Exploring Ubisoft's Future Plans and the 3 Million Player Mystery

Welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew, and I'm your host, Brett Deister. Please subscribe to this podcast on all your favorite podcasting apps. We have a five star review, really does help with the rankings. Let me know how I'm doing, but this week we're gonna be talking about. Crystal Dynamics layoffs, NVIDIA's AI app because we need AI for everything, especially since Nvidia the updated version of Game Bar. We're also gonna be talking about the new update of No Man's Sky. Relics should be a little interesting. Also, the co-director of Dragon Age, the Veil Guard apparently is gonna be working at Wizard of the Coast. We're talking about that unfortunately, wild Gate and why it's interesting. Also, epic Games has a Spring sail, or I'm gonna be talking about that for the next two weeks, Adam Fall, and why I'm frustrated with that game in general. And the main thing we're talking about is Ubisoft and just the future of what Ubisoft is doing and everything else. It's just. A wild, interesting thing, and why there 3 million players is not really what it actually seems to be because it's just weird that they don't give us sales figures, but they go, look, it's a success 'cause 3 million players supposedly play this game. Anyways, let's get on with the show. All right, so first off is well. Crystal Dynamics the developer behind a lot of really good games, including the last of it was basically the to Raiders series that they actually acquired from Square Enex. But they also have done legacy of Cane Soul Reaver. They've done a several other types of games. They also did an unfortunate failure, which was Marvel Avengers, which nobody really played very much after a while. So they basically are laying off 17 members. They're describing this as a difficult decision. The layoffs were aligned the studio's business needs with future success and do not reflect the dedication of ability of those affected. The studio is providing support to impact and employees through transition packages and opportunity outreach, despite layoffs. Crystal Dynamics remains committed to the current project plans, including the upcoming Rator Installa Install installment, installation installment. And basically the facts is that. They haven't created a new game in quite a while. I think 2019 was the last two game that we saw from the current crop of it, so we haven't really seen anything like that. The studio described the decision as difficult and stated it was necessary to align with current business needs. Crystal dynamic emphasized that layoffs do not reflect the dedication of, or ability of those affected. The studio is providing support, but. We haven't really seen much going on. We know that there's a deal or a supposed deal between Amazon and Crystal Dynamic when it comes to Tomb Raider, but that's all we really know about it. And this seems like it is going to be it's gonna be hard because they gotta produce something. It's kinda like Monolith Studios, when. They were basically shuttered by Warner Brothers because they weren't producing anything. They had Wonder Woman in development, but it looks like it wasn't really doing very well or wasn't really doing much. So that's unfortunate as well. And I feel like unless they start producing something, they're not really going to be, they could be on the chopping block for Embracer Group because Embracer Group. Did buy up a lot of studios before and then all of a sudden they're like, yeah we can't maintain all this and so we're gonna let go of a bunch of studios, including volition, which they didn't really know what to do with Saint Row, which is funny 'cause it was their own game that they didn't know what to do with. So a lot of the prior team that actually knew what the game was about were gone. But again, we'll see what happens with this. So NVIDIA's new app version comes with a new AI that I installed because why not? But it's called the. Project G Assist is the new AI assistant that runs locally on your PC with RTX 30 series and up, so you the 20 series. You cannot use this. So luckily I just skated through with the 30 90, but the gist can optimize game settings, track performance, stats, and control, peripheral settings via voice. Or text commands. The assistant uses LAMA based models with 8 billion parameters, enabling it to function on gaming GPUs, compatibility with laptop. GPUs expected in the future, so if you have a laptop, not quite yet. Concerns exist regarding the V Ramm usage of Geosys on lower end GPUs and the article expresses hope that the NVIDIA will increase VAM for better. AI features and support as per one of the gaming industries, but it's interesting to see. I installed it. I haven't really used it very much, but the base resolution can range from 33% to a hundred percent of final upscale resolution. So this could help with better performance supposedly, it's really all up to what it actually does. We've seen all the promises from Nvidia to like, oh, look at our frame generation is really great. And it's like it's fake frame generation or it's fake frame rates and doesn't really do much. So I'm skeptical about it, but it doesn't mean I'm not gonna try it out. It just means that I'm not really going to like fully. Trust this to be the best it can be, but it could work out. Having voice commands to do things easily instead of always alt tabbing between different