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Ubisoft has announced that it will be changing its review policies following the controversial 12 hour post-release embargo placed on all Assassin's Creed: Unity reviews. Earlier this week, several review outlets made it widely known that potential buyers wouldn't be seeing reviews straight away due to what could only be considered an anti-consumer move on Ubisoft's part.
However, the backlash has forced the publisher to revise its policies, speaking with the BBC, an Ubisoft spokesperson said:
“We are working to adapt our services and communications with consumers accordingly, both by changing the way we work with reviewers and by offering customers open betas or other early access to some games, all so that they have the information they need and want”.
One of the many bugs found in the game on launch.
The spokesperson then goes on to suggest that the embargo was put in place to ensure that reviewers have a chance to test out the multiplayer component of the title while servers are full:
“The nature of games themselves and the way they are being reviewed is changing, as evidenced by games like Assassin’s Creed Unity, Destiny and The Crew – games that have significant online components. Having the online elements available and having populated worlds is essential to creating a representative and complete experience for reviewers.”
“Achieving this prior to launch is incredibly complex, which is why some games are being reviewed much closer – or as was the case with Destiny, even after – the game launches.”
Ubisoft just can't seem to stay out of the headlines at the moment. Not only have Ubi developers made several controversial statements over the last few months but the publisher is actually trying to shift blame on to AMD for Assassin's Creed Unity's lack of optimization, despite the fact that Nvidia users are also experiencing heavy issues.
If you would like to know more about what an embargo is, then you can watch TotalBiscuit's informative video, HERE.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Ubisoft has been getting a heavy stream of negative press almost all year. The publisher definitely needs to make some sweeping changes heading in to 2015, EA is starting to do things right, maybe Ubisoft can also start to redeem itself. What do you guys think? What should Ubisoft do to restore its reputation?
How to restore reputation: Don’t give so much f*ck about hogging the money, deadlines and everything that can destroy a game and ONLY care about the gameplay and optimization and getting it properly done. (and not blame hardware for their own software problem) If they do that, the money will trinkle in anyway. Oh, and ditch Uplay and microtransactions completely. That is the only way people will start to respect them again 😛
Pork out. *Bsstchhhsshhaa*
Ubisoft is full of BS. I’m not sure if they know this, or actually believe in the crap they spew. Anyway, they seriously need to change their path if they want to be here in 10 years.
well atleast we get a real inside to the assassins now
Ubisoft, just when they strarted turning things around over the last few years, they really shat all over their hard work.
I mean, just say “We fucked up. This is how we’re going to fix it”
OR they could try fixing the problem? just throwing it out there, Ubisoft
They couldn’t resist making an excuse again, could they? The multiplayer excuse is unbelievably idiotic. All they would have needed to do is organise a time/date for the servers to go online in advance, like an alpha/beta but just for the reviewers, and stick them all in the game together. Or do it old school – invite them to come to a Ubi event where they get to play the multiplayer. This stuff isn’t hard, the industry has been at it for many years.
The problem is, the market is different on different machines. I’m going to seem very PCMR here, but generally console buyers will preorder and buy their favourite series, even if the last one was bad or the reviews look poor etc. And if a game has good reviews but isn’t a AAA number it struggles on the consoles, partly because the games are equally expensive so console gamers have much more limited resources and have to more selective in that respect. On PC if something like this goes down then few people buy it, and so they don’t get the cash, whereas if something is well made and the company has good practices then it will build momentum and people will buy it. Valkyria Chronicles vs Unity on the pc is a good example of this. The problem is that the consoles generate most of their money, so ultimately they won’t really care, and they’ll keep outputting cash knowing that they’ll keep making money.
Holy crap are they really comparing Assassin’s Creed, a SINGLE PLAYER game with Destiny, which is pretty much an MMO?! This is the lamest excuse for the anti-consumer post-launch embargo they could have possibly came out with. Just bloody apologize instead of further trying to brainwash people, nobody with half brain believes this PR crap.
They need ot put Unity and FC4 on the UK Steam (it’s on the American one) and stop trying to charge £50 for a PC game to UK customers (PC’s don’t have the licencing fees that consoles have. There is no justification to charge PC gamers the same money).
