More proof that optional stuff in games can really degrade the whole experience. I'm sure some exec said 'it's not like you *need* these chests, so no harm no foul'.

Using the app has been the worst hassle as I intend to collect them all. First of all it doesn't work properly and it's frustrating and horrible obstacle and makes the experience a lot worse.

There are more than enough awesome games in the world that I do not ever need to give Ubisoft another dime ever again. I encourage more to do the same if you find this stuff similarly disgusting.

"Does it have social hooks?"

Yuck.

You know, I am mostly ok with Origin. Sure, it is one store dedicated to a single publisher, but it was ubiquitous enough that it didn't bother me.

But UPlay is on a whole different level of intrusiveness. Forcing me to link the steam games, and then launching its client to synchronize when I try to run the game, it was a pain. I actually stopped playing Valiant Hearts (although the game was really interesting), because of all the hops I had to jump to get it to work.

This is not the first time Ubisoft tries stuff like this: in Assassins Creed Brotherhood, they had the facebook game to make you upgrade your assassins, and in Black Flag, they forced you to be online and linked to use the battleship-like minigame. But those were not as intrusive as this...

This whole thing has made me give up on Ubisoft games. Luckily, Unity seems to be just a bad game... It is a pity, since I was looking forward to Far Cry 4, but if it means buying a code and going through the whole shebangs of UPlay again, forget it.

What really bothers me is, I have the nagging feeling this is not the last we will see of this corporate stores. Despite no proof of it, I am convinced WB will launch its own storefront in time for Arkham Knight...

I've been having issues with this Far Cry 4 preorder promo for buying a new video card where I had to activate through uplay. It is a chaotic mess of websites and subsites some tied directly to uplay some not. Anyway, the experience has been very unpleasant and I can't see myself ever voluntarily purchasing software from them directly in the near future. I don't understand why, if they are clamouring for consumers to use their platform, they don't make it function acceptably....well ok money, yes money is the reason. There really is no mystery. Oh well.

Thanks Patrick, couldn't agree more. Combined with uPlay's DRM consistently malfunctioning and ruining my other SINGLE PLAYER experiences (looking at you, Silent Hunter 5), and the use of microtransactions to gate access to parts of a $60 game, I think I'm done with Ubisoft. I remember being this sad about Bioware, which was ruined under similar corporate pressures, but it doesn't make this any easier.

@hermes: WB has something called WBPlay. They released it when Shadows of Mordor was released. Luckily up to now it hasn't been a big deal, but indeed Arkham Knight could start the shananigans.

@jadegl: You know what'd be cool/annoying/its-so-dumb-you-can't-help-yourself-but-do-it-anyway kind of novelty is if they actually made you do some ARG/QR code shenanigans where the code is IN THE SHAVING CREAM ITSELF. Like ask your husband to use the shaving cream, then you'd have to use a black light once he's done shaving and BOOM, there's QR CODE somewhere in his newly shaved neck/face/chin.

I'm giving this too much thought, I'm sorry...

Apart from Uplay being bad I am really tired of having to have extra applications and accounts for everything. Fucking account profileration.

5 wallets of made up currency, 40 passwords, lists of CD-keys from different developers to even be able to play on a new location nowadays.

Same thing here. GTX970 and was hoping to play this on launch day but its not looking like I will.

This was a reply in the Ubisoft forums, "Everyone, we have been informed of this with some users as we are currently investigating this. We apologize for the inconvenience.Please continue to check your email as well as checking your Uplay order to check for your key. Please be sure to enter the key manually with all capitals and hyphens when activating the game."

So I guess just stare at your emails until it works?

The companion app game is basically what the main game used to have as brotherhood missions. You send dudes out on a mission for x amount of time, do it couple more times and a chest unlocks. With the glyph puzzles you unlock more missions. It's not awful and takes like 2 minutes to send dudes out, but really the worst part is that it used to be part of the main game and a way to boost your brotherhood dudes.

