[TaySan]

If we're already getting into a gameplay vs graphics debate then the game can't be that good.

Graphics can benefit some games more than others. The visuals of Shadows makes me feel more immersed in the world of Feudal Japan more than Rise of The Ronin for example.

 

[JORMBO]

The stealth and ninja gameplay is a lot of fun. Kind of reminds of what a Tenchu like game might be like if they made one today.

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

What makes you sure Ubisoft even paid for those clothings? Looks like some nameless brand that will get more benefit from this partnership. As for other part of your message, all signs point towards game doing well.

The broader point is that some marketing deals don't seem to move the needle here, a boba tea tie in doesn't scream 250k sales to me. Given what a precarious position Ubisoft find themselves in, any additional expenditure just seems wasteful to me. This is a time for belt tightening seeing as the company is likely to go tits up sooner rather than later.

Well, that is your opinion. Clearly, marketing has experience on what marketing works best for them.



The game IS so good.

Glad you're enjoying it! I'm not sold on it personally, as I don't particularly enjoy Ubi's style of open world, but it seems to have catered to its audience even with some missteps in monetisation and somewhat lacking combat.

The stealth and ninja gameplay is a lot of fun. Kind of reminds of what a Tenchu like game might be like if they made one today.

Which sort of begs the question as to why Yasuke was deemed so essential to this game when Naoe seems like the real draw here.

 

[HE1NZ]

The broader point is that some marketing deals don't seem to move the needle here, a boba tea tie in doesn't scream 250k sales to me. Given what a precarious position Ubisoft find themselves in, any additional expenditure just seems wasteful to me. This is a time for belt tightening seeing as the company is likely to go tits up sooner rather than later.

The tea thing was probably also either free or really cheap. They do collabs with everyone. It's not like Ubisoft bought a superbowl ad.

 

[regawdless]

Well, that is your opinion. Clearly, marketing has experience on what marketing works best for them.

I've been working closely with marketing departments of the largest companies in the world for over 15 years now. The majority of marketing people are incompetent, great at spending money, very weak at quantifying, tracking and proving the actual effects. They're often the first to get cut in difficult times, and for a reason.

Some very good marketing persons out there with great efforts, but I'd say you can easily cut around 70 - 80% of that stuff.

But I didn't even want to say that the Ubi marketing here was bad. Sure, the clothing, failing Displate etc. are wasted money but they spend the vast majority of money on things that have an impact, like articles, videos, features and influencers. I was more pointing towards them investing a lot of money into these efforts, being very aggressive despite having financial troubles.

Seeing how they're in negotiations to create a new company with the strongest Ubi IPs, it makes sense to boost AC as much as possible.

 

[Zeta Dragoon]

Gennejo is a horndog with no subtlety in his advances. Not a right fit for Naoe imo but I still want to recruit him as an ally. Apparently, if you reject his advances, he will

Spoiler

kill himself

Based on what you've seen so far how does it stack up to the other RPG Assassins Creed titles, and the AC2 like titles?

 

[TaySan]

Based on what you've seen so far how does it stack up to the other RPG Assassins Creed titles, and the AC2 like titles?

The game overall or just the romance? If the former Im enjoying this a lot more than Vahalla which I dropped quickly. The stealth for Naoe is great and closer to the original AC games and you have multiple options to tailer it more like the originals. Yasuke is more like an easy mode but he has some cool quest lines later in the game.

I do wish there were more side questlines like Odyssey had but what's here is pretty good and the world is more reasonable sized but detailed and varied with the changing seasons.

 

[TaySan]

The broader point is that some marketing deals don't seem to move the needle here, a boba tea tie in doesn't scream 250k sales to me. Given what a precarious position Ubisoft find themselves in, any additional expenditure just seems wasteful to me. This is a time for belt tightening seeing as the company is likely to go tits up sooner rather than later.




Glad you're enjoying it! I'm not sold on it personally, as I don't particularly enjoy Ubi's style of open world, but it seems to have catered to its audience even with some missteps in monetisation and somewhat lacking combat.



Which sort of begs the question as to why Yasuke was deemed so essential to this game when Naoe seems like the real draw here.

