The Truth About AC Shadow's "Success"

[Tomatokek]

The Truth is, AC shadows wasn't very successful. At least not successful enough. On steam, it peaks at a measly 64k players (terrible for a AAA Assassins creed game). A new indie game that came out called "Schedule 1" quadrupled that with 234k. Moner Hunter wilds peaked at 1 MILLION 384k.

That's embarrassing for Ubisoft. To put it in perspective, Dragon Age: VGuard peaked at 84K and that released on multiple platforms and that was a huge failure. This game was not the hit they needed. Lets just call this what it is, a financial failure.

Are there people playing on the Uplay store and consoles? Yeah, sure. Still terrible numbers for what should have been a massive PC release. The amount of money put into this was insane too. 2 hours of credits.

Now Tencent has recently just bought a big percentage of shares and they are about to fire a ton of people. I think its important for executives to learn from this, so this doesn't keep happening...

Its important to document this and understand how and why this happened. People are tired of the virtue signaling and same formula over and over and I am sure there is much more to this, but I believe these are the main reasons. People just don't like to be pandered to.

If you liked the game, awesome. More power to you and I am glad you got a game you enjoy out of it. I am not saying you shouldn't like it, I am just saying this is why it failed.

Source: Steamdb.info. Look it up.

[Dagoth Ur]

Originally posted by Casino:

Originally posted by Dagtag:

I understood it just fine, which is why i reiterated that what you suggested is only possible if the game is exclusively available on steam.

the second that your market is divided among numerous storefronts, you can't just predict the success based on one of those storefronts. this is also basic math.

but do inform me, which part of your post did you assume i didn't comprehend?

I never mentioned consoles though, so you seem to be arguing with a fictional person. I stated review numbers of 12,000 on steam are really bad, which is a true statement, supported by numbers. Console numbers are largely speculation. I get my takeaways from concrete things, such as the abysmal review numbers and Ubisoft becoming a Chinese company.

bad numbers on steam does not mean horrible numbers overall

[Dagtag]

Originally posted by Casino:

Originally posted by Dagtag:

I understood it just fine, which is why i reiterated that what you suggested is only possible if the game is exclusively available on steam.

the second that your market is divided among numerous storefronts, you can't just predict the success based on one of those storefronts. this is also basic math.

but do inform me, which part of your post did you assume i didn't comprehend?

I never mentioned consoles though, so you seem to be arguing with a fictional person.

neither did I. I mentioned storefronts...

I stated review numbers of 12,000 on steam are really bad, which is a true statement, supported by numbers.

and again, as I have said numerous times now: steam doesn't exist in a bubble. if the game was just available on steam then sure, you could try and make that argument, but it isn't.

[Derah]

Originally posted by Flavalicious:

Except Shadows was the first and only game on that list to launch on Day 1 on Steam.

So your entire write up is wrong right out of the gate.

"Lets compare this 4 year old game that just got its Steam release to this day 1 release and see if anyone notices how foolish I am" 🤣

Which list? If you're talking about the AC List, every single game on that list with the exception of Mirage and Valhalla, were all Day 1 Steam releases.

If you're talking about the other list, plenty of games in it were also day 1 Steam releases (Doom, Lies of P, Hades, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc)

So, grats, not only are you wrong, but you can't even do basic google research.

[Derah]

Originally posted by bites the dust:

Originally posted by Dagtag:

yeah they sold well, they just sold less on steam than they normally would have.

honestly i think mirage was the only AC game that didn't do '' amazing ''
otherwise AC has a steady track on consoles.

Even then, it's a bit unfair to compare Mirage to the other games in the series, given that it's not a "main" AC game. It's a smaller title.

It should be compared to other smaller titles in the series like Assassin's Creed Rogue, or Assassin's Creed Liberation, or Assassin's Creed Freedom's Cry.

[Derglesnaf]

Ah yes, the game that sold so well they had to sell of 25% of the company and lowered their stock EVEN MORE. This was a failure.

[Tomatokek]

Originally posted by 5ean5ean:

Originally posted by Tomatokek:

The Truth is, AC shadows wasn't very successful. At least not successful enough. On steam, it peaks at a measly 64k players (terrible for a AAA Assassins creed game). A new indie game that came out called "Schedule 1" quadrupled that with 234k. Moner Hunter wilds peaked at 1 MILLION 384k.

That's embarrassing for Ubisoft. To put it in perspective, Dragon Age: VGuard peaked at 84K and that released on multiple platforms and that was a huge failure. This game was not the hit they needed. Lets just call this what it is, a financial failure.

Are there people playing on the Uplay store and consoles? Yeah, sure. Still terrible numbers for what should have been a massive PC release. The amount of money put into this was insane too. 2 hours of credits.

Now Tencent has recently just bought a big percentage of shares and they are about to fire a ton of people. I think its important for executives to learn from this, so this doesn't keep happening...

Its important to document this and understand how and why this happened. People are tired of the virtue signaling and same formula over and over and I am sure there is much more to this, but I believe these are the main reasons. People just don't like to be pandered to.

If you liked the game, awesome. More power to you and I am glad you got a game you enjoy out of it. I am not saying you shouldn't like it, I am just saying this is why it failed.

Source: Steamdb.info. Look it up.

These people are a broken record. 2nd most successful launch in AC Creed history. The hate campaign has failed.... please get real problems.

I bring facts, logic and statistics and you bring headlines. Not surprised.

[Tomatokek]

Originally posted by bites the dust:

Originally posted by Casino:

I never mentioned consoles though, so you seem to be arguing with a fictional person. I stated review numbers of 12,000 on steam are really bad, which is a true statement, supported by numbers. Console numbers are largely speculation. I get my takeaways from concrete things, such as the abysmal review numbers and Ubisoft becoming a Chinese company.

bad numbers on steam does not mean horrible numbers overall

the numbers overall were not enough and now the company is selling out to Tencent. Thats the argument.

