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What The Hell Is Going On With Ubisoft? | Spot On

The Assassin's Creed studio has been making some questionable decisions lately--let's chat about them.

Earlier this week, news broke that Ubisoft--the company behind the Assassin's Creed, Just Dance, and Far Cry series--had undergone a notable internal shift. Despite its most recent entry in the Prince of Persia franchise, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, earning rave reviews, the studio announced it had effectively disbanded the team behind it. The Lost Crown senior producer Abdelhak Elguess confirmed the news to GameSpot, stating that "most of the team members who worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have shifted to other projects that will benefit from their expertise." Though Elguess added that this does not mark the end of Ubisioft's work on the series, it seems likely that the former developers will not be reuniting for a sequel.

This is only the latest in a series of frustrating moves by the game company, which also made a number of last-minute changes to the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows and has offered no news on games like the Splinter Cell Remake and Beyond Good and Evil 2. This week on Spot On, Tam and Lucy discuss the studio's latest choices and what it means for its future.

Spot On is a weekly news show airing Fridays in which GameSpot's managing editor Tamoor Hussain and senior producer Lucy James talk about the latest news in games. Given the highly dynamic and never-ending news cycle of the massive video game industry, there's always something to talk about but, unlike most other news shows, Spot On will dive deep into a single topic as opposed to recapping all the news. Spot On airs each Friday.

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DahlVaughnni

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Frustrating changes? They lowered the price, got rid of microtransaction bullshit, got rid of the predatory season pass. They don't have my trust yet but in my eyes they are starting to clean up their mess and get their shit together.

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ezio899

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@DahlVaughnni: They had to lower the price because they removed the season pass. They removed the season pass because of all the outrage the game has generated. Trust me. If none of this happened none of this would have changed and the season pass, MTX and price would be the same. It's a low ball way to get more people to buy the product by acting like they're doing you a favor by being "nice".

A lot of companies did this when MTX first started taking off. Every game had backlash. Know what they did? They stopped advertising it before launch. It was originally to act like they didn't exist anymore. But in reality it was so people would buy the game that originally wouldn't due to MTX only to get bombarded with cash shops the moment you boot up the game. After while it was proven to them that the majority don't care so now they announce all the battle passes, season passes, MTX shops before launch.

Remember. When Ubisoft announced they removed the Season Pass for AC:S. They only stated the FIRST DLC would be free. Well....What about the rest? Yup. Gonna have to buy it and probably at a mark up to make up the loss of sales from the original Season Pass plan.

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YumeriaYumi

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I hated that game. One look and I knew I would never waste money on it. I watched someone play it some and wished it did not do so well. I am not a fan of that style of gameplay. Hope they go back to the "normal" style for Prince games. Really what I want is Remakes of the original 3. Not even just remasters but I would take that.

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RaiyouHayabuse

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@YumeriaYumi: The original Prince of Persia already has a ton of remakes, why does it need more?

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StickEmUp

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@YumeriaYumi: That was a whole lot of “I want, I want, I want… Screw all the people who loved the game, because I wanted something else. Me, me, me. I’m the only one who matters.”

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Plurmp

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@stickemup: "Screw all the people who loved the game"

Unironically yes. If there really were enough people who loved the game, the studio wouldn't have closed down. People like you nag at the real fans who know what they want, and the studios as a result churn out games that appeal to a very marginal part of their intended demographic. Wagging your finger at the fanbase for clearly articulating what they want from the franchise is just the sort of attitude that leads to massive losses and layoffs.

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YumeriaYumi

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@stickemup: is that what you thing i said. I have my opinions and I stated them. Never said anything about wanting it to fail or insulted people for liking it. I did not like it and wished the released a different type of game. So you enjoyed it good for you. The steamer I watched love it as well.

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Guavington

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@YumeriaYumi:

"Never said anything about wanting it to fail..."

What are you talking about, you literally said that in your original post:

"I watched someone play it some and wished it did not do so well"

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Plurmp

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@guavington: Wishing something to not do well and wishing for it to fail are different things. It's normal for consumers to wish that mediocre products don't become the new standard because of good sales numbers. There are many games that rightfully fade into obscurity without bringing down the entire studio.

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Guavington

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@plurmp: I hope your opinion doesn't do well and become the new standard.

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Plurmp

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@guavington: You're gonna be disappointed. I have the highest-rated comment in several comment sections on this website.

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Guavington

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Edited By Guavington

@plurmp: Not in this comment section…

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deactivated-680a5fa8cce7a

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Whatever it's I hope they'll stop existing soon and they will take CDPR, Remedy, Bandai Namco, Konami, Square Enix and EA and many more trash video game companies with them into deepest part of the hell. In Dante's Inferno there are 9 circles of hell so these trash companies deserve to be in the 10th circle just dedicated for them. :DDD

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Tiwill44

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@guitarwarrior66: That's such a chaotic thing to say that I almost want to agree, just out of curiosity for what the world of gaming would look like. There's a lot of good games that get buried under the unfathomable marketing budgets that the bigger games receive these days, probably more than ever. Word of mouth can't save every good game, but if those big companies evaporated overnight, people might start playing more types of games.

Still, I believe the market will sort itself out in time. Companies can't just keep making bad games forever, at some point they're forced to make good games out of necessity. So there's always hope.

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YumeriaYumi

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@guitarwarrior66: Really I guess you just want all games to stop being made. Or only solo makers? You dropped some big names there for this trollish post. Just take a chill pill and think about all the people you want to lose their jobs maybe? I am not an Ubisoft fan myself, and the store crap for their games is annoying, however they do make "great" games. You can look at the sales and many other things and see that fact. Even the "witty" joke at the end makes this seem like a trash attempt at an argument. If all the big companies die out lots will follow them.

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Rolento25

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@guitarwarrior66: There is helplines you can call for depression.

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Rusty753

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@guitarwarrior66: you mad XD

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