Ubisoft vs EA. -Or- The Evil of Two Lessers.

MarsProbe

Circuitboard Seahorse
Dec 13, 2008
2,372
0
0
I don't have much love for Ubisoft at the moment. This is just coming from trading in the follow up to one of my favourite games of 2012 (Far Cry 3). If I'm unable to "connect" to my singleplayer game session while playing on the offline mode, something has gone seriously wrong. Oh, and well done Ubisoft for managing to completely put me off what was at one point in time my favourite gaming franchise. I don't even know what Assassin's Creed is anymore, but it's definitely not the same franchise I enjoyed before the "game a year" effect took hold. Or two games, if you're feeling predictably bold.
 

Signa

Noisy Lurker
Legacy
Jul 16, 2008
4,749
6
43
Country
USA
EA's sins are far to deep and numerous. Ubisoft has been fucking up BAAAAADLY, but it's not the same, by a wide margin.
 

Duster

New member
Jul 15, 2014
192
0
0
Ubi is going down, but ea isn't improving at all and ubi has a long ways to go until it reaches EA levels. It is possible to argue that EA are doing the worst they ever have. I don't see any way to excuse the desecration of the dungeon keeper IP.

As for activision blizzard, at least they are rationally evil and intend to provide at least basic goods in exchange for services. I can't hate them as much as I used too.
 

loa

New member
Jan 28, 2012
1,716
0
0
EA killed dungeon keeper and command & conquer and then did unspeakable acts with the corpses.
At least ubisoft actually makes games whereas EA is just a big fat parasite.
 

DarkhoIlow

New member
Dec 31, 2009
2,531
0
0
Ubisoft because they don't give two shits about PC gamers...EA on the other hand (aside from the Sim City 4 and BF4 debacle) the rest of their published games on PC they have been very good.
 

Fox12

AccursedT- see you space cowboy
Jun 6, 2013
4,828
0
0
Meh. So EA hasn't fucked up in the last few weeks. That doesn't really change my opinion too much. They're both terrible as far as I'm concerned, and arguing which is worse is just arguing semantics.

I don't think EA's done anything to earn back good will.
 

Rozalia1

New member
Mar 1, 2014
1,095
0
0
DarkhoIlow said:
Ubisoft because they don't give two shits about PC gamers...EA on the other hand (aside from the Sim City 4 and BF4 debacle) the rest of their published games on PC they have been very good.
Why would that matter when deciding which is the bigger heel?

Ubisoft's words towards PC gamers is akin to the American heel who when performing in a state near the border to Mexico talks about how Mexicans are ruining America. Offensive, usually racist sure... but is that really at the top of the heel bar?
There are other heels who don't pull the whole insulting thing, but instead have gimmicks where they purposely try to injure their opponents, and some in story have even killed guys.

To put people to those examples:

JBL would be the American heel who says a bunch of offensive things about Mexicans, but physically his most heinous act was "defending" America by beating up illegal Mexican immigrants trying to get across the border. A bad man to be sure, however...
Is he a badder heel than Heel Undertaker who in story has murders to his name (Father, Mother, Paul Bearer, Muhammad Hassan), and several counts of attempted murder (Jeff Hardy, Big Boss Man, Steve Austin, Big Show)?

As someone else said EA has "murders" to their name which I think outweighs some offensive words in the grand scheme of things.
 

CannibalCorpses

New member
Aug 21, 2011
987
0
0
It's like asking me what i want for dinner...dog shit or cat shit? I'd rather go hungry if it's all the same to you...
 

Emcee_N

New member
Oct 15, 2014
29
0
0
Ubi for now, but only because they appear to be actively trying to get off-side with literally every developer in France.
 

veloper

New member
Jan 20, 2009
4,597
0
0
Ubisoft, but only because I haven't been interested in buying EA games for years anyway. Ubi do have interesting games, but those are marred by mandatory U-play, which can sometimes take ages to update, before you're finally allowed to play the game.
EA float on bioware, battlefield, the sims and EA sports. No loss and therefore no need to bother with Origin.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,465
3,005
118
TheKasp said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
I'm not sure where Ubisoft got its bad rep. I remember a lot of backlash against Uplay and some silly DRM maneuvers but that's it. So Watch_Dogs was overhyped, and Assassin's Creed: Unity doesn't have the skins you want for multiplayer. Big fucking deal.
Are you by any chance a PC gamer? Because I'm gonna be honest: If I weren't I would not have as much beef with Ubisoft as I have now.
I'm not. Haven't personally had any bad experience with Ubisoft. I just assumed most people want to be pissed because Watch_Dogs was so marketed and AC Unity didn't have female multiplayer skins.
 

