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

[Jacco]

It occurs to me that Ubisoft gets away with a lot of bullshit people riot about when EA tries. Assassins Creed and Far Cry are the two that really come to mind at the moment with their "look at this sign in screen and pay us to use the multiplayer feature!" every time you start the games. Far Cry is especially guilty of this as it won't even let you access anything but the story unless you sign in to that fucking uPlay account or whatever. AC is terrible about that as well.

EA does a lot of stupid things, and they get a lot of justifiable hate (ME3, anyone?) but Ubisoft pulls that crap with EVERY GAME THEY RELEASE and no one really says anything about it.

Why is that? Does Ubisoft get some slack because they generally put out above average games? Or is it that they just aren't as visible and big as EA is?

 

[Racecarlock]

I'd say it's because that ubisoft puts out less condescending rejections of criticism than EA does. Do they still do that? Yeah, but not nearly as much as EA. That's why EA gets more hate.

It's the same thing with console hardware. Both the ps4 and the xbox one have no backwards compatibility, but the Xbox One got way more bad press because not only did it try always online DRM with the console and check ins and forced kinect, but the marketing bosses got all smug and dismissive towards the customers before the company backed out on the policies anyways.

This excuses nobody, however. Executives really need to stop being such morons.

 

[Qvar]

Because everybody loves what EA games would be if they stopped trying to fuck their own consumers every chance they get. Menawhile, nobody cares about Ubisoft.

Well, not me at least.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Nobody cares about secondary and tertiary evils when the primary evil is still rigorously buggering them.

 

[J Tyran]

Ubisoft have always wound me up as a PC gamer, they pulled the always online bullshit before EA and because they fucked up the servers people couldn't play a game they bought. It was exactly the same as Sim Shitty with Assassins Creed 2, Ubisoft have always treated PC gamers like dirt. They basically accused every PC gamer of being a pirate and they still try to pull the wool over our eyes by claiming that their games are well optimised, they are okay for lower end machines but optimisation for high end machines is terrible.

I never "boycotted" Ubisoft games but after Assassins Creed 2 it was a long time before I bought anything by them, it was only after Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon that I started buying Ubisoft games. Then I had to get Far Cry 3 and eventually bought Black Flag.

 

[Vivi22]

Ubisoft are bad, but I've always had the sense that they're bad due to some level of gross incompetence, not evil. Whereas EA is actively evil.

If I wasn't sure of it before, I was as soon as they mentioned always online in Mirror's Edge 2. They've basically say back, watched their Sim City launch and Microsoft's XBone announcement shit the bed in this regard and piss off god only knows how many fans, and yet they're still at it. They still are pushing this stuff and want people to believe it's a good thing. There are no words.

At least Ubisoft kind of learns a lesson now and then and will kind of back off of things like DRM a little bit. But EA sits back, watches several trains jump the tracks, and says they're not going to bother doing things differently because eventually one of the trains will get through.

 

[Cerebrawl]

Another thing of note is that Ubisoft often quite aggressively lowers their prices not long after release, like 6 months and they usually slash the base price in half, or at least to 60% of the old. I expect Assassins Creed 4 to be lowered from ?50 to ?30 base price any time now. Even gamestop bargain bins are usually filled with a year or two old Ubisoft titles for $15 each or 3 for the price of 2.

Far Cry 3 launched at what price? ?40? It's ?20 on steam now, has been for quite a while, base price, before discounts.

 

[Delerien]

Also at least for Anno 2070 they actually removed the always online DRM before they launched the game.
See http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-scrapping-always-on-drm-for-pc-games/

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I have nothing against Ubisoft. I grew up on Rayman and Prince of Persia, I like Assassins Creed I, II & IV and Fary Cry looks good. I've never been aggravated by this uPlay thing, and I don't think they've flaunted themselves that badly the way EA did with that bullshit "your mom hates Dead Space" campaign, or the fact that it destroyed one of my favorite gaming dev studios, Pandemic.

 

[lvramire]

I'm not the most knowledgeable person about this, but I think it's sometimes mentioned that EA buys game studios/devs, brainwashes and/or "guides" them into going their direction, then proceeds to ruin those game franchises for anyone who's played the previous games (Sim City, main Sim's DLC-practice, Bioware etc.)

I don't think Ubisoft does that?

 

[veloper]

Ubi does get flak for their DRM, don't worry.
They also got bashed for some anti-PC attitudes in the past.

It's just that EA does DRM and so much more.

Usually EA, Ubi and Activision make the top 3 list of gamer grievances.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Ubisoft are bad, but I've always had the sense that they're bad due to some level of gross incompetence, not evil. Whereas EA is actively evil.

If I wasn't sure of it before, I was as soon as they mentioned always online in Mirror's Edge 2. They've basically say back, watched their Sim City launch and Microsoft's XBone announcement shit the bed in this regard and piss off god only knows how many fans, and yet they're still at it. They still are pushing this stuff and want people to believe it's a good thing. There are no words.

Basically this. EA is the worst gaming company in the world. Ubisoft is merely awful. EA do EVERYTHING wrong, they go OUT OF THEIR WAY to do everything wrong and because they're so big and because their goddamn games make so much money they're dragging the industry down to their level.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Because as many stupid mistakes ubisoft make I've never gotten the impression that they've made their mission statement to fuck everyone over as quickly and viciously as possible.

Whatever fuck ups they have feel more like incompetence or just not knowing why people don't like what their doing, while ea feels like their trying to beat you into submission and are quite pleased that people are bitching because it means their being as medieval with their policies as they hope they are.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

It's not as public. EA, last I checked, still says idiotic things all the time in some way or another. Ubisoft is probably right to stay away from the spotlight.

That said, I personally hold it pretty low regard as well, so it's not like it gets away with it.

 

[Andrew_C]

They were starting to do so when they introduced UPlay and EA were having a brief moment of sanity, but than EA did something stupid again and redirected the vitriol back their way.

 

[Neonsilver]

One evil after another, once EA is dealt with the next company gets the same treatment.

EA is just so bad it makes other companies look good in comparison.
I have a theory, the guys at EA get payed from the other companies to be so bad, this way it's easier for them to do their evil stuff.

 

[Naqel]

Say what you will about Assassins Creed getting milked, but Ubi treats their franchises with respect.
That's already something they got over EA.

It comes down to Ubi not being nearly as horrible at what they do as EA.
Not to mention that when they screw up, they just screw up themselves, while EA screws up the medium as a whole, and whatever studios they happen to be exploiting at the moment.

 

[Playful Pony]

Muh, they do from me at least. EA and Ubi are currently the only publishers on my "do not buy" list. This is not a boycot think mind, I just don't feel like supporting those companies by buying their products. I may make exceptions if they put out something truly great and worthy of my money and time. Not that they have since I put them on that list...

 

[softclocks]

Ubisoft manages to release some OK games at least.

The whole server-business in Assassin's Creed was unforgivable though.

 

[razer17]

Because EA is pure evil. They burn down rainforests, leak oil into the oceans, and I hear they're trying to clone Hitler. And that's why EA are worse than Ubisoft.