Ubisoft cancels three more games, issues dire update

You just summed up the 1982-1983 video game crash in just this.

Almost every game released by that time, were becoming crappy games released for too much money.

The famously much-loathed E.T. game cartridge cost (MSRP $34.95) is more than $70 after inflation adjustment, as a 1982 dollar is worth about $3 today.

People like you were disappointed by the millions, after the fantastic advertisement campaigns that made it seem better than sliced bread. The unsold cartridges famously went to the landfill, being the epicenter of the video game crash of 1982.

Even "good" games like Donkey Kong for Atari 2600 was still dissapointing because it didn't have the elevator level or pie level.

Consumer dissapointment at overpriced tepid fare. This saga still continues today. Instead, people have peer pressure of everybody wanting you to play a crappy game. These current games will hitherto stay unmentioned, but y'all get the gist.

I'm very glad for Steam Sales, but not too glad for, em, subscriptions (a 13-letter word!). Or super glad about subscriptions avoiding the $70 capital outlay (blasphemy) but IAP's are now a bit too nickel-and-diming like a Homer Simpson infinite donut feeder.
This is a very interesting post, thank you for sharing.

I have studied and read about the video game crash of the 1980's but as a millennial the closest I came to living through something like this has been the recent microtransaction-ridden smartphone gaming bubble that somewhat deflated 5 years back. I doubt that this was anywhere close to the same magnitude as what the 80's were like, though (smartphone gaming is still quite popular, just the hype wore off). I mean, in the 80's, there must have been a point where people outright forsook console gaming completely. Like you said, even great games got thrown out with the garbage in the midst of that mass rejection. It was so bad that Nintendo basically walked into a dead market in 1985 and reinvented the entire concept of gaming. I mean even Nintendo was so afraid of touching the toxic "console" concept at that time that they marketed the NES as a family computer and had Rob the robot add-on further mask the nature of the NES to consumers.

It's hard to imagine something like that happening today but anything is possible. The 80's crash really showed the power of the consumer and just what people can do when a sufficient number unilaterally decide that enough is enough. That said, I can't imagine how bad the content must have been to drive that many people to such an extreme position. I don't know what culture was like in the 80's though, maybe people weren't as enamoured with gaming as they are today and it was a lot easier to walk away back then.
 
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I have studied and read about the video game crash of the 1980's but as a millennial the closest I came to living through something like this has been the recent microtransaction-ridden smartphone gaming bubble that somewhat deflated 5 years back. I doubt that this was anywhere close to the same magnitude as what the 80's were like, though (smartphone gaming is still quite popular, just the hype wore off). I mean, in the 80's, there must have been a point where people outright forsook console gaming completely.

No, that never happened....kids never stopped playing video games.......it wasn't like a switch was flipped and suddenly everyone ran outside to play in the sun......It's the late 1970's....shorts were short.....socks were tall....

A kid's xmas/birthday present was like some $5 dollar thing, or maybe a bigger toy at $20 bucks. Maybe if we're talking tween or teen, a low-end stereo system or a boom box....something for your room because your parents were sick of you ruining their stereo system with your KISS records, etc. Point being...GI Joe/Adventure Team or the latest Kiss Records or Battlestar Galactica/Star Wars toys were like $5 to $20 presents, if your parents were ballers and got you the Millennium Falcon well...that was probably $40 and a big-assed deal. IF you were a teen maybe a stereo, a digital watch....clothes....not really big-ticket items tho for any of this stuff.

Around that time Arcades start to become a thing....not just 1-2 random arcade games or pinball machines at the Pizza shop or a game machine in the back of the smoke-filled bar at the local Italian restaurant, in between the Pay Phone and the Cigarette vending machine, but a real arcade full of coin-ops and pinball machines that kids could hang-out at. Atari comes along (there were video game systems before this but they were mostly pong and rudimentary ones with not a lot of licensed games so they didn't set the youth afire or anything) with *LICENSED ARCADE GAMES* for the home.....Atari does some whiz-bang marketing with really modern-looking TV commercials and BOOOOOOOOOOOM! ITS ON! Every kid on the planet wants Atari.

Parents go "Sure you want this atari thing...Wait, this thing is...*>THIS THING IS $200 DOLLARS!?<*....Our 11 year old wants a $200 toy!? OMG WAIT, YOU HAVE TO BUY $30-$40 CARTRIDGES TO GO WITH IT!?!? WTF!!! (your dad proceeds to have a stroke)".
But they lose this war. We all get Atari.

But now you are hogging up the family TV. Your parents want to watch Love Boat, but you're glued to that fucking joystick swapping game-cartridges like a crack head loads rocks into a pipe......(we didn't have crack yet, fun fact!)....so next christmas, besides more atari cartridges and the next round of Star Wars figures, your parents also cave and buy you YOUR OWN TV FOR YOUR BEDROOM. These are glorious times. Sure it's 12" big, and sure it might even be Black and White.....but your parents see this as an investment in THEMSELVES......but its still another expensive present for the kiddo.

So now we hit 82/83....parents are like "Let's get him a new Kiss record and Star Wars figure and one of those Atari cartridges he loves so much".......only now its Intellivision and Colecovision and Atari is coming out with the new 5200 and 7800, kids don't want the cheezy Atari VCS games that are shipping by that point, and Atari and Commodore that that Texas Instruments TI/99a are all debuting "Home Computers" that *smoke* the games on consoles and you lie to your parents by convincing them that a "home computer" is what the family needs, mom can store her recipe's on it and Dad can do his Taxes, plus you 'need one for school'....which is total bullshit.....but the children of the 70's were a crafty bunch.

And basically what happened is this:

Parents said "Oh FUCK that". Parents were really unprepared for this thing we call "Console Refreshes" today :) They just said "nope". They were absolutely not buying new ATari's or Colecovisions and the same games again.

(Parents used to say no to their kids, fun fact!)

