As a former Ubisoft employee who showed up to work one day to find my login credentials had been changed, and myself as well as about 60 other of my co-workers had all been let go randomly without notice I have a bit of resentment towards them. The signs were obvious asI noticed they were hiring an insane amount of new hires from the Philippines, India, and just South East Asia (and paying them 60% of what they paid us in the US). Also this happens right as they surpass their yearly goal by 40% above expectation...but somehow they don''t have money to keep loyal employees and replace them all. Greed at it's finest and it shows across all aspects of how they run their business. Nice job UBI!
It’s crazy to me that companies keep going to other countries like eventually everyone going to get sick on them and start burning shit down like I work at Kraft and there thinking of doing the same thing
We had to learn about Ubisoft over in uk for a level media massive waste of time I sat the exam and it wasn't on it and it was such a waste of time lmao
Man, I remember when the $180 version of AAA games would come with a big ass statue, an art book, a whole ass album, 3 keychains and a pack of cards for no reason. Take me baaack mannnn 😭
not defending ubisoft, but to be fair, money is worth probably 50% less than it was 10 years ago, so the "ultimate edition" that is $130 is about $60 back in 2014. They are still a retarded company tho.
@@abahamalama3954 yes but while wages and inflation follow the same stable trend, it’s the greed of companies that causes shrinkflation : for the same purchase power you get less
My boy that’s the special edition. Why is everyone making a huge deal out of this, the base game is $70. You don’t like the price you don’t have to buy it but for gods sake why are you complaining about the most expensive version of the game, being expensive?
Let's not forget that Ubisoft also has executives who want us to 'be comfortable with not owning our games'. While paying up to $130 to 'not own' them.
The guy actually never said that lol. You are running with a clickbait headline you read and proving definitively how media illiterate gamers are. The actual context of what was said was a Ubisoft exec answering a question about how they expect subscription services to survive going forward. His answer to that was that subscription services can only survive "if gamers are comfortable not owning games". He was only referring to subscription services. That quote had nothing to do with individual purchases of games.
@@khaledm.1476 Ubisoft is one company trying to push the industry forward in that regard. Non-ownership to the point of even taking away purchases (with no refund), because the price you paid was more akin to something like a ticket to an amusement park. You get access until they decide to take it away. Sony's another company that's been moving rapidly in this direction.
@@qactustick what happens if your steam account gets banned or your ps/Xbox/Nintendo account get banned. You lose all your online purchases, you get access till they decide you don't
@@Zack-vi7is Yes, and we're also supposed to be 'reassured' that these services will remain indefinitely and we won't lose data/access to them. Sorry, but I don't see it as anything other than cost-cutting to increase profit margins.
Odyssey was full of content, literally, and mercenaries come to u so u wont never get bored. If only battle mechanics were more fun. But yea it was not actually assassin xD. Prolly biggest open world with actual content.
Shadow of the colossus feels more alive and the whole damn point is it's meant to be completely abandoned!!! But it's also a game that's well designed tbf
What does far cry 2 and halo infinite have in common, there both pay to play and functionality the same game design wise with vast open spaces of nothingness empty and desolate with two maps locked behind a story wall
When ubisoft told the world to get comfortable with not owning the content they purchase from ubisoft, the only option became to never "purchase" their products again.
Not even close - I have been tipped before service multiple times, if it's a decent tip, then they get the service they tipped for. That's the difference, no matter how much you tip ubisoft - they aren't going to change. You buying these only rewards their shitty behavior and encourages them to get worse.
Nah its not the same bro, not even close. At least you're helping a minimum wage worker and you can definitely do that, it's a good deed even. But handing 100 clams to an absolute evil company that only makes garbage that looks like games to suck as much money as possible from their customers, is not okay.
5:10 - _"For 110 clams, you're not paying to play the game 3 days early, you're paying to play it on time. If you pay 70 dollars, you're playing the game 3 days late."_ YES! THANK YOU!!!! Finally, someone who has plenty of reach finally caught up to that bs. You're not paying for extras, you're paying for the actual game. People on the lower payment brackets, however, get a portion of the game instead with a late start to boot. The only 'extras' one can get in these games is cosmetics or stuff that has no impact on gameplay.
