I've said it before and I'll say it again, Yves Guillemot needs to be replaced asap. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea TOP PATRONS [CIPHER] - Devon B [BIG BOSS] - Jonathan Ball [BOSS] - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond - Peter Vrba - Time Dragonlord [LEGENDARY] - BattleBladeWar - Theron Webb
Is it just me, or are more and more mismanaged studios - be it games or movies - suddenly popping up? They have all the money in the world to make successful entertainment, yet the people at the top seem to take every turn to make their situation worse while still SOMEHOW staying in power. If it weren't such a conspiracy theory, I'd say someone is manipulating the entertainment industry to ... I don't know ... probably destroy it to gain control? It's ridiculous. Disney and Warner are tearing themselves apart, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, to name a few, are in a downward spiral and no one in charge seems to care, Matell and WotC dropped the ball so hard with their attempted "monetization" scheme that they will be reeling for quite some time. When exactly did short-term greed, which IMHO is the main reason for all of this, replace any reasonable long-term planning? And WHY the hell are short-term profits more important than long-term ones? It takes much longer for an IP to reach a certain popularity and ... "ubiquity", for lack of a better word, than it takes to destroy that IP. And yet so many studios seem hell-bent on doing just that. I don't get it.
I'm an embedded engineer. This is every tech company I've ever worked for. Leadership screws it up 10 ways till Sunday cuz they don't know what they're doing and then they blame the low level engineers.
@@TrianglePants OP is absolutely right too. I work in tech and work with folks that absolutely should NOT be in leadership positions. I’m working on a project for a customer who won’t meet their own deadlines due to pending items that have been on-hold for over 5 weeks, which need to come from their leadership lmao.
You reach the upper tiers with a very different set of skills than what's actually needed to manage a good product. On the lower end you need efficiency, knowledge and being able to work in a team; while the higher ups only need speech skills and being able to manipulate people as needed. Hence why they aren't fit to lead, 99% of them are maquiavellian by definition, they don't care to make a desirable product but instead they look at the very last number at the bottom of the yearly earnings report and if it's in the positives then they don't want to hear any complaints. Seen this in a bunch of companies, that's sadly how they turn out as they get bigger.
Not really positions of power are usually held by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get there morals be dammed its just an unfortunate fact of life. Some of the most well paid and well off people I know personally are assholes of the highest order and if I'm being pretty blunt not too bright the big difference is there ruthless and had the guts to leg sweep anyone who stood in there way to the top compassion only gets you second place when faced with that kind of energy but it's that ruthlessness and narcissism that makes them slow to adapt and they run there companies into the ground. It's rare that you come across someone who has both a ruthless spirt and genuine creative energy and those people are usually looked upon/ remembered fondly despite there numerous negative qualitys, Steve Jobs is one person that comes to mind the fits that profile.
Only companies that chase trends more than Ubisoft are Chinese mobile game devs. It’s frustrating for the players, but it must be especially so for the Ubisoft devs. I want to like Ubisoft and I believe they have good devs, but their leadership is causing their sinking ship.
Anyone who starts an apology with "I'm sorry you perceive it that way." is straight up gaslighting. It's like saying: "I'm sorry you got mad. You shouldn't have gotten mad with me when I said something that made you mad."
@@manny022 I heard it from parents mostly. I find the phrase is often used by those in position of authority that want the reward of an apology but without taking on the responsibility of one.
@@Chrisack593 I have faith that the younger generations will slowly start to undo some of that behavior, because we've all grown up traumatized and now we have the internet to teach us the actual phychological effects of being subject to that type of thing by people you depend on while your brain is still developing
@manny022 I'm sorry you feel that way... Yeah, no. I don't want you (person who effed up) to apologise for the impact of your actions, I want you to apologise for your actions themselves. Because you are responsible for that.
Well because they were getting paid before and now with every fail and canceled tittle, Ubisoft doesn't make money they used too, so they need someone to blame lmao
Yep. The only way that change occurs is when people start speaking up. I’m happy that someone made that comment, because it just might save Ubisoft from further poor direction.
@@KABLAMMATS the only got upset cuz Ubisoft blamed THEM for the loss of money. As if it wasn’t their leadership they’d been following up until this point. If you’re the leader, you get the most money from success. But you also are responsible if things fail, not the people who work underneath you.
No wonder every Ubisoft game are no longer innovative and fun, it all looks same. look at Assassin's Creed series for some reason now with ancient Egypt and Vikings timeline for some reason. I miss when the series story about Altair and Ezzio.
@@geofff.3343 it’s kind of amazing how just a few extra words/switching words around changed the meaning so much. If it was anyone but a big CEO, I’d accept they might’ve misspoke. But CEOs & executives only get to that point by talking well, so they’ve got no excuse
“Efficiently and lean as possible.” This absolutely WREAKS of worker/Dev exploitation and team understaffing, which will absolutely lead to burnout and as a result, shit products. Ubisoft is on its last legs.
That's exactly what it is. When it comes to that line itself "Efficiently and lean" meaning the least amount of people to get it done. It's all over every industry.
I particularly loved how he says 'the balls in your court" meaning its up to the employees whether they fail or not, and then proceeds to say "what WE are capable of achieving" like he has selective participation in success
Yves Guillemot always felt wrong to me. There’s something I really distrust about that guy. Problems within Ubi or not, CEOs rarely get their comeuppance and if they do, it’s years down the line. Ubi will suffer for quite a while
They literally stated Yves vetoes any games that are not The Ubisoft Game, literally restricting their creative freedom. Even then, they need to waste time to make a Yves presentation to get it greenlit, which is a waste of time. Then even after they report the crunch, the death of creativity, the harassment, crunch and burdensome leadership, he just made a canned public statement and did nothing. He is superfluous, incompetent and effectively contributes nothing. He is a parasite rather than a leader.
And then they get a multi million dollar severance package when they get fired and just go to the next company in a couple years and do the same thing.
There’s a principle of GOOD leaders called The Window and the Mirror. Whenever there is success, you point out the window. “I never could have done it without my staff.” But-crucially-when there is failure, you point in the mirror. “It’s my fault; I’M responsible, and I will make sure we can do better.” Almost no major CEO’s ever do this-because they suck.
Even though I'm not the happiest with my situation in life, stuff like this makes me glad I never followed up on the idea younger me had of being a game dev
You can still pursue to be a game dev just don’t go to big companies like Activision, Ubisoft or EA work at studios that care about making quality games or make a indie dev studio
Just follow ConcernedApe's example as an indie game developer. He singlehandedly created Stardew Valley and launched it alone, and only now he has a whole team to maintain it for him. BUT he still directly interacts with his loyal gamers and the modding community and work on SV as usual. And lastly, currently he's even developing another game, Haunted Chocolatier.
I once was that kid whose dream was to be a game developer. To be part of a team full of creativity, passionate about their work, and with a bright future ahead... Now I would gladly work in a McDonald's for the rest of my life before spending a single day working for Ubisoft [Edit: this replies are kinda depressing, yet so true]
Same here buddy. I’ve been completely turned off from the games industry as a whole. You either put up with the utter bull of a big company or you work tirelessly on an indie game only for it to get lost forever in the ‘newest’ section of steam. I’d rather keep my job at Wendy’s for the rest of my days than do my own former dream job that I spent my childhood dreaming about.
@@pixelraster9588 you could still be part of that cool indie dev team, making a great game. But, yes the problem is, you and your team would be bought by one of these giant shit companies, as soon as you made your first hit game.
@@Blackadder75 indie can just be as bad, the success stories are probably only 10 percent of the entire scene. there are definitely mismanagement, incompetence in indie scenes. and people working on that landscape is even more overworked. making games just is extremely draining and difficult in whatever landscape
@@mauauauauaua14 Indie companies are a literal gamble, there is nothing that will assure that the team will be competent, the game, even if it is actually good, will sell well enough to compensate for the development cost, and that is without mentioning any possible legal bullshit any big company could pull out during development or after release to ruin the team's life.