They'd just spent a zillion dollars on us with Atari, Star Wars, that new TV, a boom box....a digital watch......whatever...and kids were like "Well...the Atari VCS games are pretty lame so.....no thanks. I don't want any of these new games."

Thats where the crash starts.

But by the early 80's something ELSE happened: Movie Rental places began popping up. You could go to the store and rent a VHS tape of a movie and watch it at home! This was huge, you have no idea.....like if you didn't see Star Wars...or Alien...or whatever....in the movie theater? Unless it was played on a network's "Movie of the week" on TV you would literally *never* see that movie. Ever. Like...ever. So VHS Rental stores changed the fucking planet almost more than video games did. CD Players were also slowly becoming an "Affordable" thing....Personal Computers mentioned above, suddenly "Video Games"....and their respective shovelware (by that point) cartridges....were no longer in fashion. Nobody buys the new atari systems or games, and now we are into the "crash" properly.

It took a few years before Nintendo and Sega Master System finally appeared (the Japanese kept on embracing cart-based systems where American companies were gun shy after being burned) and they re-introduced "Cartridge based video games" into the US culture......and since that time it's been all upwards. I was still playing my Atari and we also wound up with an Intellivision, my friends parents got him a Colecovision when they were clearancing them out......we still played those but ti was old games, it wasn't much new...they still made cartridges but better stuff had come along by then....and then in the mid to late 80's I think the Nintendo 8 bit appeard and that re-captured a lot of cartridge-based game vibe because the games looked more like "computer games" but they didn't require the $400+ Commodore or Atari or Apple ($$$) computer to do it.

At least that's my recollection of those times.....
 
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No, that never happened....kids never stopped playing video games.......it wasn't like a switch was flipped and suddenly everyone ran outside to play in the sun......It's the late 1970's....shorts were short.....socks were tall....

A kid's xmas/birthday present was like some $5 dollar thing, or maybe a bigger toy at $20 bucks. Maybe if we're talking tween or teen, a low-end stereo system or a boom box....something for your room because your parents were sick of you ruining their stereo system with your KISS records, etc. Point being...GI Joe/Adventure Team or the latest Kiss Records or Battlestar Galactica/Star Wars toys were like $5 to $20 presents, if your parents were ballers and got you the Millennium Falcon well...that was probably $40 and a big-assed deal. IF you were a teen maybe a stereo, a digital watch....clothes....not really big-ticket items tho for any of this stuff.

Around that time Arcades start to become a thing....not just 1-2 random arcade games or pinball machines at the Pizza shop or a game machine in the back of the smoke-filled bar at the local Italian restaurant, in between the Pay Phone and the Cigarette vending machine, but a real arcade full of coin-ops and pinball machines that kids could hang-out at. Atari comes along (there were video game systems before this but they were mostly pong and rudimentary ones with not a lot of licensed games so they didn't set the youth afire or anything) with *LICENSED ARCADE GAMES* for the home.....Atari does some whiz-bang marketing with really modern-looking TV commercials and BOOOOOOOOOOOM! ITS ON! Every kid on the planet wants Atari.

Parents go "Sure you want this atari thing...Wait, this thing is...*>THIS THING IS $200 DOLLARS!?<*....Our 11 year old wants a $200 toy!? OMG WAIT, YOU HAVE TO BUY $30-$40 CARTRIDGES TO GO WITH IT!?!? WTF!!! (your dad proceeds to have a stroke)".
But they lose this war. We all get Atari.

But now you are hogging up the family TV. Your parents want to watch Love Boat, but you're glued to that fucking joystick swapping game-cartridges like a crack head loads rocks into a pipe......(we didn't have crack yet, fun fact!)....so next christmas, besides more atari cartridges and the next round of Star Wars figures, your parents also cave and buy you YOUR OWN TV FOR YOUR BEDROOM. These are glorious times. Sure it's 12" big, and sure it might even be Black and White.....but your parents see this as an investment in THEMSELVES......but its still another expensive present for the kiddo.

So now we hit 82/83....parents are like "Let's get him a new Kiss record and Star Wars figure and one of those Atari cartridges he loves so much".......only now its Intellivision and Colecovision and Atari is coming out with the new 5200 and 7800, kids don't want the cheezy Atari VCS games that are shipping by that point, and Atari and Commodore are both debuting "Home Computers" that *smoke* the games on consoles and basically what happened is this:
Parents finally said "Oh FUCK that". Parents were really unprepared for this thing we call "Console Refreshes" today :) They just said "nope".

(Parents used to say no to their kids, fun fact!)

They'd just spent a zillion dollars on us with Atari, Star Wars, that new TV, a boom box....a digital watch......whatever, and Parents were absolutely not going to buy us a NEW Atari and then buy us the SAME GAMES all over again just cuz they 'looked m0ar betterz". Kids were like "we don't want those stupid VCS games! Its OLD!".

But by the early 80's something ELSE happened: Movie Rental places began popping up. You could go to the store and rent a VHS tape of a movie and watch it at home! This was huge, you have no idea.....like if you didn't see Star Wars...or Alien...or whatever....in the movie theater? Unless it was played on a network's "Movie of the week" on TV you would literally *never* see that movie. Ever. Like...ever. So VHS Rental stores changed the fucking planet almost more than video games did. CD Players were also slowly becoming an "Affordable" thing....Personal Computers from Atari and Commodore were becoming an attainable thing. So video games had 'competition'.......and parental backlash about starting that whole process of game systems and game cartridges all over again. Pair that up with a glut of shitty shovelware game cartridges and you have the great crash.

It took a few years before Nintendo and Sega Master System finally appeared (the Japanese kept on embracing cart-based systems where American companies were gun shy after being burned) and they re-introduced "Cartridge based video games" into the US culture......and since that time it's been all upwards.

At least that's my recollection of those times.....
Nailed it! At 48, I can condone this message.
 
