Ubisoft blames “technical error” for showing pop-up ads in Assassin’s Creed

misk@sopuli.xyz to Games@sh.itjust.works – 154 points –
Ubisoft blames “technical error” for showing pop-up ads in Assassin’s Creed
theverge.com
28

Their finger slipped and accidentally coded a whole in-game ad delivery system.

You're not a programmer, right? You have no idea how often this happens!

Just the other day I accidently sleep coded an entire pop-up ad system and put it our automated delivery system tool so all customers know to buy stuff they don't need or want.

Yeah, I was about to say, as a software engineer I can totally understand how that might have happened and am not surprised... But the skeptic/cynic in me feels like it's a convenient excuse.

This is clearly them testing the waters to see how big the backlash will be for even more intrusive ads, plain and simple.

A code error would probably crash the game if it went to pop up something that's not meant to be there, or at least make it unplayable. This was not the case, and it was clearly meant to be there.

If there is a huge fallout over it, they'll push the rollout date further back. If people don't seem to care, which THEY FUCKING DO, then they'll just push the date up.

Every time I see this shit, I wonder just how satirical the Drink verification can meme will end up being.

Every time I see this shit, I wonder just how satirical the Drink verification can meme will end up being

Not.

I don't touch much with ads so I avoid most of their campaign of horseshit, but the current CoD definitely had a double xp cross promotion with Little Ceasars pizza, and they've done Mountain Dew in the past. So you get punished with half progression if you don't constantly throw money at it already.

The Little Caesars One is still going on. I saw an ad for it last night.

Wasn't it Mt. Dew and Doritos, or has it mainly been Halo hitting the double dip on that?

They've been doing it for so long now, I've forgotten. I think the earliest I remember was those WoW-based sodas that had a pet tied to which flavor you got.

Then came the wall of Master Chief watching you walk down the aisle trying to do your shopping.

[Very joke] Wait... if I buy the latest fishgame I can get double XP at Little Caesars?! If only I even knew where to buy those things!

WeAreAllTryingToFindTheGuyWhoDidThis.jpg

I can't believe a random technical error would design and deploy a Black Friday popup ad right at the time of year where it would be relevant.

The machines are going too far, we need to shut them down.

The machines corporate executives are going too far, we need to shut them down.

Maybe the corporate executives are robots. That would explain a lot.

I remember reading about companies developing ML based software that touted some effectiveness at replacing CEOs, though it never seemed to have went anywhere.

The machines are going too far, we need to shut them down.

I can't think of a more relevant time to have just finished reading Player Piano for the first time yesterday.

"sorry guys, some technical mistake. it was supposed to be a full screen pop under. won't hapen again. ^promise.^"

The main menu was already a front end for ads and the games were full of microtransactions in the last trilogy, they have no shame.

This was no accident. The saddest part of all this is the fact that the general public will accept this and it will soon become the norm. It is now assassins greed.

Imagine every 5 minute an unskippable 1 minute ad is played, just to break the immersiveness.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Ubisoft is blaming an unspecified “technical error” for a fullscreen pop-up ad that appeared in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey this week.

Reddit users say they spotted the pop-up on Xbox and PlayStation versions of the game, with an ad appearing just when you navigate to the map screen.

“This is disgusting to experience while playing,” remarked one Reddit user, summarizing the general feeling against such pop-ups in the middle of gameplay.

“We have been made aware that some players encountered pop-up ads while playing certain Assassin’s Creed titles yesterday,” says Ubisoft spokesperson Fabien Darrigues, in a statement to The Verge.

Either way, the intent of adding pop-ups into the middle of a game you’ve paid for is rather “gross” as one Reddit commenter puts it.

Imagine a world full of games you’ve paid $70 for and then ads popping up in the middle of gameplay.


The original article contains 344 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

In other news, Assassin's Creed Mirage sees large uptick in sales this week...

Technically they added it just to find out it was an error to do so