Why doesn't Ubisoft get the level of hate that EA does?

[Greg White]

Ubisoft went 7 years without releasing a single game I would play if it were free. Whatever anticonsumer stuff they did in between has no effect on me.

EA in the meantime bought up Bioware, who I love.

EA, however, is ruining BioWare. The Dragon Age 2 thing, that was EA trying to make money off of DA:O. EA is a serial developer killer.

Don't forget a developer corrupter as well.Bioware for example used to enjoy talking to their fans and made quality games, however since they were taken under EA's wing many Bioware employees are condescending,passive agressive and are unwilling to even speak on their own forums.

In their defense, have you seen some of what goes on in their forums?

Saying anything one way or another to some of the people on there would start a flame war and the level of obsession some of these people show is pretty scary.

 

[DoPo]

No selling/trading used games, or even activated but unplayed.

It's not a flaw. It's a feature request. It would be a flaw if it was intended to be there but it isn't.

You have to be online to go offline, and while it lets you stay that way until you exit steam... I've had situations on vacation where I've had to reboot my laptop and suddenly been unable to play my games.

This has been resolved a couple of years ago. It is no longer an issue.

There's also often 3rd party DRM on top of steam being DRM.

Not Steam's fault. Are other game stores to blame that disks have DRM?

Tons of shit being sold at full price despite being in alpha/beta or even pre-alpha states.

Prices are not dictated by Valve - publishers set their prices.

Remember when game testing was free? Yeah me too. Oh and some aren't even labeled early access. You know why Fray(recently relevant on these forums) had 27% metacritic rating? They sold it as a complete game when it was an alpha.

Frey had its servers taken down. Apparently for being shit or something. And that happened over a year ago - the game itself has been on Steam longer than that (even twice, apparently). Are any newer pre-release games not marketed as such? As far as I am aware all Early Access games are categorised as Early Access.

And finally a personal bugbear: the search function is pretty crap, which is a real problem when there's that many games in their library.

What do you mean? Any time I've used it it returns me what I ask for. True, it might use a bit more advanced search terms but as it stands it operates to a satisfactory level - enter a name, it returns you a name. If you want more, it's not a flaw, it's a feature request again.

I don't run into much of the shit personally because I do my research before I buy anything(and I still haven't used my 1 possible refund, in 11 years), but it's still valid points.[/quote]

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's fairly arbitrary, honestly. Ubisoft is just as hostile if not more hostile to PC users, they are just as prone to selling you useless garbage after games come out, they are just as likely to grind franchises into dust and just as unwilling to take interesting risks with their properties. The one and only catch I'd think is that none of their franchises have generated the same amount of love as EA properties have over the years and thus when those franchise inevitably slide into ruin, people are less emotionally invested. Thus why (for example) there wasn't much of an outcry regarding the absolutely silly Assassin's Creed 3.

The secret then is to make games that are good but safe enough that you do not foment frothing fanboyism. Then when you ruin things, people just shrug and move on.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite happy with steam, most of the time. I love the sales, I love the convenience.

But flaws:
No selling/trading used games, or even activated but unplayed.
1 refund in a lifetime for any reason, after that you're screwed unless there's a complete recall(a la WarZ).
You have to be online to go offline, and while it lets you stay that way until you exit steam... I've had situations on vacation where I've had to reboot my laptop and suddenly been unable to play my games.
There's also often 3rd party DRM on top of steam being DRM.
There's poor(no) quality control, lots of shit is getting sold, often on false premises.
Tons of shit being sold at full price despite being in alpha/beta or even pre-alpha states. Remember when game testing was free? Yeah me too. Oh and some aren't even labeled early access. You know why Fray(recently relevant on these forums) had 27% metacritic rating? They sold it as a complete game when it was an alpha.
Developers are allowed to censor criticism of their game on the steam forums as much as they want.
And finally a personal bugbear: the search function is pretty crap, which is a real problem when there's that many games in their library.

I don't run into much of the shit personally because I do my research before I buy anything(and I still haven't used my 1 possible refund, in 11 years), but it's still valid points.

