On Ubisoft’s investor call, they revealed that they expect Origins to sell better than Syndicate, but below Unity.
I have absolutely no idea what to make of that.
I’d guess it’s them saying they don’t expect to “win” back all the players they lost from the last couple of titles with just this one.
That seems like a funny thing to just come right out and say doesn’t it? I mean, good on them for honest self-analysis, just seems like it might kind of get in the way of marketing. “Hey guys, buy our game, it’s pretty good! OK, maybe not our best, but still!”
It’s an investor call, so they can’t lie. They legally and morally have to set expectations for their investors.
Edit: They can always “sugarcoat” stuff as all companies do in these calls, but the projected sales for a tentpole title can’t really be slanted too far without treading into dangerous territory.
I don’t mean lie, necessarily, just seems funny they come right out and say it. I guess I would think that a company would find a more clever way to phrase this, maybe something like “not all our franchises will earn as much as they once had” or something generic that sets an expectation but does not come right out and say hey, this franchise may be in decline.
I don’t know how many players they ‘lost’ due to Syndicate - that seemed to be pretty well received by those who played it. Unity did most of the damage. As well as franchise fatigue.
They certainly don’t sound like they’re saying it’s in decline on the call itself. They bang on about how it was the most viewed E3 footage and won loads of awards. They just say they’re being conservative in their sales forecasts, and they reckon the recurring income will be bigger given the RPG elements (pay to win here we come!).
That said, they clearly see the need to rely less on it as the main moneyspinner, which is why they’re pushing all this relatively new IP and going in so hard on “live” games.
An interesting tidbit too, from the meeting, is that Ubisoft has seen the success of Battlegrounds and other Battle Royal style games and is looking for ways to incorporate that into their IPs.
Dynamic gang wars. It remains to be seen if these will be like the ones in AC: Syndicate - LAME or the ones in Watch Dogs 2 - PRETTY COOL.
18 minutes of dev-guided sidequest gameplay.
Still find it hard to believe a desert setting offers enough variety to be interesting. I was wrong about Mad Max - maybe I’m wrong here too :)
I fell off the AssCreed train years ago but this one might be just the needed change that gets me back on. I still worry about the ennui these games often inflict on me though.
Have you played Age of Conan? Such a hauntingly beautiful game, set in a desert if you start a certain racial class.
That looks pretty good. I’m still not exactly excited for this, but it looks like it will at least scratch that old familiar itch.
Also, looks like we get a Roach this time around. Wonder if you can train him to spit at enemies.
That is a boring side quest. Really looking forward to manually lifting the 8 blocks out of the way to crawl through that passage the dev skips past.
Since they are putting apparently such emphasis on sidequests, to the point of claiming there will be “funny” ones, I wonder if they will all be as one note as in for example Horizon (always track/find/kill something/someone) or if there will be actual variety and noncombat stuff as well (theatre play in Witcher 3 etc).
This video does not inspire much confidence in that regard.
I also hate the UI. It is so typically Assassin’s Creedy gamey. Zero attempt at immersion. Not to mention all the other nonsense of course (drones, wallhacks…).
It doesn’t look any more tedious than using Witcher-vision to scan the ground for 100 yards to get to a troll cave or whatever. I thought the back half of the mission with the infiltration of the bandit hideout looked good.
It doesn’t look any worse than most Assassin’s Creed missions, and I like Assassin’s Creed games. I was just being a little flippant because that one part where he starts to pick up individual bricks to clear a path and the video cuts to skip that tedium made me roll my eyes.
This is the first footage I’ve seen of this game, and I’m still way back on AC3, so there’s a little disappointment that the mission didn’t look that much more dynamic than what I’m doing now, but maybe there’s a big difference with the persistent characters they keep mentioning and this particular mission just doesn’t really highlight the ways the game has improved.