stock based compensation).
Ledivin@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The worst thing is none of the executives are getting fired (in a proper more manner, no golden parachutes and clawbacks on any stock based compensation).
lol, welcome to the west
novibe@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Yeah? The executives are firing people, to lower costs, make the numbers look better…? Which makes the owners of the business money?
Why wouldn’t the executives get bonuses or golden parachutes if let go? They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
Executives don’t make products, provide services, or add any productive value. They are just the face of the owners, and will do the “hard” things for them.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Executives are responsible for the direction of the company. They aren’t just there to cut costs (at least, not usually). They’re there to see what opportunities the company to move into, and guide them to success.
This is the opposite of what most executives at these gaming companies have done lately. They’ve driven up budgets and pushed them in a direction that makes people not want to purchase their games, causing them to fail.
If a company has to fire employees then that’s the fault of the executives. They should be taking cuts first, not the people who were doing their job well but were just pointed in the wrong direction.
ech@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Do you always argue with people that agree with you? How is that helpful?
secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
Sucks for the workers but I hope this continues. Fuck Ubisoft
dinckelman@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I feel horrible for the people affected, because for a lot of them, this was probably a dream job, but Ubisoft will get 0 sympathy from me
essteeyou@lemmy.world 3 days ago
All the people making the shitty decisions will be fine. Everyday people will be the ones to lose their jobs, as is always the way in these things. :-/
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I like to think I had a very tiny hand in this, since I never pay for Ubisoft games I play.
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I went one step better and didn’t even play them.
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I can respect that.
AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Fuck Ubisoft
JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The employees should form a cooperative, they are the ones with the skills, the actual producers
padge@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
That’s a shame, that was the studio that worked on Guitar Hero Live. I kind of liked that game
MITM0@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Closure ? So… Ubisoft is gone ?
simple@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Just one of its studios, not the whole company.
alphapuggle@programming.dev 3 days ago
Ubisoft Leamington is gone. Ubisoft as a whole is still around (for now)
ech@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Booo
sirico@feddit.uk 3 days ago
aciDC14@lemmy.world 3 days ago
And nothing of value was lost.
shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I mean, 185 people lost their jobs.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Gamers won. No executives will lose a dime but 185 workers are screwed because Ubisoft bad and Steam good.
nul9o9@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Ubisoft is bad Steam is good
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Steam is just another soul-less capitalist business. They employ less then 100 people but take 30% on every game sold. They would do the exact same things as Ubisoft if the estimate they could profite more from it.
P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah, just go ahead and blame the consumer because the company makes shit product. They keep pushing stuff that the people don’t want. Any business doing this is going to go tits up. That’s just how it works. Are you out there buying 30 extra versions of Far cry to help them out? If not, stfu about it and blame the people in charge, definitely not the consumer.
greenashura@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I wonder who do you think was at fault at the sinking of the Titanic, was it the Iceberg for you?
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
That’s a stupid analogy. The employees are not responsible for the bad management déecisions, they just want to be fairly paid for doing a job they like. Meanwhile “gamers” are fucking obsessed about trashing a game that isn’t out yet because “nO bLaCK SaMuRai iN my HiStorIc vidiyaGame aBout ficCtiNal chArcTers RuNNInG oN wAlls”. Just dont buy their games.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 3 days ago
Lots of hate on ubisoft. I think division 2 is a great game though, not so much the rest.
emax_gomax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Wow AC shadows pre sale levels must be really bad. Not too surprising tho. For a studio that basically said “there’s way more interesting time periods we want to focus on” the fact they finally went to feudal Japan felt more like they ran out of interesting ideas. Doesn’t help ghost of tsushima beat them by a few years and was basically the best AC game since black flag.
robert@cornfed.social 3 days ago
Majorllama@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I remember when they said “players should get used to not owning their games”.
Well Ubisoft. You should get used to not getting a penny outta me forever.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Steam says the same thing and everyone jerks them.
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
It’s not Steam’s decision to make. The statement you’re referring to is just Steam clearly stating a decision made by the game publishers. Even if Steam didn’t highlight it, it would still exist, as you would see if you read the games’ license terms before paying.
Ubisoft is a game publisher. They actually make the decision that you don’t own the games you pay for.
Gork@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I’ve never had Steam entirely revoke a game from my library that I paid for though.
jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I don’t get the downvotes. You’re right, everything you “own” in steam is through a license. People just don’t like to admit that we’re willing to let that one slide for convenience.