Idsertian

Member
Legacy
Apr 8, 2011
513
0
1
Johnny Novgorod said:
Assassin's Creed: Unity doesn't have the skins
I would say that's actually quite accurate.


OT: Ubisoft, by a mile. For the moment, at least, EA seem to be trying to keep their head down, and when they do make a mistake, they have the good grace to stand there, staring at the floor, shuffling their feet and looking shamefaced. I'm willing to give EA a chance and extend an olive branch, based purely on the fact that they at least seem to be trying to make up for their past behaviour and not be so shit any more.

That's not to say they aren't guilty of still making the same mistakes, just look at Titanfall's DLC, for example, or the clusterfuck that is The Sims 4, but at least they're trying, and I will always respect that.

Ubisoft, on the other hand, can go take a flying fuck at a doughnut, for all I care right now. Their latest batch of lazy, offensive and downright insulting PR spewing from their arseholes, as well as their constant price-gouging, has caused whatever good will I might have had for them to fly out the window.

£60+ they want for Far Cry 4, and not the retail version, either. Digital distribution through places like Origin. I'm sorry, but for a game with little to no overhead in sale, that is disgustingly over-priced. I balk at paying that much for a retail copy of a special edition (though I have done it), never mind something that has no physical presence! £20 would be a more reasonable price. £30, at an absolute most, and for that price, it better either have some of the best extra content in the world, or be suitably large enough to justify the cost.

Again, not to say EA is innocent of this, but Ubi seem to be really bad for it lately. Remember The Stick of Truth? Yeah, £40 for that. Not once has it appeared on sale (to my knowledge).

tl;dr: Ubi drools, EA drools less.
 

Trinab

New member
Feb 1, 2013
67
0
0
EA is evil, Ubisoft is incompetent.

EA just keeps churning along, doing its quiet brand of oppression, while Ubisoft stumbles around drunk, yelling loudly and embarrassing itself. Ubisoft will either sober up and be humiliated by it's drunken antics, or descend further into an angry narcotic oblivion.
 

V da Mighty Taco

New member
Apr 9, 2011
890
0
0
This'll be a fun one. Let's begin:

EA has by far the bigger, more infamous legacy. Nobody in this industry is more synonymous with the idea of buying a beloved studio and franchise, homogenizing said franchise and ruining whatever made the franchise popular in the first place, running it and the studio into the ground within a couple years, then closing down the studio permanently and sitting on the franchise for roughly a decade until they revive it in the worst way possible. EA also makes what are generally considered to be significantly worse games than Ubisoft, with games like Blood Dragon being something that EA doesn't seem willing to make. Lastly, EA pretty much created the yearly sequel with it's sports franchises, which is a major problem in this industry that affects all gamers from all platforms - not just PC users.

Ubisoft, on the other hand, has a serious case of Don Mattrick syndrome lately, where someone from there just has to open their mouth and say the worst possible thing that they can think of at the worst possible time. They've also been releasing some terribly dysfunctional games lately with bugs and performance issues on par with or even surpassing pre-patch Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol, but without the loyal cult fanbase or genuinely good gameplay to back them up and make it more forgivable. EA has been keeping to themselves lately, refusing to bring any more heat on them after the BF4 fiasco. However, Ubi just keeps trucking along and actively inciting people these past six months, which keeps those fires a burnin'. Lastly, while not affecting the majority of gamers, Ubisoft's straight-up contempt for PC gamers both in the past and to a lesser extent the present is something that won't be soon forgotten. Uplay is the biggest reason for this these days (though they had far worse against them a couple years back), with it being widely considered to be a dysfunctional piece of crap and all-around a worse digital distribution platform DRM than either EA's Origin or Valve's Steam. Uplay's presence on consoles isn't helping matters in the slightest either.

