UbiShaft

[Raven]

I still buy triple A titles now and again, I will certainly be buying GTA5 on release day (couple of days before actually for pre-load) but yeah I somewhat agree, the amount I buy is getting smaller and smaller. Generally I get more fun out of small indi games these days.

Devs and publishers just aim for the lowest possible platform, console. Empty, soulless games with lazy graphics. I have a beast of a machine and I am growing bored of crappy old last gen nonsense being released by the big publishers.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Few key points on your post @Gwadien ;

Developers don't always have a choice, they either go with a publisher or they go bankrupt. Game companies as a whole often work from project to project, excluding big names like rockstar, where they have to get any deal to pay salaries and actually produce content.

Second, as i said, first three months are to get back the money they put into games. I don't see Rowling asking £40 per game, but i don't see Rowling writing a book costing millions either.

Also authors having more ethics/morality? Please. Developers work on a salary and get nothing from the sales outside what the publisher pays them and what the publisher pays them goes almost to the dime into making the game(again, salaries, office costs, etc). Last game project i was involved in was a product that cost somewhere around 5-10 million,m the company made 200k profit on it.

Also, i've never seen a game cost more the more popular it becomes.

 

[Raven]

World of Warcraft.

 

[BloodOmen]

Couldn't resist

 

[Hawkwind]

Developers work on a salary and get nothing from the sales outside what the publisher pays them and what the publisher pays them goes almost to the dime into making the game(again, salaries, office costs, etc). Last game project i was involved in was a product that cost somewhere around 5-10 million, the company made 200k profit on it.

So you worked for a charity/non-profit organisation. What they contracted/sold to the publisher at is their own fault. Assume you would agree a price that was based on projected costs and a healthy profit. Either they had horrendous overruns or shit project management.

 

[Bodhi]

Was it UbiSoft that completely fucked up the latest Assassin's Creed game?

 

[old.Tohtori]

So you worked for a charity/non-profit organisation. What they contracted/sold to the publisher at is their own fault. Assume you would agree a price that was based on projected costs and a healthy profit. Either they had horrendous overruns or shit project management.

That's just not how it works at times.

 

[MYstIC G]

Was it UbiSoft that completely fucked up the latest Assassin's Creed game?

Yes, that's one of the things about Ubisoft that really annoys me, I like a lot of their franchises but then I'd have to buy from Ubisoft...

 

[Tom]

Most of the games I've bought recently have been what I would consider "games", as opposed to large complicated multi-layered realistic first-person zombie horror "whatever" experiences. If I look at my Steam list of simple, cheap games:

Amnesia
Botanicula
Braid
Darwinia
LIMBO
Machinarium
The Tiny Bang Story

They're all bloody brilliant.

And then there are the usual Valve suspects, chiefly TF2 (because it makes me laugh all the time), and other stuff like Batman, Civ V, Portal, Mass Effect. I simply can't be arsed with many of the games that are released today, the only one I'm looking forward to right now is GTA V. I have Bioshock Infinite, never even installed it. Borderlands, Crysis - same. I'll get around to them one day but fuck knows when that'll be - probably when the TF2 community withers and dies.

With the exception of Valve, who it seems can do little wrong, these huge gaming companies seem to be completely disconnected from what the average person wants to do - have fun, without hassle.

 

[BloodOmen]

Rockstar are good when it comes to games, they've had some stuff in the past that hasn't really sat well with me but generally they just keep getting better with every game they release, mainly because they don't half arse it and release it unfinished. Let's hope they continue doing so.

Companies like:

Gearbox
Ubisoft
EA
Activision

Could learn a lot from Rockstar

 

[Gwadien]

Few key points on your post @Gwadien ;

Developers don't always have a choice, they either go with a publisher or they go bankrupt. Game companies as a whole often work from project to project, excluding big names like rockstar, where they have to get any deal to pay salaries and actually produce content.

Second, as i said, first three months are to get back the money they put into games. I don't see Rowling asking £40 per game, but i don't see Rowling writing a book costing millions either.