Yasuke does have one of the best quests in the game though.

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

Yasuke does have one of the best quests in the game though.

That's fair, I just find his inclusion at odds with the base game design of AC which largely revolves around stealth and parkour. I guess it's perhaps fun to have him as the chaotic brawler/muscle?

 

[TaySan]

That's fair, I just find his inclusion at odds with the base game design of AC which largely revolves around stealth and parkour. I guess it's perhaps fun to have him as the chaotic brawler/muscle?

He's great for clearing out some of the gigantic castles. Naoe is weak and gets her ass handed to her fighting groups of enemies but Yasuke takes care of them no problem.

 

[TaySan]

That Elon diss tweet now has officially surpassed the number of likes of the GTA VI reveal trailer tweet.

 

[Saruhashi]

Graphics can benefit some games more than others. The visuals of Shadows makes me feel more immersed in the world of Feudal Japan more than Rise of The Ronin for example.

The games are set in time periods more than 300 years apart.

Rise of the Ronin is not set in Feudal Japan. The feudal era ended about 200 years before the time period depicted in Ronin.

You could get a job at Ubisoft!

 

[TaySan]

The games are set in time periods more than 300 years apart.

Rise of the Ronin is not set in Feudal Japan. The feudal era ended about 200 years before the time period depicted in Ronin.

You could get a job at Ubisoft!

Shadows is a better game than Ronin especially its trash PC port

 

[JORMBO]

 

[TaySan]

Well deserved! Hope to see 4 mill soon

 

[regawdless]

I'm so damaged by being involved in such marketing announcements that I might be overly sceptic. It's just.... I know why they're phrasing it like this and why they're using such metrics. Been there done that.

My immediate thoughts:
- calling out the record first day revenue because that includes all Ubi+ subscriptions that are added to the revenue. Meaning if a subscriber activated the game, the monthly Ubi+ fee is being added to the revenue. Even if it's a long running subscription. It's a normal method to boost the numbers. That's why they're saying first day and not first weekend or anything.

- best day one on the PS store. What number hides behind "best"? Suddenly, they're not using revenue anymore, not saying "highest revenue in franchise history on the PS store". Is it downloads which include all the Ubi+ subscribers using the PS5 that don't add actual revenue? There are what, 12 million subscribers or something, I'm pretty sure they added those activations to the mix to boost the numbers. And you'd think that out of 12 million, a lot will add that game day one.

- 40 million hours played lol classic.

Again, no numbers for copies sold. They give us all kinds of info but avoid that one like crazy.

Edit: also keep in mind that "revenue" includes all of the merchandise and promotions. Won't be much because the merch is not selling well from what I've seen, but it adds something. Don't know how they calculate the inclusion for all Intel CPUs and GPUs and the MSI components where it's bundled in.

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

I'm so damaged by being involved in such marketing announcements that I might be overly sceptic. It's just.... I know why they're phrasing it like this and why they're using such metrics. Been there done that.

My immediate thoughts:
- calling out the record first day revenue because that includes all Ubi+ subscriptions that are added to the revenue. Meaning if a subscriber activated the game, the monthly Ubi+ fee is being added to the revenue. Even if it's a long running subscription. It's a normal method to boost the numbers. That's why they're saying first day and not first weekend or anything.

- best day one on the PS store. What number hides behind "best"? Suddenly, they're not using revenue anymore, not saying "highest revenue in franchise history on the PS store". Is it downloads which include all the Ubi+ subscribers using the PS5 that don't add actual revenue? There are what, 12 million subscribers or something, I'm pretty sure they added those activations to the mix to boost the numbers. And you'd think that out of 12 million, a lot will add that game day one.

- 40 million hours played lol classic.

Again, no numbers for copies sold. They give us all kinds of info but avoid that one like crazy.

Edit: also keep in mind that "revenue" includes all of the merchandise and promotions. Won't be much because the merch is not selling well from what I've seen, but it adds something. Don't know how they calculate the inclusion for all Intel CPUs and GPUs and the MSI components where it's bundled in.

The only way to cut through all this bullshit and see raw numbers will be a shareholder meeting. Can't come soon enough.