At what point did Ubisoft start “turning things around”?
I’m sorry but if your game dips to like 15fps even on a console shame on you.
Justification #1: They’re a business and they’re here to make money.
Justification #2: Everybody rips the UK off on everything. The pricing for most stuff there is horrendous. Why should Ubisoft be the ones to give the UK a break on price when nobody else does?
Just an example here: PS4 @ Amazon.co.uk = £329.00 aka $582 Canadian, here on amazon.ca the PS4 with last of us bundle, costs only $449 aka £253. We get a free game with the PS4 for equivalent of £80~ less roughly. That’s a huge amount of cash, I can see why console gaming isn’t as big there. It doesn’t end there either, pretty much most electronics you guys get extorted on.
When they killed their draconian DRM policies.
They didn’t really kill it, It just morphed into the abomination known as Uplay.
Ubisoft wouldn’t be giving the UK a break on the price of the game, they’d be following the normal trend of £40 for a PC game. They’ve gone and changed their price above what everyone else has been charging for a while.
And they’re a business out to make money, but if they intend on ripping people off they will get stung.
Ubisoft have had a TERRIBLE year in the eyes of many consumers.
They can go and —beep— themselves.
PS You are free to put happy words in the place of beep.
I’ll rephrase that then. They were pissing off people less and had a few good games about on the market. The last AC went down pretty well (though that was mainly because it was Pirate Simulator).
People had started to forget the time when they called PC gamers a bunch of whiney kids.
Shut the fuck up Ubishit…
I don’t know if I buy the consoles make more money thing. Its self fulfilling prophecy. Ubisoft and other former PC development houses targeted consoles because they could control the environment better than PCs. They started porting console games to PCs, rather than the other way around. PC game sales trickled off a bit as Console sales ate into PC sales, and PC gamers avoided less demanding console titles. This allowed these companies to point and say, “Look Consoles make us X more money than PC sales, we were right!” Yet when something huge comes out for PC, like Skyrim or the upcoming Star Citizen; PC sales absolutely bury console sales. There are studies out which show the potential market for PC gaming is double console gaming. The point is you just have to take the time to make a good PC game and PC gamers will spend whatever it takes.
The market have been of different machines for many many years without much problems like this before. Ubisoft are just doing EVERYTHING wrong. They should at least let like 100 people testplay the game and polish it before even thinking of releasing it :/ And isn’t Valkyria just a new PC port from an older game, or am I mixing it with something else?
Ok, what do have up to now to put on the PR disaster list for Ubisoft? Lets see… :
1- Artifical FPS cap, because we can…
2- 30FPS is better than 60FPS nonsense, because cinematic experience… the same week youtube go 60FPS!
3- Parity is good for you bullshit. Same exact experience, on all platform, including the more powerful PS4, and even a 1500$ uber PC! We don’t give a fuck!
4- Degrading PC graphics settings on purpose, because why not? We are Ubisoft, motherfuckers! We do as we please!
5- Embargo on reviews, because we want you to have all the information, and certainly not to cover up the disastrous pre-alpha broken code release, of course…
WTF Ubisoft? Think we are all retarded fools? You do realize you are now surpassing E.A. and M$ in the bullshit department, do you? You would have tried to do worse on purpose, you couldn’t have done better.
Yes, it’s a new PC port of a 6 year old game. That’s the point – on PC a decent port of a good but old game will outsell a gimped port of the highest budget AAA game any day. That says a lot about the PC market, but unfortunately it simply is not the case on consoles. Even bad AAA games do well while good non-AAA games get meh sales.
I’m not condoning it. You and I both know that if something awesome looking comes along and the devs deliver (like Star Citizen) then people will throw as much money at it as they can! Heck, the £15k, £10, etc pledges for Star Citizen went immediately, and that’s insane. But yeah, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it means they don’t realise the huge potential of the PC market. The problem with catering to the PC market remains that you have to actually give them a decent game for it to sell, and this is too much for Ubish*t.
Aah, I get you now 😛 good example xD
Even more than this, £40 isn’t really the normal price – I’ve rarely seen a steam game go for more than £32, which seems to be the actual normal price.