I love when they say things like “I’m asking that each of you be careful with your spending and initiatives to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible” wanting to cut salaries or fire people and making others take on their work for no extra pay while simultaneously taking home multi million dollar bonuses and traveling in first class or private jet, etc. Same as during the pandemic, how many jobs could have been saved if some ceos would forgo their salaries or even just bonuses. It’s not like that extra $30 million is going to make a substantial difference in their lives but the minimum wage workers actually needed the support to not be homeless or starve.
"I head your feedback and I'm sorry this was perceived that way", nothing says apology like claiming it is the other parties fault for perceiving it wrong instead of saying 'my bad for failing to properly convey my intent'. I am sure his team is going to love him saying the miscommunication is their fault for being bad listeners who weren't able to properly understand his amazing perfectly conveyed intentions.
Pubis soft.. 10k employees... +10 bilions cash... tools/ engines that can generate a full gta5 map in 3 seconds... target systems with +10gb memory, multi core cpus and insanely powerful gpus... All that, and they aren't capable of releasing one freaking good game. Shit, at least, give us a new rayman game, with a level editor, 4k120fps visuals, raytracing, a nice story, hundreds of levels, co-op gaming, sold at 49 or 39 bucks, and in just a few months, fans will buy +5 million copies, x 39, that's 200 millions ! Who would say NO to 200 millions, that could be done with just 40 or 50 employees, in just 6 to 9 months, for a total cost of some miserable 2 or 3 millions.... ? Breakpoint... farcry6... legions... etc etc etc... flop after flop. All that cash, all those resources, all those employees... that could be used to make tens of mid-size games... but no ! For over a decade, pubisoft dream of releasing their next big gaas, fortnite- like title, filled with microtransactions or in-game purchases, that could bring them 2 or 3 bilions every single year. But no. Even farcry, once a great game, is getting worse and worse. Farcry6 was a mess. Go there, kill the local boss. Go there, kill the major. Go there, kill the xyz guy. Over and over. I absolutely adored the farcry franchise.... but farcry6... oh lord, had to stop playing, after 50% completion. Ubisoft could be making so many incredible games.... but no. There clearly is a big problem with the top people who decide which game should be made, with which budget, in how many months. Then, the shareholders. Always the shareholders, who will take the worst decisions, game quality- wise, just so they can maximize their profit. With these shareholders, a game might make 600 millions, in the first week, it will still be considered a flop. What a fuked up industry.
It's clear the issue comes from those AT THE TOP. And it's time those people are fired. You see it with Game Companies. You see it with Social Media. You see it with Media Companies. You see it with companies like Hasbro. They NEED to be held accountable. Fire. Their. Asses.
@@crisschan2463 Look into the OGL 1.1 controversy going on. Yong has at least one good video summarizing the whole hullabaloo going on with Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast and their product AD&D
There was a time I wanted to be a video game dev back in college, working for the industry giants... Until news came out of employees treated very much like sweat shop workers being proverbially paid peanuts to a dime, that dream has crashed and burned. Those CEOs only care about the bottom dollar line, and have no background whatsoever being in their devs's shoes.
As someone who's gonna pursue that dream. *_Don't let the downside stop you. Wanna make a game-changer that'll teach the glory and the spirit of what game development really is? Start your own business, be patient with the flow, and start racking beautiful ideas that'll tell a story._* *_It's the same as being an engineer and a web developer. NO, all jobs are gonna be heck one day. But there shouldn't be a reason to cease your passion. Why give up when you have everything to work hard for?_*
While I hope people like Yong get the games they're hoping for like this next AC game or Konami's upcoming Silent Hill games, I always want to ask them "What are you basing this hope on? What have these companies/publishers done recently to make you think this time will be different based on their word and nothing else?"
Well, critics, gaming commentators, and reviewers, like Yong, can afford to be optimistic and pay for it so we don't have to. They waste their $60-70 to determine whether or not a game or company is worth our time.
Calling it now, Ubisoft is going to have to pull a Facebook and rebrand themselves. And they'll be trying Ubihard to make people think they're a new company.
Increasing productivity in big companies is not always about squeezing more time/effort out of the workers. Big companies are notorious for terrible communication between teams and departments. Productivity often grinds to a halt when multiple teams are involved but poorly managed, and that might be the direct fault of the top managers, or of the middle management or the teams themselves. I can't say the number of times when a new feature that required me maybe a couple of days to develop was stuck in development for months because there were dependencies on other teams, which had other more pressing tasks, were out of resources, understaffed, straight up incompetent or the communication was just piss poor. Solving those issues can improve productivity and time to market immensely, but it is hard continuous work on every level of the company.
Now can everyone else start doing this please? I'm honestly astonished other developers have put up with this BS for so long, and Ubisoft of all companies is the first to have their employees take a stand.
Employees are responsible for the companys success? yes, absolutely I agree. Employees get paid 1/1200 of what the top get? Absolutely fuck no. He isn't wrong, just his level of privilege of expecting the crew to right his poorly captained ship is outrageous.
I met a couple who both work in game development. One works at Ubisoft and the other at Blizzard, and they had a fun competition over whose company was worse. Weirdly I think they settled on Ubisoft, and this was after all the Blizzard drama came out, now it's starting to make a bit more sense.
Great analysis. I love the harder punch you've done here. Ubisoft shouldn't be chasing any trend. They should let loose and let their Devs get developing. Innovation is how you stay on top in this business.
Actually, it isn't. Ubisoft's become an industry giant by NOT innovating, but by churning out their assembly line product. Innovation's up to the small indies because they don't have a board and investors to please.
@@Zorros2ndCousinTwiceRemoved Innovation Has helped in the early days. But Now in days making an ambitious game can lead to something Like Cyberpunk. Ubisoft simply makes games that are good enough to make a profit and thats it. You Will never see ubisoft Try to push the bar for open World games, as they offten play it safe or they copy other games that do something well.
It's always about chasing trends these days. Loot boxes, microtransactions, not to mention NFTs of all things... I'll never understand how Ubisoft is still alive after all that.
@@iqbaalannaafi761 Well, I mean, look at the king of trend chasing themselves, SEGA. Born in Nintendo's shadow, raised copying their ideas, and still afloat despite losing their console market, losing a lot of support over the years, losing full autonomy of their company, and losing out in the trends. They still chase trends in desperation to this day, but Sammy's Pachinko machines let them live. I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft is afloat due to something similar to FIFA. Gambling centers seem to be how such wasteful companies keep afloat.
@@meteor22 if only they just kept it simple instead of being a sea of thieves clone none of this could have happened. If the game bombs ubi’s stock market will plummet even more
Situations like this only get better after a leadership change. What's more fascinating is how long the board of directors of these companies sit on their hands before taking action. They usually let things deteriorate so bad that the company is in jeopardy before they take action. An employee revolt should be a one way ticket out of the position.
4 day week is not becoming a common place anywhere in Europe. It's something game developers are pushing for because of inevitable crunch. Otherwise great article as always. Pretty much, the same is happening at my company. Stocks are not falling, Covid money is gone and the stocks are re-adjusting to pre-Covid value. We are also cutting a lot of shaky underfunded projects started during the lockdowns due to investors or clients pulling out or in most cases bad design.
I remember when they announced they wouldn’t be doing any more single player games to do live services. I lost so much interest in their games after that.
