14 DAY TRIAL // Assassin’s Creed Unity is in bad shape, even if the development team at Ubisoft in charge of the game is aiming to improve the experience as much as possible based on feedback from the player base, and there are a lot of voices, among both gamers and analysts, who are claiming that at the moment the publisher is entering a long-term decline and will probably need a lot of time to recover.
The launch of the title was supposed to be one of the biggest of the year and the publisher has clearly invested a lot of money in the promotional efforts, as the leaders of the development team have talked a lot about the way the game extracts all the available power from the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.
Paris was supposed to be the most detailed city ever created in a video game, with plenty of historical elements included and scenes that broke the records of NPCs on screen at the same time.
Unfortunately, soon after launch, customers discovered that the new Assassin’s Creed had problems with the frame rate and glitches on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, and that even the PC version was affected on machines in the medium range.
To make matters worse, the fact that Ubisoft set an embargo of 12 hours after launch for reviews suggests that the company had an idea about potential problems and wanted to make sure that info about them would not come out and would not affect its sales.
Assassin’s Creed is not the only big franchise at Ubisoft
People who see Unity as a sign that Ubisoft will enter a decline seem to forget that the company has at least one major other title out, Far Cry 4, which seems to be doing better at the moment and might entirely erase the negative feelings about the Assassin’s Creed title.
Rogue is also out, and while it is confined to the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, it seems to offer a solid if somewhat classic take on the same concept.
A modern game publisher plans for a lot of potential future outcomes, and that means Ubisoft certainly has a way to deal with smaller-than-expected sales for Unity without imploding.
Yes, shares are down and chief executive officer Yves Guillemot will probably have to do some explaining when the next financial results are revealed, but otherwise we can expect that all the projects the company has announced, like The Crew and The Division, will be launched.
We love to label publishers and shame them
Gamers seem to love to hate companies and their feelings are sometimes justified by the actions of the likes of Activision, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Sony, and many more.
But a botched video game launch, as annoying as it could be to someone who purchased it, should not be a reason to believe that the entire company is an evil empire and should be punished.
Smaller sales and a loss of trust from potential customers because of Assassin’s Creed Unity’s launch issues are already a big problem for Ubisoft, and those who appreciate good games should wish that the publisher can learn from its mistakes rather than repeat them.
