If that happens, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are gonna be more pissed off then they already are about Ubisoft getting their game...Kumagawa Misogi said:
OT: Yep, my worry about this industry continues to grow...
Ubisoft Share Price Tanks As Bad News Abounds
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
OT: Yep, my worry about this industry continues to grow...
This is a worrying trend - game development costs are already through the roof and now we're adding difficult and prolonged development cycles on top of that. Console launches are already rocky, and I'm beginning to wonder if the industry can afford the next generation. Feature creep is going to be deadly - adding something later in the development cycle is going to require many more resources due to the complexity of next-gen software and difficulty of creating HD assets. That means we're going to see more recycling of assets and less iteration with each installment, on top of less risky projects so as not to hurt marketability.
Nintendo wasn't ready for HD development, which is understandable though less than acceptable - that Ubisoft, who has been making HD games for nearly a decade, isn't entirely up to snuff with powerful hardware, dozens of studios, and well-honed proprietary and third-party middleware, is a disaster.
Of course, they've likely come up with many clever solutions to the problems they face and this is just the aforementioned pre-launch jitters, but I'm still damned scared that PS4 and Xbone will fail and drag down a lot of talented developers with them.
Somebody hold me.
Nintendo wasn't ready for HD development, which is understandable though less than acceptable - that Ubisoft, who has been making HD games for nearly a decade, isn't entirely up to snuff with powerful hardware, dozens of studios, and well-honed proprietary and third-party middleware, is a disaster.
Of course, they've likely come up with many clever solutions to the problems they face and this is just the aforementioned pre-launch jitters, but I'm still damned scared that PS4 and Xbone will fail and drag down a lot of talented developers with them.
Somebody hold me.
publisher stock investments arent something i'm interested in.
The megapublisher environment is not the hot growth sector necessary to rake cash in the long term. To the best of my knowledge, there is no dividend return, so i see more risk from underperformance of hot individual titles than systemic growth over the long term.
Activision blizzard is pretty much the norm. dead static valuation for 4 long years. Recent pops related mostly to corporate restructuring rather than growth-- and this was during the big return WoW years.
The megapublisher environment is not the hot growth sector necessary to rake cash in the long term. To the best of my knowledge, there is no dividend return, so i see more risk from underperformance of hot individual titles than systemic growth over the long term.
Activision blizzard is pretty much the norm. dead static valuation for 4 long years. Recent pops related mostly to corporate restructuring rather than growth-- and this was during the big return WoW years.
I'm genuinely shocked that Rayman Legends didn't meet sales targets, especially given it was averaging 9/10 on metacritic last time I looked, I hope that doesn't prevent future Rayman releases as there are precious few major/ AAA releases that _aren't_ aimed exclusively at adults and don't come with a 15/18 rating on them.
Take over doesn't mean existential peril either. It just means they get owned by someone else (who is more likely to eject redundant management before actually hitting the money-making parts).[/quote]to put this mildly, EA IS EXISTENTIAL PERILThe Gentleman said:
otherwise, it's kind of true, but I worry about Atlus at night
I'll repeat this again. Ubisoft makes 3x or more money in previous years on shovelware DS(Imagine and Petz) games than on AAA. The young kid market on the 3DS is not there for Ubisoft to be making what they previously were. This just happen to coincide with the delay of Watchdogs and the other misfortunes.
So Blacklist performed poorly huh? It's not like it was a terribad game, but I can tell you why it failed: the further alienation of those who are into the series. I could tolerate the gameplay changes(and even liked a few) but the loss of Michael Ironside as Sam and Claudia Besso as Grim really hurt the game more than they'd like to admit. It wasn't even a full reboot, it was a sequel that was supposed to take place a year or so after Conviction, so having your cast suddenly de-age 10-20 years while still maintaining what relations and status they had from the previous games kinda really pisses off a bunch of people.
Now on the subject of Watch Dogs: as others have said something must've gone really wrong during development, which is why they'd push it back as far as they have. They were really banking on this one, and they'd only push it that far back if it was a major emergency. What that emergency is, exactly, is the question.
Now on the subject of Watch Dogs: as others have said something must've gone really wrong during development, which is why they'd push it back as far as they have. They were really banking on this one, and they'd only push it that far back if it was a major emergency. What that emergency is, exactly, is the question.
Not all the time, http://www.gamespot.com/articles/assassins-creed-ii-ships-9-million-ubisoft-posts-54-million-annual-loss/1100-6262887/Baldr said:
Hell they stopped making so much of the shovelware.
While I don't get what stock prices actually mean nor how it impacts actual development anyway.
Lets face it you guys did it with rayman legends, you had a finished game ready to come out at a hot time that people have been waiting for to only say " sorry guys it won't be out next month try 7 months from now" causes a damn reaction and you won't get the hype back for your game.
Agreed. Barring some kind of development miracle, AC4 will be the first AssCreed game i dont buy. I never even finished SC3 because it was just so damn uninteresting. The one year development cycle is really killing the franchise its just not enough time for them to create something fresh and engaging. Strip out the setting and i'd be hard pressed to tell you what was different between AC3 and Revelations, or even Brotherhood for that matter. Naval combat was the one truly new thing they came up with. Revelations/Brotherhood at least had cool stuff to climb all over and a story to tell. Boston, while realistic was also extraordinary dull, and i don't see how a series of shantytowns in the Caribbean are going to be any better. Asassins Creed is fun when your climbing all over huge builds and sneaking through crowds of people to murder someone: that means Cities. Its clear though that they don't know what their doing anymore so they're simply grabbing onto whatever flotsam still floats and trying to build a game off of it.RJ 17 said:
So sad when there are so many far more interesting opportunities.
You know that actual financial analysts attach a disclaimer to their stock purchasing advice for a reason, right Andy? Protect yoself.