Incoming Unpopular Opinion:

UBISOFT games are honestly the only games I play..and I have no idea how it turned out that way, but it did...I realized..."holy smokes, 90% of the stuff I have installed is Ubisoft...and its generational.... I think its because once I get into the "vibe" of a game, because the 2nd post in this thread is 1000% true, they literally make the same game and the games tend to go on forevverrrrrrrr. Want to navigate a world and murder dudes with blades? Pick an AC game. Want to do it with guns? Ghost Recon. Want to make it more like an RPG? The two Division games scratch your itch. Want to have Ghost Recon but have a really *terrible* story added and make it entirely first person? Far Cry!
I'm not really a fan of Far Cry, Assassin's Creed or Watchdogs. I did absolutely love Wildlands and Breakpoint despite their issues. I have 500 hours in Wildlands and almost 1,000 hours in Breakpoint. I did also enjoy The Division 2. Despite a lack of appreciation for most Ubisoft titles, I think they do open world and co-op better than any other company. You can pop into Ghost Recon and play with a friend without messing with your own progress or being locked out of anything because you aren't there yet. You can also divide and conquer and do objectives entirely separately and both get credit for it. Ubisoft, and specifically Breakpoint is the standard for cooperative gameplay. I've never seen it done better.
If you have played one Ubisoft game you've played them all.

But I fully admit I'm part of the UBISOFT problem, because I haven't paid more than $14.99 for any Ubisoft title in probably 10+ years.......I'm the gamer who waits. I don't need to buy the new AC game because I haven't played the last AC game and its $15 bucks, I'm still probably working through mission 1853 from the AC game that came out before THAT. Once I get into a game I will wind up going through all the special missions, trying to find the special sword/gun/whatever, so I do get my monies worth out of what Ubisoft serves up but I usually take my time doing it....took me a year to burn through Origins and I still have DLC that needs playing......never started Odyssey and still haven't purchased the viking one, mostly out of disinterest on that last one however....
I buy and play games when I'm in the mood to do so. If the game is still new, I buy it new. If not, I wait. I don't buy games to sit in a back log.
Far Cry 6 is the only Ubisoft game in recent memory that I found literally *unplayable*. The story sucks but worse the gunplay is abyssmal.....nothing like having a first person shooter where it takes an entire clip to bring a guy in a t-shirt with an AK down, even worse is when bad guys keep spamming in constantly so you can never enjoy the moment......I wasted $14.99 :)
I'm right there with you. I didn't enjoy the game play or the story at all. I played it for an hour and a half or something before I punched the eject button.
But I let others dive in at $59.99 because they are impatient.................like if I paid $60 for Breakpoint I'd have gone insane. But I didn't...I waited for them to fix it, bought it a year later for (yep) $14.99 and it's had a couple free updates for content and they fixed their "Let's make it sorta like the Division Ish!" messup with the level system, turning it back into "WIldlands II"...and Wildlands is a great 3rd person murder simulator (let's be honest)............and I wound up playing through Breakpoint just like Wildlands, and 2000 hours later finally ran out of content...except I didn't, I didn't even touch any of the 2nd campaign and still haven't got the DLC stuff..........so why would I buy a new Ghost Recon game when I still have 40 hours of content left in the old games, etc.
You are missing out. The last Ghost Recon Breakpoint expansion literally makes the game what it always should have been. It's been the most replayable part of the game. Plus, you can reset the game world and replay it without making a new character or reactivating each quest one at a time like in the original parts of the game.
Where am I going with this: Nowhere, it's the internet, it doesn't need to have a purpose.

Ubisoft is running out of ideas for games that cost $60.......but they have plenty of great ones at $19.99 or below, perhaps. :)
I'm not like this at all. I've felt cheated by bad games at low prices and felt good games at low prices were worth every bit of whatever they cost new. I've never said to myself: "That game was good, but only $17.95 good." I know most people have this sort of tiered expectation at different price points, but I don't when it comes to software. If I like a good enough to put hundreds or thousands of hours into it, that's worth $60 or more to me. If a game is bad, I won't play it and it's not worth $30 or even $10 if I don't like it. Like most people, I'm more apt to take a chance on a game I'm unsure about at a lower price but that's just risk management and has nothing to do with the value I'd place on the game if I liked it or not.
Currently Installed: Breakpoint (lots of stuff left, main mission complete, but not motivated to keep playing currently). AC: Odyssey + all DLC ($14.99!)...haven't even started it, which means I haven't even bothered buying Valhalla yet which is also in the $14.99 range now........Division 2 is what I am Soloing right now....World Tier 5.....just something to do and those graphics, Yo............etc, etc. OH YEAH! GRID: LEGENDS.....great fun with a wheel, really pretty graphics...waiting for Forza Motorsport 8 and needed something cheap with the wheel....wait for it...$14.99.......I'm like a broken record....
I have very few games I've bought at deep discounts. I know what I like and do all my research before buying a new game and don't get burned very often by new games. When I buy games at deep discounts its usually because its some title I was curious about but never took the chance on at full price and probably forgot about it until I saw it on sale. A lot of those games I've been burned on and they weren't worth whatever I paid for them even at $10 or less. I think I've been burned more by games at discount prices than by full priced ones.

That being said, I don't buy games all that often. The games I truly enjoy I'll play and replay for hundreds or even thousands of hours.
 
Maybe I'm just weird, but I haven't seen any of those and don't plan on seeing any of them.

Top Gun Maverick is worth seeing, if anything for the aerial cinematography. The CGI was also very good. While you could still tell it wasn't real it was probably the first time I have ever seen anything that looked close enough and blended in fairly seamlessly with the real world footage.

Far Cry 6 is the only Ubisoft game in recent memory that I found literally *unplayable*. The story sucks but worse the gunplay is abyssmal.....nothing like having a first person shooter where it takes an entire clip to bring a guy in a t-shirt with an AK down, even worse is when bad guys keep spamming in constantly so you can never enjoy the moment......I wasted $14.99

Go back and look at FC3/4/5. FC6 guns actually have more weight/recoil and feel to them. Sounds and animations blow the previous entries out of the water. The low damage is even worse in some of the previous entries. The driving is also a lot better. There was actually a lot of quality of life enhancements.