types of games is really great. So I'll give them that. But beyond that, I'm not really quite sure. All right, so Microsoft has announced a new update for the Windows Game bar on PC has received a new look featuring a cleaner user interface or ui. The Game Bar allows users to launch games, control audio mixes, and monitor game performance, the home bar in which it capture performance resource in widget store. Have a more lightweight appearance. Microsoft stated that these visual changes are the beginning of updates rolling out that week. The update coincides with the UI change and Discord, which included improved spacing and a full dark mode overlay and update on the Windows. Cloud gaming allows users to switch between games without returning to homepage. Currently available for some assessment Creed titles, and Xbox is. Is expanding in-game benefits for more free to play tiles, including Heroes of the Storm and called to do war zone, allowing players to acquire cosmetic cha characters and in-game currency. So I looked at it it's a nice update for it. I don't really use game bar that much. I just have it just to tinker around with it, but I don't really use it. Yeah, they're trying to do what the steam overlay does, but to be honest with you, I don't really use Xbox or Microsoft Game Bar or anything like that at all. It doesn't really do much for me, but hey, at least they're trying to update and make it better. If you can actually make it better, switch between things and not actually have to ALT tab all the time. Is good, but like I said, who actually really uses this? I don't think a lot of people actually use this. I'm not saying that they shouldn't update it, but let's be honest, it's not that great. All right, so hello Games has released a new update to No Man's Skies called Relics, and within this Hello Games has released a new update with Relics available for download on PC console and vr. This update follows the world part two, update from January, which includes visual enhancement, gameplay edition, and quality of life improvements. The Relic update introduces a new category of fines, skeletal remains of cre, of alien creatures that players can excavate from the planets. Players can collect a variety of prehistoric bones, which can be reassembled into skeletons for display. The rarity of these fines varies with the most uncommon items being valuable for bartering at the space station. A community ex expedition will also start. Challenging players to find the rarest items, so I. Let's be honest, I've been amazed with what Hello Games has done with no man's skies. You would think when it first came out that they weren't, it was over. This game was gonna go nowhere. No one's playing it. Everybody hated it, but nope, they're like, Nope, we're gonna fix this. We're gonna make this better. Just you wait until you see what we do and they. Basically barreled down and went, all right, we're gonna do this. And then they kept on updating it and making it better and better. With adding bases, with adding mes, with adding pirates, with adding aliens or more aliens or companion, a animals with adding visual improvements, with adding frigates fleets like a ton of things. It's amazing just how well this. This developer has maintained its pedigree in saying, look it, we're gonna make this so good that. You're gonna want to buy it instead of doing like what EA does and goes, oh, we're gonna fix everything. No, just kidding. We're not really gonna fix everything. We're just gonna leave it in a terrible state. I'm looking at Anthem because they had an opportunity to do it, and they balked again because EA doesn't understand how to maintain. Games. They do it until they feel like there's no money in it and then they leave instead of a small developer going, look at, this is our game. We want people to like it, so we're gonna do everything we can to make it better. And this is why people love Hello Games. And this is why people do not like ea 'cause they suck. Moving on to Wizard the Coast and Corin Bush, the Koch director of Dragon Age, the Veil Guard. So here are the facts. He 'cause I'm not doing she because he is a he the one of the co-directors of Dragon Age Veil Guard is now leading an unannounced video game in Wizard of the Coast. Wizard of the Coast owns Dungeon Dragons and Boulders Gate. And Dan the video game boss at where is the Coast. Confirm Bush's role in interview with the game file. The new project is being developed at. Skeleton key. A studio that has not released any games yet, whether the coast has four internal teams and has released a co-op Looter game titled Dun Dragons Dark Alliance. Another team of BioWare veterans is working on a game called Exodus in an original Universe Wizard, the Coast plans to continue developing Boulder skate games despite Marina Studios deciding not to create Boulder Skate for look, I don't think she should be anywhere near games because she's the one that completely tanked. Dragon Age. The Veil Guard, which was originally Dragon Age, the Dread Wolf, and had such a terrible development that we got a terrible game. And the funny part is it, so at this time it actually has still done better than Assassin's Creed shadows. When we look at Steve. Records of STEAM data. Data because STEAM is the only one that kind of gives us accurate data on who's actually playing this game. Instead of relying on the publishers and developers going, look at our games of