Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 254 points –
Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’ | VGC
videogameschronicle.com
84

At a time when AAA often sucks so much, it sounds really out of touch to say your overpriced game is "quadruple-A".

Xfinity "10G" energy

It sounds about as out of touch as their neurons.

Sucks that the idiots forcing these stupid ideas get buckets of money though.

I bet it’s just assassins creed.

Sail the seas, activate ice bergs to unlock the map, gather five million useless trinkets.

From what I read the game is pretty much a repurposed Black Flag naval gameplay.

I mean that is what it spun off from. It's been in development hell all the way from then.

I was mostly joking because Ubisoft pretty much only has one game they reskin endlessly, but I’m somehow not surprised.

I played a closed beta quite a while back and it’s pretty much this. Was all set to play the whole weekend but only made it like 2 hrs in before uninstalling. it feels like just fetch quests, and checking off boxes, and I didn’t find it fun at all.

It'd have to be pretty damn compelling to not just play black flag again instead

I play one game at a time until I beat it or decide it isn't worth playing. I'm currently playing Black Flag for the first time and am about 35 hours into it.

I'm still holding interest, but it's pretty damned repetitive and full of fetch quests and check boxes.

If you’re not enjoying your time at sea, on the ship itself, I’d recommend powering through the quest line, possibly the legendary ship battles and leave it there.

I stopped trying to 100% after AC2, and sped through the ‘housekeeping’ pre-assassination missions. Follow this guy, loot this chest, pick her pocket, etc gets real old quick

I like the sea stuff more than the land stuff (which is crazy repetitive as well. Go to dock, unlock view points, beat up guys to open the pub, do a couple contract missions, grab the few collection things lying about etc. Like 50 places where you do the exact same thing.) But the ship fighting is fun, even though boarding the enemy ship portion is boring.

At this point I just want to hit the story line, get the last few upgrades to my ship in hopes I can defeat the legendary ships that have been whooping my ass, and I'd like to get all the little rocks collected I need to find out what's behind the door on the assasins island.

The end game armor you unlock is good… but it is walled off until the very end game when you’re otherwise super geared up, so it’s not the ‘epic purple loot’ it seems like

The Flying Dutchman fight is hella bullshit though, I swear that thing was midair and turned 180 on the spot multiple times. Made lining up broadsides annoying af when a man-o-war is nimble and tough

Thanks for ruining what's behind the door, dumbass.

*apparently that's not what's behind the hidden door. He was talking about the armor shown earlier in the game.

Oh that’s a different thing 😉 You should be already able to see the armor in the cage iirc

I absolutely hated the sea stuff. I played black flag for like two or three hours then I never touched it again.

I really enjoyed Sea of Thieves, though I wasn’t a huge fan of the direction they took the game.

That was the best part for me lol - open world piracy simulator with your crew belting out sea shanties and upgrading your ship. The on foot parts of the AC franchise might as well be on train tracks, not my jam

It was so shallow though. Then again I didn’t get very far into the game, it failed to hold my attention.

The entire game is pretty shallow to me, but the sea stuff to me is still fun. Funnest part.

Fuck me, that is some quadruple-A-level bullshit from our man Yves. I played the closed beta and I am sorry to say that this game is going to tank, hard. Its gameplay loop is waaaay too simplistic to be making those grandiose claims.

Just like battery, the more A it has the smaller it is, but the price stay the same or much more expensive.

Is that the same shit company that was telling us to get used to not owning games? Why would I spend $70 to borrow something they probably won’t finish making before release?

Why would I spend $70 to borrow something they probably won’t finish making before release?

So that you can hang around and wait for the talent in the community to fix it and make it at least closer to a game worth $70

You think Ubisoft games will have modding? Hahahaha no, no it will flop on launch and the live service elements will die within a year

Big 'Comcast 10g' vibes here.

Ubisoft is consistent with being on my blocked producers list on steam.

Wow it's like almost every day I learn about a new feature Steam has lol

Holy shit I didn't know you could do that.

Fuck yea! I've blocked Ubisoft, EA and a handful of other shoddy producers/their ilk. It's not worth even seeing their offerings these days.