As a games design student, the effort you need to put in to develop games is insane, even for a student when deadlines are relatively artificial. I can’t imagine what it’s like for developers at Ubisoft who are working with very real deadlines and a boss who shifts blame onto them while demanding that they work even harder
There's a few, Bungies a personal favorite of mine and they tend to be controversy free But the big distinction is that Bungie is a development studio and many of the big names that are in controversy are publishers
Santa Monica, From Software, Insomniac Games, but only a few companies are holding up to give games that are art and not just easy casinos to grab peoples money
Yong, your're doing God's work exposing the Coporate leadership's excuses and incompetence, and how awful they treat the developers and other workers in these companies. Bless you
I haven't bought or played most of Ubisoft's games but I am interested in Farcry 6 but I've heard that it's basically the same as the other Farcry games. Which I haven't played either! I thoroughly enjoyed the demo for Fenyx Rising so much that I bought that game, but haven't played it yet because of the massive game library that I have to play! I just don't understand why Ubisoft is sleeping on the Splinter Cell series! People have been asking for another entry into this series and Ubisoft is being hardheaded about it for some reason. It seem like a homerun for this company (if they do it right)!
On the bright side there's many wildly talented devs at Ubisoft that other companies wouldn't wanna miss out on, hopefully if push comes to shove they'll be able to find better work quickly
I don't know about other countries but France's working market is kinda clogged right now. Due to inflation, and mainly electricity prices raising, many companies run on half the usual staff, and don't recruit new staff. It may change around 2024 but until then it'll be a tough year.
I work for a company that is owned by Ubisoft, but we operate independently and are currently the highest grossing comp outside the Ubi-own studios. Last year, we got a new CEO and man, his way of doing things, telling and building strategies, is completely the opposite of Yves. Not only did he took the blame when things didn't work out so well in late autum and worked on new communication and plans for things to get better, no, he also worked on a benefit program for employees after we reached the goals set by him in winter. Absolutely engrossing how leadership differs the bigger the company is (aka Blizzard..)
I wanted to be a game developer but after watching countless videos about the horrible way the game industry operates I'm now an app developer. I hope this changes and employees in the game industry are treated and paid what they are worth.
These large corporations should work on smaller budget projects with smaller teams. That require less sales to achieve a profitable outcome. It appears to me that these corporations are spending far more on marketing then, on development these days.
@@CBRN-115 innovation is important. You are right, there's more important things, so why make the games industry even less enticing to skilled people with horrible business practices?
If you want to tank your product, focus on how to squeeze more money out of it. If you want to make money, focus on making the best product for the customer.
I think their last attept at ambition was Watch Dogs Legion or Immortal Phoenix Rising. Though both were still deriviative of what we've seen regarding open world. One dared to use humor and be more lighthearted. Didn't fully succeed but... The other had a randomly generated playable characters that shaped your story. Again execution was off but it was somewhat different. Still hoping their strike forces management to take action against the nefarious element still in the company as well as a long assessment regarding their current status quo.
Yeah legion Had great concept, but they did not execute it well. What they should done is make an RPG type game were your choices really shape the world. Ubisoft never seems to nail what they set out to do.
Seems like Ubisoft is doing the "slap latest buzzword on top of our existing workflow" method of leadership. This feels like the only logical reason why a company would end up with release model that: - releases new titles in single player schedule - creates N year live service plans for each release - adds fundamentally incompatible but trendy gameplay modes like battle royal to titles - adds microtransactions and lootboxes places where they don't make sense - tries build NFT market for each individual game No wonder the end result feels like a baconburgerpizzakebabstrawberrycakefudgesundae thrown into a blender.
Honestly I wish I had the kind of money to make my own game studio and poach all their devs out from under them. It would be good to watch their reactions to having all the actual money makers leave the executive leeches with their million dollar bonuses
Part of Ubisoft’s problem is their abundance of studios and employees, and their headquarters and main studios are in France, which his notorious to having a pro-employee government policy. I had a couple global business partners say that they would have to go out of their way to be fired in France, beyond just being lazy, like due to destruction of property. Sadly this results in the hard workers having to do even more, and not being compensated enough for it. But if you snatched up Ubisoft’s employees, you’re actually making their package look much better for a merge or buyout. Right now it’s hard to see why a company would want to deal with Ubisoft as a package, besides paying for IP license use. Ubi is in a bad spot, I’d say the worst of any AAA publisher right now, especially in an upcoming questionable economy. They may just fall altogether if they don’t pick themselves back up. They don’t really have the luxury to sell “as is” like a lot of other AAA publishers can if they needed to
I called it. I knew they were going to release/work on Assassin's Creed Japan when money started to run out or sheet was about to hit the fan. It was their safety net, their ''sure title'' lol
Yep this is on Yves. He's the person who's been chasing trends and giving them issues like the issue of not being able to cancel games because he made deals with governments.
Thanks for your continued and mostly unbiased reporting on this stuff, it can be hard to find the real story on these things and you help shed light on them.
Businesses cannot be profitable without workers, BUT can be without CEOs and corporate shareholders. It relates to a bigger consideration - Do businesses being relatively flat with just core workers and support staff really need corporate execs and shareholders?
Yes it is a matter of scale. The more people work in the conpany and the more customers they serve the more important it becomes to keep everything organized.
trend chasing is a big problem in the industry, as soon as something becomes successful once, every company jumps on the bandwagon and replicates it to claim a piece of that pie. The latest trend seems to be turning everything into a pseudo RPG game obsessed with gear and loot
@@S3Cs4uN8 i liked games going in the direction of no health bars on enemies and providing proper game changing skills when you upgrade, because it usually means there are unique ways to beat them as opposed to just whittling down a bar by spamming the same attacks. Look at the average upgrade you get in games now, 'increase melee damage by 2%' or some bullshit like that which you can't even notice. Offers no new mechanics. It's lazy.
og japanese rpgs fine, western more subtle ones, ak witche cyverpunk, origins ok. but if i have the same fucking copy of origins 6 years later i have a problem with it. so iam really thankfull for smaller games like mafia remaster, who go in like yeah you shot this guy in head he diessss do e out. not ohh no hes bullet sponge
Guillemot, like all CEOs, because they’re the same everywhere, won’t apologize and take responsibility for a very simple reason, Yong: If he does, first, he would have to step down. And that would probably make stock prices plummet even harder. He cares about his real customers, stock holders. He cares not about workers or game purchasers.
At this point between the economic downturn and the layoff and controversy at both Ubisoft and Microsoft I’m just preparing myself to not see any triple-A games released for some time.
We have learned the hard way that any game in development more than a few years will be trash. I'm still pissed about anthem all the broken promises and money we spent tossed out like trash by a company who knowingly kept lying to us about the future of the game. I still hope they get sued because I want in. These companies are getting worse because no one has tried doing anything about it yet.
There's _The Last Guardian,_ which was in development for at least 7 years and turned into gold. But yea, that game is the exception to the rule you speak of.
There is a reason I basically only play games from the 90s - 2010 era. Let's say from Doom to Skyrim. Luckily for me, that era produced such an insane number of quality that it can fill 3 lifetimes of entertainment, so I am not afraid I'll ever run out of things to play (And I will occasionally dabble into something modern, if it oozes quality, (mostly indie games) These corporate molochs getting spanked on the stock market is poetic justice.
If they want to make money, all these companies need to fire these clueless CEO’s and hire ones that know what their players want. That makes money… you would think these “educated” leaders could figure that out.