Also authors having more ethics/morality? Please. Developers work on a salary and get nothing from the sales outside what the publisher pays them and what the publisher pays them goes almost to the dime into making the game(again, salaries, office costs, etc). Last game project i was involved in was a product that cost somewhere around 5-10 million,m the company made 200k profit on it.

Also, i've never seen a game cost more the more popular it becomes.

That's the entertainment business though, I don't understand why game developers feel like they are a standard business that makes a generic turn over every year.

It's not like that, it's like if a film company started making woeful films, they'd go bust, but it seems the publishers are in effect blackmailing developers by saying, look, you can go with us, or you can burn, no point trying to sail on your own.

It's why I try to help out indie developers when they do early access stuff, because I appreciate it when it's a small company working on a game, they're actually working hard to get a game done which will be popular, as opposed to a large company that will just throw money at it until it sells.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Kind of is that way. What game devs are are a bunch fo people trying to make games(not money) and if they get enough cash to make their vision, that's great. The problem is that to do that you need cash and that's whne you go to publishers. Publishers look at profits, so they pay as little as they can to the developer(they want exact numbers of salaries etc) and make a deal that's "well we don't have anything else". Then, they take the product and do whatever they want with it.

The only reason they need to feel like a standard business is basic economics; people work there, need to do XYZ, need to keep company afloat etc. To the government it looks like another factory afterall.

One could think of publishers like games, some are sh*t, some are great. More often then not it shows in the product as well. The one giving the money often makes demands because they can and have looked at some chart that says "micropayments make money, people like micropayments".

 

[Gwadien]

One could think of publishers like games, some are sh*t, some are great. More often then not it shows in the product as well. The one giving the money often makes demands because they can and have looked at some chart that says "micropayments make money, people like micropayments".

This is exactly the point i'm trying to make though, because people use micropayments doesn't necessarily mean its a good system;

Let's look at Planetside2 for example, I know some die-hard fans that I have spent thousands of pounds on there, but the vast majority of the players still complain about the game, and rightly so, the issue is that most companies can't see past the profit margins, they don't understand that if they took the advice of the people that complained, they wouldn't lose the hardcore fans, they'd just generate more, but the issue is, why fix it if it's not broken; why change a game when you're making a profit on it (Equally, why change stuff majorly in a sequence of games if people still play them?)

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yeah in a nuthsell we're both saying "publishers are assholes at times, to devs and gamers"

Originally i was just saying i'm not blaming them for beign assholes as that's kind of their job. Might be due to sometimes i have to deal with them. Kind of have to understand their POV and stupid ways to work the system.

 

[Gwadien]

Yeah in a nuthsell we're both saying "publishers are assholes at times, to devs and gamers"

Originally i was just saying i'm not blaming them for beign assholes as that's kind of their job. Might be due to sometimes i have to deal with them. Kind of have to understand their POV and stupid ways to work the system.

The issue is though, that isn't how it has to work at all.

I really do think with the power of the internet it's alot easier to get your name out there as a game developer, I appreciate that it may not be as easy as writing a book, but you could easily dedicate a few years of your life to something that you enjoy doing and that you think would be successful, and then you could easily get it out there and make a tidy amount of money.

I play games with a guy who did just that, he worked for a large firm for a while, now he's developing his own game after making enough money just to chill for a few years, he reckons that it'll take a while for it to be done, but so long as the game is what he wants it to be, he doesn't mind.

Most people that start out with new ventures usually have a hazy first couple of years, unless they sell up and make a tidy bit of money, I guess when you're desperate, selling up doing sound so bad.

 

[old.Tohtori]

It's getting there, mroe and more with crowd funding etc. But still, millions made by Broshooter 9X Multishotheadkill every year, couple of hundred more with games that seeminly everyone hates like Asscreed, so, they'll keep going for a good while.

The best part is that these companies also have so much money behind them that they could release a micropaymentbalooza where you have to pay for every startup and reinstall the whole gsme with every reboot of your computer and it would still make millions, and even if it didn't it wouldn't harm them.

Outside a mass exodus out of a brand(like ubisoft for example), it doesn't matter what they do. And hardly suprising, if i was making 8 million versus 10 million in profits it wouldn't phase me either.