The problem is the story wasn't so good, unlocks were tedious, and main missions were underwhelming. It started to feel stale early on, just like all Ubisoft games. Not a lot of truly unique and fun areas to look at. Just empty places on a map with no purpose except a loot crate. So that dilutes the whole experience. And that is exactly Ubisoft's problem. Quality isn't consistent. They have high production values and an army of artists but can't make a great game. They range from garbage to "meh" to okay. FC6 was okay for me.

I am also going to say I enjoyed Far Cry 2 and played it twice. The setting and small details were great. FC4/5 removed a lot of those small details which was disappointing to see.
 
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No, that never happened....kids never stopped playing video games.......it wasn't like a switch was flipped and suddenly everyone ran outside to play in the sun......It's the late 1970's....shorts were short.....socks were tall....

A kid's xmas/birthday present was like some $5 dollar thing, or maybe a bigger toy at $20 bucks. Maybe if we're talking tween or teen, a low-end stereo system or a boom box....something for your room because your parents were sick of you ruining their stereo system with your KISS records, etc. Point being...GI Joe/Adventure Team or the latest Kiss Records or Battlestar Galactica/Star Wars toys were like $5 to $20 presents, if your parents were ballers and got you the Millennium Falcon well...that was probably $40 and a big-assed deal. IF you were a teen maybe a stereo, a digital watch....clothes....not really big-ticket items tho for any of this stuff.

Around that time Arcades start to become a thing....not just 1-2 random arcade games or pinball machines at the Pizza shop or a game machine in the back of the smoke-filled bar at the local Italian restaurant, in between the Pay Phone and the Cigarette vending machine, but a real arcade full of coin-ops and pinball machines that kids could hang-out at. Atari comes along (there were video game systems before this but they were mostly pong and rudimentary ones with not a lot of licensed games so they didn't set the youth afire or anything) with *LICENSED ARCADE GAMES* for the home.....Atari does some whiz-bang marketing with really modern-looking TV commercials and BOOOOOOOOOOOM! ITS ON! Every kid on the planet wants Atari.

Parents go "Sure you want this atari thing...Wait, this thing is...*>THIS THING IS $200 DOLLARS!?<*....Our 11 year old wants a $200 toy!? OMG WAIT, YOU HAVE TO BUY $30-$40 CARTRIDGES TO GO WITH IT!?!? WTF!!! (your dad proceeds to have a stroke)".
But they lose this war. We all get Atari.

But now you are hogging up the family TV. Your parents want to watch Love Boat, but you're glued to that fucking joystick swapping game-cartridges like a crack head loads rocks into a pipe......(we didn't have crack yet, fun fact!)....so next christmas, besides more atari cartridges and the next round of Star Wars figures, your parents also cave and buy you YOUR OWN TV FOR YOUR BEDROOM. These are glorious times. Sure it's 12" big, and sure it might even be Black and White.....but your parents see this as an investment in THEMSELVES......but its still another expensive present for the kiddo.

So now we hit 82/83....parents are like "Let's get him a new Kiss record and Star Wars figure and one of those Atari cartridges he loves so much".......only now its Intellivision and Colecovision and Atari is coming out with the new 5200 and 7800, kids don't want the cheezy Atari VCS games that are shipping by that point, and Atari and Commodore that that Texas Instruments TI/99a are all debuting "Home Computers" that *smoke* the games on consoles and you lie to your parents by convincing them that a "home computer" is what the family needs, mom can store her recipe's on it and Dad can do his Taxes, plus you 'need one for school'....which is total bullshit.....but the children of the 70's were a crafty bunch.

And basically what happened is this:

Parents said "Oh FUCK that". Parents were really unprepared for this thing we call "Console Refreshes" today :) They just said "nope". They were absolutely not buying new ATari's or Colecovisions and the same games again.

(Parents used to say no to their kids, fun fact!)

They'd just spent a zillion dollars on us with Atari, Star Wars, that new TV, a boom box....a digital watch......whatever...and kids were like "Well...the Atari VCS games are pretty lame so.....no thanks. I don't want any of these new games."

Thats where the crash starts.

But by the early 80's something ELSE happened: Movie Rental places began popping up. You could go to the store and rent a VHS tape of a movie and watch it at home! This was huge, you have no idea.....like if you didn't see Star Wars...or Alien...or whatever....in the movie theater? Unless it was played on a network's "Movie of the week" on TV you would literally *never* see that movie. Ever. Like...ever. So VHS Rental stores changed the fucking planet almost more than video games did. CD Players were also slowly becoming an "Affordable" thing....Personal Computers mentioned above, suddenly "Video Games"....and their respective shovelware (by that point) cartridges....were no longer in fashion. Nobody buys the new atari systems or games, and now we are into the "crash" properly.

It took a few years before Nintendo and Sega Master System finally appeared (the Japanese kept on embracing cart-based systems where American companies were gun shy after being burned) and they re-introduced "Cartridge based video games" into the US culture......and since that time it's been all upwards. I was still playing my Atari and we also wound up with an Intellivision, my friends parents got him a Colecovision when they were clearancing them out......we still played those but ti was old games, it wasn't much new...they still made cartridges but better stuff had come along by then....and then in the mid to late 80's I think the Nintendo 8 bit appeard and that re-captured a lot of cartridge-based game vibe because the games looked more like "computer games" but they didn't require the $400+ Commodore or Atari or Apple ($$$) computer to do it.

At least that's my recollection of those times.....
I'm 43 so I was a little late to the party. That being said, I remember most of the above. That's exactly how it was. But it wasn't really until the Nintendo came out that I got into video games and it wouldn't be until the late 1980's early 90's I frequented the arcades. But back then what you could do in an arcade far outstripped what the home consoles could do graphically. Even so, I got the Nintendo kind of late and my parents got my an Atari when I first asked for the Nintendo. They bought it at a yard sale and I just had that for the longest time. When I wanted a Sega Genesis, my Dad acted like he just bought the Nintendo even though that was a couple years earlier. I got told no initially. I did end up with one, but primarily because my friend was selling his as he went Super Nintendo and it was sort of something my mother got me to smooth over the fact that my parents were getting a divorce.

