Ubisoft is set to close its UK studio based in Leamington, as it sheds 185 jobs across the business.
@[email protected]
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And nothing of value was lost.

Shadowedcross
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228M

I mean, 185 people lost their jobs.

ZeroOne
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88M

Closure ? So… Ubisoft is gone ?

Nate
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78M

Ubisoft Leamington is gone. Ubisoft as a whole is still around (for now)

Ech
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18M

Booo

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creator
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168M

Just one of its studios, not the whole company.

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28M

Wow AC shadows pre sale levels must be really bad. Not too surprising tho. For a studio that basically said “there’s way more interesting time periods we want to focus on” the fact they finally went to feudal Japan felt more like they ran out of interesting ideas. Doesn’t help ghost of tsushima beat them by a few years and was basically the best AC game since black flag.

dinckel
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I feel horrible for the people affected, because for a lot of them, this was probably a dream job, but Ubisoft will get 0 sympathy from me

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168M

All the people making the shitty decisions will be fine. Everyday people will be the ones to lose their jobs, as is always the way in these things. :-/

And they probably had to sweat blood and tears to get there, because the videogame industry is a harsh mistress.

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178M

That’s a shame, that was the studio that worked on Guitar Hero Live. I kind of liked that game

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788M

If their customers are going to have to get used to not owning games they paid for, I guess Ubisoft is going to get used to not having money 🤷🏻

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Works for steam tho Edit: apparently Ubisoft wanted subscriptions, so steam isn’t exactly comparable

Lemminary
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Gross. Good riddance!

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98M

In addition to Steam not being subscriptions, Valve has so far not screwed over their users. The way the Ubisoft exec suggested that we should change our attitude really showed what they in plan

Agent Karyo
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It feels like a complete bloodbath with the job situation in the gaming industry in the west.

The worst thing is none of the executives are getting fired (in a proper manner, no golden parachutes and clawbacks on any stock based compensation).

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8M

Yeah? The executives are firing people, to lower costs, make the numbers look better…? Which makes the owners of the business money?

Why wouldn’t the executives get bonuses or golden parachutes if let go? They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

Executives don’t make products, provide services, or add any productive value. They are just the face of the owners, and will do the “hard” things for them.

Like lie, commit crimes, do mass-layoffs etc etc.

Cethin
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68M

Executives are responsible for the direction of the company. They aren’t just there to cut costs (at least, not usually). They’re there to see what opportunities the company to move into, and guide them to success.

This is the opposite of what most executives at these gaming companies have done lately. They’ve driven up budgets and pushed them in a direction that makes people not want to purchase their games, causing them to fail.

If a company has to fire employees then that’s the fault of the executives. They should be taking cuts first, not the people who were doing their job well but were just pointed in the wrong direction.

Ech
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58M

Do you always argue with people that agree with you? How is that helpful?

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138M

The worst thing is none of the executives are getting fired (in a proper more manner, no golden parachutes and clawbacks on any stock based compensation).

lol, welcome to the west

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778M

“review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders”.

Ah there it is. That’s the only thing that matters anyway.

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78M

fyi, in case someone isn’t clear on the difference:

stakeholder ≠ shareholder

stakeholders are basically all people involved, including staff, and even stuff like landlords, janitors, citizens (sometimes things like parents), etc.

it’s anyone with a stake in an organizations operations!

example: a city decides to create a new bus route. in this case, stakeholders include the local residents, the companies involved in creating the route, the companies supplying the buses, the mechanics needed to keep the fleet running, etc., etc.

there’s a usually a LOT of stakeholders, and typically you don’t always include everyone in every little decision because it quickly becomes unmanageable. so only the most relevant ones are included in most decisions, and who exactly that is depends on the project.

shareholders on the other hand are what everyone is probably thinking of, and that’s the people (“people” being used generously here) only interested in next quarters profits. you know! the parasites!

of course the message is still bullshit and nothing but coded corpo-speech for “shareholders”, but i thought some folks might be interested in knowing the difference anyhow.

even if, in this case, it’s only important to highlight the extra special bullshit they put into the statement…

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48M

Good point and thanks for pointing it out, I misread it. A shareholder and stakeholder aren’t (necessarily) the same indeed.

