The cost of gaming has changed in last 2 decades.
Hiring and keeping talents and general good programmers in your own studio working costs more.
If a company verticalizes like Ubisoft did (it means, in this specific case of ubisoft that was making games only some years ago, to actually also create your own platform for distributing games too, and not letting others - Steam etc. - do the job and rip the taxes from it) sure, it gains more but also costs more especially when you fail a game!
The failure was basically wanted. Desired, it was not an accident. And even if it was, this is the darkest way, to come to a solution to Ubisoft and in general increasing costs companies.
(costs are also sudden like energy: think about energy costs nowadays... Energy companies are raising prices because of habits of living of people have MASSIVELY changed and of consuming too due to the pandemics and also general understanding that climate change is a huge issue, not like lobbies want us to believe).
Game studios electricity costs a lot, HW buying and maintenance and so on... (and these are only two factors of cost increase). Think about tons of direct and indirect costs, fixed and variables, also the corporation of game developers that of course demanded rights to be respected (stuff that was pushed from Journos with an agenda like Kotaku director with personal interests in making game development more financiarized, and less like it was before, because after all there also journos that have hands in the pot, playing like inside trader, knowing that if companies fail to cover costs and break even will have to resort to more financiarization of their daily (typical) economy: using DLC, MTX, NFT and more...
Things have changed, and yes, games are not anymore to have fun and play, immerse, personalize your experience, be in there, enjoy it with others, INTERACT with virtual, with AI and HUMAN (yourself and others).
No, now gaming is dying. Ubisoft is not anymore a videogaming company, they use that title to appeal people and then fall into an addiction spiral. Grinding,farming, MMO (for the sake of it) type of design, that is the death of gaming and game design aimed just at making you use your money to play.
We are going back to a "COIN OP" very low quality Arcade, with the means of modern days, not of the 80-90ties, from where I take the name of coin-op. Today the tools are infinite. First of all abusive communication, constant development of a game pretending it is co-created, or abusing what we produce and suggest instead of inventing it in the studios. Everything is outsourced, as a paradox the game itself is outsourced.
We are at a point where the software is given to us and we (those with a minimal taste remaining) manipulate it because it is simply so raw and so "give us your info and money" that we can't have fun in it. I doubt new generations have the anti-genes to be protected from this HUGE WINTER that is coming.
The fashion world is all about virtual production (they have destroyed entire communities, think about rivers in China and India, think just of the brain washing on Xinjang on cotton harvesters, that PRC great planners say "now have a job").
The fashion sector which is a huge lobby in France and Italy responsible for above 10% of GDP, are all about using the videogames world as a case study. We are going to go virtual, people that will be able to affort a internet connection or have time to use it, or will not be censored, will be using NFT based clothes to dress themselves instead of buying stuff. This is the cyber distopic transition needed in order to save the ability to live and breathe on the planet.
If we keep polluting rivers as we have done, and now we will use on the internet masks, and other stuff, like "skins".
All the dolce and gabbana and other groups new products and concepts are all about "gaming with our lives" if you checked out.
Well I spend a lot of time living but also informing myself and I have access to tons of information so this is the reason why I am sharing all these info and a very complex picture (the reality, the truth) with you. I doubt many can as many of us are still following the compartmentalized way of living and education or do not have time to do this, and I respect it.
Well, getting to the conclusion: I was checking the recent dip of the crypto these days, at a very good web site which is "coinmarketcap". It is great and offers a very good summary at the top of the page showing what are the recent volumes traded, in the total so called "DeFi" markets (NFT, Metaverse and so on are all included and also separable), it tells you also how much of this whole pseudo decentralized thing is actually based on stable coins (which you must know what they are) and which are invented money that are based most of the times on banks that DO NOT OWN those money, they do not have those values, those assets those RESERVES, and anywya they hang it on real FIAT currencies, so actually there is no digital coins what so ever: THE DEFI is HANGED ON REAL STUFF, there is no digital reality besides the "complex" algos and various codes designed that sure are fruit of imagination and power that the digital world has enabled.
Now I am gonna shared what I digged, what I found, by searching at coin market cap .com the word QUARTZ and after a first moment I thought something wasn't leading to the right place I found out who are the people Ubisoft CEO Guillelmot is dealing with and what stuff he has in the head. Well, what to say more? Welcome to Hell.
Stop playing Ubisoft games if you believe videogames of quality still have a future. Stop wasting your time with this trash at least Ubisoft Pseudo Tom Clancy, Pseudo Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Act against it, or in favor of it, but make your INFORMED CHOICE, stop getting fed smoke, fog, disinformation, censored stuff. STOP THAT AND MAKE THE LEAP! Get informed or you are just a pawn, a servant, a poor miner that will just waste time in nothing helping masterminds getting richer with your unconscious activity.
This is the matrix, put this in your head, we are in it, the more you ignore and live in the bliss, the more you not suffer but the more you help it growing, darker and darker. And it will happen that the darkness will make you part of it, by giving you some of its force, making you feel richer, better... but this is gonna destroy gaming.
Games that use DLC as predetermined removed from DAY 1 content and feed you before to cover the revenue projected by giving to nothing huge prices (it's the case of GRBreakpoint, sold at 9 and then with these "Season" season what?.. like it was a binge watching tv serie!... Season pass at more than 10, it means they are using DLC as a SECOND CHANCE , but most do not understand it nor know why this is so. Second chance means like trying to sell a game a second time to try to cover cost and build the needed revenue, not just reach break even by inventing "new reasons" why the player should bend and put hands to the pocket.
You all, we all are doing this and are killing games.