I mistakenly got the collectors edition for Valhalla, and it did come with (maybe) 12” eivor figure, a small figurine, a disc of the soundtrack, and a few pictures, all for a whopping $200. I remember being more hyped for this game than life itself, and I followed every bit of news on it for months through every stage of development (before the setting and the title were even confirmed), I spent countless hours on RU-vid watching any Valhalla content I could find. I got my grandma to get me the collectors edition for me for my birthday (which happened to be a few days after release), and I had plans to play for months without putting it down. I played until I got bored, then I continued to force myself to play in denial that this game (which had been nearly the center of my life to this point) was a massive, boring, disappointment. Months of hype and anticipation… just for me to not even have gotten halfway through. On top of that I also felt guilty bc my grandma spent 200 on a game I havent touched in probably 3 years. So overall, fuck you Ubisoft for giving me false hype and wasting g-maws money😢 (I’ll probably still play the game eventually lmao)
A season pass used to mean you get all the content dlc now and the future included within that one purchase. Now it's just a toe dip into a massive micro store coming out and not including any meaningful content whatsoever, and ubisoft has nothing to excite me for this at all.
I haven't played a single Baldur's Gate game but every passing day my respect just gets increased a million times for Baldur's Gate 3 and their developers.
If playing a sequel without playing the previous games is what's holding you back, 3 has no connections to the first 2 games outside of 1 or 2 companions that are in each game. If you like rpgs, I can't recommend BG3 more. Single beat RPG of the past 10 years at least
Motherfucker trying to crash Ubisoft stock a little so he can buy low and get some of these sweet gains after Star Wars and Assassin's Creed Shadows release this year... ffs
it's just a game, stop kissing the devs ass, there still time to fuck this up like every game released today. What a great time for gaming, where in a game that you can get f-ked by a bear is the best on the market.
The funny thing is that their flagship series is about fighting an evil syndicate obsessed with world domination and yet they are becoming an evil greedy company
The disconnect is present because every company is greedy but the actual creators of the product, the workers, are not. It's less hypocritical when you realize that the devs aren't the ones setting pricing and shit like that. So they create a story about greedy evil people, and executives profit off of that story.
@@Zack-vi7is I think people are generally aware of that, hence everyone pissing on Ubisoft just broadly, rather than naming the specific branches or studios that made any of these games. It's "just" a "funny coincidence", is all. An evidence of tone deafness, a complete lack of awareness of either the nature of the product, or the nature of their own behaviour in relation to it.
It’s Star Wars they know that there are people out there who are going to buy it because it’s Star Wars and nothing more. There is no reason for them to treat these people well when they are willing to make such decisions on a brand alone
Kinda wishing someone would edit together that "hi there" with that one clip of charlie screaming and beating the ground/floor from a couple of days ago
The outrage just keeps resetting between video game companies. We were mad at Sony over HD2, then we were mad at Microsoft over closing the Studio that made Hi-Fi Rush. Now we're mad at Ubisoft for the new AC game. It's like these companies are just taking aggro from each other so we all reset and forget how terrible they all are.
Never forget Japan Studio too, which for most people would be remembered for knack 2 but they also made the incarnation of underrated franchise that is Gravity Rush.
So, you could buy an assassins creed game in full, which is likely not to be that great just by judging ubisofts history, for $200, or you can buy literally any other game, and it is going to cost significantly less almost every single time
Speaking of Avatar, I ended up buying a new physical copy at a discount and they really messed up with that game. The progression in some cases is tied to getting specific crafting materials under very specific circumstances which means you have to sit and wait a lot of the time so that you can attempt to get said materials. It's made worse by the fact that you need to use your bird thing, jump off of it and "float" down the leaves of trees just to acqure them.
I miss the days Ubisoft would make great single player games like Prince of Persia, Far Cry 3, and Splinter Cell. Sad to see greed taking over their company culture.
That’s the thing that sucks, they used to make great games now they make nothing but stinkers from the games they make and how they handle the business side
After Ubisoft shut down the servers for older games like Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed Revelations, and Far Cry 3, players could no longer access the full content of these games through official channels. This includes DLCs, which require the servers to function. Consequently, Ubisoft has inadvertently taught us that one should never buy a Ubisoft game if they want to experience it fully at any point in the future. This lesson was further emphasized by "The Crew Incident." Therefore, when considering Ubisoft, EA, or any other similarly greedy company, one should always remember: "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing."
When UBI tried implementing NFTs I deleted my launcher and never looked back and to this day no new release even gave me a moment of "maybe I should try it out".
Wouldnt call this a bad decision because people are dumb enough to fall for it. AC Shadows is already the 3rd most sold game on the ps5 store this month and the 1st most sold on japanese amazon
the worst decisions of today will be the norm of tomorrow. Elden ring doesn't even have a pause button, neither does destiny or for the longest time valheim. So many games are online only full of microtransactions on a 70$ game. Pc gamers don't even own physical media anymore and eventually it will get phased out from consoles as well so the publishers get complete control. Because as soon as someone offers you convenience you are willing to give up your rights
Remember, this is the same Ubisoft that took The Crew behind the shed as they were talking about gamers not getting comfortable with owning games. This is also the same Ubisoft that cancelled a potentially awesome Rainbow Six single player game called "Patriots" a decade ago despite all the hype it generated.