Since 2012 Ubisoft stock rose from about 5 euros up to a touch over 100 euros in 2018...by any business measure, that's success. No investors or shareholders are going to be calling for any heads whilst that sort of growth continues. They then pretty much treaded water for a couple of years...and the recent decline is precisely that...recent. i.e. the last couple of years. For all intents and purposes, as far as the company's responsibility to investors and shareholders goes, they weren't doing too bad until 2019 when in the same year AC Odyssey under-performed as did Division 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Far Cry New Dawn and Brawlhalla. Then during the pandemonium, when everyone was stuck at home, their stock rallied despite their games not being all that amazing the following year...Immortals Fenyx Rising, Watch Dogs: Legion etc...and the failed Hyperscape. But they didn't have much of anything big to release to capitalise on a quite literally captive audience that others were able to do other than AC Valhalla. All that they put out in 2021 of any consequence was Far Cry 6 and another Just Dance game...and a couple of minor titles. That was the start of the recent stock decline...with simply not enough hitting the shelves. So a 2 year decline really in terms of their stock value... But here's the crux of the matter as far as Ubisoft goes...it's a family run business basically. There's 4 or 5 others on the board in top positions that are also called Guillemot. Without looking into it, I presume they probably have an overall controlling majority...and they're not going to be firing themselves, are they. So, the only way there's likely to be any changes in control is if they're forced to sell.
Unlikely when there's 4 or 5 others on the board literally also called Guillemot. It's a family run thing...there's going to be no changes in leadership unless they're forced to sell.
So Ubisoft is likely done. When the head of the company cannot recognize it’s their responsibility to make critical changes - not just promote attrition - it’s going to fail. He’s doing a bad job. Instead of focusing on the strengths and talents of his personnel, he’s asking for them to copy other companies’ success, nothing could be more demotivating. And then doing more with less, basically he told the best talent in the company to find another job. ‘I’ve set the company up for failure, the ball is in your court’
I once heard something like 'A boss gives subordinates orders. A leader helps them do it.' It's clear from this which of those two the Ubisoft CEO is from a philosophical perspective.
They just didn’t give what was asked for with skull and bones and lately i think if this ceo don’t leave i think he just might take this company down with him
The low level employees are who have to suffer for the higher up's decisions and after so many awful decisions the employees would definitley be fed up
Canceled face to face last minute my butt, he was planning on canceling the hole time. This is why yes I understand wanting to chase trends but don't make it ur only focus, let ur workers experiment with new or newish ideas, yes not all will b hits but it won't feel stale or u might not have had to cancel almost ten games so far and I think it will b more coming down the pipe. It in no way is on the workers, it's all on the higher ups who make the choices they have to say yes sir or we will get right on it. Game after game ubisoft has been putting out has flopped because they at best are half baked but then quickly tossed aside if right off the bat doesn't make the money they want then o it didn't meet their standards...BS BS BS BS BS BS!!!!!!
Ivory tower is the perfect summary. Yves and his little band of French cadres who control all of the studios like private fiefdoms are what led to serial abuse and a stale open world formula. Valhalla carried them but a lot of people were unhappy with how much bloat there is now.
Ubisofts CEO needs to be removed along with incompetent managers. Let the Devs design and create games. The executives and managers should only be concerned with providing what they need and not sharing their terrible ideas on game development.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Yves Guillemot needs to be replaced asap.
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Too bad we haven't seen direct back-and-forth like THIS on Camelot's or Joshua Fluke's channels, with their conference call videos.
Is it just me, or are more and more mismanaged studios - be it games or movies - suddenly popping up? They have all the money in the world to make successful entertainment, yet the people at the top seem to take every turn to make their situation worse while still SOMEHOW staying in power. If it weren't such a conspiracy theory, I'd say someone is manipulating the entertainment industry to ... I don't know ... probably destroy it to gain control? It's ridiculous. Disney and Warner are tearing themselves apart, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, to name a few, are in a downward spiral and no one in charge seems to care, Matell and WotC dropped the ball so hard with their attempted "monetization" scheme that they will be reeling for quite some time. When exactly did short-term greed, which IMHO is the main reason for all of this, replace any reasonable long-term planning? And WHY the hell are short-term profits more important than long-term ones? It takes much longer for an IP to reach a certain popularity and ... "ubiquity", for lack of a better word, than it takes to destroy that IP. And yet so many studios seem hell-bent on doing just that. I don't get it.
AGREED 100%
I'm an embedded engineer. This is every tech company I've ever worked for. Leadership screws it up 10 ways till Sunday cuz they don't know what they're doing and then they blame the low level engineers.
How do such incompetent people get so far, or how do such senior workers get so bad?
@@TrianglePants Nepotism, Failing Upwards, and/or Favoritism.
@@TrianglePants very good knee pads + desk support
@@TrianglePants OP is absolutely right too. I work in tech and work with folks that absolutely should NOT be in leadership positions. I’m working on a project for a customer who won’t meet their own deadlines due to pending items that have been on-hold for over 5 weeks, which need to come from their leadership lmao.
You reach the upper tiers with a very different set of skills than what's actually needed to manage a good product. On the lower end you need efficiency, knowledge and being able to work in a team; while the higher ups only need speech skills and being able to manipulate people as needed. Hence why they aren't fit to lead, 99% of them are maquiavellian by definition, they don't care to make a desirable product but instead they look at the very last number at the bottom of the yearly earnings report and if it's in the positives then they don't want to hear any complaints. Seen this in a bunch of companies, that's sadly how they turn out as they get bigger.
Ubisoft workers' search history:
- research on how NFTs don't work
- Ubisoft management salary
- how much is a guillotine
- how did the french revolution start?
- how much do they pay for X job
- how many live services have shut down recently
Rayman 4
Guillotine for Guillemot
-Does pesticide work on upper-management
-Robespierre during the French Revolution, by Oversimplified
Amazing how the absolute LEAST competent people seem to gravitate to the HIGHEST positions of power
Not really positions of power are usually held by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get there morals be dammed its just an unfortunate fact of life.
Some of the most well paid and well off people I know personally are assholes of the highest order and if I'm being pretty blunt not too bright the big difference is there ruthless and had the guts to leg sweep anyone who stood in there way to the top compassion only gets you second place when faced with that kind of energy but it's that ruthlessness and narcissism that makes them slow to adapt and they run there companies into the ground.
It's rare that you come across someone who has both a ruthless spirt and genuine creative energy and those people are usually looked upon/ remembered fondly despite there numerous negative qualitys, Steve Jobs is one person that comes to mind the fits that profile.
Do a search on the Peter Principal. It explains everything about corporations.
Those people are the most willing to kiss ass while throwing others under the bus
Yeah. Like biden running the America.
peter principle!
“Why are you cancelling our projects like it’s nothing? These games will make money!”
Yves Guillemot: “Ah, yes, but will they make…ALL the money???” 🤔
More like, 'will they make... no money!!! HON HON HON!!'
*Frenchmen Rage Gauge increases*
Pierre, prepare the National Razor.
Yves: NFT is our future you dev!!
@@PugsyP The Circle of Life......or Game Dev Company I guess.
Only companies that chase trends more than Ubisoft are Chinese mobile game devs. It’s frustrating for the players, but it must be especially so for the Ubisoft devs.
I want to like Ubisoft and I believe they have good devs, but their leadership is causing their sinking ship.
Anyone who starts an apology with "I'm sorry you perceive it that way." is straight up gaslighting. It's like saying: "I'm sorry you got mad. You shouldn't have gotten mad with me when I said something that made you mad."
@@manny022 I'm sorry you perceived what they said like that.
@@manny022 I heard it from parents mostly. I find the phrase is often used by those in position of authority that want the reward of an apology but without taking on the responsibility of one.
@@Chrisack593 I have faith that the younger generations will slowly start to undo some of that behavior, because we've all grown up traumatized and now we have the internet to teach us the actual phychological effects of being subject to that type of thing by people you depend on while your brain is still developing
@manny022 I'm sorry you feel that way... Yeah, no. I don't want you (person who effed up) to apologise for the impact of your actions, I want you to apologise for your actions themselves.
Because you are responsible for that.
this feels very narrow minded.
