After laying off thousands, Ubisoft says losing "key talents and skills" is a big danger for the company

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• reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m starting to think execs in general have no grasp on reality.

  Maybe surrounding yourself with bootlickers just isn’t so smart?

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  • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    No they’re fully aware - there just aren’t any negative consequences.

    The shareholders love it, until they don’t. Then these people get golden parachutes contracted from day 1.

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    • SirHaxalot@nord.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ubisoft stock has lost 90% of its value the past 5 years though, so I don’t think the shareholders are fans.

      Which makes it even more insane that they haven’t realized that it’s time to take a step back and evaluate their strategy, but I guess there’s a point that they are extremely out of touch with reality.

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    • liuther9@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Seems like you never spoke to those people

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  • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They never have. What they have is ambition and a willingness to force others to make their wealth for them. Just push the peasants harder to get more gold.

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  • PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    True but in Ubisoft’s case, it really just seems like the market did a full 180° on the whole AAA open world, feature-heavy games. I don’t feel very sorry for the execs but it isn’t like the quality of the games themselves nosedived. They just couldn’t innovate.

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    • arctanthrope@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      it isn’t like the quality of the games themselves nosedived

      I would argue it has. the early games were very story-driven and well written. the latest few, if they’ve continued the trend from Odyssey, which is the last one I played, are bloated, repetitive, boring, the writing is terrible, and the story is almost impossible to follow because you can play for several hours between consecutive plot points, and sometimes have to because of level-gating

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    • omarfw@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The quality definitely did nosedive in every Ubisoft series. It’s been that way for years now. Nothing they’ve been putting out the last decade has met the standard of quality set by their competition. Ubisoft has been digging their own grave through sheer incompetence alone since 2016.

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• squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I will just leave this article from 5 days ago here:

  Ubisoft Barcelona Celebrates Successful Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Launch With Layoffs

  Despite Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced being considered a successful launch by Ubisoft, 51 employees at Ubisoft Barcelona, many of whom worked on the game, will be celebrating its launch by seeking new employment.

  Announced on June 10, 51 employees at Ubisoft Barcelona face layoffs, with those who spoke to Insider Gaming saying the layoffs felt premeditated and were going to happen no matter how successful Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was.

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  • altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    See that chicken laying golden eggs? Would it be funny if I butcher it? Lets watch.

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• rottenmummy@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How can the onion compete with this?

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• LostWanderer@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  LOL Like, they just now considered that?! C-Suites needed to take a pay cut instead and keep people hired to make games that would get them out of the financial fuckery the C-Suites got themselves into.

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Executive paycuts aren’t going to cover the delta of 1000 job cuts per year. Everyone loves to cite that one time Nintendo did that, but the math just usually doesn’t work out to the point where this solves layoffs or something. What’s going to get them out of financial fuckery and keep their talent retained is if they stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on projects like Hyperscape, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar that people don’t want and instead make games that their customers do want.

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    • Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Okay, criticize Ubisoft and other publishers for a lot of shit, but in my view things like Star Wars Outlaws are off limits.

      Is the game amazing? No. But it’s an idea using a fresh character in an underserved IP. They put together a lot of things based on unique ideas - and it didn’t hit.

      That’s a consequence of a company taking risks, even though we generally want them to take risks. They put out 8 new singleplayer IPs, 7 are junk to be forgotten while one becomes the next Halo franchise.

      Taking paycuts to execs can better excuse paycuts at low level, and can slow the bleed if the company is to accept going into the red during a new game’s development.

      I’ll agree with you that a lot of projects are getting overfunded. Good games don’t need thousands of people working on them. It can help with tertiary objectives like accessibility, marketing, or other features.

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    • Carighan@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      1000 x 70000 gross salary or whatever = 70 mil. 70 mil isn’t endless amounts of money in the managerial world, actually.

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    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Instead they can waste hundreds of millions on executive salaries.

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    • edible_funk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Didn’t both those games review and sell well? They were both polished and pretty fantastic actually.

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• Ilixtze@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Ubisoft’s fuck ups formed the indie studio that gave us expedition 33, so keep it up boys.

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  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    How long does it take to complete Expedition 33? I don’t have much time as I used to to play games but I think I will play it, since I miss playing some good French-made games.