Xbox store needs this feature badly. If I click on another piece of kemco shovelware I'm going to fucking lose it.

MS loves to weigh their software down with bloat, I agree they need this feature but I don't think they'll take the financial loss to make it a thing.

Maybe it's how long it's been in development, maybe it's how many times that they've changed direction, or maybe it's just that Ubisoft just put so much garbage in their games, but I predict that this game is going to be a trainwreck.

I was intrigued when they first announced it, but now I'm just so fucking sick of Ubisoft and their bullshit that I'm now just curious to see just how much of a mess it turns out to be.

I'm going to keep eating the popcorn I got out for Suicide Squad.

Finished the campaign before the bucket, eh?

Oh, I don't intend to play either game. I just enjoy watching games that are bad for the industry crash and burn in the market.

It’s literally sunk cost fallacy, they wasted so much money for this game, but always spent more instead of putting it in a drawer. Nobody cares about pirates anymore, and lot of ppl are tired of the live service games. Add to this that the Black Flag remake is in the works, so not many will have the urge to buy the game, and it will fail spectacularly.

oh shit we making shit up? ARMORED CORE 6 WAS SEPTUPPLED S.

All AAA games and AAA studios are garbage.

Long live the indie game developer

Just wait a year or two and then play the stuff people are still talking about. It's hilarious how often it's indy games.

FromSoft, Santa Monica?

I don't like FromSoft games personally, but I can recognize that they are well-made and aren't problematic in the ways that other major AAA studios are.

So I'll just acknowledge that of course there will be some notable exceptions, despite my hyperbolic use of "all" in my original comment. I'm a huge fan of BotW and TotK and Nintendo certainly counts as a AAA studio, but I think those games are exemplary and also non-problematic in the ways other major studios are. But despite these very real and very notable exceptions, I think my statement still stands pretty well as a general rule.

Oh and the only Santa Monica games I've played are Twisted Metal: Black (2001) and God of War (2005) so I'll simply abstain from an opinion on them as it doesn't seem fair to me to judge them based on experience that is now two decades old.

edit: also I see you were downvoted and while I know that doesn't matter, just want you to know that I didn't downvote you and I don't think you said anything inappropriate or off-topic so I wish whoever did had not.

FromSoft and Santa Mónica release amazing AAA games and are always respectful to their player base. GoW Ragnarok just released a free DLC a month ago. FromSoft charges 60 dollars for games that have 200 times the content of other games that charge 70 dollars. Zero micro transactions. DLCs are always mind blowing and at great prices.

I really have no idea why they downvoted, these two companies are just good guys. I'd love to hear if they have something negative to say about these companies.

I hate the term "Quadruple-A". The entire point of Triple-A was to be the biggest of the big. There's no cap on that size.

What if we took the A's yeah? What if we took the A's - to eleven?

Sure it is, Yves. If any game would qualify as quadruple A it's the Black Flag spinoff that's been in development hell for years. Genuinely curious how long this game lasts, even if it does get good reviews and finds an audience. Feels like Ubisoft would have cancelled this ages ago if the government of Singapore hadn't been providing subsidies to help fund the project.

It would be great if it was a black flag spinoff. A single player pirate action rpg. But nooo. It has to be a live service multiplayer game without any soul

It's not even a subsidies thing so much as they are legally obligated to release a game for Singapore

Their AAA games are mid so I suspect their 'quadruple-A' games are also mid. Price 'em how you want, I'll pass anyway, thanks Yves.

Cant remember the last "AAA" game i enjoyed.

Your not supposed to enjoy them, you pay so the shareholders get to enjoy them.

Cyberpunk 2077, witcher 3, and Elden ring for me.

Some Nintendo games are pretty decent, even just over the last year. Super Mario Wonder, Tears of the Kingdom (I didn't personally play this one, need to!), and Pikmin 4. As well as some remasters in there, like Metroid Prime. It's been a good mix of AAA and a lot of indie on Nintendo Switch!

I won't buy another Ubisoft game after the nft shit and them deleting old accounts with purchased games.

I was excited when they first showed this game.