Good to see Devs at Ubisoft standing up to Yves. It’s amazing they’ve put up with his crap for so long but patience always has an expiry date.
Well because they were getting paid before and now with every fail and canceled tittle, Ubisoft doesn't make money they used too, so they need someone to blame lmao
Yep. The only way that change occurs is when people start speaking up. I’m happy that someone made that comment, because it just might save Ubisoft from further poor direction.
@@KABLAMMATS the only got upset cuz Ubisoft blamed THEM for the loss of money. As if it wasn’t their leadership they’d been following up until this point.
If you’re the leader, you get the most money from success. But you also are responsible if things fail, not the people who work underneath you.
No wonder every Ubisoft game are no longer innovative and fun, it all looks same.
look at Assassin's Creed series for some reason now with ancient Egypt and Vikings timeline for some reason.
I miss when the series story about Altair and Ezzio.
Idk ubisoft sinking strikes and grilling wont fix it.
"Ubisoft has had quite the troubling year"
And it's only January lol
😆
🌟
Lmao
That's becouse they were already in trouble before the year began
pretty sure he means fiscal year obviously lol
"Im sorry you perceived what I said, in that way" is textbook gaslighting.
Yep, if he was sincere it would be, "I'm sorry, I did not mean for it to be perceived that way." Is ownership of your mistake.
Yeah. That is equivalent to “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
@@geofff.3343 it’s kind of amazing how just a few extra words/switching words around changed the meaning so much.
If it was anyone but a big CEO, I’d accept they might’ve misspoke. But CEOs & executives only get to that point by talking well, so they’ve got no excuse
Ubisoft has been terrible for years now,
its like investors want money but see the stock price declining then say "Great job, keep being CEO"
I think it's because his family owns the company.
@@geofff.3343They will also own any and all debts from the company failing.
@@ordo_draigo_assault_ham they'll siphon off any monies to shell companies "they" own so the debts get little payout
He owns a controlling stake in the company. He can't be fired.
@@ordo_draigo_assault_ham No he won't. Corporation assets are separate from personal assets. Shareholders are not responsible for company debts.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
-- Yves Guillemot
I'm sorry you perceived it that way.
what’s the game equivalent of Let them eat cake
“Efficiently and lean as possible.” This absolutely WREAKS of worker/Dev exploitation and team understaffing, which will absolutely lead to burnout and as a result, shit products. Ubisoft is on its last legs.
That's exactly what it is. When it comes to that line itself "Efficiently and lean" meaning the least amount of people to get it done. It's all over every industry.
reeks*
Reeks
yep efficient vs effective. producing something faster vs producing the right thing
@@animanaut as a wise person said work smarter not harder
I particularly loved how he says 'the balls in your court" meaning its up to the employees whether they fail or not, and then proceeds to say "what WE are capable of achieving" like he has selective participation in success
Typical management behavior. Blame all failure on the people you lead, and take all credit for any successes they have
YOUR failures. OUR success.
And most importantly, "the money you make IS MINE TO ENJOY!"
Yves Guillemot always felt wrong to me. There’s something I really distrust about that guy. Problems within Ubi or not, CEOs rarely get their comeuppance and if they do, it’s years down the line. Ubi will suffer for quite a while
Well, he is French for one thing.
As an Englishman, let me tell you, that wrong feeling is purely natural.
@@All_Hail_Chael RPR: UR FRENCH!
They literally stated Yves vetoes any games that are not The Ubisoft Game, literally restricting their creative freedom. Even then, they need to waste time to make a Yves presentation to get it greenlit, which is a waste of time.
Then even after they report the crunch, the death of creativity, the harassment, crunch and burdensome leadership, he just made a canned public statement and did nothing. He is superfluous, incompetent and effectively contributes nothing. He is a parasite rather than a leader.
@@ericx6969 How dare you Sir!
Give me your address right now and I will be round to give you a bloody good thrashing my good man!
And then they get a multi million dollar severance package when they get fired and just go to the next company in a couple years and do the same thing.
6:27 "I'm sorry it was perceived that way." Classic narcissistic behavior to gaslight
There’s a principle of GOOD leaders called The Window and the Mirror. Whenever there is success, you point out the window. “I never could have done it without my staff.” But-crucially-when there is failure, you point in the mirror. “It’s my fault; I’M responsible, and I will make sure we can do better.” Almost no major CEO’s ever do this-because they suck.
Even though I'm not the happiest with my situation in life, stuff like this makes me glad I never followed up on the idea younger me had of being a game dev
You can still pursue to be a game dev just don’t go to big companies like Activision, Ubisoft or EA work at studios that care about making quality games or make a indie dev studio
Same with my dream of being a UA-camr.
Just follow ConcernedApe's example as an indie game developer. He singlehandedly created Stardew Valley and launched it alone, and only now he has a whole team to maintain it for him. BUT he still directly interacts with his loyal gamers and the modding community and work on SV as usual. And lastly, currently he's even developing another game, Haunted Chocolatier.
I once was that kid whose dream was to be a game developer. To be part of a team full of creativity, passionate about their work, and with a bright future ahead... Now I would gladly work in a McDonald's for the rest of my life before spending a single day working for Ubisoft
[Edit: this replies are kinda depressing, yet so true]
Same here buddy. I’ve been completely turned off from the games industry as a whole. You either put up with the utter bull of a big company or you work tirelessly on an indie game only for it to get lost forever in the ‘newest’ section of steam.
I’d rather keep my job at Wendy’s for the rest of my days than do my own former dream job that I spent my childhood dreaming about.
Some companies are awesome, some aren't. Just depends.
@@pixelraster9588 you could still be part of that cool indie dev team, making a great game. But, yes the problem is, you and your team would be bought by one of these giant shit companies, as soon as you made your first hit game.
@@Blackadder75 indie can just be as bad, the success stories are probably only 10 percent of the entire scene. there are definitely mismanagement, incompetence in indie scenes. and people working on that landscape is even more overworked. making games just is extremely draining and difficult in whatever landscape
@@mauauauauaua14 Indie companies are a literal gamble, there is nothing that will assure that the team will be competent, the game, even if it is actually good, will sell well enough to compensate for the development cost, and that is without mentioning any possible legal bullshit any big company could pull out during development or after release to ruin the team's life.
Ah yes, the sign of a great leader. "It's all my employees' fault!"
Starscream agrees
Saying “we are all to blame” after being called out for blaming everyone else is just absurd
They're all to blame. The CEO asked nothing wrong from his dev team.
I love when they say things like “I’m asking that each of you be careful with your spending and initiatives to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible” wanting to cut salaries or fire people and making others take on their work for no extra pay while simultaneously taking home multi million dollar bonuses and traveling in first class or private jet, etc.
Same as during the pandemic, how many jobs could have been saved if some ceos would forgo their salaries or even just bonuses. It’s not like that extra $30 million is going to make a substantial difference in their lives but the minimum wage workers actually needed the support to not be homeless or starve.
But the poor ceos need their 3rd yacht! Won't somebody ever think of them?
"I head your feedback and I'm sorry this was perceived that way", nothing says apology like claiming it is the other parties fault for perceiving it wrong instead of saying 'my bad for failing to properly convey my intent'. I am sure his team is going to love him saying the miscommunication is their fault for being bad listeners who weren't able to properly understand his amazing perfectly conveyed intentions.
I always love the out of touch management speeches of team encouragement.
It’s so satisfying watching this company - and especially Yves - crumble
The company doesn't deserve it but Yves does
@manny022 reward long term customers man what a dream. Theyde have to care to do something like that. They don't care 😂
Pubis soft..
10k employees... +10 bilions cash... tools/ engines that can generate a full gta5 map in 3 seconds... target systems with +10gb memory, multi core cpus and insanely powerful gpus...
All that, and they aren't capable of releasing one freaking good game.
