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Following Ubisoft's widely criticized disbanding of the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown team, the publishing director of Baldur's Gate 3 has taken to X/Twitter to add his view, saying that Ubisoft's publishing strategy "just isn't sensible."
In a post spotted by PC Gamer, Michael Douse said of Ubisoft that the last "notable game" on its platform (the Ubisoft store) was "arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021."
"The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn’t perform, so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn’t be launching their store all too much.
"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong. It’s such a broken strategy. The hardest thing is to make a 85+ [review score] game — it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn’t be done as it was."
Douse is likely referring here to the fact that at launch, The Lost Crown required players to have a Ubisoft Connect account to play it on most platforms. Though there are workarounds, Ubisoft has pushed its own account, launcher, store, and subscription service fairly heavily over the last several years. What's more, on PC, The Lost Crown was only available at launch through the Ubisoft store or through the Epic Games Store. It didn't make it to Steam until eight months later.
As for the performance of The Crew Motorfest, Assassin's Creed: Mirage, and Avatar: Frontier of Pandora, Douse may well be right. Ubisoft has been remarkably quiet and vague as to how well those three games have done since their launches, and third-party reports indicate none of the three were the smash hits Ubisoft has needed for a while now to right its ship.
But Douse continues:
"If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (sub above sales), then the statement 'developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game' (platform strategy above title sales) is also true, and that just isn’t sensible — even from a business perspective."
Here, Douse is referring to a statement made by Ubisoft executive Philippe Tremblay earlier this year, where he said: "One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game."
Douse's point, then, is that Ubisoft seems to be making it a part of its strategy to force subscriptions over trying to sell units of individual games. And if that's the case, it also seems to be the case that it will prioritize that same strategy over developers being employed - which Douse finds not to be "sensible."
This isn't the first time Douse has commented on the industry-wide trend of layoffs and studio closures that's continued over the last several years. Earlier this year, he called the mass layoffs "an avoidable f*ck up." And Larian studio head Sven Winke has also condemned the trend, saying in an interview with us earlier this year that "it's the wrong thing for games."
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
In a post spotted by PC Gamer, Michael Douse said of Ubisoft that the last "notable game" on its platform (the Ubisoft store) was "arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021."
"The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn’t perform, so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn’t be launching their store all too much.
"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong. It’s such a broken strategy. The hardest thing is to make a 85+ [review score] game — it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn’t be done as it was."
Douse is likely referring here to the fact that at launch, The Lost Crown required players to have a Ubisoft Connect account to play it on most platforms. Though there are workarounds, Ubisoft has pushed its own account, launcher, store, and subscription service fairly heavily over the last several years. What's more, on PC, The Lost Crown was only available at launch through the Ubisoft store or through the Epic Games Store. It didn't make it to Steam until eight months later.
As for the performance of The Crew Motorfest, Assassin's Creed: Mirage, and Avatar: Frontier of Pandora, Douse may well be right. Ubisoft has been remarkably quiet and vague as to how well those three games have done since their launches, and third-party reports indicate none of the three were the smash hits Ubisoft has needed for a while now to right its ship.
But Douse continues:
"If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (sub above sales), then the statement 'developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game' (platform strategy above title sales) is also true, and that just isn’t sensible — even from a business perspective."
Here, Douse is referring to a statement made by Ubisoft executive Philippe Tremblay earlier this year, where he said: "One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game."
Douse's point, then, is that Ubisoft seems to be making it a part of its strategy to force subscriptions over trying to sell units of individual games. And if that's the case, it also seems to be the case that it will prioritize that same strategy over developers being employed - which Douse finds not to be "sensible."
This isn't the first time Douse has commented on the industry-wide trend of layoffs and studio closures that's continued over the last several years. Earlier this year, he called the mass layoffs "an avoidable f*ck up." And Larian studio head Sven Winke has also condemned the trend, saying in an interview with us earlier this year that "it's the wrong thing for games."
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
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