Assassin's Creed Creator Says Nobody Cares About Discs Anymore

[Z of the Na'vi]

Digital distribution is nice, but I wouldn't really call it "the future."

Games have almost always been about having something to hold in your hand, to physically possess the thing you paid for. This is pretty much how the industry has been until Steam came around, pretty much.

I don't see why we should go and completely replace physical games. The system isn't broken, so don't "fix" it.

 

[Doom972]

As a PC Gamer, I really don't care about discs.

Notably, as a PC Gamer, I really don't care about Ubisoft either considering how much they don't care about me.

It's a bit of mutual apathy. It's hard to appeal to the population that doesn't mind digital while simultaneously alienating them.

Same here, but notice that this statement is by a guy who worked for THQ, then Ubisoft and then got fired, so it's not really from Ubisoft.

It seems that many in the industry want to go all digital, but are afraid of their competition getting a bigger share of retail sales at the same time.

 

[strumbore]

"Yeah, games come on disc, and I get it guys, you were really pissed off," he said. "But, deep down, nobody cares about not having CDs any more. The future is digital, and there's nothing you can do about it."

What a sack of ****. This industry is stuffed at the highest levels with nerds who have to get their way, consumer be damned. You disagree, you're loser, a moron, a Luddite. It's not the developers job to appeal, it's the consumer's to submit. I had no idea until this whole Xbone fiasco started early this year how bad it all was.

 

[bandit0802]

I used to feel sorry for this guy when Ubisoft fired him and stole his game. Now I'm just wondering why they fired him; he fit right in!

 

[jericu]

Yeah, duh, nobody cares about physical stuff anymore. That's why movies, books, comics, and music are all only available digitally now and nobody buys... oh wait, DVD's, Books, Comics, and Music CD's are still around? And they're still profitable? Potentially because the people who make those media have realistic views on how much money they can expect to make from a product and put money into projects accordingly instead of pumping too much money in and then blaming the consumer when 3.5 million sales is "disappointing?"

Huh. How about that.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Give me the money for a better internet connection and we'll talk. Until that point, even a current-gen 8 gig game is pushing it as far as DD goes, for me.

 

[CriticalMiss]

So he will be exclusively releasing his future games on digital platforms right? He won't lose any sales because nobody will care about the lack of physical copies. Right?

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Notably, as a PC Gamer, I really don't care about Ubisoft either considering how much they don't care about me.

He doesn't work for Ubisoft. In fact they fired him.

Twice.

OT: Ok I like this guy a bit. He had a good vision for AC and helped create the best two of the series(the original and two) and he was largely responsible for the Sand of Time trilogy and has been jerked about by Ubisoft but come on man. First off look at Canada, the country you were born in, lived in, went to post secondary in and work in. We do not have the infrastructure for an all digital future. In fact the only two providers of internet in Canada have only recently started to add more than 60 GB packages to their sales. Rogers now has 500 GB a month priced at $225 a month (in a bundle with cable and home phone)(and is not even avilable in the majority of Canada) and Bell's highest package is 300 GB a month at $150 in a package (also not available in the majority of Canada)Links: http://www.rogers.com/web/link/hispeedBrowseFlowDefaultPlans and http://www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Products/Fibe_Internet_175_175

So yeah, in the country he has spent most of his life in we are not ready for an all digital future. My current plan only provides 120GBs a month. Now with game sizing increasing to almost 50GB (or was it 30GB?) I would not be able to download full games and use my internet for other purposes (such as playing the game online). I do acknowledge that one day discs will be a thing of the past but it is not this day. Internet needs to become a lot better and a lot cheaper for that to happen. Not to mention harddrives. The PS4 has a 500 GB hard drive if games are 50GB large than you could only fit ten games on there not including system updates and saves.

Also all digital will not save AAA gaming. It isn't in trouble yet and it won't be if publishers get their heads out of their asses, make good and creative games (besides we are all tired of space marines now) and learn to manage their bloody budgets better and not waste over a hundred million per game.

 

[Longstreet]

The only reason i buy practically all games i own digitally is because steam is so goddamn cheap.
If i can get such a deal for a physical copy i go for that. Basically follow the money for me.

That said, discs are safer and do hold some appeal.
The appeal comes of course from having a nice collection, now while i do not care bout that, others do.

The safer aspect however is much more important. What happens when EA decides the pull the plug on origin. (well, you will lose your games whether digitally or not)
Or when steam goes belly up. In this case you can keep playing your game, provided there is no other draconian drm. If you have your steam games digitally, and they quit, you will probably lose all your games.