I'm much more annoyed by how so much of the gear is locked behind club activities (that are not even online yet) and completing co-op missions multiple times. Fashion Creed is the best Assassin's Creed.

It's really too bad, because I enjoy the core experience of all AC games, even Unity. But everything surrounding it is just a cavalcade of bad decisions.

If Ubisoft wants people to use uPlay; fine, give us a reason that WE WANT to use it. Don't link it to in-game content that sits inert if we are not connected or don't wish to be connected. Make uPlay for AC about diving deeper into lore, or make uPlay in AC about linking you stats from every game together to see some sort of "web of your own play".

What Ubisoft need to consider is that the ideas should be 'players want', not players 'have to' use a feature. Or how about this - if you collect all the chests in the game you "get to" go to uPlay to unlocks some puzzle that gives you something else. Make us want to go there of our own accord. Players will 'bob for apples', but hold people heads in the apple barrel and they will fight you...then take a swing at you when they get out!

Ubisoft developers tell you marketing staff to get the hell out of the way, they are killing you.

@noizy said:

"Does it have social hooks?"

Oh god that is the worst!...in a good way :P

I don't even had a smartphone to get these dumb companion apps and U-play continually has some major issue or another. Splinter Cell (Blacklist and Conviction) had a few extra suits but they were far from necessary and easily ignored but this is ridiculous.

Yet another piece of the publisher driven crusade to just utterly ruin the medium in which they deal. Big games are just this horrible microcosm of the very worst examples of hyper commercialisation.

Even ignoring publisher marketing tactics, I agree with Patricks point about account proliferation. Account after account after account for every little thing is really annoying, and maybe for mouse and keyboard users it seems a trite thing to complain about but for me it makes the dream of having a PC connected to my TV using only a controller to get into games more impossible. It's just a bummer. Oh and yeah all that shit being inside Unity really sucks. The fact that all the chests aren't necessary because of how easy the game is actually throws a light on how depressingly easy AC games are. It makes them seem kind of pointless.

If you decline the option, they don't vanish. They're always there--taunting.

That's how I felt about the DLC salesman in my camp in Dragon Age 1.

anything with uplay i really just don't mess with at all, it's unfortunate to be missing out on some potentially good games, but there's so much else out there, it's not worth it. i'm really just glad steam has started listing that sort of thing on the store pages for games

It reminds me of this

and you're late on calling this movement out Patrick.

Everything I've heard about Unity sounds like the result of some stupid, clueless corporation. I wonder all of this bad press will affect sales and whether it'll make Ubisoft smarten up. I'm guessing there'll be a notable dip in sales at the very least, which might just be spun by PR as a "result of a highly competitive holiday season".

Ubisoft have absolutely battered EA and Activision into submission in the race for the title of Shittiest Video Game Company 2014. They should be very proud.

Ubisoft! No soup for you!!

@patrickklepek I'm curious about something. Do you think there is room for some kind of "Worst Publisher of the Year" award. Not just specifically in the Giant Bomb sense but maybe in a greater industry/press sense. It's all well and good to chuckle over EA winning the "Worst Company in America" award, but that's ultimately meaningless when you actually consider the context (EA is not more evil than Monsanto).

If there was some kind collective agreement across a large number of publications (much like the E3 judges week) that would hand out some form of "award" for being a piece of shit I think it would go a long way to maybe shaming them into changing their ways. Endless numbers of random users on forums complaining really isn't going to help push things in the right direction. A giant list of grievances attached to a trophy (possible a golden dog turd) and a head line announcement across the likes of this site, IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku and others might actually turn some heads (hell get the Youtube people involved to, their audience is large).