I had to buy the Sega-CD with my own money. My parents definitely embraced VHS and game rentals though. It was a cheap way to entertain me without sinking a bunch of money into actually buying things.
 
Funny enough, for my capstone project when getting my accounting degree a few years back we had to do analysis of Ubisoft and Activision. IIRC our conclusion was that Ubisoft was too dependent on sequels to the same few titles and was carrying too much debt. Four years later and here we are.
 
Not if you have any clue about aerial combat ;)
Then avoid this movie at all cost.

I did say "aerial cinematography". The real world footage is absolutely amazing. The tactics are of course nonsense but it is a movie. I don't think looking at screens and never seeing the enemy would make for a movie that the average person would want to watch.
 
But by the early 80's something ELSE happened: Movie Rental places began popping up. You could go to the store and rent a VHS tape of a movie and watch it at home! This was huge, you have no idea.....like if you didn't see Star Wars...or Alien...or whatever....in the movie theater? Unless it was played on a network's "Movie of the week" on TV you would literally *never* see that movie. Ever. Like...ever. So VHS Rental stores changed the fucking planet almost more than video games did. CD Players were also slowly becoming an "Affordable" thing....Personal Computers mentioned above, suddenly "Video Games"....and their respective shovelware (by that point) cartridges....were no longer in fashion. Nobody buys the new atari systems or games, and now we are into the "crash" properly.
Thanks for that awesome post, I read the entire thing a couple of times. I really like how you talked about the culture of the 80s and how gaming existed within it, it is surprisingly hard to find retrospectives that actually try to frame 80's gaming within 80's culture and not just talk about a series of mistakes made by game/console developers.

I found your paragraph I quoted above to be especially interesting. It is very insightful, and I have never before seen this line of reasoning mentioned in any retrospectives on the 80's gaming crash. I can see where you are coming from though, as a 90's kid I think I got a taste of what life might have been a bit like in the 80's: pop culture and technology was just huge and a lot of the most popular things were still off in their own ecosystem and not necessarily digital. I mean, yeah gaming was big in the 90's but there times like when the Backstreet Boys/Spice Girls were on fire that everybody (and I mean everybody) just stopped whatever they were doing and went with this new craze for a while. Or I remember when every kid on my street got inline skates and road hockey just became the thing to do for a while, gaming was still there but you could just see a lot more disruption in kid's attention compared to now (let's not even talk about fads like Pokemon Cards, Nano's, Furbies, Beany Babies, etc). I can see how Blockbuster, CD players and the original Star Wars trilogy did this to a much bigger degree in the 80's. I mean, I can't imagine how huge Star Wars alone was then (the hype for the original trilogy was still out of this world even in the 90's until the prequels came), I can totally see how gaming would have had a lot of competition to hold kids attention at that point in time: pop culture was just so much less domesticated and predictable compared to what life is like today. Yeah, 2000's kids got IPhones/IPads/Social Media/etc but that is really all about integration, none of it really disrupted youth culture and detracted from their core interests the way new things in the 80's and (to a lesser degree the) 90's did.

Anyways, thanks again for sharing. There is so much video game history (entire books) written about the SNES vs. Genesis days and onwards, but most retrospectives just glaze over the 8-bit era and earlier. I used to just think that the kids of that era were the type that just grew up and left gaming in the past and didn't talk about it and that is why there is such a sparsely-documented history (as opposed to my generation that never really grew out of gaming). That said, I am coming to realize that there are lots of folks (like yourself) that are more than willing to share detailed recounts of gaming history from the 80's, maybe it's just that people from my generation are failing to ask...

BTW, I take full responsibility to the mods for derailing the thread, if I see the potential for further discussion here I will create a new thread. I am the first to admit that I have a healthy case of ADHD and I happen to love discussing gaming history. I personally play games today that are from the NES era which were from before my time and it I think that it is very important that the surrounding history be well-documented. I find that it is essential in order to fully enjoy a game from a particular era that there also be an understanding of culture and the gaming audience from that era. We need to do a better job documenting the 80's.
 
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Thanks for that awesome post, I read the entire thing a couple of times. I really like how you talked about the culture of the 80s and how gaming existed within it, it is surprisingly hard to find retrospectives that actually try to frame 80's gaming within 80's culture and not just talk about a series of mistakes made by game/console developers.

Very kind of you to say so, glad you enjoyed the read. I'm sure others who were there may remember things a bit differently so let me just state I'm no historian, this is just one kids experiences growing up during those times. I'm just throwing out some context as I saw it as a kid in the 70's and a teen in the 80's and the kind of things that occupied my interest back then.

I found your paragraph I quoted above to be especially interesting. It is very insightful, and I have never before seen this line of reasoning mentioned in any retrospectives on the 80's gaming crash.

I neglected to comment on the national economy during those times, which honestly is probably *the* biggest factor....the late 70's were Inflation Hell (everything was stupidly expensive), and the 80's were Recession Hell (nobody could find a job or were terrified of losing theirs)......now to a kid like me that sort of thing was something your parents dealt with, but it absolutely affected how much parents were willing to spend on what to them was basically the exact same thing they already bought you just a few years earlier.

I mean, your dad didn't get a new Stereo System every 3 years, you family didn't get a new TV every 4......stuff back then was expected to last years and years, and you got it repaired, not replaced. But then things began to "accelerate" in the 70's with the Transistor and Integrated Circuit revolution which in turn changed *again* in the 80's when everything began to become "Computerized"....suddenly that shit you bought 4 years ago was outdated junk, and guess what.....you couldn't get it fixed or repaired easily, those repair stores began to disappear because they couldn't actually fix the stuff anymore, now it was "we gotta replace the whole whatevertheheck inside....you may as well get a new one". And here we are today...