 

[BloodOmen]

 

[old.Tohtori]

So the keys were faudulent, ubisoft was right, customers demanding refunds from the graymarket sales folks.

Your risk if you buy these possibly dodgy keys.

 

[Gwadien]

So the keys were faudulent, ubisoft was right, customers demanding refunds from the graymarket sales folks.

Your risk if you buy these possibly dodgy keys.

Source? How do you mean 'fraudulent'

I don't understand how you can get fraudulent keys you release them to be sold, and someone buys them, if it's the case of the old 'oh em zee' it's a stolen credit card, then that's for the police to deal with the companies, not for companies to start banning people.

 

[old.Tohtori]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/28/ubisoft-key-resellers-stolen-cards/

One of the sources.

Stolen credit card, ergo fraudulently bought keys, not uncommon in gray market sales. Your own risk when you use those and yes, if they were bought with a stolen CC then removing those keys is the way to go and the ones selling those keys are the ones who give the refunds.

They aren't banning people, they are revoking keys that aren't paid for with legit means.

Not that it matters since ubibitchers can't in any way accept that they were right

 

[Ormorof]

So the keys were actually fine just the means they originally had been bought that was not

They could and should have handled this much better than they did, they could have informed the holders of the keys that their keys will be deactivated and they should have made it clear it was due to a criminal investigation

They could have even won PR bonus by offering a small (say 5%) discount for those affected without it costing them much

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yeah the keys can't really be wrong, just the way they're procured. They could've done some PR stuff with discounts etc, but they also did nothing wrong.

Not the first and not the last time either, and next time it'll be the same thing all over.

 

[Ormorof]

Well from a business point of view they did a lot wrong by mismanaging the situation, if even a small group of customers decide to stop buying anything to do with Ubisoft they will probably lose more money than the discounts would have cost them

From a purely legal point of view theu were entirely within their rights (and probably obliged by law) to not honour keys bought with stolen credit cards

 

[Gwadien]

From the comments;

I’m still not sure that “fraudulent credit card information”/ “fraudulent credit cards” is precisely the same thing as “stolen”. This could just as easily mean that the buyers used Russian street addresses as the billing address (technically fraud, if it’s not their real address), and paid with a disposable credit card.

This all has a very strong scent of enforcing regional pricing restrictions on third party resellers, rather than reversing a few credit card transactions that were later declined by a bank when the credit card owner queried the unknown transactions on their statement.

This is what I was thinking, then I came across this comment, I've yet to see evidence of the use of 'stolen credit cards'

I think this guy is spot on, and frankly, it's pretty shitty.

The sale order goes Ubi>'Russian Man'>CD Key sellers>Customer.

So surely eyebrows should be raised when Russian Man buys 30000 copies of a game? Not by the time it actually reaches the customer.

As the guy said above, I think he's right in saying it's enforcing regional pricing, and saying OO THESE COMPANIES ARE IMMORAL as an excuse to be total dicks.

Would you really think a company such as a CJs CDKeys would place their entire business model on using stolen credit cards as their source? Especially so when the owner is a pretty public person.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yes. Happened before with sniper elite last year, been known to happen before that. The proof is in the gray amrket salesfolks saying "yeah it's real" and offering refunds. Not to mention it's probably not ne guy buyign 30k keys at once. That's just a strawman to fit the guys argument.

They're not basing their company on stolen CCs, but gray market sales are just that, they get them from all over the place, could be stolen, maybe legit. Could be promo keys, from back of lorries, or other such "lovely" things. Your risk when you buy from them to get things cheaper. If this keeps happening though, then they'll simply region lock cheap countries.

But as said before; ubiwhiners can't accept they're not at fault and even when presented with "they did nothing wrong", it's tinfoil hattery time

As in; if you base your whole ideology on "ubisoft is lying" then no fact matters, you'll blame ubi no matter what. Even if they happened to be honourable or fair.

 

[Gwadien]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...s-canned-keys-bought-with-stolen-credit-cards

WAHEY