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want


i dont get the hate early access seems to get sometimes, you can always NOT buy an incomplete game, but as DAYZ, Starbound and Rust have proven, theres a market for these things, there people who want to contribute to a game's development or play early

you and i dont fall within that group but i dont think thats a reason to diss the system, theres some good to be had from it, for both the devs and the customers, is not an inherently bad system designed from the ground up to exploit customers

 

[Cerebrawl]

No selling/trading used games, or even activated but unplayed.

It's not a flaw. It's a feature request. It would be a flaw if it was intended to be there but it isn't.

You're not seriously going with the old "it's not a flaw it's a feature" unironically are you? Also this one is on shaky legal grounds here in the EU by which I mean it's against EU law.

You have to be online to go offline, and while it lets you stay that way until you exit steam... I've had situations on vacation where I've had to reboot my laptop and suddenly been unable to play my games.

This has been resolved a couple of years ago. It is no longer an issue.

Strange that I had this on my last vacation. April 2013. Or maybe you're not being entirely truthful.

Tons of shit being sold at full price despite being in alpha/beta or even pre-alpha states.

Prices are not dictated by Valve - publishers set their prices.

Let me rephrase: Valve is letting them put unfinished games up on their storefront with absolutely zero quality control.

Remember when game testing was free? Yeah me too. Oh and some aren't even labeled early access. You know why Fray(recently relevant on these forums) had 27% metacritic rating? They sold it as a complete game when it was an alpha.

Frey had its servers taken down. Apparently for being shit or something. And that happened over a year ago - the game itself has been on Steam longer than that (even twice, apparently). Are any newer pre-release games not marketed as such? As far as I am aware all Early Access games are categorised as Early Access.

Fray was released as a finished product when it was in alpha. This was before there was such a thing as an early access program on steam. I know because it was a game I was interested in and almost bought. But it's not always that they use the early access system, I think Jim had one on his channel recently that had beta in the title and wasn't early access. Some early access games won't be finished either, there was(is) a pretty interesting but buggy roguelike that's in there that the developers have basically cut and run with, no more updates. I forget what it's called.

And finally a personal bugbear: the search function is pretty crap, which is a real problem when there's that many games in their library.

What do you mean? Any time I've used it it returns me what I ask for. True, it might use a bit more advanced search terms but as it stands it operates to a satisfactory level - enter a name, it returns you a name. If you want more, it's not a flaw, it's a feature request again.

Yeah I want to be able to do more advanced searching, again, this is a personal bugbear. For starters I'd like to be able to exclude DLC, because page upon page of DLC from certain games is a hassle to wade through.

 

[Cerebrawl]

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

 

[hermes]

To tell you the truth, its because no one cares about Ubisoft. Outside of Assassins Creed and the odd game here and there, they really don't have enough properties that people care about.

They have done some bad things over the years: Online DRM for single player games, poor consumer's opinion (the whole "PC gamers are pirates by default"), milking franchises to death (Assassins Creed), single player content sold as DLC (again, Assassins Creed), having to register to their own service to access content (UPlay), etc. Most of them were done before even EA tried it, but people seems to forget them more often because they simply don't care about it.

For example, if you thought ME3 ending was terrible, you should have seen AC3 ending. From a gameplay perspective, it was broken; from a storyline perspective, it was preachy, pretentious, came out of nowhere, contradicted the rest of the story and made no sense... but since, apparently, no one cares about the franchise story, no one gave them flack for it.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

well thats weird because i have loged in from my brothers laptop countless times without any internet connection, from college and during a blackout, so yeah, 0 internet access


try loging in without a connection right now

 

[DoPo]

No selling/trading used games, or even activated but unplayed.

It's not a flaw. It's a feature request. It would be a flaw if it was intended to be there but it isn't.

You're not seriously going with the old "it's not a flaw it's a feature" unironically are you? Also this one is on shaky legal grounds here in the EU by which I mean it's against EU law.

Apparently not according to Germany [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132104-Valve-Triumphs-Over-German-Consumer-Group]. And no I am not saying "it's not a flaw it's a feature" I am instead saying it's a feature request which is distinct thing from a feature.

