In a recent PCGamer interview Ubisoft said the following regarding Ghost Recon.
"When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind."
It's frustrating to see companies continued attitudes towards the PC gamer market. It's interesting that they list a 95% piracy rate, I have no idea if that's true - personally doubt it - but while they complain about game sales on PC not being worth their time I blame their ridiculous game security details.
I'm not a game pirate, and I don't have interest in the Tom Clancy series of games, but I also avoid UBISOFT games in general on PC, and sometimes even on console:
UBISOFT is known to put out games with horrendous DRM requirements.
The downloads from their UBISTORE are only allowed once [I purchased Assassin's Creed 2 from the Ubistore on a sale but never got to touch it because I had to format my computer].
Their PC ports are often shoddy or poorly configured, and this leads me to generally avoid UBISOFT products as well [It's too bad they screwed up From Dust since I was interested in that].
They also don't strive to make the best game possible. Heroes VI, for example, a really beloved PC franchise was improved in unique ways by UBISOFT [beta testing], but then they failed to implement one of the most basic features of a Heroes game - townscreens. They also have ameaturish feeling UI's, horrendous voice acting, and on the UBISOFT forums you can read about players who are unable to finish the campaigns because of bugs that Ubisoft fails to fix in a timely manner. I have a friend who is a huge Heroes fan who says he can't play as the other races in multiplayer unless he can finish the campaign [something many players often don't care about]. I'm not sure if that's a bug or intended, but it's a horrendous design decision if intended.
If they put high levels of care and polish into their games they would generate higher sales, but from my opinion I'm too terrified of their quality level track record to purchase their games, unless they're at the bottom of the bargain bin [Heroes V + xpacs for $5], and then when I do buy them I see their box contains nothing but the CD, which isn't even packaged well for protection [purchased at Amazon, so its a legitimate copy]. Other games that Ubisoft releases are terrific in concept, and maybe even execution [Child of Eden [console release]] but fail to deliver in the length of experience. Child of Eden clocks in at a whopping one hour.
Ubisoft isn't a small company, but there are plenty of small companies that succeed on the PC platform - for example CDProjekT has really made a name for themselves with the Witcher - have very minimal DRM influences, which they usually remove, and they sell plenty of PC copies. Larger PC developers, like Bethesda, also have immense successes with games such as Skyrim [which requires Steam for installation but prior to the patch did not], which reached 280,000 concurrent users.
I know I probaby don't matter, but it's always insulting to me to see these "we don't care about you because we know you're stealing from us" rather than focusing on the people that are willing to pay for games. I have a large 5 shelf bookshelf that is filled with game boxes, and a closet with boxes filled with old game boxes. If you really want to know how to get people to buy your games stop making the piracy scapegoat and talk to people who purchase PC games, like me, and what they expect from their purchase; and listen to your series' fanbases. Ubisoft has some amazing IP's that often just end up being trash because of sloppy and failed execution.
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