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When did "Ubisoft game" become an insult?

I recently finished AC Syndicate and while it has a couple of "Ubisofty" annoying features, it was very enjoyable, much more than Unity which, after fully patched, seemed ok to me. ACS seemed to have a glimpse of soul unlike Unity.

I do not consider the term "Ubisoft game" as an insult to a game yet i understand why it is used. The same can be said for a "Bioware game", not as an insult of course but to describe the distinct way they make them.
 
I feel Ubisoft makes a number of pretty good games. Never anything great but I enjoy playing through AC games.

My problem with them is that so many of their games have the potential to be amazing but it seems like they just didn't care enough and released with the idea that X game is good enough for X million sales so who cares about making a cohesive story, or refining the combat, mission structure, etc.

Their games are pretty though.
 
Meh, GAF can ridicule their games to their hearts content, it doesn't retroactively kill the enjoyment I have and continue to get out of them.
 
Com_Raven said:
When a few people could not get over a bugged out character face in AC Unity that most of them probably never saw in-game (Played through it at launch, never had any broken or disappearing faces myself).
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That game ran like shit. It was inexcusable and the problem manifested in the most comical way.
 
I've never seen 'Ubisoft game' used as a derogatory term in a general sense. I'm sure it has been, but it's certainly not a common thing in my experience.

It's more when an open world game uses the familiar Ubisoft pioneered template, ie: collectables, towers, bloat in general, designed by committee, not enough dev time, etc... which Ubisoft seem to be moving away from so it will probably be used less in future.

It was well deserved for a while.
 
In the last gen, Ubisoft seems to have had a reputation of prioritizing microtransactions over fixing or even addressing problems in their games, in addition to using the same open world template for all of their marquee titles.

On top of that, the whole Uplay system they tack on to just about everything is just garbage. The Uplay points and crap they try to shove down your throat is so off-putting, it can diminish the quality of their games. \

Ubi always felt like a corporation churning out products based on mass market research rather than a large but passionate game developer (as opposed to large devs like Blizzard, Bungie,

I think they are improving a lot this gen, but haven't quite broken out of that reputation yet.

For Honor, for example, still has a "free to play" style layer for how items are obtained and managed, and there are clear imbalances that seem to be ignored while microtransactions are still shoved in players faces. Frankly, the imbalances have taken a dramatic toll on their diminishing player base because they seem so got damned tone deaf to what actually matters.
 
Huge Succeeded said:
As someone who's played Far Cry 2, and has now played Breath of the Wild, I still find that comparison about as reductive and inaccurate as I did six months ago, back when the only people using it were people who were convinced that BoTW was to be no more than a middling, derivative genre mish-mash.
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If you look at it through the lens of your weird perceived slights, then sure. Otherwise, it's a perfectly valid comparison usually used to praise Breath of the Wild for evoking a certain style of game that has been largely absent from the medium for close to a decade.
 
I would say after Watch Dogs.

Right now they have 4 IPs using the same open wold action/stealth map-full-of-icons cookie-cutter design scheme:
Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs
 
David Ricardo said:
Rainbow six is different from ther other IPs but...

Wildlands is the division in the jungle with vehicles.
All AC games are the same with small incremental changes.
Watch Dogs is AC in a city.

They reuse a lot of their work.
Click to expand...

I kinda thought Wildlands would be the Division in the jungle before I bought/played it, but it's a completely different game.

Weapons, vehicles, player damage, inventory/inventory management, enemy damage, missions/mission structure, combat, TTK, skill progression, like...everything.

Literally every single aspect of it is different. The only similarities I've found that they have is the [up to 4 player] drop-in/drop-out MP aspect of it. Otherwise, the games couldn't be more different and I've put quite a few hours into both.
 
Hooo.. good question... the took the mantle.. or maybe shared it with the old standard bearer. EA

I would say 2009-2010 but with the reviled release of Asscreed 3 in 2012 it took hold and has just gotten worse.

Ubisoft games are the fast food/big budget Hollywood of video gaming and that is fine.Some people love them some people hate them but you know what you are getting and it is pretty processed, generic and focused tested. Like if you had an MBA make a video game based on analytics. If someone says I love Ubisoft games, it is indicative to me that that person loves quantity over quality. Ubisoft games generally tick all the boxes but are also, in my opinion, soulless commercialization of concepts and the genre of the hour.

I am happy they exist because people love them and it drives the engine of the gaming industry.
 
The GotY is an Ubisoft game, Breath of the Wild.

It's an open world, Tower-ascending, loot-collecting-for-upgrades game.

That's immediately what I envision when someone says "Ubisoft Game."
 
Hoo-doo said:
Their games feel like they come from an assembly line most of the time.

At least, that's how I feel about Ubisoft games. They are technically proficient and often pretty polished, but I feel there isn't a whole lot of uniqueness, creativity or innovation in their AAA titles, usually.
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They feel like they come from an assembly line because they come from an assembly line. They'll have something like 1200 around the world in a half a dozen studios all putting their games together piecemeal with the lesser studios doing grunt work on the environment or textures and their Western Europe and American branches doing mocap, voice acting, main game design and so on. I suppose it's efficient but it's slow to change, unwieldly when things go wrong, and produces very similar products year after year, which is, I suppose, the point.

As for why people started calling them that, it was probably Assassin's Creed becoming yearly alongside other nearly yearly franchises like Far Cry, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six.
 
Ubi games are great. Its just that they took that template and applied everywhere. 2-3 games down it starts feeling like familiar and worn out.

Any game sticking to that template can be considered ubi game. Though does nt make game necessarily bad. Good gameplay, graphics, writing can make any game great. Even a ubi one.
 
