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[Neilg]

They received money from the government, no ? If they cancel the game they are going to be in trouble.

Massive subsidies - to give an example of how this works, a % of every dollar spent on rent or paid to an employee is covered by the local govnerment. Standard for a city making a big push to draw talent is 25-50c, but I wouldnt be surprised if singapore hadnt gone in at something crazy like 80c of every dollar - it's happened before when vancouver was trying to coax all the big studios doing vfx to leave hollywood. It worked, and now they are a huge hub with a lot of talent. It could even be higher than 80c.

Basically, if they cancel the game, they need to pay back 80% of all money spent during the previous 10 years of development. If the game ships, they don't have to pay it back.

Ignoring all money spent on the game from 2008 to 2020, For the past 3 years they've had 400 staff in full production. Lets say an average salary of 80k/yr - this is a $32m/yr overhead, ignoring benefits and taxes, but that would safely be 1.3x.
Standard going rate for office space in Singapore is $10-15/ft, and they have 7642ft - this is about $90k a month - just over a million a year.
And it looks like a $2-3m build-out cost - https://www.officelovin.com/2021/03/a-look-inside-ubisofts-new-singapore-office/

So in the last 3 years alone, a very safe assumption is that they've burned just over $100m. Quite likley more. And only had to pay 20-25m of that out of pocket.
If they cancel the game, they get a bill for $75m and fuckall to show for it. There may even be fees and fines added onto the contract if they fail to ship, they might have to pay back even more than they were loaned.

 

[Luigi Mario]

Massive subsidies - to give an example of how this works, a % of every dollar spent on rent or paid to an employee is covered by the local govnerment. Standard for a city making a big push to draw talent is 25-50c, but I wouldnt be surprised if singapore hadnt gone in at something crazy like 80c of every dollar - it's happened before when vancouver was trying to coax all the big studios doing vfx to leave hollywood. It worked, and now they are a huge hub with a lot of talent. It could even be higher than 80c.

Basically, if they cancel the game, they need to pay back 80% of all money spent during the previous 10 years of development. If the game ships, they don't have to pay it back.

Ignoring all money spent on the game from 2008 to 2020, For the past 3 years they've had 400 staff in full production. Lets say an average salary of 80k/yr - this is a $32m/yr overhead, ignoring benefits and taxes, but that would safely be 1.3x.
Standard going rate for office space in Singapore is $10-15/ft, and they have 7642ft - this is about $90k a month - just over a million a year.
And it looks like a $2-3m build-out cost - https://www.officelovin.com/2021/03/a-look-inside-ubisofts-new-singapore-office/

So in the last 3 years alone, a very safe assumption is that they've burned just over $100m. Quite likley more. And only had to pay 20-25m of that out of pocket.
If they cancel the game, they get a bill for $75m and fuckall to show for it. There may even be fees and fines added onto the contract if they fail to ship, they might have to pay back even more than they were loaned.

That sounds like a complete disaster for them. I wonder what the total money spent on this is when it’s all said and done?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Obligatory,

 

[Killer8]

Sea of Thieves already beat them to the punch and did it 10x better from the looks of things.

 

[March Climber]

Obligatory,

You actually went and pinpointed the exact second where the selected outfit didn't load yet, and that text was on the screen was on at the same frame as that current outfit. Wow.

 

[DeepEnigma]

You actually went and pinpointed the exact second where the selected outfit didn't load yet, and that text was on the screen was on at the same frame as that current outfit. Wow.

I actually originally posted it in the livestream and hit the screenshot button at that moment.

Now respect that outfit, wench!

 

[semiconscious]

They missed the boat (bad pun clearly intended) for this game to be relavent years ago. A multiplayer Black Flag without the AC bullshit would have sold millions of copies in 2015, now it's probably best just to kill it.

an explanation of how, exactly, they fucked up something as straightforward as this, an almost pure, guaranteed 'gimme!', would definitely be interesting...