I can see where you are coming from though, as a 90's kid I think I got a taste of what life might have been a bit like in the 80's: pop culture and technology was just huge and a lot of the most popular things were still off in their own ecosystem and not necessarily digital. I mean, yeah gaming was big in the 90's but there times like when the Backstreet Boys/Spice Girls were on fire that everybody (and I mean everybody) just stopped whatever they were doing and went with this new craze for a while. Or I remember when every kid on my street got inline skates and road hockey just became the thing to do for a while, gaming was still there but you could just see a lot more disruption in kid's attention compared to now (let's not even talk about fads like Pokemon Cards, Nano's, Furbies, Beany Babies, etc). I can see how Blockbuster, CD players and the original Star Wars trilogy did this to a much bigger degree in the 80's. I mean, I can't imagine how huge Star Wars alone was then (the hype for the original trilogy was still out of this world even in the 90's until the prequels came), I can totally see how gaming would have had a lot of competition to hold kids attention at that point in time: pop culture was just so much less domesticated and predictable compared to what life is like today. Yeah, 2000's kids got IPhones/IPads/Social Media/etc but that is really all about integration, none of it really disrupted youth culture and detracted from their core interests the way new things in the 80's and (to a lesser degree the) 90's did.

Yep, the 70's and 80's were a very crazy time of rapid change especially for us kids in the gritty late 70's through the mid 80's....it was like no holds barred marketing to us, but by the late 80's and early 90's that had all been cleaned up......the crackdown had happened.....they stopped all the violent movies and cartoons being marketed to kids so we'd want to buy the toys, etc....remember everyone by the mid to late 80's had a VCR so kids could now go and RENT Rambo II or Robocop.....and then they would make a Robocop or Rambo cartoon, and parents were like "Uh waitaminute...." .

Unfortunately for me that meant that the 90's seemed to be like an overly-heavily censored time for kids, and as such as a guy in his 20's it was time to move on from a lot of what pop/youth culture was offering up...the cartoons and tv shows stopped clicking with me...just happens to every generation, I think.

One nice thing from a gaming perspective was your generation got the benefit of having Video Games as an established part of the culture.....it wasn't an "If" it was "When" the next game system came out and your parents would PREPARE for that :D The 90's were also the time when the "Computer Wars" were finally ending....in the 80's it was a battle royale of competing formats....oh your friend had a computer at home, was it Commodore 64, Vic 20, Amiga, Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari GS (?), Apple II, Mac, or were you the poor bastard whos parents bought the IBM PC Clone or PC Junior so all you had were CGA graphics and 5 games...could you bring the game over? No? Oh..well, at least everyone had Atari.....you could always play Atari if it was raining, and by the late 80's it was you could always play Nintendo...the Atari's were all sitting in closets gathering dust by the time Nintendo had taken over.


Anyways, thanks again for sharing.
Thanks for letting an old man ramble...

There is so much video game history (entire books) written about the SNES vs. Genesis days and onwards, but most retrospectives just glaze over the 8-bit era and earlier. I used to just think that the kids of that era were the type that just grew up and left gaming in the past and didn't talk about it and that is why there is such a sparsely-documented history (as opposed to my generation that never really grew out of gaming). That said, I am coming to realize that there are lots of folks (like yourself) that are more than willing to share detailed recounts of gaming history from the 80's, maybe it's just that people from my generation are failing to ask...

Nothing wrong with not caring, either :) My video game memories start with my dad pulling up a chair for me to stand on so I could play the Atari STUNT CYCLE, Atari SPRINT and Midway SEA WOLF coin ops. He bought a Coleco Telstar PONG machine for our house and that was the first home-video game I had...course it was pong so...you know...fun for like a week......but then we finally got an Atari VCS and from that point on my world (and all our worlds) changed. Was the same for people who came 10 years later and got their first Nintendo 8 bit....or 6 years after that and got their first Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo......or any of the personal computers that were competing in the market then, Commodore, Atari, Apple...they all had game software.

And here we all are, still gaming....and complaining about how they all suck for one reason or another :D

BTW, I take full responsibility to the mods for derailing the thread, if I see the potential for further discussion here I will create a new thread. I am the first to admit that I have a healthy case of ADHD and I happen to love discussing gaming history. I personally play games today that are from the NES era which were from before my time and it I think that it is very important that the surrounding history be well-documented. I find that it is essential in order to fully enjoy a game from a particular era that there also be an understanding of culture and the gaming audience from that era. We need to do a better job documenting the 80's.

Pretty sure this one is on me for dropping these white-papers.......see this is what our generation does, we OWN IT :) If you're reading this kids and you're like 17.....its called responsibility. LEARN IT...*LIVE IT*.

Now I'm gonna go click on some embedded ad's here so I don't get perma-banned...

Note: I can't find the ads...do I need a new pair of bifocals? Do I need to read this site on a Cellular Phone?

ALSO: UBISOFT makes ok games....no worse than any other company, I can't wait for Rockstart to drop GTA 6....because you know there's no way it's going to live up to the hype.........(heh heh...*on topic for the win*!!)
 
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The more I hear about Ubisoft the more so think they are trying to get themselves lined up to be bought.
I bet their investors and board see the dollar signs floating overhead and the idea of having the likes of Netease or Tencent buy them out is making them stupid.
 
No, that never happened....kids never stopped playing video games.......it wasn't like a switch was flipped and suddenly everyone ran outside to play in the sun......It's the late 1970's....shorts were short.....socks were tall....
Agreed -- your factors from this perspective are good points. Not a mutually exclusive perspective;

It wasn't a crash all the way to zero.