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    • Kufflebuns@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I spent 95 hours over a few months, did all but one super late game boss. I also went back and played the early game again to see if I missed anything early on. There’s a lot of optional content not necessary to the story but adds a bunch of depth. Kinda felt like final fantasy 10 and collecting the ultima weapons to take on end game bosses.

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    • Ilixtze@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I feel you can rush through the game in 15-30 hours and get most of the story. I’m not a completionist in any way but getting most of the dungeons and upgrades and beating some hidden bosses took me about 60 hours. I also didn’t feel the run time at all; The fighting system can be a lot of fun and there is always an interesting dungeon mechanic or twist on an old boss around the corner.

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• Etterra@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well as long as the executives get bonuses and the 7-layer middle management cake remains intact. That’s the talent and skill that really matter at a video game company, right?

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  • areakode@riskeratspizza.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In Capitalism, the product is not the goal. Maximizing profits is the only thing that matters. In End-Game Capitalism, things start getting weird sometimes.

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  • SitD@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’m shocked about this too but I think it’s hubris + the size of the market. Lots of dollars to be made, and so you get these slimy weasels with bland faces coming in, never having loved a game in their life, and coming to the conclusion: Oh gamers just stare at a screen with colorful things? Hey we could just make it a shop front, where you can buy colors in the colorful screen but pay us real money.

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• chunes@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  After adding 1 to 1 the sum being 2 is a big danger

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• lemmyng@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” 🌭

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• CarrierLost@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well well well. If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions…

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  • mattyroses@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Me sowing: fuck yeah, this is awesome

    Me reaping: aw fuck . . .

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• StitchInTime@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That sounds like a problem for a future quarterly report.

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  • BionicBeaver3000@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But there is still a management bonus for this quarter - right?

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• marighost@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The company’s report underscores a growing problem in the industry: great games cannot just be made by anyone, and, in this consolidation-heavy time, that may mean that a company gaining an IP but losing the people who defined it doesn’t really get it much in the end. In fact, everyone loses out.

  You think? Hire a painter to make a painting, then fire them. Now hire me, someone who cannot paint, to make a better version of that painting. Ain’t gonna happen, is it?

  I feel awful for the people working at a ghoulish corp like Ubisoft.

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• heh@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Lmao Ubisoft is unbelievably fucked. I see full shutdown or sale within 2 years.

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• sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I mean sure, but…

  What kind of ‘key talents and skills’ are we talking about?

  The ability to make the same game, 20 times?

  Those ‘talents’ and ‘skills’?

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  • otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The ability to make the same game 20 times and get people to buy it all 20 times.

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    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ah, so they’re losing marketing talent.

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• P00ptart@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Ubisoft still has talent or skill?

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  • gergolippai@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    well they have a lack of- :)

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• melsaskca@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  CEO states: “I held the pistol, but for some reason I aimed it directly at my foot.”

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• RollingZeppelin@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A big danger? It’s already happened multiple times over to please your shareholders and buy new yachts for the C-suite.

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• jnod4@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Game studios are like music bands and firing artists is like Linkin Park or Nirvana losing a vocalist

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• paransol@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  seriously, despite Ubisoft being a shitty company, they had pretty great talented people working there. I wouldn’t deny their games are pretty, and technologically seems pretty good too (e.g. AC Mirage can run on mobile devices).

  Welp too bad if they’re going to lose that quality. Not that I’m a regular buyer, their games are expensive af. So honestly I don’t care that much except for the people who lost their jobs.

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• bigbangdangler@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Surely the C-suite thought about this. Or they had Claude think about it.

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  • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think the C in C-suite stands for Claude or ChatGPT now xD

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• SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Whoever is steeing that ship is doing a bad job

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• tumblechinchilla@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Fuck Ubisoft management and shareholders. I hope all the passionate devs leave and find jobs elsewhere.

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• QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Meanwhile Koei Tecmo is hiring a lot more people.

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• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  they arnt in danger before?

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• SammyJK@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Most key talent left or was forced out years ago. Ubisoft execs are fucking clueless.

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• MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  They don’t mean the worker bees with “talent”. But the money makers.

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• Kojichan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  They just stuck a stick in their own bicycle wheel spokes and are blaming others when they crash.

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