[Ebolonium]

Originally posted by Derah:

Originally posted by Tomatokek:

The Truth is, AC shadows wasn't very successful. At least not successful enough. On steam, it peaks at a measly 64k players (terrible for a AAA Assassins creed game).

The rest of your post already fell apart by this example of stupidity.

"Terrible for a AAA Assassin's Creed Game". Dude, have you SEEN the numbers for the other Assassin's Creed games on steam? Shadows already surpassed them all. Yes, all of them.

AC Mirage peaked at 7.8k concurrent.
AC Valhalla peaked at 15.6k concurrent.
AC Odyssey peaked at 62k concurrent.
AC Origins peaked at 41.5k concurrent.
AC Syndicate peaked at 4.7k concurrent.
AC Unity peaked at 12k concurrent.
AC Black Flag peaked at 16k concurrent.
AC 3 peaked at 15k concurrent.
AC 2 peaked at 3.6k concurrent.
AC Shadows peaked at 64k Concurrent.

Source, Steamdb.info

So congratulations, you just showed everyone what an inbred imbecile you are. Just going by steam numbers alone, this is the most successful AC game so far.

And that's ignoring the fact that this is a console-centrict franchise, that Valhalla barely scratched 15k concurrent on steam yet it sold 20 million copies and made over a billion dollars, or that there's plenty of extraordinarily successful games that have sold TONS of copies and still have few steam players.

Red Dead Redemption 2
The Witcher 3
Ghost of Tsushima
God of War
God of War Ragnarok
Persona 5 Royal
Hades
Hades 2
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Forbidden West
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Persona 3 Reload
Doom 2016
Doom Eternal
Lies of P

The list goes on and on. These are all games that were incredibly successful, and yet every single game on this list was unable to get past the 100k concurrent player mark on steam. (The Witcher and Doom Eternal had slightly above 100k, but never managed to reach past 110k)

You gonna call all of these a failure too? The rest of your post is not worth going over, you already demonstrated your idiocy with that verbal diarrhea there.

no amount of bootlicking is gonna save ubisoft from bankruptcy lmfao
stay mad and cope harder

[Derah]

Originally posted by Tomatokek:

I bring facts, logic and statistics and you bring headlines. Not surprised.

You don't bring facts, you ignore the very same statistics you're quoting, and you specially don't bring logic.

I'll repeat it in case your thick-ass brain didn't pick it up the first time.

The very same website you quoted (SteamDB) shows that Shadows has had the highest number of concurrent players than any other game in the franchise.

Not that this means all that much given that this is a console-centric franchise and thus the bulk of its players are not on steam.

Case in point: Valhalla couldn't peak past 15k concurrent players. Still sold 20 million copies and generated over a billion dollars. Those are not headlines, those are hard stone cold facts.

Facts that you ignore, because they shatter the fictional narrative you're trying to gaslit others including yourself, into believing.

[Derah]

Originally posted by Tomatokek:

the numbers overall were not enough and now the company is selling out to Tencent. Thats the argument.

The company is not selling out to Tencent. "Selling out" means giving away a majority of their stake. They didn't do that. Tencent already owned 10% of the stakes, now they own 25%

That's it.

[Derah]

Originally posted by Ebolonium:

no amount of bootlicking is gonna save ubisoft from bankruptcy lmfao
stay mad and cope harder

Seems to me like the only one mad and coping here is you. The game was a smashing hit, and you can't handle that. So you try to deny reality.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Tell you what, take Asmongold's weenie out of your mouth for five seconds and you'll find out you enjoy life a lot more.

[Hardwire]

Originally posted by Derah:

Originally posted by Ebolonium:

no amount of bootlicking is gonna save ubisoft from bankruptcy lmfao
stay mad and cope harder

Seems to me like the only one mad and coping here is you. The game was a smashing hit, and you can't handle that. So you try to deny reality.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Tell you what, take Asmongold's weenie out of your mouth for five seconds and you'll find out you enjoy life a lot more.

its not coping we are watching our beloved game studio die of woke cancer and there is nothing we can do to stop it...

[Tyberos]

You have to wonder how many players purchased the game compared to how many players got it packaged with a graphics card or some other way where they didn't specifically buy it.

[muffins]

Originally posted by Tomatokek:

The Truth is, AC shadows wasn't very successful. At least not successful enough.

My two cents -

Every company that bloats out and becomes a vast bureaucracy is an investment risk. It will take $200 million to make a product and if it isn't a blockbuster smash hit the investor risks not getting the investment even returned, nevermind profits. With 20,000 employees, Ubisoft has more people animating wind animations on cow turds than other companies have total headcount.

On the other hand single developers and small teams can create products like Schedule 1, or RimWorld or Valheim that earn vast sums of money yet cost peanuts to develop. Schedule 1 is beating all other competitors into a pulp right now yet it is by a one man development team.

If an investor had $200 million to invest it would be safer (and more profitable) to invest $2 million into 100 small developers rather than to dump it all on black and hope you get lucky. Some of those investments would lose money, some would make money, and some would go full gangbusters.

[GIJammer]

Eh, Steam numbers aren't great, but it's not obvious how relevant Steam is to AC given the most recent titles launched so late on the platform that they don't provide relevant context.

The most suspicious thing is really that Ubisoft just keeps talking about players and not sales, but again, maybe players are pretty darn close to sales (but then again, maybe not).

Personally, I hope the game does ok, but not great. I want more Assassins Creed games in the future, but there's also enough wrong with Shadows that I don't want them to not learn lessons from it.