@@SirSabzZaNot really. What’s wrong with a game for Americans to enjoy? Games don’t need to be for fucking everyone FFS. By that logic Elden ring should have a difficulty slider.
@SirSabzZa I mean can't you say the same in any game where America kind of takes a backseat? You need more than home for me to go ape brain to say dis gud. By itself that doesn't say anything.
The fact that Ubisoft is able to charge you $130 or even $300 dollars for the collectors edition without a single second of gameplay being shown should literally be considered illegal
It's why the gaming market is the way it is. Don't blame Ubisoft for doing something scummy. Blame the gamers who mindlessly consume and don't care. If I could get people to buy my game before it even comes out for $130 without even as little as a trailer I'd do it too. It's gamers fault because ultimately people will buy this and it'll probably make money so other devs will do it as well. Same thing with micro transactions. Other companies saw how successful and how willing gamers were to accept it so now it's the norm.
You can repeat it as many times as you want but drooling fanboys will keep buying them and then complaining. While games like Baldurs Gate will "have their respect" but they dont buy those, as one bright fella admitted in these comments. So, supply is gonna match the demand thats how economy works. Nobody gives a fuck about respect or complains if they are not backed by the wallet.
The problem though is that they're targeting general audiences, who play games less commonly, and don't mind simple games, even if they're expensive. Gamers will buy this game because they're stupid, every one else will buy this because it's a 70-130 dollar expense that gives them a few weekends of entertainment.
@@wit-q5k because it is stupid to pay this much for a mediocre game with 0 promise. if the ppl just cracked it or stopped paying these prices everyone would be better off
Only subscription game I play is FFXIV, and that's because it's remained a solid experience throughout all these years. If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out God Eater if you haven't already. Pretty fun games with no monetization. Just buy the game and play
I was initially confused as to why everyone was up in arms about the 130 dollar price point because, as a collector, I've seen some crazy game collection prices. I didn't realize that there was no physical component to the Ultimate edition. That's disgusting.
You have no idea how expensive collectors editions are. Literally no one is selling a collectors edition for that cheap. If you want physical items you're paying almost double that. Elden Rings collectors edition, which only comes with a statue, is $250. This is not a Ubisoft specific thing. Everyone is charging more for things.
@@Zack-vi7is I used to be a big fan of Limited Run games and their collector’s editions were cheaper than average but could still get up the the 175 dollar mark. So yes, I suppose I didn’t realize they got *that* crazy, but I knew they were pricey.
@GHOSTSTARSCREAM it's not an exception. God of War had a collectors edition over $200. Baldur's Gate 3 had one roughly the same price as Elden Rings. On top of that, most people who buy SOTE will have paid $100 in total for all of the games content. Which is hardly a significant difference from Ubisoft charging $110 for the base game and two future expansions.
Never have I ever, in all my years of watching Charlie have expected him to open a rant video with a “hiiii there :3” greeting as he waves his hands like an adorable anime character
@@jackcoldstone7235 isn’t the first one with the airplane exploding? The free way is in the second one if I recall. Last I watched it was a year ago so I could be wrong
I think the music and/or car licences expired, so it's not completely their fault. They likely could've paid more money to have the licencing indefinitely.
@@Skornishnot likely, they definitely could have, Ubisoft has insane amounts of money, they have some of the most popular ips in the world that they’ve been milking and min maxing how much money they can get out of them, only thing stopping them from paying the licenses is if the companies themselves just refused to allow them for whatever reason, but I don’t see that being a thing at all because the crew games exist, that’s probably why they let driver die off, because they’d rather people funnel to their newer car games to spend more money on them
The extra skill points annoy me the most, because i know for a fact that they dont account for them. We saw the last time they did it that you'll just end up as max level with 5 skill points left over, because you can't upgrade anything more. They are beyond worthless.
Would you be happier if, in order to max out your skill tree you needed the ultimate pack for the extra skill points? No? Then stop whining about it, the extra skill points are to progress faster
@armchair69 I'd be happier if they just set you to level 6 from the start instead of level 1 with 5 extra skill points. That way you still progress faster and don't end up with the left over skillpoints that show how worthless your purchase was. Especially since they usually leave skills locked behind level or mission requirements meaning you often spend your extra points out of frustration or a feeling that you need to spend them, and thus spend them on useless shit.