success, which ye tried to do and by word try to do, and people were like, we're not buying this. This game's not that good. I don't even know why you're trying to lecture me on non-binary and how to not misgender somebody 'cause. Look it. I'm gonna misgender you. You're a dude. You're not a woman. You'll never be a woman. You're a dude. Deal with it. And you should never be at the helm of another development studio ever again because of just how terrible you've done to Dragon Age, which was a great series prior to you, you single handedly ruined a really great series called Dragon Age. For your own vanity, and that is probably one of the worst things you could have ever done, and I hope you, I hope this basically tanks and you never work in gaming again because you need to stay away from anything that is creative because you are not creative. You are propagandist and you need to stop. All right. Moving on to something better. Wild Gate. Yes. From basically some of the old developers from BioWare are is creating a crew base shooter with Spaceship Combat. So here the facts is basically it's a, like I said, it's a crew based shooter from Moonshot Games and Dream Haven. While wild Gate players referred to as prospectors form crews afford to explore reaching a space called the reach, the goal of the game is to search for ancient relics known as art artifact with. Players having options to either escape with it or achieve a domination. Victory by destroying rival ships. The game features a procedurally generated map that offers randomized encounters and rewards, ensuring a unique experience in each match. The community play test for a wild gate. Is set to begin on April 10th, 2025, and I've seen some videos on it. Hey, looks great. Looks fun. Looks like a C of ths, but in space and with unique characters and personalities and different types of abilities, it looks great. It's from the old school BioWare team, which I highly like a lot better. Which is fine for me because that's what I actually want. But the funny part is that this is probably the best thing for us right now since Blizzard, did I say by where? No, it was Blizz, the old team of Blizzard. Is the one actually doing this, but this is probably the best thing I've seen. 'cause Blizzard is not making anything really anymore. They're just updating what they actually have, which is either Diablo four or Remake of Warcraft one and two. But mind you, no Warcraft four for whatever reason, no StarCraft three for whatever reason. And with the current crop of RTSs coming out, you would think some of the publishers and developers will be like, look, hey, look it. Maybe we should make a new one. Maybe we should see if we can actually be profitable with this. But no, they haven't done that yet. And so we're stuck with this. But I'm all happy that they created their own studio and they got away from BioWare. 'cause BioWare is not what it used to be anymore. All right, so moving on to. Do you wanna save money? Gamers? 'cause we always love a deal. But Epic Game Store. I know. It's not the best game store and it's not the most beloved game store and they're annoying and I wish they would go away. But they do have a deal going, or they have the spring sale going on, which runs for two weeks and some of the games are Allen Wake two, deluxe edition is gonna be 50% off. Also the Outlast trials is gonna be 60% off Dragon Age. The veil guards get 50% off. Look at I, I have PlayStation Pass and I just did it for free because it's free. And why not? It's still not that great. It takes two 70% off the Witcher three Wild Hunt, which is highly recommend getting is 80% off. Pacific Drive is 40% off. Saturn Alia is 80% off, and they're also offering free games of Cat Quest and Neco Ghost for the next week. So if you're looking for some new games to play, which is not Dragon Age, the veil guard, or if you really want to spend your money on that, it's up to you. This is the best time to actually check it out, and I'm gonna highly recommend doing it right now if you actually have a Epic game store account. If not, I just don't do it. I also thought I saw some crisis actually on sale as well. The Crisis Trilogy is also on sales. So like I said, if you're looking for something great and I highly recommend at least getting the original crisis two and three is not bad, but the first crisis is actually really great. Then by all means, check it out. Alright, so Adam falls. So I got the deluxe edition and I still, for the love of God, cannot play this dumb game. I literally, I booted up and it goes straight into the brand of rebellion and everything like that. It goes into basically the scene of. The title screen and then crashes. I have done everything from making it low to doing window to doing 2K. Nothing works whatsoever. I have no idea how terribly you have unoptimized this game that I can't even run this game, and this is the only game I've ever not been able to run. But I would give this a one star only because I can't run this game for the life of me. I don't even know why I cannot run this game. And I've tried everything. I've tried turning off all the overlays that happen, even the steam overlay, the Nvidia overlay, like everything I could figure to turn off, I've turned off and it still will not run. So I don't recommend this game just because I can't run it. And I've never ever. Ever had a problem with this, with a game like this is bad. Even stalker Two, I could run