Awesome news dude though I may be, I don't think that puts me in a position where any advice I give - particularly with regards to stock performance analysis - needs to be accompanied by a disclaimer. Besides, I'm just sayin', y'know? ¬_¬SecondPrize said:
Interesting point, though: Could this actually present a threat to the long-term viability of Ubisoft? Lots of people have said that the money isn't lost, it's just moved to the next fiscal year, but the problem with that is that this fiscal year is unique. Not only is Ubi missing the holiday quarter, which despite the idiotic overcrowding is still the place to be for a major new game release, but it's also missing the biggest console launches ever - and while holiday quarters come around every year, new console cycles do not. Think about this: You may not even be in high school yet and it's quite likely that you'll have graduated from college before it happens again. This particular quarter is invaluable, and Ubisoft is blowing it.
So instead of coming up with the next AssCreed, Watch Dogs comes out in spring 2014 in the midst of a heavy console launch hangover and becomes the next, I dunno, Alpha Protocol instead. The Crew disappears in a puff of obscurity (which is almost certainly going to happen anyway, so no real loss) and after big promises, a humiliating PR stepdown and bazillions of dollars lost, Watch Dogs ends up a one-off and Ubisoft, which has bet heavily on mega-blockbuster franchises, basically loses a leg and has nothing to show for it.
I don't think EA has the muscle for it right now, but could Activision be giving it the eyeball in a couple years? Or maybe another company like Vivendi that wants to make a ready-to-eat entry into the business?
It's not only after the launch window but after the holiday season as well so they'll lose out on sales to people who spent their cash during the holidays. It's not a matter of qualifications for giving financial advice though considering your job it's not far fetched to make the case that you may know what you're talking about here, it's actually giving it, which you appear to do.Andy Chalk said:
Didn't you hear? It's a blockbuster-driven business for Ubisoft. And you can't have a blockbuster without coverage.DVS BSTrD said:
...Or so the suits say.
An insanely competitive advertising market is partially to blame, as the difference between getting "Any coverage" and "No coverage" is apparently pretty expensive depending on the avenues you go through. (indie titles largely rely on word of mouth for this reason, though with social media, it's arguably less necessary to do traditional advertising than ever)
But methinks they're also paying for starting advertising WAY WAY TOO EARLY, which by necessity, will eventually translate into WAY TOO OFTEN as they're going to lose a lot of buzz by not launching amidst the commercial chaos of Christmas and will probably have to run another series of overpriced ads again later (though with the benefit of not having to pay the Christmas season markup. I shudder to think what it costs to advertise on anything that matters during Christmas).
For Ubisoft to jump not only Christmas, but a Double-Barrel Console Christmas (with consoles that actually matter)...
...Yeah, small wonder shareholders are selling. It's not just that they will "make up for it" later, it's that they're basically skipping the best time of the year to sell their games in what could be a banner year on top of that.
There's a reason every AAA publisher completely ignores most of the year (fucking Summer game droughts...) and waits to bring every big title to bear in Oct-Dec.
Both games "experienced lower sales" because Ubisoft often has an insanely unrealistic perception of how much new games based on popular IPs will net. Square did the same thing with Tomb Raider, believing it would rake in the same amount as it's inspiration, Naughty Dog's Uncharted, if not more because it was Lara's reboot. The game did respectable sales, but Square chalked it up in their investment report as a failure because their math figures as to how much it would rake in were so bewilderingly off.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist was a phenomenal game that, much like TR, sold respectable numbers and was almost universally praised by critics and gamers alike (some didn't care for it, but that's always the case with Splinter Cell when it's not a clone of Chaos Theory) for not only getting it's mechanics right, but having a pretty damn cool "Tom Clancy" espionage plot that, for me, felt like a cross between the Bourne series and Strike Back. On top of that the acting/performance capture was outstanding and the new Sam Fisher put, IMHO, Michael Ironside to shame.
It was just *good*. It really burns my ass to know that, judging by how Ubisoft traditionally handles games that "underperform", we're not likely to get another Splinter Cell game that would essentially be a sequel to Blacklist. I really wanted to see those same characters and actors return in the same capacity, using the same mechanics with just a new story.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist was a phenomenal game that, much like TR, sold respectable numbers and was almost universally praised by critics and gamers alike (some didn't care for it, but that's always the case with Splinter Cell when it's not a clone of Chaos Theory) for not only getting it's mechanics right, but having a pretty damn cool "Tom Clancy" espionage plot that, for me, felt like a cross between the Bourne series and Strike Back. On top of that the acting/performance capture was outstanding and the new Sam Fisher put, IMHO, Michael Ironside to shame.
It was just *good*. It really burns my ass to know that, judging by how Ubisoft traditionally handles games that "underperform", we're not likely to get another Splinter Cell game that would essentially be a sequel to Blacklist. I really wanted to see those same characters and actors return in the same capacity, using the same mechanics with just a new story.
Well if your fucking Rayman game worked it wouldn't be selling so bad.
I'm serious here nobody can play that game! Some people can fix it by going offline but I can't! There still hasn't been a fix for it either and I think expecting positive sales for a Splinter Cell game is kind of like expecting a guy to thank you for moisturising his face after you spat on it.
Splinter Cell is dead, Ubisoft pretty much nailed that coffin shut with the previous one and the rest of your current games are buggy as shit. Where is my goddamned Rayman patch!
I'm serious here nobody can play that game! Some people can fix it by going offline but I can't! There still hasn't been a fix for it either and I think expecting positive sales for a Splinter Cell game is kind of like expecting a guy to thank you for moisturising his face after you spat on it.
Splinter Cell is dead, Ubisoft pretty much nailed that coffin shut with the previous one and the rest of your current games are buggy as shit. Where is my goddamned Rayman patch!