Disney killed the franchise by releasing slop year after year. Also by letting Ubisoft make a Star Wars game.
Could it be waning interest in the Ubislop formula?
No, it’s the gamers who are wrong!
A) And yet, not long after, Andor was massively successful.
B) Then stop making games exclusively based off of third party IPs.
Waning interest in Ubisoft. Everything they touch is painfully generic and uninteresting. On top of that, they infect the games with Denuvo malware while charging top dollar. But sure, blame the consumers for your lack of vision, passion, business sense, and technical acumen. See how that pays off, Yves.
The game looked quite generic to me. As someone who’s not deep into Star Wars, the titular character looked more like 70s mom than space adventure. And the gameplay also looked like they just slapped yet another texture pack onto something I’ve seen a thousand times already.
So, I don’t see why you’d buy this game in particular, unless you do a lot of gaming or a lot of Star Wars. I imagine, they missed out on most sales towards the more casual crowd.
titular character looked more like 70s mom than space adventure
So more like star wars inlaws than outlaws?
I thought the game looked ok, but why would I pay $70 for a game that can disappear from my library whenever Ubisoft feels like it? They’ve demonstrated that they’re willing to permanently take games away from paying customers, so I’m not willing to spend more than the cost of a rental on one of their games.
And that’s the exact feeling I’ve had. So eloquently said. Thank you. 💯
If they sell me a product that i can’t forever keep, then I’ve been renting the whole time.
Not waning interest in Ubisoft?
Because, ooh boy, did my interest in Ubisoft wane year after year of overproduced cookie cutter crap. And I’m not expecting a change of phase.
Also, Guillemot, you’re talking publicly a lot for someone with (now convicted) sexual harrasser friends you’ve protected all of your career.
I don’t know how it has taken people so long to realize something I realized around AssCreed3, that all Ubisoft does is release the same game with a different skin over and over again.
If you stopped playing after 3, and who could blame you, than you did miss out on Black Flag which was probably the high point of the series. But your general point still stands, Black Flag is kind of the exception that proves the rule.
Honestly I only played the first one, but I do know that Black Flag is the most loved one. However when I say what I say it is not just about assassins creed, the observation which at that point was rather obvious for me was that ever Ubisoft franchise was more or less following the same template and it has only gotten worse.
I tried it in May/June and it was very meh. At the start I had an urge to play it, but after a day or two I had no urge to open it. A lot of it felt repetitive to a point of why bother.
these arrogant assholes.
just like movies and TV, the waning interest in the franchise is only because you keep making shitty games with it.
If you people start making GOOD star wars stuff again, we WILL eat it up.
Andor is an example of excellent Star Wars content that people want to see. They just produced crap.
I actually strongly disagree.
Andor was an example of actually telling a new story. Yes, people were eager to know who Cassian was. But If you had polled the entire Star Wars fanbase, like five of us would have said “Oh, I want a deeply political story with a massive focus on social justice that heavily focuses on a politician and a spymaster’s daughter. Also, hold back zero punches about the kind of people who would spearhead a rebellion. Like, how crazy can Forrest go?”. And we would have fully admitted we were on our bullshit.
Which was basically the problem with Outlaws. Everyone has been asking for a Han Solo game since people realized a Star Wars Pacman could be a thing. And you need to go REAL hard to make that live up to people’s expectations.
Which, getting back to Andor: I would go so far as to say everything up until The Prison is REALLY rough. You have moments of brilliance (basically any time Skarsgard is on screen) but it spends too much time on a plot point it had already dropped and Cassian is kind of a mary sue. But we were enthralled because this was something NEW (well, less so if you have ever read a political thriller but… Star Wars!). And once it found its legs… it was painful beauty in all the best ways.
And, to go back to “It is a Han Solo game” or “It is a Jedi knight but not a Jedi Knight” and so forth? It doesn’t take much to realize “I have seen this story a million times” and wander off. Like, I know I basically did that once I heard there were insta-fail stealth sections (although I generally try to not give Ubi money to begin with). Same with Ginger McBoring Face Survivor. It had an interesting hook (I LOVED Dark Times and Dass Jennir) and the gameplay was fine but when it came time to come back for seconds it was just “Eh, I’m good”.
Nah. We need more Star Wars that people don’t KNOW they want to see. Not just the tired crap that an exec would think was gold.