Now I wish it had either been delayed again or outright cancelled. Not that they legally could have, but to release this and not admit that its a massive L is just sad at this point.

Im not looking down at Ubisoft anymore. Now I just feel pity. This is literally begging.

There’s plenty of other comments ragging Ubisoft for their anti-consumer business practices so let me just point to those as a preamble and say “what they said”

… HOWEVER I remember someone on Youtube, maybe SirSwag, saying something years ago that rings true about Skull and Bones. For a big company, they’re taking notable risks by investing so heavily in unique multiplayer games. Basically every other big budget multiplayer game I’ve seen has been trying to compete with Call of Duty or Fortnite by being functionally the same thing with minor differences.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Rainbow Six Siege, For Honor, Shootmania Storm, Riders Republic, and Skull and Bones, are not like most other games that come before. Yes, Ubisoft is a massive corporation and fuck that noise, but as a consumer of video games I appreciate that they are at least putting a good amount of the money they trick people into spending into studios with designers and developers who have creative minds and they’re supporting that creativity. Games like For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege can’t come from indie teams with no funding.

Sirswag is easily the single most underrated creator on that platform.

I have definitely enjoyed their tactic of doing smaller Far Cry games to test out new ideas, both with settings and game systems. It's very incremental and nothing too crazy, at least for the game systems, but it is nice to see.

On the other hand this experimentation comes around a solid core of what I like to call the Übigame, with a huge expansive map choke full of points of interest, strong points to take over, larger zones to unlock through story beats, and great traversal options through it all, etc. I don't see much difference between the Far Cry, the AC series, revent Ghost Recon, etc. Pandora fits right in there, too, so much so I'm surprised it's not officially an FC game.

Point is : is this one going to be an Übigame or not?

Doesn’t matter to me, I ain’t playing this shit.

Leave it to Ubisoft to find new and inventive ways to fuck up. They really do lead the industry in making shitty decisions, setting a firm example for other companies in exactly what trends won't be popular. Bravo.

At this point I wonder if there are some internal politics that want this project to fail and be over. 70 price tag, live service but only on ubisoft platform, ignoring the most demanded features, etc.

It's like they are tired of a project that was a money black hole for years and they just want to pull the plug.

“Kotaku’s report claimed that the studio made a deal with the local government that requires Ubisoft Singapore to launch an original game within the next few years. In short: the studio may be legally required to deliver Skull and Bones. When IGN asked if this is true, Ubisoft declined to comment.”

So they have to launch the game, the $70 is to cover the dev costs (even during the reboots, they were not allowed to pare down or reassign any of the ~500 staff), I predict we then see it all crumble and Ubisoft walk away having fulfilled their misguided obligations. I don’t know if we know the specifics of what they got from the government of Singapore, but it’s money. What a shambles.

So you get an extra A for every 2 years of development, is that how it works?

Aw man I was kinda looking forward to this but this reminds me it's Ubisoft. Which is a shame because I'm a sucker for their open world formula.

What happened to the records industry? Mp3 Videogames companies so many years ago have totally overpriced values. Do you know how much is 70 for a poor or even half developed country? And the word population almost totally majority are that people .

I'll wait for initial reviews to form my opinions of the game. I'll also wait for a price cut if I ever decide to get it.

You can't even do that these days. Some games are released like cyberpunk 0277, then a couple years later they're awesome. Some games release and add in bullshit later. Ubisoft would not surprise me here.

Immortal Phoenix rising was the last Ubisoft game I bought and I didn't realize it was Ubisoft at the time. I was immediately reminded why I didn't like Ubisoft. I bought it on switch, it forces an account creation and login to play local. It's on a switch, you bloody morons, if I'm on an airplane I'm not going to want to go through a damn connect to online services song and dance. It's also a single player game, so...

In the end I found a workaround. Because you can't have airplane mode enabled to play switch docked, I had to enter the game in handheld mode with airplane mode on, go through the song and dance about being unable to connect, then dock my switch and disable airplane mode. Like what the fuck? Just let me play the damn game I paid for.

Fuck Ubisoft. Terrible studio.