 

[Saruhashi]

I'm so damaged by being involved in such marketing announcements that I might be overly sceptic. It's just.... I know why they're phrasing it like this and why they're using such metrics. Been there done that.

My immediate thoughts:
- calling out the record first day revenue because that includes all Ubi+ subscriptions that are added to the revenue. Meaning if a subscriber activated the game, the monthly Ubi+ fee is being added to the revenue. Even if it's a long running subscription. It's a normal method to boost the numbers. That's why they're saying first day and not first weekend or anything.

- best day one on the PS store. What number hides behind "best"? Suddenly, they're not using revenue anymore, not saying "highest revenue in franchise history on the PS store". Is it downloads which include all the Ubi+ subscribers using the PS5 that don't add actual revenue? There are what, 12 million subscribers or something, I'm pretty sure they added those activations to the mix to boost the numbers. And you'd think that out of 12 million, a lot will add that game day one.

- 40 million hours played lol classic.

Again, no numbers for copies sold. They give us all kinds of info but avoid that one like crazy.

Edit: also keep in mind that "revenue" includes all of the merchandise and promotions. Won't be much because the merch is not selling well from what I've seen, but it adds something. Don't know how they calculate the inclusion for all Intel CPUs and GPUs and the MSI components where it's bundled in.

I won't hold it against them that they are trying to spin the number but it's pretty funny how they are jumping from 2nd highest day one revenue to biggest day one launch to 40 hours played.

I wonder how the media spin would be playing out if we didn't have the "grifters" on the other side filling the boogeyman role.

Already said many times on here that there was no chance this game bombs badly.

Many of these guys on YouTube etc I don't know what they were expecting. No way this was going to be like 250k players only.

Steam player count is low. That's just a fact.

The volume of user reviews on various platforms seem low. That's factual.

Ubisoft is never ever going to say "the game flopped" but using very selective language when talking about figures is definitely interesting.

They've obviously taken the bait when it comes to guys like Grummz which also means that not just announcing raw player numbers opens them up to even more ridicule. On the other hand they can't really just publicly let the haters win.

When it comes down to it falling behind Valhalla is a failure. If you have a monster budget for your game and invest a ton of money in marketing you aren't going to be happy with "it's selling less than the last one".

I guess they won't get another sales or player bump now until the game goes on deep discount over the summer.

Looks like the grifters and haters win this one by decision.

 

[regawdless]

Edit: Xenoblade did over 74k on Switch but it's difficult to compare, Switch has a different standing in Japan than PS5 and Xbox, also digital vs physical etc.

 

[Stilton Disco]

I'm so damaged by being involved in such marketing announcements that I might be overly sceptic. It's just.... I know why they're phrasing it like this and why they're using such metrics. Been there done that.

My immediate thoughts:
- calling out the record first day revenue because that includes all Ubi+ subscriptions that are added to the revenue. Meaning if a subscriber activated the game, the monthly Ubi+ fee is being added to the revenue. Even if it's a long running subscription. It's a normal method to boost the numbers. That's why they're saying first day and not first weekend or anything.

- best day one on the PS store. What number hides behind "best"? Suddenly, they're not using revenue anymore, not saying "highest revenue in franchise history on the PS store". Is it downloads which include all the Ubi+ subscribers using the PS5 that don't add actual revenue? There are what, 12 million subscribers or something, I'm pretty sure they added those activations to the mix to boost the numbers. And you'd think that out of 12 million, a lot will add that game day one.

- 40 million hours played lol classic.

Again, no numbers for copies sold. They give us all kinds of info but avoid that one like crazy.

Edit: also keep in mind that "revenue" includes all of the merchandise and promotions. Won't be much because the merch is not selling well from what I've seen, but it adds something. Don't know how they calculate the inclusion for all Intel CPUs and GPUs and the MSI components where it's bundled in.

Good points, and another thing to bear in mind with Revenue is that Ubisoft will be counting that from what's sold to distributors and stores, not actual sales.

If they sold $100,000 worth of Yasuke figurines to shops, then that's still $100,000 of revenue even if not a single one actually sells, and they end up having to take them all back and give a refund in 6 months time.