@@creeperslayer241 Just pirate the fucking game and stop whining like little bitches on the internet, like holy shit, pirate it, try it out. If u really like it, then buy the actual game to support the devs if you have the money for it. Its so mind blowing to me that all you guys do is whine here, as if there wasn't about 10trillion other things u can do in life.
Here in Japan BASE GAME is $100, $160 for Gold, $200 for Ultimate. Nearly $20/ month for Ubisoft+ is wild. All that gets is a couple Far Cry and AC games. Meanwhile gamepass is $8/month haha.
I honestly don’t think it’d be that bad 18$ you play a game early than people who paid full price you can decide weather or not you want to buy it or not after . If it’s close to the same length as mirage you could easily finish the game in that amount of time
In Black Flag, an Abstergo worker mentions Shadows. They say something like “We should have a lineage back to Feudal Japan… I heard his ancestor was Asian.” It’s the first time you walk through the lobby just before you get your little Tablet thing. It’s crazy that they’ve been thinking about it since black flag and they’re still going to ruin it.
sweetheart... the color of the main character is LITERALLY the least problem at Ubisoft... and if THAT is where you draw the line i fear you aren't nearly as learned as you think...
I wish I could until there were pseudo "hoarder investors resellers" and fat balding neckbeards that started buying bulk older consoles to create scarcity and sell them high price. I hate it out there, Bro.
Yep..... Nothing like the good old days, where you simply walked into the store and just *bought the game* and then had full access to said game right out of the box. What a wild concept *THAT* was.
To me the bigger issue is that this used to (almost) be the original pricing, however back in the day the base game used to be a physical copy. the gold edition used to be a steel book with extra booklets and a soundtrack cd (sometimes more. And the ultimate edition was the limited collector edition with a statue and some extra trinkets over the gold edition. Everything was physical, and they did this up until Valhalla. How on earth does Ubisoft dare to ask the same money for extra ones and zeros that are likely to have been stripped from the base game?
@@DracoMonge It feels astroturfed, like they have people on 20 phones in their PR department whining about black samurai yasuke reee to slide in the $130 price or subtle nudge towards subscription easier
130.00 american is damn near 200 canadian after taxes. Complete bullshit. No collectable, no fancy case, its a digital copy. Right up there with the fallout bag. Ill get it at 95% in 3 months.
@@ightimmaheadout6903 The Crew REQUIRED online connectivity, they shit down the servers, in turn, the game no longer works regardless of if you own the disk.
AC and pokemon were the only games I pre ordered constantly. Had to learn the hard way in the past few years. Now there's absolutly no game I pre order
Then wait out the hype and don't even buy it. That's how you defeat them. I am convinced they know the prices are terrible and the normal prices are the ones "at a discount". Don't fall for this!
Wait even less pirate it experience once again the ubishit boredom and tedium formula for free Delete it laugh online at the goobers paying $100+ for that shit.
Fun fact: the source for the information Yasuke is based on is from 2 sentences in a historical journal. And they sourced it from a book called 'African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan' and it's 480 pages of made uo nonsense based on 2 sentences. If you though the Netflix Cleopatra was bad about historical accuracy, this is gonna be worse.
That is because nobody is buying them except a very small dedicated fan base that'd eat shit, if Ubisoft was to stamp a price tag on it and offer it three days earlier. Once the die hard fans have brought the game, the sales drop off and they hope that reducing the price will just hook a few more suckers. It's the tactic of a dying company that doesn't know how to legitimately compete any more.
😂😂 that is 100% true, this why i wait on most AAA games they either lose a bunch of money or the make a bunch. Either way the price will probably drop because it cant hold it, or they surplused a discount doesnt matter
In Canada the ultimate edition for Star Wars outlaws is 190$ and the deluxe edition is 162$ after taxes. Crazy how like 3 years ago a deluxe edition on a new title would’ve been 110$ maximum for us. Now we are being charged more for arguably worse products
Hey, Canadian here, just wanted to correct something really minor: I hate it here (I'm not correcting anything, I am simply having existential dread as a fellow Canadian)
These tactics from Ubisoft really leave a sour taste, and it's disturbing if more companies start to follow this trend. The pricing scheme they've introduced feels nothing less than exploitation of the players.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in active Development, you can still join their newsletter, they still are advertised, and still have an active website.
Been waiting for BGaE since way too many years now, its such a let down and not the first time they advertised and show early trailer at the E3 and still nothing, been way too long now :(
I miss when Ubisoft had passion for game development and tried innovating in every game they created now the only thing they innovate upon is on ways to steal your money. I still find it so hard to believe that the same company that made Rayman Origins, Driver San Francisco, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed 2 is the same company that is providing 70-130 dollar pre-orders for a fucking game they haven't shown gameplay for. What a joke.