I would have been one of those five people. I’ve always wanted adult Star Wars, and Andor finally gave it to me.
I think you guys are saying the same thing. People want to see something they haven’t seen before, even in the star wars universe.
Its a fundamental mindset that goes into pitch meetings and the like.
Its the same idea behind game design/balance. If you listen to The Gamers, everything will be insanely OP and there will be no curve or balance at all. When the reality is they DO want that balance even if it means their favorite gun is slightly nerfed. But it will basically never be what they actually say when asked “what do you want?”
And same with franchises. People will always say “I want a game where I am Han or Luke” or “I want another KOTOR” and so forth. When the reality is that they don’t actually know what they want.
I want to see my man Nom Anor messing things up for both the Rebels and Empire. Maybe make the Peace Brigade while he’s at it.
Oh man, I thought I was the only one who didn’t care what was happening until the prison. People were constantly gushing about how amazing it is…but like, it was fine…
everything up until The Prison is REALLY rough.
I’m very curious why you think the Aldhani raid was rough. Also, season 2 is already done, and I think it in some ways surpasses season 1. Have you seen it?
Like I said immediately after that. Moments of it are brilliant but it is clear there were still a lot of ways the plot could have gone and the showrunners were keeping their options over. And, while I think Aldhani was good, the Citra weirdness and Cassian being a mary sue who could do the entire rebellion better than anyone who was there. Whereas once Vel became more of a main character (and used to contrast Mon’s inability to overtly act) and they focused more on one story rather than having the option to tell ten, it became one of my favorite shows of all time.
As for Season 2? I strongly disliked how zany and fun Cassian’s infiltration of the prototype facility was but also understand that they needed to make something so that the trailers aren’t just bleak and horrifying while speeding Cassian to the point of not just being a Believer but being a Leader. But after that time skip it resumed being one of my favorite shows of all time And a big part of that was not even pretending that Mon isn’t the actual main character with Cassian and Kleya more a means to an end… which also fits with what they actually came to accept over the years.
Personally I’m pretty tired of Star wars, every entertainment product doesn’t need to belong to a Disney franchise
Same, all the Star Wars slop Disney has churned out has completely washed any lingering magic out of the fabric of the franchise for me. I don’t even feel the desire to watch supposedly good Star Wars products like Andor these days.
Yeah, the Baby Yoda Show was its last dying gasp for me. I see the same pattern in most industries: something is profitable, so lean hard into it until the bubble bursts. It’s great for short-term profits but bad for long term and worse overall. I’m not particularly intelligent or educated in business but even I can see this is a terrible strategy.
Star by Star, Traitor, and Destiny’s Way are pretty good. I want some Alpha Red.
Unpopular Opinion: The Yuuzhan Vong Invasion would’ve been better than the Sequel Trilogy.
Seeing that business with Ithor on the big screen would’ve been great.
Anything with a cohesive narrative would have been better than the sequel trilogy, including Dark Empire. Hell, Abrams did Dark Empire anyway, he just compressed it into a single film along with ESB and ROTJ because he’s never had a single original idea about Star Wars.
IMHO, J.J. Abrams should not be allowed to touch any scriptwriting duties ever. He is not a bad director, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit about the internal logic of the script if it comes in conflict with the “cool ideas” he has.
His two Star Trek films were perfect examples of this fallacy, as was the last and worst Star Wars film. With Star Trek he kinda butchered the heart of the franchise - the point of using starships to explore - with “Oh, the transporter can now beam stuff over interplanetary and interstellar distances, because it will be so awesome and less time consuming!”
Yes, it’s science fiction and suspension of disbelief is required to fully enjoy it, but it is possible to obey the decades old in-universe rules and still write an enticing storyline if you put a little effort in it. Sad model example of lazy writing.
Of course the fault is not all his, the other producers should have stopped his stupid ideas but chose not to. Still, ROS was so bad that the guy should have been blacklisted for life.
Honestly, I view ROS as the “Fuck it” movie. All the direction of where the story should go was pretty much dead after TLJ.
They just need to focus on a planet hopping mmo that runs a real world 9 year cycle through the movie eras. No character selection, full randomized setup where you find out what you’re capable of as go. You may not end up a Jedi but you might end up the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy or you build end up born a clone dying minutes into first combat.
