21–30 of 118 posts
It looks like their business model is mostly just remakes and remasters now with these closures. Does the C suite really believe that they can just milk those IPs forever and never create anything new?
I discovered last night that my company's stock price is higher than Ubi's and we've lost 75% of our value over the last few years. Doesn't seem good.
It might be frequency-bias, but of the companies downsizing/closing in my area I see almost all of the published explanations are blaming wages. And there can't be a really fair counter-view by the journalist because what are they to do, interview a laid-off worker at the business? I doubt someone would go on the record lambasting their former employer, but it would probably turn up the truths such as fraud or waste.
This is a 23-year-old game we're talking about here. The design work was complete long before anyone working on this project was hired by Ubisoft, and proven in the form of a game that shipped several console generations ago. Ubisoft presumably still has all of the original art assets for reference. All that had to be done was to study the original game code, port it for modern systems, and then polish up the visuals…
The very first Prince of Persia game came out in the early 90s. It's at least 35 years old. It was noteworthy as being one of the first games (if not the first) to have ragdoll physics for the movement of the player.
It was a game of playing through 12 levels (IIRC) and if you died, you started over completely. I played it for 20 hours straight at one point and ended up beating it. I think it takes like 30-45 minutes for a full run through normally? I'm a bit fuzzy on this part. It was an amazing game.
What you're talking about is the early 2000s "reboot" that launched a new franchise under the old name and really wasn't that similar to the original other than a setting of being loosely Persian/Arabic. But it wasn't a platform game in the same sense.
I discovered last night that my company's stock price is higher than Ubi's and we've lost 75% of our value over the last few years. Doesn't seem good.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is dead ?.
It looks like their business model is mostly just remakes and remasters now with these closures. Does the C suite really believe that they can just milk those IPs forever and never create anything new?
Activision had three or four studios dedicated to Call of Duty leapfrogging each other to release one every year. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty)
Their last (2022, pre-acquisition) annual reports literally spell that out.
> For example, in 2022, revenues associated with our three franchises—Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush —collectively accounted for approximately 79% of our net revenues—and a significantly higher percentage of our operating income. We expect that a relatively limited number of popular franchises will continue to produce a disproportionately high percentage of our revenues and profits. - https://investor.activision.com/annual-reports
This is a 23-year-old game we're talking about here. The design work was complete long before anyone working on this project was hired by Ubisoft, and proven in the form of a game that shipped several console generations ago. Ubisoft presumably still has all of the original art assets for reference. All that had to be done was to study the original game code, port it for modern systems, and then polish up the visuals…
It depends what you mean by "original". The very first Prince of Persia game came out in the early 90s. It's at least 35 years old. It was noteworthy as being one of the first games (if not the first) to have ragdoll physics for the movement of the player. It was a game of playing through 12 levels (IIRC) and if you died, you started over completely. I played it for 20 hours straight at one point and ended up beating…
I dislike that an executive is quoted as blaming "rising development costs", essentially blaming the workers/salaries, with no rebuttal. This is especially suspect with the timing of closing an office that just unionized. It might be frequency-bias, but of the companies downsizing/closing in my area I see almost all of the published explanations are blaming wages. And there can't be a really fair counter-view by the…
Umm, yes? Thats called journalism
They don't have to name people if they can get independent verification from multiple sources (standard was 3, sometimes 2)
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is dead ?.
If it came out now, it was going to be filled with busy work, loot, achievements, collectible, just a ton of nonsense to get you to play longer and longer even after the game stopped being fun.
Beyond good and evil 2 was never going to be the sequel that you wanted. The best it was going to be Space Assassin’s Creed.
Be glad you were there for the original and got to experience it.