 

[strumbore]

I totally agree that all-digital is inevitable down the line, but why is everyone pushing it in the industry such a dick about it?

The whole xbone digital fiasco revealed a really good statement: Digital is a cool thing and we're headed that way, but trying to force it to be now is a really stupid thing. IMO the people whining (and it is, the complaints aren't calm and barely rational) are just angry that they may not be active in the industry when it happens. All digital is a good 50-100 years down the road. To arrive at it we need Star Trek levels of infrastructure across the globe. We can buy products off Amazon from space but it takes me several minutes to load my friggin' email on broadband in the nation's capital.

lol! Thanks, Mr. Trek Guru!

 

[-Ezio-]

i care.

No you don't. You only need to look deep down into your beautiful heart to realise that you are lying to yourself and hurting not only the industry but more importantly yourself as well.

not hurting myself at all. I'm a console gamer so digital games are a complete rip off and there's no sign of that changing.

 

[Bluestorm83]

In other news, Patrice Desilets can blow me, since you don't "Buy" digital games, you only license them. When I pay for a Thing, I insist that I get that Thing in return. Not merely rights to USE that thing, the Thing itself. When I buy a Disc, it is mine. I can play it, hang it from a string from a car mirror as an ornament, throw it through the air to be caught by friends, injure myself trying to fornicate with the hole in it...

But Digtal Data isn't real. When Mr. Digital decides that it's servers are going down then my Data is worthless, because it was never mine to begin with.

 

[RJ 17]

"But, deep down, nobody cares about not having CDs any more. The future is digital, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Thanks, Patrice! God, I love it when you guys in the development industry tell us what we, the consumer, really want and don't really want. It makes it SO much easier to be a blind consumer whore that lines your pockets with as much profit as we can while getting minimal increases in quality in return! Being a lemming sure is a lot easier than having our own opinions on what we like and don't like!

"Make games with a cultural point of view. We did a game, somehow, about the Muslim faith. We did a game about the Italian renaissance. [Ubisoft] did a game about the American Revolution. Having a cultural point of view will become more and more important."

I'd have no problem with this statement if you didn't completely bastardize and misrepresent the histories you were trying to recreate in those games.

 

[Saulkar]

i care.

No you don't. You only need to look deep down into your beautiful heart to realise that you are lying to yourself and hurting not only the industry but more importantly yourself as well.

not hurting myself at all. I'm a console gamer so digital games are a complete rip off and there's no sign of that changing.

Oh, come on. The least you could do would be to go along with the joke. ^^;

 

[Irridium]

Blockbuster videogames will be profitable once developers learn how to budget properly.

But he's right. Digital is the future. That's why the PSPGo was a massive success. Wait...

 

[ZeroMachine]

I don't care about discs at all.

What I DO care about is owning the software, not just a license to download it.

Also, no, cocklicker, you didn't somehow manage to make a game about the Muslim faith. You made a game about an assassin fighting against the Knights Templar and finding out that the Ancient Aliens guy was right and that all faiths were misinterpretations of it.

That's a game declaring that, in that universe, every faith, not just Islam, is wrong.

I'm pretty sure Muslim players of that game weren't impressed with the accuracy of the Quran's teachings and the lessons the game taught.

What a fucking moron. No wonder he was fired.

Captcha: braaains!

Nope, none here, apparently.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

How fuckin' stupid are these digital clowns? How can AAA be more profitable if they were only digital if a lot of people don't have a fast enough internet connection to download their games? Discs are still more convenient from a technological standpoint to a lot of consumers. And a lot of them just simply like the damn discs. Myself included.

 

[Doclector]

And people might be just a little more inclined to accept that if they could be certain that games they downloaded belonged to them, and always would.

Yeah, fuck this guy, fuck his attitude, and fuck his hair.

 

[Gizen]

Digital IS the future, but it's not going to be the magic bullet that suddenly makes AAA games profitable again. The only thing that will make AAA games profitable is when the people working on games lower sales expectations to something even remotely resembling realistic and learn how to properly manage a budget, which will likely require that people stop focusing so much on graphical fidelity, since fancy graphics and the animators and artists needed to obtain is the vortex which is devouring so much of current game budgets.

Until then, cramming incredibly consumer unfriendly business practices down people's throats in the name of some nebulous future that doesn't show any likelihood of actually saving the industry is not acceptable.

 

[Neeckin]

That smug look he has in the picture really doesn't help