Really bummed that this game wasn't a financial success. AC's future in doubt?

[grizz]

I was actually surprised it didn't make much and isn't expected to per Ubisoft's corporate guidance. If you'd have told me two years ago a feudal Japan AC wouldn't instantly sell 10M copies, I'd have laughed in your face.

The tencent deal I guess gives some hope that not all is lost, but it's hard to think things aren't going to change materially going forward.

Please talk me off the ledge if you disagree.

[helterskelter]

If they had used two japanese protagonist or even stuck with just naoe, 10 million easy

AC is a top 15 video game franchise in the WORLD. That + japan setting + the first mainline game in 4+ years...it's insane how hard that is to screw up, but...

[Grimno]

Where is it not a success?
By who's standards?
What qualifies a success or not?
What's the time frame allotted?
And is the source that says it's not credible? Can they back up their claims?

[Shotoku]

Ac will go Into 'hibernation' for 5-7 years. New investors will insist on tonal shift.
Break through in AI will see massive boost in graphical fidelity and npc interactions.
Assassins Creed :Frontline set in France /Belgium and Germany during the lead up to WW1 will be hailed as a masterpiece... and then at last... a AC game set in the future on a burgeoning Mars colony will be announced.

[grizz]

Originally posted by helterskelter:

If they had used two japanese protagonist or even stuck with just naoe, 10 million easy

AC is a top 15 video game franchise in the WORLD. That + japan setting + the first mainline game in 4+ years...it's insane how hard that is to screw up, but...

i didn't much like naoe. really didn't like either characters. felt mary and gary sue types.

i don't think of small women running around feudal japan slaying people. i think badass samurai and ninja men. why they went down the naoe and yasuke path is baffling given how important this game was to them.

they could've just ripped off jin sakai's story and it'd have done 10M. people were primed to want to love this game.

[grizz]

Originally posted by Grimno:

Where is it not a success?
By who's standards?
What qualifies a success or not?
What's the time frame allotted?
And is the source that says it's not credible? Can they back up their claims?

it's the keystone franchise for ubisoft and they guided investors that they'll be losing a lot of money this year. i doubt they planned to lose money.

[MythicRocfordson]

I hear ya buddy

I'm really bummed we never went to the moon either

[Jem]

Originally posted by Grimno:

Where is it not a success?
By who's standards?
What qualifies a success or not?

Clear total sales numbers.

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by Grimno:

Where is it not a success?
By who's standards?
What qualifies a success or not?
What's the time frame allotted?
And is the source that says it's not credible? Can they back up their claims?

Ubisoft refuses to announce how many copies were sold. The current estimate from industry analysts are 2-2,5 million across ALL platforms. This does not include Ubisoft+ Subscription numbers (which however have a considerably lower value than sold units though).

In addition even when Ubisoft claims ACS is a success on PSN they did so with deceptive language. The phrasing they used says that it was among the best Ubisoft launches in PSN history. So only compared to other Ubisoft games it did well on PSN. It did not do well compared to other publishers/developers.

This kind of approach when presenting data is intentionally done to disguise failure as a supposed success. Truth of the matter also is that the stock market shows the truth. After the investor call Ubisoft lost 15-20% market value. This means that investors understand very well that ACS was a financial disaster.

[Lucifer Verone]

Everyone was saying this from the get go, but the die hard defenders were always pivoting from actual sale numbers to comparing this game to previous AC games and all sorts of mental gymnastics to tell others that they are wrong.

Lets not forget news outlets trying to hype this game but everyone outside this fan base bubble said this game is mediocre, and quiet frankly that is true across all boards.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by helterskelter:

If they had used two japanese protagonist or even stuck with just naoe, 10 million easy

AC is a top 15 video game franchise in the WORLD. That + japan setting + the first mainline game in 4+ years...it's insane how hard that is to screw up, but...