When Ubisoft games started to feel like they had the same design process behind them as Marvel movies
 
I don't really use the term myself but I sorta understand it. There's a reason they fell off my radar after AssCreed III. Most of their games started following a certain pattern. Doesn't mean the games are absolutely shit, but it's an MO that doesn't appeal to me.
 
I don't like AC, but I do like GR. So I play Wildlands and enjoy it. It is not Zelda. Nothing else is Zelda. I know this. I still enjoy Wildlands.

No, they aren't earth shattering releases (not everything can or needs to be, we all know this), and yes, if you played every single one you'd tire out (although the 'towers' thing is an overused criticism now, it's not relevant at all in GR, The Crew, etc), but eh, 'Ubisoft game' means 'rhetorical point' more than 'my gaming experience with Ubisoft is necessarily shit'. Note the possible difference in reactions in here, between generalised 'Game X is Game Y' and 'eh... no?'.

Also, Rayman.
 
The last three Ubi open world games I played were FC Primal, Watch Dogs 2 and GR:Wildlands. I thought they were all pretty good. The side objectives get a bit repetitive and there is usually a few technical hiccups that prevent them from getting to the next level. I do appreciate their efforts to put in co-op into their games. Far Cry 4 and Wildlands were such a blast with my friends and family.
 
Sometime after Assassins Creed Rev, and Assassins creed 3, after that we got FarCry 3 which people liked. The new consoles brought us like 5 Ubisoft games that had that structure, and Shadow of Mordor was game of the year. I think that pushed people.
 
I personally find no appeal to their games. I prefer less importance on 'Open World - Always Online MP' and a more heavy focus on storytelling with some action in a leaner direction.


But it's not hard to understand why they keep doing what they do. Multiplayer is huge. People are even more addicted to the third person always online style since GTAO. Ubisoft is now just providing different versions of the same urban warfare formula and that's appealing to people who want something fresh waiting for rockstar to release their next game.
 
mindsale said:
The GotY is an Ubisoft game, Breath of the Wild.

It's an open world, Tower-ascending, loot-collecting-for-upgrades game.

That's immediately what I envision when someone says "Ubisoft Game."
Click to expand...

You really can't see the difference between following icons/arrows vs your own curiosity? One is busy work, the other is an adventure game.
 
something somewhere changed for me, seems its been long enough for me not to even remember the exact thing that did it for me. i used to see the ubisoft logo and think ok i might really like this. but now i know i wont anymore, i broke down and got watch dogs 2 and really really regret it. maybe it was when they started turning assassins creed annual, i loved the first assassins creed when it came out not really another after that.
 
When all the games carry so many similarities without much distinction then it's overwhelming. The Ubisoft style just has oversaturated.
 
Tbh i considered their stuff shit from the begining...then they actually started putting some effort in and turned the company around a little bit in my eyes. But now their stuff is so average with basic bitch expectations... just feels like their money making efforts are too in your face vs their passion for games.


Nothing against the artists this has more to do with business than creative decisions im sure
 
Probably 2014. At that point, it kinda became clear that Ubisoft was insistent on rehashing the same formula again and again for their big games, and were doubling down on bloat.

And I really used to like their stuff :(
 
David Ricardo said:
Rainbow six is different from ther other IPs but...

Wildlands is the division in the jungle with vehicles.
All AC games are the same with small incremental changes.
Watch Dogs is AC in a city.

They reuse a lot of their work.
Click to expand...

This proves to me you don't know what you're talking about though. Wildlands only similarity with The Division is that they're both third person Shooters. They play completely differently. Watch Dogs is not AC in a city at least not WD2. That game plays about as similar to AC as Grand Theft Auto.
 
I feel like it started going there with the third asscreed2 game, asscreed3 established it, and then watch dogs and farcry 4 kind of cemented it for people. Formulaic "designed by maths" games is kind of what they became... :(
 
I think the combination of Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4, The Crew, and Watch Dogs really sealed it.

They all came out in 2014. They all used the exact same open world mechanics.
 
I've enjoyed Ubisoft formula games in the past, notably Far Cry 4 in recent memory, but there is certainly a cookie-cutter design through line in many (if not most) of their big releases.

At this point, I'm just not interested in that anymore.

I haven't bought one of those games since the aforementioned and I don't intend to while they keep the same structure.
 
It's almost a way to say, if you've played any other open world Ubi game, you won't be doing much new here. Most open world games really follow a similar formula, but Ubi went all in with their AAA games and almost all of them were open world outside of the tom clancy stuff, and they likely got stuck with that "insult" as a result due to their output compared to everyone else. I honestly dont think it describes the company today, as they've learned to vary up their output, bring in new ip, and giving others a time to rest rather than oversaturating the market.
 
When people started to notice how similar all their open world games are.

It doesn't necessarily refer to all their games though. People aren't talking about Rayman or Grow Home when they say something looks like a Ubisoft game.
 
I never liked ubisoft so if somebody says that, that is indeed damning. Just like if somebody say it's a bioware or EA game. Kiss of death for me.
 
I liken open-world Ubi games to TV shows like a police procedural, or hospital procedural -- you already know the general structure of the series from having seen other shows, and it won't ever surprise you, but you stick around cause you like a couple characters, or maybe there is a small gimmick to mix things up. Ubi open-world stuff is a lot like that. Each one has a small thing or two different from the last that will make it interesting, but the rest is pretty by-the-numbers, and far from earth-shattering in originality.

I don't think the gaming medium is any worse off with their presence, but I can understand how not everyone will enjoy these kinds of games.
 
It means you can skip every other, second, third entry and never miss a thing. I played far cry 3,4 and had no desire for primal. Then I played Black flag which satisfied my asscreed itch for about 5 years.

Now I bought ghost recon and I'll skip far cry and asscreed again. Ghost recon is an Ubisoft game.
 
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