Shit, at least, give us a new rayman game, with a level editor, 4k120fps visuals, raytracing, a nice story, hundreds of levels, co-op gaming, sold at 49 or 39 bucks, and in just a few months, fans will buy +5 million copies, x 39, that's 200 millions !
Who would say NO to 200 millions, that could be done with just 40 or 50 employees, in just 6 to 9 months, for a total cost of some miserable 2 or 3 millions.... ?
Breakpoint... farcry6... legions... etc etc etc... flop after flop.
All that cash, all those resources, all those employees... that could be used to make tens of mid-size games... but no ! For over a decade, pubisoft dream of releasing their next big gaas, fortnite- like title, filled with microtransactions or in-game purchases, that could bring them 2 or 3 bilions every single year. But no.
Even farcry, once a great game, is getting worse and worse. Farcry6 was a mess. Go there, kill the local boss. Go there, kill the major. Go there, kill the xyz guy. Over and over.
I absolutely adored the farcry franchise.... but farcry6... oh lord, had to stop playing, after 50% completion.
Ubisoft could be making so many incredible games.... but no. There clearly is a big problem with the top people who decide which game should be made, with which budget, in how many months.
Then, the shareholders. Always the shareholders, who will take the worst decisions, game quality- wise, just so they can maximize their profit. With these shareholders, a game might make 600 millions, in the first week, it will still be considered a flop.
What a fuked up industry.
Looks like a normal strike for pay increase. Won't crumble any company.
@@amadeovalentino2088Nah, they all deserve it.
Translation of corporate language:
Decrease cost - lay off a few thousand people
Increase productivity - 24 hour shifts
It's clear the issue comes from those AT THE TOP.
And it's time those people are fired.
You see it with Game Companies.
You see it with Social Media.
You see it with Media Companies.
You see it with companies like Hasbro.
They NEED to be held accountable. Fire. Their. Asses.
Whats with hasbro?
@@crisschan2463 Look into the OGL 1.1 controversy going on. Yong has at least one good video summarizing the whole hullabaloo going on with Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast and their product AD&D
@Criss Chan They're responsible for the recent D & D drama among other things.
@@Naedlus oh didnt know that was the drama (i dont follow d&d)
Thanks anyways
@@jordirapper true that ...plus half of Hollywood and certain companies like belienciaga should be held accountable.
There was a time I wanted to be a video game dev back in college, working for the industry giants... Until news came out of employees treated very much like sweat shop workers being proverbially paid peanuts to a dime, that dream has crashed and burned.
Those CEOs only care about the bottom dollar line, and have no background whatsoever being in their devs's shoes.
As someone who's gonna pursue that dream.
*_Don't let the downside stop you. Wanna make a game-changer that'll teach the glory and the spirit of what game development really is? Start your own business, be patient with the flow, and start racking beautiful ideas that'll tell a story._*
*_It's the same as being an engineer and a web developer. NO, all jobs are gonna be heck one day. But there shouldn't be a reason to cease your passion. Why give up when you have everything to work hard for?_*
While I hope people like Yong get the games they're hoping for like this next AC game or Konami's upcoming Silent Hill games, I always want to ask them "What are you basing this hope on? What have these companies/publishers done recently to make you think this time will be different based on their word and nothing else?"
I'm this way with Diablo 4. I know too many people excited for it when recent history has shown Blizzard are far more likely to release a shitshow.
he was also, magically, thinking that SE is crap, except only for the FF SP team. Amazing bargaining there.
@@Joe90h I guess people are no longer boycotting Blizzard...
@@DonVigaDeFierro They never did really, at worst it was always going to be temporary, like with any boycott in gaming
Well, critics, gaming commentators, and reviewers, like Yong, can afford to be optimistic and pay for it so we don't have to. They waste their $60-70 to determine whether or not a game or company is worth our time.
Calling it now, Ubisoft is going to have to pull a Facebook and rebrand themselves. And they'll be trying Ubihard to make people think they're a new company.
"If there is one country who knows how to protest, it's freaking France" ... You're so damn right. It's a national sport at this point ,)
they protest so hard, musicals are written about them
They had the ultimate protest back in the day, the guillotine
@@LilacMonarch good times
Increasing productivity in big companies is not always about squeezing more time/effort out of the workers. Big companies are notorious for terrible communication between teams and departments. Productivity often grinds to a halt when multiple teams are involved but poorly managed, and that might be the direct fault of the top managers, or of the middle management or the teams themselves.
I can't say the number of times when a new feature that required me maybe a couple of days to develop was stuck in development for months because there were dependencies on other teams, which had other more pressing tasks, were out of resources, understaffed, straight up incompetent or the communication was just piss poor.
Solving those issues can improve productivity and time to market immensely, but it is hard continuous work on every level of the company.
Now can everyone else start doing this please? I'm honestly astonished other developers have put up with this BS for so long, and Ubisoft of all companies is the first to have their employees take a stand.
Ubisoft is French. Workers have rights there.
Blizzard/EA are American. „Human Resources“ was your idea.
Employees are responsible for the companys success? yes, absolutely I agree.
Employees get paid 1/1200 of what the top get? Absolutely fuck no.
He isn't wrong, just his level of privilege of expecting the crew to right his poorly captained ship is outrageous.
"The ball is in your court" implies management and the employees are not on the same team. How can he pretend to be misunderstood?
I met a couple who both work in game development. One works at Ubisoft and the other at Blizzard, and they had a fun competition over whose company was worse. Weirdly I think they settled on Ubisoft, and this was after all the Blizzard drama came out, now it's starting to make a bit more sense.
Great analysis. I love the harder punch you've done here. Ubisoft shouldn't be chasing any trend. They should let loose and let their Devs get developing. Innovation is how you stay on top in this business.
Actually, it isn't. Ubisoft's become an industry giant by NOT innovating, but by churning out their assembly line product. Innovation's up to the small indies because they don't have a board and investors to please.
@@Zorros2ndCousinTwiceRemoved Innovation Has helped in the early days. But Now in days making an ambitious game can lead to something Like Cyberpunk. Ubisoft simply makes games that are good enough to make a profit and thats it. You Will never see ubisoft Try to push the bar for open World games, as they offten play it safe or they copy other games that do something well.
This is what happens when you make the same soulless live service 7 times in a row with a different skin.
Only 7?
Which games was live service?
And it took that much for people to realize that maybe the products they were consuming is an hot garbage?
The masses are to blame as well
Maybe this is a wake up call for them, but somehow I kind of doubt it.
It's a wake up call alright, it's just gonna fall on deaf ears as usual.
I guarantee that Yves has learned nothing positive from this - he's too important to learn from expendable front line workers...ugh!
To quote ramsey snow from game of thrones here
"If you think this will have a happy end, you didnt pay attention"
It's almost as if CEOs these days have no idea how to be CEOs. It's always about the greed and never about keeping the boat floating.
It's always about chasing trends these days. Loot boxes, microtransactions, not to mention NFTs of all things... I'll never understand how Ubisoft is still alive after all that.
@@iqbaalannaafi761 Well, I mean, look at the king of trend chasing themselves, SEGA. Born in Nintendo's shadow, raised copying their ideas, and still afloat despite losing their console market, losing a lot of support over the years, losing full autonomy of their company, and losing out in the trends.
They still chase trends in desperation to this day, but Sammy's Pachinko machines let them live.
I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft is afloat due to something similar to FIFA. Gambling centers seem to be how such wasteful companies keep afloat.
Ubisoft will keep failing if they don't fix their internal issues in the first place.
Can’t believe that Splinter Cell VR got canned, but they’re continuing with “developing” Skull & Bones.
Well it’s not like they’ve got a choice, guarantee they’d drop it if they could
Singapore's government doesn't play
They have to. I forget what country but they are legally being forced to push that game out.