and that is not to, and it's a great game and you should definitely play it, but at least I could actually run that game. I. Not really great because it actually had a lot of issues because you, it would crash on me, but it would run, it would get me into the tile screen. I could actually play the game, Adam fall. I can't even do that. I can maybe run it on the steam deck, but it's like, why can't I run it on my pc? I don't understand why. Can't run it on my pc. It just doesn't make any sense. Like this game should be a lot more optimized than it is, and that's why I basically gave it a negative review because it's like, what is wrong with you? It's just yeah, some games are great for your system and other games, which is apparently Adam fall is not, so I guess I should be looking forward to is Tempest Rising the new RTS game coming out next month and or doom, the Dark Ages, which comes out in May because I don't know if you'll be able to play this game at all. It's so funny. Alright, moving on to Ubisoft because they can't stay out of the news at all. So here's the thing, Ubisoft has announced new subsidiary focused on three key franchises, Assassin's Creed, Farry, and Rainbow Six. It's been invested in with Tencent. Investing about 1.16 billion or 1.25 billion USD for a minority stake, about 25% in its subsidiaries. Other Ubisoft franchises such as the Division and Ghost Recon will continue to operate separately. The extent of potential layoffs. Or studio closures due to these changes is currently unknown but likely going to happen. The new subsidiary aims to develop game ecosystems that are evergreen and multi-platform. Great. More quadruple a games that will be terrible. Goals include enhancing the quality of narrative experience, expanding multiplayer content, increasing release frequency, introducing free to play elements, integrating more social features. 'cause that's what all we all need. We don't want you to create a good game. We want these features because this is what gamers want and they still don't get it. I swear they. The leaders of this, of Ubisoft need to go. They won't go because they'll figure out how to spin it off, how to still make money and how to not to have debt, but they really need to go. They are the ones that are killing this publisher and developer, and they still don't get it. The reason why Assassin's Creed, shadow says failed, and I say failed because I don't agree or even. Except they're loose figures is because it wasn't a fun game. It had too many controversies surrounding it. And the funny part is, quote unquote, ratioing Elon is not gonna help your game. It's not even gonna help sell your game. Yeah, you'll get a few of the weirdos that, that clearly just don't like him, but. You can do a hundred copies 'cause that's not gonna move the needle at all. You're you, like I said, you probably would get some, maybe 'cause even the people saying I'm gonna buy it, probably aren't actually going to buy it, but we're gonna focus on Rainbow Six. And specifically Siege because you haven't created anything new in quite a while. So it's probably gonna be Rainbow Six Siege, maybe two, hopefully. But since you already kinda released Rainbow Six. Siege X, which is funny 'cause you would think Rainbow SI six, siege X would be the 10th version of the game. But it's not. It's just X with a new mode and maybe some better graphics, better sound. Mind you, the reason why people loved Rainbows six Siege in the beginning is because it was a tactical shooter. Now it's a weird hybrid of a like cross between a tactical, but also Call of Duty. So it's a little bit more arcadey than it was, but now we have that. So here's my problem. How is this gonna change anything that's happened prior to this? It's not because the issue is the people making the games aren't listening to their customers, and they're saying, look, we actually made a great game. It has 3 million players played it. I'm like, okay, what's the sales figures? No. 3 million players have played Assassin's Creed, shadow. What are the sales figures? No. 3 million players have played it because they're about 2 million. People signed up for Ubisoft Plus, so that will, we'll just lump them all in and then we'll figure out how to get the extra million to say how much of a success we are, even though it's not really success, because the highest you've got on the steam numbers is a little over 60,000 players playing it, and it's well below the 89,000 from Dragon Edge, the Vegar, and that was considered a failure. So when are we gonna see the actual numbers? Or are we never gonna see the numbers? Because you're not gonna show us to us because recently they said that Assassin's Cree show has surpassed 3 million players with within a week of its launch on May. Oh, it was on May on March 20th. Someone did a typo on that one. This player count increased from 2 million reported just two days after launch. And Shadows has outperformed the launch of previous titles like Origin and Odyssey, and I think Odyssey was really the only one that actually launched on Steam because the rest of 'em haven't really launched on Steam. It achieve the second highest day one sales revenue, which we haven't gotten. We just gotten 2 million players have played. It's not sales. And everybody's woo, look, sales. I'm like, that's not sales. That is very marketing speaker PR speak, just. Skirt the sales issue. When you say that, when you say 2 million players