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38M

actually good point on your part too, cause i should have mentioned that as well:

shareholders can also be stakeholders!

totally not confusing or anything…

i really hate basically all the language around finance…

_cryptagion [he/him]
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I like to think I had a very tiny hand in this, since I never pay for Ubisoft games I play.

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deleted by creator

_cryptagion [he/him]
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I can respect that.

Lad
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218M

Fuck Ubisoft

lazynooblet
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Lots of hate on ubisoft. I think division 2 is a great game though, not so much the rest.

BlackLaZoR
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In Skull and Bones they couldn’t even replicate the experience from their own previous IP, and then advertised is as AAAA game. It’s a disgrace - they deserve to burn.

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When that game came out I bought AC4 for $5 instead. Had a fun time and the graphics still look modern anyway

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27M

“We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition."

So like a fruit basket and a pat on the head?

erin
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they should start by laying off executives and commercials who had that veeeery bad ideas of forcing internet connection even on offline mode, forcing Ubisoft Launcher even on steam and thinking that making a game pass with just Ubisoft IP was a good idea…

Spoiler alert: those were finally not good idea at all

Majorllama
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I remember when they said “players should get used to not owning their games”.

Well Ubisoft. You should get used to not getting a penny outta me forever.

Yerbouti
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Steam says the same thing and everyone jerks them. Plus the quote was actually out of context.

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58M

I don’t get the downvotes. You’re right, everything you “own” in steam is through a license. People just don’t like to admit that we’re willing to let that one slide for convenience.

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68M

I may be misremembering but don’t some steam games have no drm? KSP1 and Ultrakill come to mind, are they still on a licence like games with drm?

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58M

You are right - https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_DRM-Free_Games_on_Steam.

My main arguement though was that it’s not like your steam library is yours without restrictions. You’re agreeing to Steams terms and services and there are lots of ways they can prevent you from playing (most) games you “own”.

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the downvotes are because it’s borderline misinformation:

whether a game comes with DRM or not has nothing to do with steam, and everything to do with the publisher.

plenty of games on steam are completely DRM free!

(…but the majority does have DRM, which, again, is on the publisher, not steam)

Yerbouti
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Gamers are not always the most unfrozen pogos of the box.

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18M

Or as I like to say, two buns short of a hamburger

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38M

Don’t bother reading the EULA for all commercial software then. You don’t actually own anything you purchase.

Unless you have the code there is no freedom and it is all an illusion.

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18M

Yeah, that’s the point I and the person above were stating.

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I was pretty sure Steam was getting dunked on because you don’t actually own the games according to the contract. I was just pointing out this is also true of any commercial piece of software.

For example, you go to GameStop and buy a physical copy of your favorite game. When you install it the EULA makes it clear you don’t actually own the product, just a license.

@[email protected]
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18M

True but if I own the .exe or physical disk, it’s going to be a lot harder to stop me playing the game than if I’m accessing it through a platform.

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18M

That is a good point.

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228M

I’ve never had Steam entirely revoke a game from my library that I paid for though.

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Mellow_Online1 Officer 20 Sep, 2017 @ 1:55pm Update: Valve has stepped in and keys have been reinstated, previous owners of the game should now have it in their library

Seems like the developer was dumb and steam did everything right…?

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Yea, but the whole notion that Steam just lets developers do this, sometimes repeatedly…

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28M

What are you talking about? If the developer says XYZ are stolen/bla keys of course steam has to do that? Stop trying to put blame on steam here, they did everything right. First help the developer and then go back once it was clear they were doing bullshit. Not saying steam is a saint, but holy fuck are they the best of all of them by a long shot.

warm
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While you don’t technically own the DRM games you buy on Steam, it’s a whole world different than putting games behind subscriptions.

mox
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It’s not Steam’s decision to make. The statement you’re referring to is just Steam highlighting a decision made by the game publishers. Even if Steam didn’t highlight it, it would still exist, as you would see if you read the games’ license terms before paying.

Ubisoft is a game publisher. They actually make the decision that you don’t own the games you pay for.

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valve is a publisher too, and they have the exact same policy for their games.

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement

mox
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Practically all game publishers do. Sadly, it’s the industry standard.

(By the way, you linked Steam’s subscriber agreement, which concerns Steam’s service and client software, not the games bought on Steam. Maybe you meant to link a Valve game license?)

In any case, it doesn’t matter here, because the complaint was about Steam, not Valve.

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