Singapore government ain't fucking around. Especially taking a loan from them and promising profits but delayed so beyond their contract.
@@meteor22 if only they just kept it simple instead of being a sea of thieves clone none of this could have happened. If the game bombs ubi’s stock market will plummet even more
Situations like this only get better after a leadership change. What's more fascinating is how long the board of directors of these companies sit on their hands before taking action. They usually let things deteriorate so bad that the company is in jeopardy before they take action. An employee revolt should be a one way ticket out of the position.
Are you talking about Ubisoft, Square-Enix or Activision? ;)
@@maninthemists2299 LOL, fair point! :)
Ubisoft CEO is about to start a French Revolution. 😬
Maybe that's why Skull & Bones keep getting delayed. The higher ups tested it, but they can't understand why the captain keeps taking responsibility.
4 day week is not becoming a common place anywhere in Europe. It's something game developers are pushing for because of inevitable crunch. Otherwise great article as always.
Pretty much, the same is happening at my company. Stocks are not falling, Covid money is gone and the stocks are re-adjusting to pre-Covid value. We are also cutting a lot of shaky underfunded projects started during the lockdowns due to investors or clients pulling out or in most cases bad design.
I remember when they announced they wouldn’t be doing any more single player games to do live services. I lost so much interest in their games after that.
There’s a handful of companies in the same boat, and it’s nice to see gamers finally pushing back against corporate influence in gaming.
“The captain is drunk at the Helm”
As a games design student, the effort you need to put in to develop games is insane, even for a student when deadlines are relatively artificial. I can’t imagine what it’s like for developers at Ubisoft who are working with very real deadlines and a boss who shifts blame onto them while demanding that they work even harder
What video game company hasn’t been plagued by controversy lately?
There's a few, Bungies a personal favorite of mine and they tend to be controversy free
But the big distinction is that Bungie is a development studio and many of the big names that are in controversy are publishers
Id rather say which video game company got into controversy based on "Days since last controversy" chart.
Santa Monica, From Software, Insomniac Games, but only a few companies are holding up to give games that are art and not just easy casinos to grab peoples money
Sigh...I thought CDPR was the chosen one.
Being hyped is never an indication of quality.
Yong, your're doing God's work exposing the Coporate leadership's excuses and incompetence, and how awful they treat the developers and other workers in these companies. Bless you
I haven't bought or played most of Ubisoft's games but I am interested in Farcry 6 but I've heard that it's basically the same as the other Farcry games. Which I haven't played either! I thoroughly enjoyed the demo for Fenyx Rising so much that I bought that game, but haven't played it yet because of the massive game library that I have to play!
I just don't understand why Ubisoft is sleeping on the Splinter Cell series! People have been asking for another entry into this series and Ubisoft is being hardheaded about it for some reason. It seem like a homerun for this company (if they do it right)!
On the bright side there's many wildly talented devs at Ubisoft that other companies wouldn't wanna miss out on, hopefully if push comes to shove they'll be able to find better work quickly
I don't know about other countries but France's working market is kinda clogged right now. Due to inflation, and mainly electricity prices raising, many companies run on half the usual staff, and don't recruit new staff. It may change around 2024 but until then it'll be a tough year.
There's a chance of devs getting blackballed.
@@LeChatALunettes well... There's remote work right there and then. (meaning, working somewhere that's not France)
@@meloncholy428 what's that?
I work for a company that is owned by Ubisoft, but we operate independently and are currently the highest grossing comp outside the Ubi-own studios.
Last year, we got a new CEO and man, his way of doing things, telling and building strategies, is completely the opposite of Yves. Not only did he took the blame when things didn't work out so well in late autum and worked on new communication and plans for things to get better, no, he also worked on a benefit program for employees after we reached the goals set by him in winter. Absolutely engrossing how leadership differs the bigger the company is (aka Blizzard..)
I wanted to be a game developer but after watching countless videos about the horrible way the game industry operates I'm now an app developer. I hope this changes and employees in the game industry are treated and paid what they are worth.
It needs to, or game dev will become the ghetto of the tech industry. It's hard to innovate when all the best brains end up in other fields.
These large corporations should work on smaller budget projects with smaller teams. That require less sales to achieve a profitable outcome. It appears to me that these corporations are spending far more on marketing then, on development these days.
@@gman7497 honestly, video games are non essential things. Why would it need the best and brightest?
@@CBRN-115 innovation is important. You are right, there's more important things, so why make the games industry even less enticing to skilled people with horrible business practices?
If you want to tank your product, focus on how to squeeze more money out of it. If you want to make money, focus on making the best product for the customer.
I think their last attept at ambition was Watch Dogs Legion or Immortal Phoenix Rising. Though both were still deriviative of what we've seen regarding open world. One dared to use humor and be more lighthearted. Didn't fully succeed but... The other had a randomly generated playable characters that shaped your story. Again execution was off but it was somewhat different. Still hoping their strike forces management to take action against the nefarious element still in the company as well as a long assessment regarding their current status quo.
Yeah legion Had great concept, but they did not execute it well. What they should done is make an RPG type game were your choices really shape the world. Ubisoft never seems to nail what they set out to do.
Seems like Ubisoft is doing the "slap latest buzzword on top of our existing workflow" method of leadership. This feels like the only logical reason why a company would end up with release model that:
- releases new titles in single player schedule
- creates N year live service plans for each release
- adds fundamentally incompatible but trendy gameplay modes like battle royal to titles
- adds microtransactions and lootboxes places where they don't make sense
- tries build NFT market for each individual game
No wonder the end result feels like a baconburgerpizzakebabstrawberrycakefudgesundae thrown into a blender.
Honestly I wish I had the kind of money to make my own game studio and poach all their devs out from under them. It would be good to watch their reactions to having all the actual money makers leave the executive leeches with their million dollar bonuses
Part of Ubisoft’s problem is their abundance of studios and employees, and their headquarters and main studios are in France, which his notorious to having a pro-employee government policy. I had a couple global business partners say that they would have to go out of their way to be fired in France, beyond just being lazy, like due to destruction of property.
Sadly this results in the hard workers having to do even more, and not being compensated enough for it. But if you snatched up Ubisoft’s employees, you’re actually making their package look much better for a merge or buyout. Right now it’s hard to see why a company would want to deal with Ubisoft as a package, besides paying for IP license use. Ubi is in a bad spot, I’d say the worst of any AAA publisher right now, especially in an upcoming questionable economy. They may just fall altogether if they don’t pick themselves back up. They don’t really have the luxury to sell “as is” like a lot of other AAA publishers can if they needed to
Finally devs standing up, its actually unbelievable because 85% of the devs will suck everything up🤷🏼♂️
Hope that strike does some damage. This was long overdue.
I called it. I knew they were going to release/work on Assassin's Creed Japan when money started to run out or sheet was about to hit the fan. It was their safety net, their ''sure title'' lol
Ghost of Tsushima beat them to it though
@@Harshhaze Very true, but it's been long enough for us to crave for the formula again.
@@Harshhaze AC Japan would be available to non-Playstation owners.
CEO: "everyone go right"
Dev Team: They go right
CEO: "Why did you all go right? You need to do better."
-Ubisoft
Yep this is on Yves. He's the person who's been chasing trends and giving them issues like the issue of not being able to cancel games because he made deals with governments.
Thanks for your continued and mostly unbiased reporting on this stuff, it can be hard to find the real story on these things and you help shed light on them.
4:16 the tv series the Grand Tour special carnage a trois makes light of France’s expertise on strikes and protesting.
Yves: "The ball is in your court."
Workers: "We want you off the team, bro."
Businesses cannot be profitable without workers, BUT can be without CEOs and corporate shareholders.