Now "second chance" is NFT, it will be infinite chance. And I ask you a ground breaking question: Who do you think will ever be interested to make good design, good gaming, invest in tons of good talents or even a few of them, when using DLC, MTX and NFT will grant to make break even indeed without even making a good quality game, with good interesting mechanics, good writing, good pacing, respect of player time, quality interaction, QoL stuff, and so on. Who do you think will care of if (you, so many of you repeat this cliché without even understanding what it means) you all say "games are made to profit".
Who do you think will ever make good games if they know they can resort to DLC, MTX and NFT to actually reach break even?
Nobody.
Personally when I get a GPU, I will play Wildlands in co-op as it was my plan to continue the hardcore immersive campaign, but I doubt I will support this. Unless they completely abandon this, and kick out Guillelmot and other Suit and tie hawks from the Ubisoft group.
This is the stuff and page you must access to decide what to do:
https://coinmarketcap.com/: (https://coinmarketcap.com) (main page)
https://coinmarketcap.com/view/collectibles-nfts/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/view/collectibles-nfts)
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sandclock/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sandclock)
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sandclock/news/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sandclock/news)
https://coinmarketcap.com/nft/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/nft) (highest prices sold... this is basically what PUBG did with Gabe Newell (pure evil) on Steam market when in 2017 PUBG was released and in China it became a true addiction, internet cafe opened jhust to have kids gain credits in order to be able to buy crates and then sell those items inside and make money). - guess why China (for many other reasons) is banning gaming for kids, try to understand why, it takes some knowledge to understand the reasons...)
It will seem pretty large and wild to understand but these names titles, rules and additional coins and structures are just fruit of imagination, it's nothing really to understand. Think of finance as a human creation, even simpler than maths, maths is a language, finance is simply imagination, it's a big game, and it has no limits.
At stock exchanges people even do investments or protect their business by predicting weather, if it will be good or bad tomorrow (futures), I am sure this is something most of us ignore. There are tons of finance tools, and with the digital world and "defi" this thing has gone on steroids.
Gaming will be butchered by kids that play like the most hawkish finance suit and tie guy or woman. This is already a reality since quite some years.
In those pages you can find this specifically referred to Ubisoft and gaming:
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:
(around 2 months ago till today - it all happened "suddenly" around november december 2021)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/nft-platform-quartz-wins-the-14th-parachain-slot-on-the-kusama-network/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/nft-platform-quartz-wins-the-14th-parachain-slot-on-the-kusama-network)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/gaming-giant-ubisoft-is-testing-in-game-nfts-through-a-new-platform/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/gaming-giant-ubisoft-is-testing-in-game-nfts-through-a-new-platform)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ubisoft-launches-ubisoft-quartz-platform-for-playable-and-energy-efficient-nfts: (https://cointelegraph.com/news/ubisoft-launches-ubisoft-quartz-platform-for-playable-and-energy-efficient-nfts)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-their-first-nfts-on-tezos/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-their-first-nfts-on-tezos)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-their-first-nfts-on-tezos/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-their-first-nfts-on-tezos)
https://blockchain.news/news/ubisoft-launchs-digitsthe-first-aaa-level-game-energy-saving-nft: (https://blockchain.news/news/ubisoft-launchs-digitsthe-first-aaa-level-game-energy-saving-nft)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-new-nft-gaming-platform-on-tezos/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-launches-new-nft-gaming-platform-on-tezos)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-injects-tezos-based-nfts-into-one-of-its-worst-live-service-games/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/ubisoft-injects-tezos-based-nfts-into-one-of-its-worst-live-service-games) (ubisoft injects ... mm interesting ... remember decisions are made on advisors, people that know stuff: so what Guillelmot knows we do not know? Sure, advisors he has do not play games or play trash stuff... and that's what I think we are going to be offered more and more if this is the advise CEO listen to).
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/crypto-weekly-roundup-coinbase-yield-earning-novi-wallet-launch-brazilian-crypto-bill-ubisoft-quartz-and-more/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/crypto-weekly-roundup-coinbase-yield-earning-novi-wallet-launch-brazilian-crypto-bill-ubisoft-quartz-and-more)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/riding-on-recent-nft-boom-game-publisher-ubisoft-pushes-for-nft-adoption/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/riding-on-recent-nft-boom-game-publisher-ubisoft-pushes-for-nft-adoption)
https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/square-enix-starts-the-year-focusing-on-blockchain-games/: (https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/square-enix-starts-the-year-focusing-on-blockchain-games)
... good reading.
I made a selection of the news, but I should not, you should check yourselves freely: history of sandlock platform is recent, very recent.
Ubisoft wanted to be "the first" in this... and since they are so focused on making games, first of all you make sure you have the finance to continue the business. So they did this. SO they aim to make money in order to make games.
What about going less vertical or opening less studios and making fewer games and acquiring less franchises ?
They have 2 huge ones Tom Clancy and Avatar (just a licence for this one)... Why don't they just focus on game making and improve it and then, yes they even might take these new roads explaining how they will benefit people that play and others, but not like this!
The management of this company is utter trash not to say else. (or really cares from gaming in an infinite and deep way for me not possible to understand at the moment) - Surely good stuff will happen one day, but this is not the way to do that, this is a way to save investors dividendi which is the main problem for guillelmot. I can't imagine how many divested from Ubisoft after last 3 years allegations...
Read and inform yourself from stuff you verify is good but also from not good stuff, do not ban stories, do not ban nor mute people voices. our reality today is filled with stories, we all have a story a truth, it has always been like this. It will never change. and if it does we die.
Truth is made of stories, do not stop informing yourself do not believe in fake news censorship, check out what you can and if u have scarce time focus on the quality stuff without spending too much on anything.
Also from invented stuff, sometimes agendas or other stuff can be learned.
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