As an aside, I would also like to tell you from first hand experience that "not a bug but a feature" is often times a very legitimate response to user submitted bugs. I would not wish it upon you to experience these first hand as they are quite frustrating.

You have to be online to go offline, and while it lets you stay that way until you exit steam... I've had situations on vacation where I've had to reboot my laptop and suddenly been unable to play my games.

This has been resolved a couple of years ago. It is no longer an issue.

Strange that I had this on my last vacation. April 2013. Or maybe you're not being entirely truthful.

I would suggest trying again and reporting back what the results are.

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

If I recall correctly, at the time the saved credentials were valid over a power cycle as opposed to not working at all. That or maybe you had to close down Steam before power cycling and you could use them after the next boot, however that may have been something later on. At this time and over the past half a year, at the very least (it's actually more but I cannot confirm how much is the guaranteed time I've seen it), booting Steam if you have no Internet connection would start it in Offline mode.

Tons of shit being sold at full price despite being in alpha/beta or even pre-alpha states.

Prices are not dictated by Valve - publishers set their prices.

Let me rephrase: Valve is letting them put unfinished games up on their storefront with absolutely zero quality control.

Yet Valve are doing something about it. They are going to ditch Greenlight [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131366-Gabe-Newell-Our-Goal-Is-To-Make-Greenlight-Go-Away] which has been source of many problems, and they have also added community reviews and tags on the game page. While that is not the same as checking everything themselves, these are steps towards informing the users of what they are looking at.

Remember when game testing was free? Yeah me too. Oh and some aren't even labeled early access. You know why Fray(recently relevant on these forums) had 27% metacritic rating? They sold it as a complete game when it was an alpha.

Frey had its servers taken down. Apparently for being shit or something. And that happened over a year ago - the game itself has been on Steam longer than that (even twice, apparently). Are any newer pre-release games not marketed as such? As far as I am aware all Early Access games are categorised as Early Access.

Fray was released as a finished product when it was in alpha. This was before there was such a thing as an early access program on steam. I know because it was a game I was interested in and almost bought. But it's not always that they use the early access system, I think Jim had one on his channel recently that had beta in the title and wasn't early access. Some early access games won't be finished either, there was(is) a pretty interesting but buggy roguelike that's in there that the developers have basically cut and run with, no more updates. I forget what it's called.[/quote]

You should note I pointed out how long this happened and asked you to provide more recent examples.

And finally a personal bugbear: the search function is pretty crap, which is a real problem when there's that many games in their library.

What do you mean? Any time I've used it it returns me what I ask for. True, it might use a bit more advanced search terms but as it stands it operates to a satisfactory level - enter a name, it returns you a name. If you want more, it's not a flaw, it's a feature request again.

Yeah I want to be able to do more advanced searching, again, this is a personal bugbear. For starters I'd like to be able to exclude DLC, because page upon page of DLC from certain games is a hassle to wade through.

1. Then, as I said, it's a feature request, not a flaw with the system in that case.
2. In fact it's not even that, as you are literally complaining about a feature that has existed for quite a while. You can select "Games" rather than "All items" in the dropdown like so [http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Price&sort_order=ASC&category1=998&price=0%2C2].

And there you go - "not a bug, it's a feature". Thank you for providing an example that those exist and are used unironically.

 

[JediMB]

Ubisoft are terrible. No denying that.

The only Ubisoft-published game I've purchased in ages is South Park, though. And that's just because it was made by Obsidian. Besides that one exception, I'm on an Ubisoft boycott.

 

[cdemares]

Because signing into an unnecessary service is not what people hate about EA.
Ubisoft is also smarter, communicates less insultingly, makes fewer excuses that blame consumers.
They also don't ruin their own IPs or shoehorn free-to-play monetization schemes into everything.
I actually like Ubisoft. They're okay. They're not heroes, but they're okay.

Yes, they annualized Assassin's Creed. But the whole purpose of that series is to prevent a hostile takeover by Activision or EA. Seriously, I think that is the entire point of Assassin's Creed, so I'm okay with it for that reason.