Well I remember WAAAAAAY back in the day when things only used to cost a nickle... Oh times have changed in the last 150 years sonny. Remember when the first color TV's came out? We thought it was the aliens.
There's more than enough people still arguing about that. Yesterday I saw some people in asmongold's youtube comments nitpicking history extracts to support their claim that yasuke was kept as a pet, and they weren't trying to be ironic nor hyperbolic...
Years ago, I worked at Ubisoft Québec for a couple of months. Honoured to have worked with the OG director for PoP and Assassin's Creed. We had a long conversation outside work hours. Needless to say he feels the same way.
You’re saying you spoke to the original director of Assassins Creed 1 ? And he expressed the same sentiments as the rest of the community in regards to the newer games ?
LOL The "early access" is also paying $110 so you can last minute bug catch for them, by which I mean catch their release day bugs that either QC didn't catch, the coders didn't prioritize, or the execs didn't care about. Pay us to work for us!
I remember paying like 160ish AUD for the collectors edition of black flag and that came with a wicked figurine that I still have. It's crazy to me that companies are charging more than that for DIGITAL only editions. AC was once sooo good.
For real I pre-ordered black ops 2 for like 80$ and got some metal coin collectables and the game case was full metal and covered entirely in art work related to the game.. Now digital copies of half finished games cost 80$ 😂
Honestly, the only few actual good games I can recall Ubisoft releasing in the last 7 years, are the 2 Mario + Rabbids games (which were pretty decent for what they were), and the lesser-known Starlink: Battle for Atlas, which was an amazing toys-to-life game that was basically like Starfox meets No Man's Sky! IMO Starlink is easily one of the best, if not the best game Ubisoft ever made within the last 6 years, and yet almost nobody has ever played or even heard of it, because Ubisoft did an atrocious job at advertising/marketing the game, almost as if they wanted it to fail or something! As much as I wish Starlink got a sequel or 2nd chance, but at the same time I've pretty much lost all faith in Ubisoft after they stated that we should get comfortable with not owning games... So yeah, if you're interested in checking out Starlink, I'd recommend just buying a copy and figures secondhand off eBay or something (they're usually pretty cheap, and you wouldn't be giving your money to Ubisoft)
Some stores here still have Starlink packs, the game is normally 4 to 6 Euros new with the starter pack figures. You also don't need the figures to play the game.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo I know there’s also an option to play fully-digitally, but TBH I think using the figures is the more ideal way to play. Then again we all have our preferences, perhaps that’s why there’s 2 different play options.
People have complained about video game companies for years, but then the line is out the door when a new game drops. Ubisoft could take a dump in a can and say "preorder now", and it would sell out instantly. Why would they stop what they are doing? We are well past ethics and morals, and this is an infinite money glitch. Stop buying the games, and they'll stop gouging people.
Exactly what I was gunna say, everyone wants to bitch about Ubisoft, all while lining up mindlessly to toss their money at them. Then everyone sit around looking confused, like "why don't they listen to us." They say sitting atop a pile of over priced Ubisoft garbage that they have spent a small fortune on.
Seriously though, who is even buying these games? A decade ago I knew a number of people who were fans of Assassin’s Creed, it was a whole event when a new AC trailer came out, I remember seeing AC merch in big box stores, but no one I know has talked about playing a new AC game in years, and I don’t know a single remaining fan of the franchise. The only reason I know they’re still putting out AC games is because of videos like these.
@banditnosey People from Asia, where the horrible pricing of video games isn't discussed as much. Mainly teenagers on console who don't pay for their own games and just wait for their usual AAA yearly drop of certain series like COD, AC, FarCry, and Fifa. I know this because I'm from there and have seen it and experienced it myself, i never realized how much money i was wasting on garbage until i got myself a pc and saw just how many amazing games there are on steam usually for less than $20 i literally never paid $60 on any game ever since other than FH5 to play with my friend and we both regret that purchase (all the sick cars are behind a pay wall which is shitty for a $70 game) it was really eye opening.
I think what you said about other companies paying attention to ubisofts practices is accurate. Dying light 2 for example has a shit Ton of repeated generic loot areas like military convoys, and abandoned stores. Compare this to dying light 1 which had quarantine zones, races, secret collectibles, escort side missions where you could fix your weapon and add more repair slots to it, etc. DL2 isn’t a bad game, but it is a bad thing that the devs took some inspiration from Ubisofts game design.
5:21 this is especially egregious, considering that the temporary access benefit you are getting will be when the game is probably riddled with launch bugs.
