Ubisoft announces studio closure as it lays off 185 staff

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.
- Steam says the same thing and everyone jerks them. Plus the quote was actually out of context.
  
  While you don't technically own the DRM games you buy on Steam, it's a whole world different than putting games behind subscriptions.
  
  It's not Steam's decision to make. The statement you're referring to is just Steam highlighting 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.
  
  I've never had Steam entirely revoke a game from my library that I paid for though.
  
  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.

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 🤷🏻
- Works for steam tho Edit: apparently Ubisoft wanted subscriptions, so steam isn't exactly comparable
  
  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
  
  Gross. Good riddance!

"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.
- 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...
  
  Good point and thanks for pointing it out, I misread it. A shareholder and stakeholder aren't (necessarily) the same indeed.

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.
- 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.
  
  Simplified: capitalism made these studios shitty, just as it’s done for gestures broadly
- 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.
  
  I think you're absolutely right. When these studios go public and start having pressure from shareholders, it starts the gradual decline in quality.
- 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.

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 manner, no golden parachutes and clawbacks on any stock based compensation).
- 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
- 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.
  Like lie, commit crimes, do mass-layoffs etc etc.
  
  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.
  
  Do you always argue with people that agree with you? How is that helpful?

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
- And they probably had to sweat blood and tears to get there, because the videogame industry is a harsh mistress.
- 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. :-/

Sucks for the workers but I hope this continues. Fuck Ubisoft

The employees should form a cooperative, they are the ones with the skills, the actual producers

I like to think I had a very tiny hand in this, since I never pay for Ubisoft games I play.
- I went one step better and didn't even play them.
  
  I can respect that.

Fuck Ubisoft

That's a shame, that was the studio that worked on Guitar Hero Live. I kind of liked that game

they should start by laying off executives and commercials who had that veeeery bad ideas of forcing internet connection even on offline mode, forcing Ubisoft Launcher even on steam and thinking that making a game pass with just Ubisoft IP was a good idea...
Spoiler alert: those were finally not good idea at all

In Skull and Bones they couldn't even replicate the experience from their own previous IP, and then advertised is as AAAA game. It's a disgrace - they deserve to burn.
- When that game came out I bought AC4 for $5 instead. Had a fun time and the graphics still look modern anyway

a year

a week
Owners doing everything but admit they're finished and just ride off into the sunset on their golden horse.
- So.. You're saying to buy?
  
  I was lucky enough to catch the big dip a few months back, my hope is that they have a big enough library that someone just buys it. But the Guillemot's want to have their cake and eat it by selling but maintaining control. There's a big old battle with the big shareholders and the Guillemot's. It jumped 33% when tencent made plans to buy it. Course they could just liquidate the whole thing and walk off. The Guillemot's really are being almost negligent at this point I think now more people have lost their jobs for ego.

Closure ? So....... Ubisoft is gone ?
- Just one of its studios, not the whole company.
- Ubisoft Leamington is gone. Ubisoft as a whole is still around (for now)
  
  Booo

I quickly read through the article to check if anyone at Ubisoft Montreal or Quebec were being laid off... Assassin's Creed Odyssey was one of the most amazing games I've ever played. Those devs are bloody brilliant. Luckily it seems not.

Lots of hate on ubisoft. I think division 2 is a great game though, not so much the rest.

“We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition."
So like a fruit basket and a pat on the head?

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.

@simple Hopefully none of the devs are surprised by this, everyone should be casually looking for work right now in Ubisoft. You don't release 6 floppers in a row and expect to stay there for long. Not that it's their fault at all, but they should be looking.

And nothing of value was lost.
- I mean, 185 people lost their jobs.

Gamers won. No executives will lose a dime but 185 workers are screwed because Ubisoft bad and Steam good.
- What does this have to do with Steam?
- Ubisoft is bad Steam is good
  
  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.
- 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.
- I wonder who do you think was at fault at the sinking of the Titanic, was it the Iceberg for you?
  
  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.