 

[Cerebrawl]

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

well thats weird because i have loged in from my brothers laptop countless times without any internet connection, from college and during a blackout, so yeah, 0 internet access


try loging in without a connection right now

Let's see... laptop is logged into steam. *reboots*.

Unable to connect to the Steam network. 'Offline
Mode' is unavailable because there is no Steam
login information stored on this computer.

You will not be able to use Steam until you can
connect to the Steam network again.

Click here to check the status of the Steam network
(OK)

 

[Ravinoff]

EA are basically the gaming equivalent of those megacorporations like Cerberus Capital (if you know guns, you know what I mean, if not, basically think of a gigantic "investment group" who bought up a shitload of famous brands and totally ruined them). They find quality developers, buy them out (forcefully), and then loot the remains like a raid party on an dungeon boss. They're a bunch of "businessmen" who happen to see making games as profitable.

Ubisoft are more like your clueless underdog. The top-level empty suits make stupid decisions and don't know when to keep their mouths shut, but the rank-and-file devs for the most part just want to make good games.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

well thats weird because i have loged in from my brothers laptop countless times without any internet connection, from college and during a blackout, so yeah, 0 internet access


try loging in without a connection right now

Let's see... laptop is logged into steam. *reboots*.

Unable to connect to the Steam network. 'Offline
Mode' is unavailable because there is no Steam
login information stored on this computer.

You will not be able to use Steam until you can
connect to the Steam network again.

Click here to check the status of the Steam network
(OK)

welp, check that shit out dude, that aint normal, ask support

Because they make awesome games?
Far Cry 3 and AC 4 were some of the best games of last gen.
Rayman Origins and Legends were (for me) the best Jump´n runs since Mario 64.
EA on the other hand destroys every studio it gets in contact with and just puts out sequel (FIFA) after sequel (Battlefield) after sequel (NFS). And even they seem to get worse every new installment (see Dead Space).

So yeah, I really like Ubisoft. Sure they fuck up, once in a while, but that seems to be more the kind of stupid mistake than evil masterplan.
I am looking forward for Valiant Hearts and Child of light.

this, ubisoft is more clueless or dumb than legitimately evil and i could swallow their mistakes more easily as just human error


not EA, they seem to go out of their way to piss off pretty much everyone, devs by closing down studios (rest in peace pandemic, sweet prince) and raping existing franchises beyond recognition (dungeon keeper, syndicate, dead space, sim city), and customers via their intrusive DRM (Origin is in fact arguably the least awful in this regard, remember securom in spore?), sequel annualization (medal of honor/battlefield cycle, their sport titles), pay to win F2P games (all "free" to play battlefield games, dungeon keeper), microtransacions in FULL PRICE RELEASES (Dead Space 3), broken games on release (BF4, Sim City), as well as the usual bullshit like worthless DLC and season passes

then they hide all this asshole behaviour behind some completely disgusting PR lies

arguably the only people these guys arent hell bent on pissing off are their shareholders

 

[Someone Depressing]

Despite the horrible programming, marketing decisions and bullshit EA plays, their games are actually good, if you just shoved all of that shit aside.

Ubisoft, on the other hand... I think Blood dragon was good.. Scott Pilgrim was ok, not as good as Castle Crashers... wait, did CC come out after that... I don't know and honestly I couldn't care much less, um... shit. I don't know. Oh, yeah, Rayman: Origins or whatever was good...

Honestly, it's a case of talent being crushed by executies and CEOs being completely asswipes and releasing the same thing with a tweak here and there (AND A NEW GUN!) again every year.

 

[Rariow]

Because Ubisoft doesn't buy much-beloved developers and run them into the ground, like Bullfrog or BioWare. Their DLC, whilst present in most games, tends to be stuff like the multiplayer mode to Far Cry or Assassin's Creed, not part of the core game experience, and, let's be frank, no one really gives much of a shit about it. Meanwhile, EA gates off story-critical content in BioWare games, makes you pay to add stuff to your city in SimCity that was available in previous games for free, and tacks on a multiplayer component to Dead Space 3 because we all know there's nothing scarier than talking with your mates.

