I feel bad for the team developingSkull & Bones. While it’s fun and all, the game was in development Hell forever. By my own flawed reckoning, it’s gone through - I dunno - three thousand different reshuffles and reboots and redos? It’s a game thatUbisofthas been promising forever and hasdefinitely spent a lot of money making.Between that and rolling layoffs, there is no way it was an easy process developing Skull & Bones. And we’re talking about Ubisoft, a company that makes great games but has executives who don’t seem to know how to make money or even relate to normal human beings.
Case in point, Ubisoft’s CEOYves Guillemot recently explained that Skull and Bones’ higher price was because it’s a “quadruple-A” game. Dear God. Are you kidding me? The fun part is, in the same quote, he also promised that Skull & Bones “is a fully-fledged game” and it’s “a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is.”
That’s weird, right? You can’t say both, “This game is more expensive because it’s a quadruple-A title, the best of the best” as well as “Don’t worry, folks! This is a real grown-up game that allows you to hold a controller and do stuff!” Like, if you’re still at the point of trying to prove it’s worth spending money on a game that took over a decade to make, you might be in trouble.
Side note, we’re talking about Yves Guillemot here. We’re talking about a man who had to apologize to his own employees afterimplying it was their fault the company had financial problems and their responsibility to fix it. But don’t worry - at least Ubisoft is a company in which 25 percent of employees reported facing workplace misconduct andsome former executives were literally arrested in France after a sexual harassment investigation. Guillemot didn’t do those things, but he did keyboard cat the problem off his plate by just saying it was caused by “generational differences.” I know that’s a lot of links to articles, but trust me - rich people do not take it well when you discuss things they publicly did.
The point being, the guy who’s saying, ostensibly, “You’ll be spending more money because our game is just that good!” is also the guy who said, ostensibly, “It’s up to our employees to fix leadership’s mistakes”. So let’s not assume he’s bandying about “quadruple-A” in baskets of good faith. The point isn’t whether or not the game is good, the point is Guillemot has a long history of bending reality to his own will to dismiss problems that employees and consumers might have. Or even put it on them to change.
The thing is: making games is expensive. That’s why games are costing more and more. Yes, yes, yes,major companies are getting greedier with microtransactions and pre-order bonuses and paid early access for special fans with big smiles. But that doesn’t dismiss the fact that video games cost a lot to make - especially big ones made by big companies. And even more so big game projects that have been restarted over and over again. Which, to be fair, is Ubisoft’s speciality. I don’t think we’re gettingBeyond Good & Evil 2anytime soon. I love Beyond Good & Evil, so I would be very happy if Ubisoft proved me wrong sometime in the next quarter century. I’m saying it’s been 21 years since Beyond Good & Evil, folks.
Companies need to stop kidding their customers about this. Just be honest: it takes money to make a game. Games are expensive and developers need to recoup their losses on individual projects if they want to continue existing. Fine. Just say that. Stop acting like you’re doing everyone a service by claiming the product is just so great the consumer would want to spend more on it. Anything less they’d feel like they stole it! You don’t just give away a diamond necklace! This is the same thing! The value is in the spending! Does anyone believe this? No.
It often costs more to make a quadruple-A game than it does to make a triple-A movie - and those are also getting more expensive. That’s part of the reason why ticket prices have increased. That’s not the only reason why; corporate greed is a hell of a drug. But telling fans that they should be happy to spend more money - rather than admitting that the product they’re buying used up a lot of resources - is itself just another form of corporate greed.
It’s an inability of executives to say that their own business decisions are responsible for any issues with the company. Oh, they’ll immediately contribute any successes to themselves! But difficulties? Controversies? Employees need to try better and customers need to shut up.