Now as to who is overall worse, it depends how you look at it. EA is still the much worse company in general, but Ubisoft has been the worse company lately. Not even Activision can quite match the negative impacts that EA has had on the entire game's industry during the past decade, but EA's been smart enough to keep their heads down for now and haven't really made a full-on broken game since late last year, whereas Ubisoft has been loud, proud, and releasing tattered mess after tattered mess throughout the past year. I certainly wouldn't say that it's enough to overcome all that EA has done and likely will do again in the future, but it does make Ubisoft's indiscretions far more noticeable and memorable atm. EA is at least looking like they're trying to get better and improve themselves (whether or not they actually are remains to be seen), which is something that cannot be said for Ubisoft right now.

Captcha: "squeaky clean" Captcha is full of shit.
 

Rozalia1

New member
Mar 1, 2014
1,095
0
0
Idsertian said:
OT: Ubisoft, by a mile. For the moment, at least, EA seem to be trying to keep their head down, and when they do make a mistake, they have the good grace to stand there, staring at the floor, shuffling their feet and looking shamefaced. I'm willing to give EA a chance and extend an olive branch, based purely on the fact that they at least seem to be trying to make up for their past behaviour and not be so shit any more.

That's not to say they aren't guilty of still making the same mistakes, just look at Titanfall's DLC, for example, or the clusterfuck that is The Sims 4, but at least they're trying, and I will always respect that.
... It doesn't work like that. Here I'll regale you with a story to show how it works.

There once was a Mexican aristocrat who was most proud and rich, he'd arrive in flash cars, he'd talk about how great he was, and he'd even have a personal announcer to announce his coming appearance and coming deeds... one day after slowly losing everything that made him who he was he obtained the fabled "wheel of aggression" and he became most aggressive and it showed. His armbar was infused with the powers of the wheel and he would week after week punish the meek and not let go...except when he did...which was merely so he could cruelly apply it once more to show the aggression he now possessed.

However even with the new powers of heeldom bestowed upon him he still could not defeat his nemesis... the man known only as "Fella", and so every month as if on cue for pay-per-views the now aggressive aristocrat was blasted into retreat by his nemesis in each such encounter.
He would than in anger punish the meek with his armbar of aggression, but when that familiar time came he would once again be made to retreat in shame. This repeated...and repeated... at first amusing, than most abusing.
Even the people who despised the aristocrat came to want him to be saved from the curse of aggression and every now and than... there would be lull where his aggression was seemingly null... the people rejoiced that perhaps this meant the hold of the wheel was going away... but than he would the next week after its supposed decay show that his aggression was not yet at bay.

The Mexican aristocrat is gone now, but some say the wheel of aggression is still out there somewhere looking for its next host to possess.

... ... ...

Basically the moral of the story is just because the heel hasn't locked you in their armbar this week doesn't mean they've stopped or have any plans of stopping slapping armbars on you. Basic life lesson.
 

Prince of Ales

New member
Nov 5, 2014
85
0
0
I'm a bit concerned about this obsession with PR, to be honest. I hate the thought that actual developers have something to say and they're hidden behind this row of specialists who're going to scrutinise just how their comments sound to the wrong people. 1) that's a shit load of money spent on fuck all, 2) it's an obstacle to the developer/gamer interaction which I happen to like. It's kind of like politics. Do you know the reason politicians always dodge real questions and just tow the party-line all the time? It's because the moment they say something unrehearsed they get scrutinised to shit about the stupidest little wordings. Do you really want that in gaming? Do you want devs to not be allowed to speak their mind?

O/T: Can't think either company are actually evil. They're both more big lumbering obvlivious giants than anything more sinister. Still, worst Ubisoft have done is make shit games. EA have destroyed (or swallowed) whole development companies. Even with recent turns, EA are still the company with the darker history.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,465
3,005
118
Let me get this straight, is it all just about PC ports, or do people have another beef against Ubisoft?