opinion: With The Division: Resurgence, Ubisoft announces another mobile game, it hails dislikes on YouTube, but the problem is bigger.
Actually, Ubisoft is doing it right. Mobile games are still hotter than (Hot Wings on YouTube), the community feedback on Rainbow Six Mobile was also very favourable – and then of course there’s Diablo Immortal, which according to initial figures is successful like the last time … the first moon landing or something. And that despite all the shitstorms from the community.
That’s why Ubisoft can’t really care that the trailer for The Division: Resurgence is overwhelmed with dislikes in droves (14,000 dislikes with 2,000 likes), just like the (gameplay reveal for Skull & Bones) by the way. Dislikes are only seen by people with the appropriate browser plugin anyway (and only their dislikes are evaluated by the plugin):
But you’ve probably heard this enough in the last few weeks: mobile games with a purse fetish are going through the roof despite our criticism, publishers couldn’t care less about the feedback of old fans, I don’t want to go through this again at all. Ubisoft can continue like this without any problems, announce one Hyperscape, Ghost Recon Frontline or XDefiant after the other, collect dislikes, gather feedback and then run after the next trend sow through the village.
This will not be reflected in the numbers. But Ubisoft is putting at risk the very thing that makes Ubisoft games unique in my eyes – and that will have an impact. In one way or another. Because in the same breath, the next bad news for long-time fans like me is announced: Assassin’s Creed Liberation could soon simply disappear from my Steam library.
And that can’t be the right way.
From Paul to Saul?
This hardly shines through these days because I’m often very critical, but Ubisoft is my favourite publisher. So I’m talking about the games, not all the fuckups behind the scenes. Ubisoft games have always made me dream – and yes, that also has something to do with a rather random childlike imprinting, because Ubisoft’s Hype: The Time Quest and Donald Duck: Quack Attack just happened to be my first PC games. And kids are known to get excited about any nonsense, otherwise there would be no Paw Patrol.
But I want to get straight to the point: there are reasons why the intro of Hype still sends a shiver down my spine 20 years later, while Hell Copter (my first PC game from Computer Bild Spiele) leaves me pretty cold. Ubisoft games always had that certain something.
See also Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which moves you like a good Disney animated film, even moving you to tears in its best moments. Splinter Cell was instrumental in getting me excited about stealth games, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six were the co-op shooters at LAN parties – and then came Assassin’s Creed. For a history buff and open-world disciple, Assassin’s Creed back then was like chips with mayo and edible peel: perfect all round.
Also not in terms of gameplay. Game mechanically, Ubisoft games always suffer from quirks, sameness, repetitive ideas and so on … but I’ve always bought their ambition when I suddenly find myself strolling through the Stone Age in Far Cry Primal or exploring revolutionary Paris as an open world for the first time ever in Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Assassin’s Creed made me dream and moved me so much that I even wrote my bachelor thesis about how much Assassin’s Creed makes people dream and moves them – and what games and we as a culture can learn from it. If that doesn’t mean something.
As I said, with a critical lens I also find heaps of flaws in Ubisoft’s line-up that stretch into the 2000s, sure. But even the most energetic Ubisoft formula could never take away my anticipation of what historical setting the next Assassin’s Creed might tackle.
And that anticipation is disappearing in me right now.
How to deal with brands?
What is the dream behind The Division: Resurgence? Sure, The Division is supposed to be ported to mobile, certainly not an easy task. But Ubisoft has followed so many trends in the last few years in such a one-track manner with pipe-crawlers like XDefiant, Ghost Recon Frontline, Hyperscape and co. that it makes me cynical and bitter as a fan. I see the goal of The Division: Resurgence: to conquer the mobile market, to build a functioning service game. But I no longer recognise a real, ambitious dream.
XDefiant is the best example. First the trailer caused quite a lot of headwind, then the game disappeared into oblivion and only briefly resurfaced when Ubisoft removed the Tom Clancy’s from the name. Sure, on the one hand you react to feedback here, cool, on the other hand such a manoeuvre doesn’t necessarily convince you that behind the original idea there were many … ideas were behind the original idea. And now there are always little test sessions behind closed doors, as if Ubisoft had to test on the customer what kind of game they actually want to develop there.
May not all be like that in reality, but in the end, brands are also about impact. And what value these brands have, especially among long-time fans, is important!
As a long-time fan of these brands, what I’m witnessing are mobile and Free2Play experiments trimmed to market efficiency on the one hand and bad news like the shutdown of numerous Ubisoft games on the other. I will soon no longer be able to play Splinter Cell 6 in co-op, Assassin’s Creed Liberation may be taken away from its owners completely. There is clear feedback in the Steam reviews for Liberation:
And there’s a mere glimmer of Skull & Bones on the blockbuster horizon, which completely drops its trousers at the very first gameplay reveal of how formulaically it has timed its service game plan (which is not to say I’m not looking forward to it at all).
Ubisoft can’t underestimate how important genuine apostles of its own brands are. People who tell all their friends how cool Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and co. can be. Who press their fingers into the back of their chairs because the remake of Sands of Time is finally coming out tomorrow! Because if many of the experiments fall through – and the risk is always high with experiments – then you as a publisher will only have the old fans left. And they won’t hold your hand if you’ve left them on the sidelines for years.
Improvement in sight?
I think things will get better. The pandemic is rocking the whole industry in the background, we’ll see the biggest impact of all the emergency changeovers in 2022. And Ubisoft, like all big publishers, can’t react to bad decisions in five days – you turn a big barge like that over months of work. And I’m optimistic that we’ll notice that in 2023.
After all, I’m supposed to get my remake for Splinter Cell. And Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is also in development. Rainbow Six: Siege and For Honor, meanwhile, are still getting very cool updates – and I don’t want to throw in the towel just yet that Assassin’s Creed Infinity could also become a really ambitious Assassin’s Creed of the future, despite the announced live service quirks.
But until the barge is sailing in the right direction again, Ubi should still think about what they can do for old fans like me. Not shutting down Splinter Cell 6 and letting owners have their Assassin’s Creed Liberation would be a start.