(But to put in perspective, even though the 1982 crash was bigger percentage-wise from 1982-1983 than the Stock Market Crash of 1929 for 1929-1930. That storied stock market crash was closer to ~50% that period -- but the Game Crash went from a $42B market to only $14B the next year)

Where the dissapointment is intense, it is relevant to this thread -- enough turned away from games to other more appealing options (including of course, newly available options like the boom of videotape rentals and game arcades). To tune into gvx64's dissapointment, it was such a concentrated amount of dissapointment by a large number of people. Your post covers the important additional points that created this confluence of factors. But not everyone was dissapointed -- depends on if you bought a game with your allowance money (like I did). There were many who felt the same in ~1982, myself included. Being Gen X means Atari 2600 was my first console I personally bought a game for (with many weeks of savings from allowance money at the time). So I do have a direct disappointment perspective like many others like me of that time; and thus my perspective is also (concurrently) valid too; whether it's a dissapointed parent or a dissapointed kid. But there definitely were dissapointed kids who actually spent their allowance money on games -- deciding whether to spend at the arcade or save up for a sale cartridge, etc.

In this era, it's a lot more diffuse as there's many more platforms nowadays, with the Internet. Consumers have more choice (pissed off at PC game cost? Subscribe to a streaming service or IAP-up your phone). And games recover through other channels (different genres, different platforms, different business models, etc)
 
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I'm 43 so I was a little late to the party. That being said, I remember most of the above. That's exactly how it was. But it wasn't really until the Nintendo came out that I got into video games and it wouldn't be until the late 1980's early 90's I frequented the arcades. But back then what you could do in an arcade far outstripped what the home consoles could do graphically. Even so, I got the Nintendo kind of late and my parents got my an Atari when I first asked for the Nintendo. They bought it at a yard sale and I just had that for the longest time. When I wanted a Sega Genesis, my Dad acted like he just bought the Nintendo even though that was a couple years earlier. I got told no initially. I did end up with one, but primarily because my friend was selling his as he went Super Nintendo and it was sort of something my mother got me to smooth over the fact that my parents were getting a divorce.

I had to buy the Sega-CD with my own money. My parents definitely embraced VHS and game rentals though. It was a cheap way to entertain me without sinking a bunch of money into actually buying things.

I'm just a few years older, but definitely recall a period from the early 80s to late 80s e.g. 83-88 when I played virtually no video game consoles -- and this was right in the window between the death of Atari and birth of NES. I was still playing games periodically on our C64 and C128 during this time, but our living room TV was used expressly for TV and VHS (and luckily, Laserdisc): the 2600 was moved to and relagated to a small 13" screen in the basement that no one touched.

Once Sega Genesis came, it was a consistant chain of consoles including Sega-CD and 32x during High School for me (and PC) until I went to Uni where PCs (and classwork, sports etc.) took precedant. I largely missed the PS1/Saturn/PS2 era.

As for Ubisofts decline, a few culprits, in my view:

-They've grown too big and, relatedly, their dev houses are too numerous (aren't they spread between eight regions/locales now?). And this is apparent in the actual development offices. I've visited both Ubisoft Montreal offices and Rockstar Edinburgh: the first looks like a hedg fund office that's had an "Agile" workspace overhaul, the second looks like a true modern creative space with hyper-cool branding all over.
-Their games are largely the same: mechanics, world design, even some of the assets are shared (albeit I'm sure Ubisoft execs say this as a strength/efficiency). People can only enjoy so many open-wolrd capture the flag with pseudo stealth aspects before getting bored. Watch Dogs is an inbred cousin to Ghost Recon, whose mother-sister is AC.
-Over-monetization has sapped dev talent and soured the experience. Quality devs are now focused on creating micro-trans and player retention paths, instead of quality games. And this has/will only get worse with Tencent's evil squid tenticles now dug in.

Edit: Ubisoft offices are now spread over upwards of 40 cities. I understand some of these offices are likely focused on peripheral work e.g. localization, but it's difficult to maintain a cohesive project between even 4-5 locations, much less 10-15.
 
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I don't know how to help them the have talent to make great games they should of never went to Epic for exclusives. Rainbow Six is huge but now we have Ready or Not.
 
Meh. Another example of what running a gaming company for profit via a board of directors will do. They lose the creators that really care about the games. Ubisoft has been dead to me since they killed World in Conflict.
 
I mean... they could try not making the same game over and over. Seriously, the make one game. You run around and explore, climb up tall things to unlock the map, find lots and lots of random collectables, and murder dudes and critters. If you want to do it in a historical setting with blades, it is Assassin's Creed, if you want to do it in a modernish setting with guns it is Far Cry and if you want to do it in a Cyberpunk setting with cellphones it is Watch Dogs. Perhaps people are getting a little tired of that?

I've never been a fan of their games, but even people who I know who are fans seem to get burnt out. My girlfriend wanted to play Assassin's Creed Valhalla and had fun for a bit but got tired of the repetitive grind and the fact that it really didn't feel like anything interesting, just a new Viking style coat of paint.

They have to be one of the least creative studios I've seen, yet they pour TONS of money in to these games.

This is exactly spot on.
I hadn't played an AC game in ages and a few years back I got a deal on Odyssey. It had been awhile and I enjoyed it and played through most of its content. Grabbed the Viking version and lasted a few hours of game play.... perhaps I'll go back at some point perhaps. its the same game. To be fair I guess the Egypt one was also the same game, if I had played that one first I'm sure Odyssey would have wore me out after an hour or two as well.

Its probably time for Ubisoft to get knocked down a little bit and come up with something fresh. I don't really want to play the parkour knife em in the back over and over and over and over game forever.
 
...and Atari and Commodore that that Texas Instruments TI/99a are all debuting "Home Computers" that *smoke* the games on consoles and you lie to your parents by convincing them that a "home computer" is what the family needs, mom can store her recipe's on it and Dad can do his Taxes, plus you 'need one for school'....which is total bullshit.....but the children of the 70's were a crafty bunch.