 

[regawdless]

Good points, and another thing to bear in mind with Revenue is that Ubisoft will be counting that from what's sold to distributors and stores, not actual sales.

If they sold $100,000 worth of Yasuke figurines to shops, then that's still $100,000 of revenue even if not a single one actually sells, and they end up having to take them all back and give a refund in 6 months time.

Absolutely. It's all some stupid fuckery.

But it has been like that for a long time. When there were only physical copies, companies played around with shipped numbers instead of sold. Now a lot shifted towards digital, and they're fucking around with subscription numbers in there.

It's just manipulative shit all the time.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

This game is the true sequel to AC:Unity. I love the gameplay revisions. Graphics are very good but a step lower than Path-traced GI. It's more like hardware Lumen which is a good compromise over last-gen's light probes. Story is very interesting as well.

Finally a Japanese game from Ubisoft!

 

[JORMBO]

 

[Zeta Dragoon]

That's something right out of a Mel Brooks film.

 

[TaySan]

Some pictures of my adventures today. Currently at level 24 and still enjoying it.

 

[TaySan]

One criticism I think Odyssey has a better quest system. I don't like how sometimes in a questline I do a mission that's on my current level, and then the next mission the level requirement is way higher. Confusing and I'm not going to remember the storyline after upgrading 11 levels up

 

[JORMBO]

@TaySan do the castles change between zones? I've done 4 now in the first zone and they are all identical. If they use the same layout across the entire game ....

 

[TaySan]

@TaySan do the castles change between zones? I've done 4 now in the first zone and they are all identical. If they use the same layout across the entire game ....

There are different ones in different zones. Some are a lot bigger than others, but the layouts are generally similar. I don't recommend doing them all at once. This game desperately needs an Eagle or something similar to find the Samurais to kill because the castles are huge in size

 

[TaySan]

Once you unlock Yasuke he's a lot better for clearing castles since he's so OP in power he can take on groups of enemies no prob.

 

[regawdless]

Once you unlock Yasuke he's a lot better for clearing castles since he's so OP in power he can take on groups of enemies no prob.

"He's so overpowered in power" RIP in peace language.

Some pictures of my adventures today. Currently at level 24 and still enjoying it.

Dayum that looks sexy. I really like the animation of Naoe or whatever her name is. I'd play the game if someone could mod the game so it's only her.

 

[TaySan]

"He's so overpowered in power" RIP in peace language.



Dayum that looks sexy. I really like the animation of Naoe or whatever her name is. I'd play the game if someone could mod the game so it's only her.

Naoe kinda sucks in combat against multiple enemies compared to Yasuke and the castles are huge so you will be facing ALOT of enemies. Sometimes I rather not take the stealth approach every time and fuck everyone up. Also, you would be missing out on some of the best quests doing that lol

Naoe gets better though once you level her skillset up with a katana or Kusarigama. You will need to git gud at parrying and timing your attacks.

 

[TaySan]

 

[HE1NZ]

They need to fix cutscenes asap.

 

[regawdless]

Is this a cheat or something? Why does she have super powers.

 

[TaySan]

Is this a cheat or something? Why does she have super powers.

It's a skill you can unlock that slows down time by 8 seconds. Basically if you're struggling with stealth it can be useful

 

[regawdless]

It's a skill you can unlock that slows down time by 8 seconds. Basically if you're struggling with stealth it can be useful

That looks ridiculous, she runs faster than the knives she's throwing.

 

[TaySan]

Upgrading Naoe's Katana skill tree and wow she is getting a lot better at combat

 

[TaySan]

New pictures of the day Fall continues to be my fav season

 

[TaySan]

 

[Zeta Dragoon]

Graphics can benefit some games more than others. The visuals of Shadows makes me feel more immersed in the world of Feudal Japan more than Rise of The Ronin for example.

Rise of the Ronin could always get a Remaster that addresses a lot of the flaws with its graphics. It's definitely a game that focuses more on its gameplay and mechanics then graphics, at times arguably too much.

It sold well enough I could see it getting a remaster, and or a sequel though the issues with PC release might put a damper on that.

Nioh 3 with Ronins open world design with Nioh 1/2 level design for dungeons/temples/castles could be great.