Star Wars roguelike? I’d play it
If they would’ve stuck with the old ‘gritty’ Star Wars game that was supposed to be like GTA style adult oriented Star Wars instead of this stupid shit. It would have been massively successful.
Idk, I liked Jedi: Survivor even though that one was EA.
What? I thought Ubisoft was saying sales were really strong and how Outlaws was such a big success?
I’m going to guess this is the exact same case with Assassins Creed. An AC game set in feudal Japan should have been a Grand Slam. Literally everyone wanted it. But leave it up to Ubisoft to find ways to make money from a printer drop right into the shredder.
It’s more than just bugs and “blandness.” Clearly people aren’t buying what Ubisoft is making, and they keep changing stuff but none of the things they change are the reasons people aren’t buying their games. It is crazy to me that executives continue to learn the wrong lesson from failed games 100% of the time. And then they ignore gamers when we straight up tell them what they should have changed. Crazy.
I agree about what’s happening. They’re producing boring games and not learning anything.
But I don’t give a shit. Let them go down in flames. New indie devs an studios are popping up all the time with fresh, unique, and interesting games. I haven’t bought a AAA game in over a decade and I’m not missing a damn thing.
I partially disagree. I don’t want Ubisoft to die. I want them to make good and fun games, like they used to 15 years ago. I want AAA to be like it once was. And I reward when AAA games are like that by buying them.
Gamers want to give our money to developers and publishers. But we want good quality games that at the very least match (but ideally surpass) the quality of experiences we used to get in the past. Recently, Ubisoft has not been providing that, and thus Ubisoft sales have been plummeting. Now, is this a failure of executives? Developers? I say likely both.
Give the developers autonomy for one game, where there is zero executive involvement in the development and see how it goes. If it does well, then just let them make another game with full autonomy. If it goes poorly, make employment cuts on the team or move them around because clearly they didn’t do well even without executive direction. But also keep in mind if another huge competitor takes over, like releasing next to GTA6, pretty much every other games sales will suffer most likely (unless its $100 at launch lol).
Its not a hard decision to make when it comes to business. Any person with a single braincell can see this. The problem is that giving a studio full autonomy is a financial risk. There is great potential for failure when executives feel like they have no control. Businesses are too risk averse now to make such simple decisions. They would rather maintain control of a sinking ship instead of giving crew members autonomy to try to right the ship. Its crazy to me.
I want to give my money to a dev with a passion and a good idea. I do not want to support a soulless corporation grinding away at an IP to maximize profits for the next quarter.
All developers eventually become “soulless corporations grinding away at an IP to maximize profits for the next quarter.” They have to, because otherwise they die forever and take their IPs with them to the grave or sell them to corporations.
Support who you want, but understand that the developers who work for Ubisoft, at the very least some of them, have passion and good ideas. There are circumstances that can lead to those people not being at the surface or even being intentionally held back/bullied from realizing those ideas.
There is waning interest in Star Wars franchise. And Assassin’s Creed franchise. And Far Cry Franchise. Hmmm, there seems to be a pattern here…
Wasn’t AC Shadows one of their best selling games? People still like Ubisoft games despite what people here want to believe. AC and FC fans play them precisely because they don’t rock the boat too much, you get what you expect with these games. The problem is that Star Wars fans probably aren’t looking for the same fix that Ubisoft’s usual audience is looking for.
Are any of the Far Cry’s remarkable? Not particularly but it’s a good co-op game where I can mess around with a friend and shoot the shit with. And it consistently gives me a good experience if that’s what I’m looking for.
Meanwhile games like Marvel Rivals are doing great.
Conclusion: People are only interested in live-service games and we’re not pumping out our slop fast enough!
This is perfect.
It just boggles my mind how execs can learn the wrong lesson 100% of the time. It seems impossible.
Regardless, they keep canning games like 1313 that get fans hyped and give us generic trash instead.
Oh, he 100% knows the truth. He just can’t say it since admitting it’s Ubisoft’s fault would lower investor confidence (and therefore affect his personal wealth). This is the standard “blame our failures on market forces outside our control” move that all CEOs of publicly-traded are forced to do.
The stock market was a mistake.
Maybe. It does kinda make sense.
These assholes are the same idiots that think they can sell the company yet maintain creative control though.
Hell yeah, comrade. Abolish the stock market.