Hah, I distinctly remember my father throwing up his hands screaming "I just paid $2500 for a video game machine!" like it was yesterday, after witnessing me play Ultima V for a three hour session. I had pushed hard for months to get a 386 (and a DX, no less) to "help with classwork". After all "computers are the future" and I'd gone so far as to take a Pascal programming class which my elementary school at the time was inexplicably offering, and had a few tutoring sessions on hardware from and engineering major. My mother also was pushing to upgrade our word processor and C128 as she'd heard about this great Word Star software on PC. I suspect she knew the real reason I wanted that $2500 machine -- partners in crime.
 
Can't think of the last time I bought a Ubisoft game...the original Watch Dogs maybe? And that was a mistake.
I actually had fun with Watchdogs Legion, but only doing the recruitment missions. Recruiting people off the street, doing their loyalty mission, and then being able to take control of a random person who has a certain skill/weapon was interesting. The rest of the game I could care less about.
 
I actually had fun with Watchdogs Legion, but only doing the recruitment missions. Recruiting people off the street, doing their loyalty mission, and then being able to take control of a random person who has a certain skill/weapon was interesting. The rest of the game I could care less about.
I never even finished the first one.

Looks like my wife got me Assassin's Creed: Origins code from something she got a long time ago (maybe it was a Humble Bundle?). So guess I need to check that out, but otherwise, yeah Watch Dogs was the last one I actually bought.
 
Anyway, that's my Ubisoft game rant
yeah i loaded up AC3 recently because i had got it in a give away a while back and didn't finish it because it was boring a.f. you basically just hold down a button and he does all the runs, jumps and parkour for you until you get to where you do combat and that just feels too clunky to me. uninstalled
The only games on there I have bought and/or enjoyed have been the Far Cry series, starting with Far Cry 2 (the first one was kind of trash, and I didn't even think they made the first one, I thought it was in house developed by Crytek)
man idk, when the original Farcry came out on PC it was kinda ground breaking, to me anyway, me and my uncle had a blast with it. I had bought it for him for his birthday, my computer at the time couldn't even run it. and it did come out on pc WAY before console, so by the time most people had heard of it or got it was a downgraded version and i think they were already talking about Crysis by then anyway.

**but I did want to throw this out to everyone that reads this thread, that there was one really good game that ubisoft put out a while back that was never advertised but kind of unique and not ubitrash was "Child of Light" which is kind of a metroidvania with light rpg elements / upgrade system and a decent little fantasy story. the combat and controls all felt good. I had a good time with it and played it all the way to the end. It's def worth a look and the $10-15 they charged for it
 
And here come the consequences of the CEO's comments blaming employees for the decreasing quality of games and lower profits. Ubisoft Paris employees will be striking next week.

https://nitter.1d4.us/SolInfoJeuVideo/status/1615263954955116546

View attachment 542387

I know they want to blame the CEO but let us be honest here. The developers/employees are the ones generally making decisions for the game designs themselves. They're just as responsible. I have no sympathy for them.
 
I know they want to blame the CEO but let us be honest here. The developers/employees are the ones generally making decisions for the game designs themselves. They're just as responsible. I have no sympathy for them.
Having worked in various parts of the industry for more than 30 years - some of us have worked at various companies that had a game developer line of business. While I wasn't a game developer myself, there were a lot of game developers in the surrounding cubicles on my floor at the time; at two companies I had historically worked for a few years (each) with.

For both, I noticed that a lot of decisions came from less than 5% of the developers/employees and some are being forced to follow somebody else's game design decisions. Even the artists who whip together something fancy was doing it from "...please create a gargoyle-style character that involves lots of spiked collars, designed to be the endgame boss for Level 3 of this game design..." or some other edict from a PowerPoint deck or a wall sketch pinup made by the storyboarding department being controlled by a few execs. And sometimes the edicts are pretty railroaded/limited scope when the execs have ordered a sequel...

Smaller/indie companies have a hell lot more freedom (even if it hits only 20-25%), but the behemoth names in games, it's far lower, with more rigidity edict'd from the higher ups, to play a known formula to keep people happy...

I don't know what the mix is for Ubisoft, but for a random sampling of my blood and sweat, I'll have to side with the striking game developers here. Game development at some of the big names is a lot more stressful than, say, programming a stock trading app (done that too) or a deaf-assistive app (done that too).

Now, also especially with the well known French culture -- this is relatively surprisingly tolerant of the strike-happy French, actually, just to only do a single 1-day 4-hour strike. It's not like a revolt, but a work-merrily, then strike on the clock, then immediately back to work the next day, right on the minute. Typical French attitude; it's pretty common culturally over there, rather interesting approach how they approach strikes. Boss is probably a bit sour about employees not wanting to do unpaid overtime, and clocking out at 5:01pm;

Yes, I've done willingly a lot of unpaid overtime over the years because I wanted to put the quality in my work but sometimes the edicts from above becomes so onerous that it's rock-hardplace, ordered to do work 100x worse than when I was first hired years ago, and one just wants to just clock-out at 5:01pm on my timesheet and billing, and the boss complains I don't want to do unpaid overtime for somebody else under these criteria (Not anymore for them, I'm my own business).

People being asked to do what they weren't originally trained to do, because that other person was let go, and they wanted someone to fill a round hole with a square peg, and not doing what they do best at. Left hand, right hand, just sing the sequel formula songsheet playbook, stay within the lines, don't color outside like you used to do at an indie game company. Some of the employees even agree with the usersabout the quality of their game publishers' games, but feel helpless when they're 1984'd into doing what they're doing. Even when ~75% of employees are happy, that's still ~25% that are not, and when mismanaged during crunch time, that can produce morale/efficiency chaos exacerbated/worsened by executive edicts.

Games have become more and more complex to develop, which leads to odds of issues, delays, and failures, and creates future structural issues / reputational / burnout / moral hazards, as an operation of a typical boilerplate "Giant ACME Game Company Inc." goes.

Note: This may not apply to Ubisoft; And sure, there are bad employees. I'm simply talking truths about mega-big game companies in general.
 
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