It relates to a bigger consideration - Do businesses being relatively flat with just core workers and support staff really need corporate execs and shareholders?
Yes it is a matter of scale. The more people work in the conpany and the more customers they serve the more important it becomes to keep everything organized.
I read an article that stated they had at one point over a dozen BR games in development, that's the problem right there.
Responsibility ALWAYS Starts at the top! *Never* let those on top, those with the responsibility, try to tell you anything otherwise!
It is crazy how the higher ups in these companies can be THIS out of touch.
Thats how they got up there
So true. People need to be more educated in how games are made and who's truly responsible for what.
trend chasing is a big problem in the industry, as soon as something becomes successful once, every company jumps on the bandwagon and replicates it to claim a piece of that pie. The latest trend seems to be turning everything into a pseudo RPG game obsessed with gear and loot
Weird that it's come back around to that again. Though it has been a bit over a decade since the last time it was the trend so I suppose that's fine.
@@S3Cs4uN8 i liked games going in the direction of no health bars on enemies and providing proper game changing skills when you upgrade, because it usually means there are unique ways to beat them as opposed to just whittling down a bar by spamming the same attacks. Look at the average upgrade you get in games now, 'increase melee damage by 2%' or some bullshit like that which you can't even notice. Offers no new mechanics. It's lazy.
og japanese rpgs fine, western more subtle ones, ak witche cyverpunk, origins ok. but if i have the same fucking copy of origins 6 years later i have a problem with it. so iam really thankfull for smaller games like mafia remaster, who go in like yeah you shot this guy in head he diessss do e out. not ohh no hes bullet sponge
Guillemot, like all CEOs, because they’re the same everywhere, won’t apologize and take responsibility for a very simple reason, Yong:
If he does, first, he would have to step down. And that would probably make stock prices plummet even harder. He cares about his real customers, stock holders. He cares not about workers or game purchasers.
"What a year, huh?"
"Captain, it's January"
At this point between the economic downturn and the layoff and controversy at both Ubisoft and Microsoft I’m just preparing myself to not see any triple-A games released for some time.
We have learned the hard way that any game in development more than a few years will be trash. I'm still pissed about anthem all the broken promises and money we spent tossed out like trash by a company who knowingly kept lying to us about the future of the game. I still hope they get sued because I want in. These companies are getting worse because no one has tried doing anything about it yet.
There's _The Last Guardian,_ which was in development for at least 7 years and turned into gold. But yea, that game is the exception to the rule you speak of.
At least EA makes a new skate game. That's all i want from them.
Ubisoft: "we want you to work harder"
workers: "with compensation, right ?"
Ubisoft: "..."
workers: "right ?"
Trend chasing is something that have brought down alot of companies.
There is a reason I basically only play games from the 90s - 2010 era. Let's say from Doom to Skyrim. Luckily for me, that era produced such an insane number of quality that it can fill 3 lifetimes of entertainment, so I am not afraid I'll ever run out of things to play (And I will occasionally dabble into something modern, if it oozes quality, (mostly indie games)
These corporate molochs getting spanked on the stock market is poetic justice.
Please! Record these meetings lol. I want everyone to hear first hand how bad it can be. Audio is all we need.
If they want to make money, all these companies need to fire these clueless CEO’s and hire ones that know what their players want. That makes money… you would think these “educated” leaders could figure that out.
Since 2012 Ubisoft stock rose from about 5 euros up to a touch over 100 euros in 2018...by any business measure, that's success. No investors or shareholders are going to be calling for any heads whilst that sort of growth continues. They then pretty much treaded water for a couple of years...and the recent decline is precisely that...recent. i.e. the last couple of years.
For all intents and purposes, as far as the company's responsibility to investors and shareholders goes, they weren't doing too bad until 2019 when in the same year AC Odyssey under-performed as did Division 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Far Cry New Dawn and Brawlhalla. Then during the pandemonium, when everyone was stuck at home, their stock rallied despite their games not being all that amazing the following year...Immortals Fenyx Rising, Watch Dogs: Legion etc...and the failed Hyperscape. But they didn't have much of anything big to release to capitalise on a quite literally captive audience that others were able to do other than AC Valhalla.
All that they put out in 2021 of any consequence was Far Cry 6 and another Just Dance game...and a couple of minor titles. That was the start of the recent stock decline...with simply not enough hitting the shelves. So a 2 year decline really in terms of their stock value...
But here's the crux of the matter as far as Ubisoft goes...it's a family run business basically. There's 4 or 5 others on the board in top positions that are also called Guillemot. Without looking into it, I presume they probably have an overall controlling majority...and they're not going to be firing themselves, are they. So, the only way there's likely to be any changes in control is if they're forced to sell.
@@vallejomach6721 very insightful. Thanks.
“Says Kotaku”. If employees are talking to Kotaku, then the issues that need to be solved at the company can’t be solved. It will never be enough.
Let's see if Ubisoft finally gets back on its feet, with that man not being a liability to literally everybody else
Unlikely when there's 4 or 5 others on the board literally also called Guillemot. It's a family run thing...there's going to be no changes in leadership unless they're forced to sell.
As a programmer, good,
Power to the devs
"Work, pigs, while I lounge on my yacht."
So Ubisoft is likely done. When the head of the company cannot recognize it’s their responsibility to make critical changes - not just promote attrition - it’s going to fail. He’s doing a bad job.
Instead of focusing on the strengths and talents of his personnel, he’s asking for them to copy other companies’ success, nothing could be more demotivating. And then doing more with less, basically he told the best talent in the company to find another job.
‘I’ve set the company up for failure, the ball is in your court’
Yves Guillemot doesn’t have a clue on how to run a game company. He needs to quit immediately.
I once heard something like 'A boss gives subordinates orders. A leader helps them do it.' It's clear from this which of those two the Ubisoft CEO is from a philosophical perspective.
It’s always the same problem all falling companies have: A REALLY DUMB LEADER. Hope the employees slap some reality on his face!
Ubisoft is really trying to snag the "Worst Company Ever" throne from EA I see.
They just didn’t give what was asked for with skull and bones and lately i think if this ceo don’t leave i think he just might take this company down with him
Last unique title I've seen come from Ubisoft is FOR HONOR. Love the game till this day because it's so unique
The low level employees are who have to suffer for the higher up's decisions and after so many awful decisions the employees would definitley be fed up
These suits really need too hear that NOT EVERY GAME IS MEANT FOR LIVE SERVICE OR MICROTRANSACTIONS.
They think they can shortcut greed.
Canceled face to face last minute my butt, he was planning on canceling the hole time. This is why yes I understand wanting to chase trends but don't make it ur only focus, let ur workers experiment with new or newish ideas, yes not all will b hits but it won't feel stale or u might not have had to cancel almost ten games so far and I think it will b more coming down the pipe. It in no way is on the workers, it's all on the higher ups who make the choices they have to say yes sir or we will get right on it. Game after game ubisoft has been putting out has flopped because they at best are half baked but then quickly tossed aside if right off the bat doesn't make the money they want then o it didn't meet their standards...BS BS BS BS BS BS!!!!!!
honest opinion here.... no one will miss ubisoft. just go under already. lets the devs find better work.
In the words of Ubisoft: It's just business as usual.
It's real easy for the ceo to save Ubisoft, all he has to do is:
Kill 0/30 bears
Climb 0/10 skyscrapers
Collect 0/150 feathers
Ivory tower is the perfect summary. Yves and his little band of French cadres who control all of the studios like private fiefdoms are what led to serial abuse and a stale open world formula. Valhalla carried them but a lot of people were unhappy with how much bloat there is now.
Ubisofts CEO needs to be removed along with incompetent managers. Let the Devs design and create games. The executives and managers should only be concerned with providing what they need and not sharing their terrible ideas on game development.