playing, but you don't say 2 million in sales, it means that you haven't had the 2 million in sales and you're getting your numbers somewhere else. Blizzard was notorious with Overwatch on this one as well, is how many. People playing the game, but it was so cheap. A lot of people just bought multiple copies of it. I want to see the sales. Everybody wants to see the sales. And you aren't doing that. You're like, look at, people have played this game. 2 million players. How long have they played it? I don't look at that. Just look at the, how many have actually played it? So are you accounting for the people that played like two minutes of it? The people that play two hours of it, the people who play the 20 hours of it. What is the distinction? And we don't have the distinction because we don't know anything beyond, supposedly 3 million players have played this game. I don't know what that means, including players that have gotten free copies from you because you put keys on your Twitter or X account like. Where is this number coming from? Like I don't understand this like weird hodgepodge of like it's a success and then eventually it's not gonna be a success because that's what exactly happened to direct news to the veil guard. And I don't understand these people, marketers are terrible right now because there aren't really telling you the truth. They're just trying to make the numbers look good because they need to make it look good because they spent a lot of money trying to make this game. Estimated cost around 300 million. So they need to make sure it looks good, but every time I see the steam numbers, they don't look good. They have not even been close to breaking the a hundred thousand mark, which if you break the a hundred thousand mark, you could be considered a mildly successful game on steam, but you haven't. You've reached about 60,000, which is even lower than Dragon Age, the veil guard, and then weirdly enough. You spin off your company into a IP farm basically, and be like no. We're a success now. We're just only gonna focus on three games, which you're now turning into Activision, which is even funnier because the only thing Activision makes nowadays or did prior to the acquisition of Microsoft, what's Call of Duty, the only game it made was Call of Duty. That was it. And now you're telling me that you aren't doing the same thing that Activision is doing. I just don't think these publishers understand the customers anymore. I get that they're trying to look at their stock prices, which, by the way, UofS stock prices not looking good either. I. Come on. Realistically, you have to show your numbers. You cannot just fudge your numbers and be like, look at. Look at what we have. It's so awesome. But it's not really because we don't really know if it's actually success or not because of the vague. Stats you give, and I'm saying vague for that specific reason. Hey, I would love Assassin's Creed to be great, but Ubisoft has not been a really good company to understand storytelling, and they just, when been going to a one specific ideology and then pissing off people and then wondering why people are upset about them, and then now just making fun of people because it's easier to make fun of people. Then actually create a great game and not, and just to fire the activists because activists just don't do anything for your game. So here we are in the gaming industry. I. We have some developers that understand their customers very well and understand that appealing to your customers makes you s successful. I'm looking at the developer from Boulder Gate. I'm looking at developers from how divers too, they understand their customers, they know exactly what they want, and they do that. Oh, and also s we're interactive. I'll put them in there because they made space burning too, and that game is amazing as well. They understand it. Actually, I'll put it there too, because they're actually are making doom dark ages, and it's not a weird hybrid of what it should be, but that's all that's the only developers that understand it. Bethesda doesn't understand their customers anymore, and it's weird, like we haven't changed. You guys have changed and be like, look it. We're trying to find the modern audience, the gaming audience. They're somewhere here. And they agree with us fully and we're all like, no, we don't. So let's make our games for the 2% of the gaming population because that will be successful. Let's forget that our historically, our games were great because we did this. Let's do this instead because that will work. It's nonsense. It's insane. But anyways, if you are enjoying Assassin's Creed, shadows more power to you. I still say go play ghosted, Tima 'cause it's a lot better. But that's just my opinion about it. But anyways, what do you think Office is on the right track here? Do you think it's going Assassin's Creed, shot's gonna be a success or anything else I talked about? Let me know in the comments below. And thank you for listening to Digital Coffee Gaming Real. I really do appreciate it. And subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcasting apps. It's team of Five star review. Really just help with the rankings. Lemme know how you're doing and join me next week is to talk about what's going on in the gaming industry. Alright guys, stay safe. Get to playing the games that you wanna play, regardless of what I think. Have a nice day and a nice weekend as well later.