14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Ubisoft did it again, annoying gamers all around the world and then trying to put a positive PR spin on something that is clearly objectionable.
Lucky them for they make such great games that everyone can't stop playing, otherwise they would be in a pretty bad spot.
The latest thing to come out of Ubisoft's riot machine is the announcement that the upcoming installment in the publisher's acclaimed action adventure series Assassin's Creed, titled Unity, will run at 30 frames per second and in 900p resolution on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Of course, this type of polarizing announcement can only widen the gap between the fanbases of Sony and Microsoft, and so it did.
When a developer mentioned that the company had decided to lock the game to run the same on both platforms for parity's sake, in order to avoid debates regarding which hardware ran the game better, the Internet blew up.
Since then, a lot of other Ubisoft devs have issued mind-boggling statements that only managed to rub gamers the wrong way, in spite of their intention of appeasing the masses.
Less is more, unless we're talking about money, of course
Assassin's Creed Unity's creative director was probably bribed to say that 30 frames per second had been the team's goal all along, due to the fact that it "feels more cinematic," which seems to be the go-to excuse nowadays.
He continued, saying that 60 frames per second felt like an appropriate framerate for shooters and not for action adventure video games. In addition to this, he also touched upon resolution, stating that the number of pixels wasn’t important if the graphics were gorgeous.
Breezing over the fact that the way to make a game that has stellar art direction look even better is to up its resolution, and that it was a poorly put together statement at best, the part about a "cinematic" experience is still an insult to any gamer's intelligence.
The only way this would be acceptable would be to pay less for the game and tell Ubisoft that it's a more satisfying experience if they get less money. Sure, being rich is nice, but this way you get to appreciate the value of what you earn.
Coming to terms with your limitations
Simply incredible. The truth is that Ubisoft can't make the game run at 60 frames per second and at the same time render everything there is to show on screen, which is a perfectly acceptable argument.
Ubisoft wouldn't be the first developer to push for more detail at the cost of framerate, and as a smooth experience trumps numbers every time, nobody would have minded had the wording not been this obnoxious and the statements so pretentious.
It takes a lot more work to have everything run at 60 fps, and the hardware is in its infancy, so it's not like games with the scope of Assassin's Creed Unity are easy to make, let alone run at native 1080p resolution flawlessly.
But the nerve of people telling you what to like and trying to cover up their shortcomings by attempting to force some fallacious point of view down your throat and trying to convince you that you're better off without a choice is astounding.
It's simple, really. If you can pull it off, offer gamers a choice. If you can't, suck it up and be honest about it, it's not like people would mind. But shamelessly lying to people's faces is never the way to go, especially not when you know you have a history of bad rep with your audience.
It's astonishing to see Ubisoft resort to these tactics that are insulting to customers just a couple of months after bold statements about actually listening to people, being more transparent, and taking their feedback into account.
They're really lucky they make great games though, but they would be much better off in terms of how they are perceived in the gaming community if they only used a bit more common sense.