Plus, Ubisoft actually shows some balls when it comes to taking risks. It might be hard to remember now, but Assassin's Creed was a really weird idea at the time the first one came out. Watch Dogs is a really intriguing idea, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was bonkers, and bringing back Rayman at such a level of quality was a real risk for Ubisoft. Meanwhile, you've got EA making BioWare put an awesome button into Dragon Age 2, making Battlefield more like CoD and less like Battlefield with every installment, and "broadening appeal" for pretty much every bland piece of tosh they put out.

In short, Ubisoft is both less intrusive in their business practices and more interesting in their game-making than EA is.

 

[DoPo]

this was a bug that was fixed ages ago, you can now go offline at any time, i think the only requirement is having steam installed and have been logged on atleast once in a particular PC in the past, then you can play offline any time you want

I actually ran into this on my last vacation, april 2013. As long as I didn't reboot my computer after the most recent login to steam it lets me go offline mode(I can put the laptop in hibernate and start it up again too, no problem), but if I reboot, then steam specifically tells me that it no longer has my login information and won't let me in, even in offline mode.

well thats weird because i have loged in from my brothers laptop countless times without any internet connection, from college and during a blackout, so yeah, 0 internet access


try loging in without a connection right now

Let's see... laptop is logged into steam. *reboots*.

Unable to connect to the Steam network. 'Offline
Mode' is unavailable because there is no Steam
login information stored on this computer.

You will not be able to use Steam until you can
connect to the Steam network again.

Click here to check the status of the Steam network
(OK)

Weird, here is what happened to me

Spoiler: PC boots with no connection

[http://i.imgur.com/eeBcmC9.png]

Steam was logged in and running, I killed the connection, ensured it won't come back on with the OS, then I hit restart

Spoiler: Steam starts and detects no connection

[http://i.imgur.com/UmvUQtH.png]

Spoiler: Clicking "Start in offline mode" works

[http://i.imgur.com/ljhrK2h.png]

And this has happened for a long while.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

So no one is pissed at Warner Bros not fixing a game they put out to instead sell DLC and make more money.

 

[EXos]

I know what I said...

But they will make you rich when they purchase it. So sell your babies and start a new company.

But... I love my babies!!!

So many IP's are wasting away in EA's vaults of EVIL...

Ubisoft isn't evil.. After the server debacle of AC2 they gave out free DLC as an apology.
I had the collector's edition so I already had them so they offered me a free game. I got Hawx which at the time was still a ?30,- game. Case and point.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Because they're nowhere near as bad.

The biggest problem I've seen people have with them is uPlay (and the Watch Dogs debacle, which I don't think is as big a deal as the rest of the internet seems to think and will likely be forgotten soon), but they've apparently decided to stop doing that [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/31/ubisoft-cans-uplay-passport-for-all-future-games-starting-with/] and they got rid of their always-online DRM back in 2012 so whatever.

Really, I don't have any problems with them, they might milk Assassin's Creed, but they take more risks (Rayman, Child of Light, Blood Dragon) than most other major publishers so it kinda balances out in the end.

Even though they definitely do milk AC a bit, AC4 was easily the best game of the series to date (in my opinion) and they're still doing unique things with it.

Personally I don't have a huge problem with uplay or origin. Both are a bit inconvenient. I do kind of like that uplay rewards you for getting achievements with in game unlockables. Generally there are enough achievement points in a game to get everything you'd want in that game and have some still left over so you can unlock some cool in game stuff early on if you have a reservoir of them like i do. Kind of makes up for the couple minute hassle it puts you through the first time you start the game and the slightly obnoxious uplay client.

For me the biggest difference is that EA sells you unfinished shit. Not to say Ubi doesn't have quite a bit of downloadable content but it doesn't feel like they're cutting out pieces of the game or putting pay walls up the way EA does. I played through every Ubisoft game I own without buying any of the DLC (save for blood dragon, which is pretty much its own game) and every single game still felt complete. In EA games right from the get-go you feel like (or are straight up told) part of your game isn't there.