Ubisoft: Stupid or Evil?

[Smooth Operator]

They are big wig corporate, translates to "stupid and lacking morals" if you need to go into details.
You just need to watch your back with them, they have no issue sticking a knife in your guts if it will make them a pretty penny.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Well Ubisoft Montreal gave me Assassins Creed so Ubisoft can be that evil, although they have been prone to silly decisions in the past.

 

[gigastar]

Im dropping my lot in with the "stupid" crowd.

I was happy enough that Rayman Origins was delayed into 2011 to begin with when i saw why, but then Ubisoft had to get it out for the christmas sales rush.

But at the same time they put out Assasins Creed Revelations and within the same month a dozen other games that could legitimately call themselves "Most anticipated game of 2011" came out.

And then theres the DRM policies on PC, even EA stopped doing limited activations after 2 major games.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Well consensus seems to be with either neither, or just stupid. However seeings as someone else said stupid AND evil.. I will say Evilly stupid. Pretty much kind of like any school age bully. They end up doing very evil things, and dont even realize just how stupid those things are / can be.

But Hey, Ubisoft... you can redeem yourself in my eyes. Just give me back the 15$ and 4 hours of my life that was ruined by From Dust.

Dont really care about ubisoft and their idiocy I was just curious as to why you dont like From Dust?

O/T Ubisoft, stop pissing of PC gamers so us console gamers can stop listening to their whingeing (joke people, I'm on your side!)

 

[TsunamiWombat]

''Never atribute to malice that which can be adequatly explained by stupidity.''
-Hanlon's Razor

Words I try to live by.

 

[Something Amyss]

what?
Seriously?
their not stupid, nor evil, their a masive company made up of intricate levels.

"They're." Remember, what you're saying is "They are." As such, "They're."

So releasing a game that appeals to kid's that can't/ arn't old enough to play MW3 and Skyrim in time for christmas is bad?

Yes, that was the part he thought was dumb.

DRM is protecting their product and should not drive people to piracy, in fact people pirate games cause they don't want to pay!

Piracy is a massive issue made up of intricate levels.

Also, DRM clearly isn't protecting their product. When their always-on DRM was cracked by day one and their servers crashed, it was the pirates playing the game.

Of course it makes sense, if a comapny doesn't make money, they don't have money to invest in new projects.

Yes, and Ubisoft is such a hand-to-mouth corporation they can only afford one title at a time.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

If they were evil, they wouldn't have made any good games for the past few years.

This is the kind of idealism I'm simultaneously perplexed by, yet adore in a pitying sort of way.

Less condescendingly, it's good business to make good games. It doesn't have to do a thing with your moral standing.

As for Ubisoft being evil and/or stupid, they're definitely stupid, but I wouldn't say they're evil, really. Delusional, certainly, but such is the case with many companies whose decisions come from people in ivory towers with no idea of how the world actually works; all they care about is making more money.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I somewhat think Ubisoft is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They started off a little stupid with their games, not always marketing correctly and then overreacting to piracy by introducing their heavy DRM. They were just trying to protect their business.

However it was the backlash that this brought about, everybody crying foul and accusing them of evilness, that they got a little upset about it and thought,

"Fuck it. We're sick of this. You think we're bad? Fine, we're bad. Oh yes, we can certainly do bad. Watch this!"

Hence more unlikeable DRM and Assassin's Creed made four times.

 

[Frostbite3789]

People also pirate games because in the case of Ubisoft games the pirates deliver a better service. Always avaiable, no activation limits (change your graphic card and realise that it uses one activation of Anno FTW).

DRM also doesn't do jack to prevent piracy, it just punishes the ones who pay for the game. Better service prevents piracy.

Stealing a DVD provides a better service than buying it. In that I don't have to pay money.

This is an excuse, and a bad one at that. Video games are an entertainment product, not a right. If you don't agree with what the company that releases a specific game is doing, that doesn't magically give you the right to steal it. It means you don't play that game, if you don't want to buy it.

 

[targren]

Stupid -and- evil?

Yep, I'm sticking with that. They haven't made a product worth buying new in years, let 'em die.

Pretty much this. Their attitudes toward their own customers are clearly evil, and not realizing that it's hurting their bottom line makes them stupid.

 

[Joccaren]

Not evil, but corporate. They don't care about their customers, only their profits. Add this to the fact they are stupid, and there is a reason I haven't bought any Ubisoft games in ages.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Snip

I still fail to see how that matters. I must have missed the day when games became a right. If it has DRM that someone doesn't agree with it, they don't play it. It's a pretty simple concept.

 

[Woodsey]

Stupid.

Evil requires a display of at least some intellect.

 

[Killertje]

This is all a ploy by Bobby Kotick. He paid Ubisoft a small % of his monies if they act like a bigger dick than him for a while, so his own crap disappears off every gamers' radar. He's also hired a spindoctor. Evil genius at work imo.

 

[Yopaz]

DRM is protecting their product and should not drive people to piracy, in fact people pirate games cause they don't want to pay!

I take it you didn't read the article where a test crew which was trying to monitor performance changes with different hardware and the testers were unable to do so because of the DRM. To be able to do this thing which is actually a lot of tedious work that would help both Ubisoft customers, Nvidia, AMD and Ubisoft they had to purchase the game 7 times.

When they contacted Ubisoft about this issue they were told they were unable to help them. All it takes is one unlocking code and they would be able to do what they were trying to do and Ubisoft refused to help out with this tiny favour which would help several companies, their own customers and even themselves. The testers would have to put in some money and hours of work into this and Ubisoft, Nvidia and AMD would then get these important test results for free. How is this about protecting your goods? How is it protecting your goods when you make your customers hate your game because there's so many issues involved in playing and installing it? How can you say a company that downright insults its PC customers by calling them all pirates is smart? Ubisoft isn't evil, but they certainly know how to insult their fans.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

A little from column A, a little from column B!

 

[M4t3us]

Stupid.

Evil requires a display of at least some intellect.

This, I'll have what he's having!

 

[Maveroid]

They've been releasing games at the worst possible times (Rayman 3 the same month as mw3 and skyrim) [...]

Just as a Rayman fan...
... ITS NOT RAYMAN 3 OFAHjsofjaosfaosjf
If anything it is Rayman 4, but for me its just Rayman M-2.

Ubisoft is awesome, but arrogant I suppose.

 

[El Luck]

Any company who would treat customers like potential criminals is stupid as far as I'm concerned. Its a shame really because there are quite a few games I want to purchase from them.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

They have just teamed up and started to help fund a job creation program for games developers in the Abu Dhabi. An effort to get some of the infrastructure away from oil.

It's called twofour54 and although Ubisoft could have just transferred 24 professionals from their own company to establish a studio there they instead decided to put money into these young people trying to get ahead.

There first game is going to be an indie offering on XBLA or PSN.

So yeah their DRM is pretty draconic but you can't exactly say they are 'evil'