You do realize that "This game would have been successful if one of the main characters was a different race" is just blatantly racist, right? You're literally just saying that, only because the main character was black instead of asian, the game was, in your opinion, a flop. You do realize that's practically the text book definition of racist, right?

[helterskelter]

Originally posted by The_Box:

Originally posted by helterskelter:

If they had used two japanese protagonist or even stuck with just naoe, 10 million easy

AC is a top 15 video game franchise in the WORLD. That + japan setting + the first mainline game in 4+ years...it's insane how hard that is to screw up, but...

You do realize that "This game would have been successful if one of the main characters was a different race" is just blatantly racist, right? You're literally just saying that, only because the main character was black instead of asian, the game was, in your opinion, a flop. You do realize that's practically the text book definition of racist, right?

? what i'm saying is "if AC shadows wasn't as racist it would have sold more".

Asia doesn't need more foreigner self inserts that end up being the best monk/ninja/samurai/yakuza, etc. - it's just cultural imperialism and it's a tired old racist trope. This also isn't mentioning the consistent pattern of behavior that shows how little regard Ubisoft has for asian culture to the point of racism.

[CloudsInTheSky]

The game is not bad, but it is very mid because they simply stuck with an outdated AC formula that for today's games it really didn't age well. This is on top of the controversies they created of their own doing that hurt their sales even further. TenCent is a monopoly, and even if it buys the company, it will buy it for the game tiles and not the people in it. Now that could be a really good thing for us gamers since the chinese really do make good games these days and understand the market better than the american gaming companies.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by helterskelter:

Originally posted by The_Box:

You do realize that "This game would have been successful if one of the main characters was a different race" is just blatantly racist, right? You're literally just saying that, only because the main character was black instead of asian, the game was, in your opinion, a flop. You do realize that's practically the text book definition of racist, right?

what I'm saying is "if AC shadows wasn't as racist it would have sold more"

And failing to point out how it is in any way actually racist, while using a racist basis for making the claim to begin with. IE, it's bad because one of the main characters is black.

Let's try a different tack. You haven't been strong on logic, but hell, let's give it a shot. Let's say you've got a game set in San Diego, and one of the main characters is Asian, and someone says 'The game would have sold better if that character hadn't been Asian', would that comment be racist?

[The_Box]

Originally posted by CloudsInTheSky:

Originally posted by The_Box:

And failing to point out how it is in any way actually racist, while using a racist basis for making the claim to begin with. IE, it's bad because one of the main characters is black.

Let's try a different tack. You haven't been strong on logic, but hell, let's give it a shot. Let's say you've got a game set in San Diego, and one of the main characters is Asian, and someone says 'The game would have sold better if that character hadn't been Asian', would that comment be racist?

You are such a racist hating Asian weirdo.

I mean, I'm not, but okay dude, whatever you want to tell yourself.

[helterskelter]

Originally posted by The_Box:

Originally posted by helterskelter:

what I'm saying is "if AC shadows wasn't as racist it would have sold more"

And failing to point out how it is in any way actually racist

It's really unfortunate that you think "samurai should've been east asian" is racist yet you'll discount Ubisoft's extremely solid track record of denigrating east asians. Again, if Ubisoft goes up to a chinese guy once and says "konichiwa", sure, they made a mistake. If they do it 100 times? probably racist.

That's what AC shadows is. It's a ton of minor offenses (truly too many to list in one post) with a major offense here and there (torii, YOUTUBE trailer TITLED JAPANESE TRAILER with chinese subtitles) but consistently made and getting almost nothing right about it right. Very unfortunate that you're so eager and willing to write off anti-asian racism but so eager to call it out when it's not against asians.

This isn't even touching on how it's racist, especially given Ubisoft's track record with AC, to asians living in the west. My guess is, you're really reluctant to admit any wrongdoing on their part because that would be giving ammo to the opposite side of teh culture war that you seem to have admitted you're fighting. But in doing so you're perpetuating racism of your own.

Stop it. Have some principles man.