I dont feel like this particular batch of content was integral to the experience. But then I've never had the desire to sanitize an Ubisoft map inundated with icons. I can see how OCD people might take issue, but otherwise, its not main game content and its not assassin brotherhood content so eh. But there's also something to be said for making a tight package. Just because certain kinds of "optional content" are easy to make doesnt mean your game absolutely needs them. Yeah, you could make that "go get a root way over there then come back here" quest in about 2 minutes, but nobody is having any kind of fun with that shit. You're just adding optional chores to create the illusion of more content. "More content" is only significant if the content is of a quality that people want to experience it. If its just some bullshit people do cus they want some kind of unlockable armor but they like nothing about it, you're just burning your consumer out on bullshit because its easy to generate.

I haven't bought a Ubisoft game since R.U.S.E. and I'm not going to buy another one until they do something about this uplay shit.

@onemanarmyy: Yeah, I remember WBPlay from Gotham City Impostors. So far WBPlay has been nothing but a subscription service... but that is how uPlay started too, and I can see WB making the jump into full blown marketplace soon enough (I also think that is the reason behind all the delays in AK)

Yikes. Good thing I haven't cared about an Ass Creed game since Brotherhood.

How about FUCK online connectivity and "social" gaming. Thanks All Game Devs Ever.

Even piracy cannot fix those blue and gold chests...

Just wanted to say Word.

This is why I keep coming back to GB. I renewed my subscription today.

Will be voting with my wallet and not buying this steaming pile of marketing.

@noizy said:

"Does it have social hooks?"

he should have taped a 3rd phone to the other side of his head.

pssh, a companion app to lock away in game content? out of all things you can learn from Destiny (granted there's not much to be learned from Destiny), why does it have to be this?!

I started hyperventilating when I saw the "culture" image. That's pretty good.

I think it's time we abandoned complaining. People on niche game podcasts say, "Vote with your dollar." That's exactly what people are doing - and they're voting for this kind of stuff. Granted, it's not like you can buy a game for 60 bucks and send Ubisoft an itemized description as to how many dollars each component is worth to you. But the point is, which we the "enlightened" may find this offensive, Joe Walmart (who is really hurting guys, please donate food to the internal Walmart food drive) obviously doesn't give a fuck. Our bitching isn't going to change anything. Call of Duty has been declared dead and dying for about 5 years now? Joe Walmart disagrees.

Optional content by itself doesn't hurt the game. It's asking the player to perform ridiculous backflips like Ubisoft is asking just to access a subset of the game's content that's ridiculous.

I've tried using the companion app while i'm watching videos but it drains my phone battery like crazy. Even when i'm charging my phone at the same time it still runs down the battery. Also ACU has the worst lockpicking mini game ever.

Universally panned sure, but I was stating my opinion. I did play AC1. It was a decent enough first entry for a series as they really had something they could expand on and make better.

The "good times" I'm referring to is not just limited to AC1 but includes 2 and brotherhood.

I could care less micro-transactions or about this social marketing content in games if its all optional so what? who cares just don't engage with it. And writing a article to just what seems to be a reason to pile on the hate of ubisoft is gross to me in my opinion. And the one question i would ask of @patrickklepek and all of the GB staff is why none of them seemed to mention the $100 add on (you get 8 million dollars) you can optional buy for GTV 5 re-release? Is it because they all like the game and rockstar or is it just not that gross to them like other publishers hooks for optional spending for a game you have already purchased. Now if someone wants to spend $2-$100 to help them advance themselves in GTV 5 what do i care, let them its their right but this picking and choosing of whats gross and whats OK when it comes to this stuff is really getting annoying.

FYI i haven't played AC:U so i have no opinion on the game itself,

The AC franchise is my Dynasty Warriors, it's mindless power-fantasy fun that you don't have to think about. I've tried not to bring the business decisions of Ubisoft into it and muddy the waters, but at this point i'm telling them it's ok to do this every time i give them my money.

Preach it Patrick.

Releasing several games that receive middling 7's and offer complete and lengthy gaming experiences is hardly grounds for being the worst publisher of the year. Also the entire idea of "worst this and that" awards is kind of childish. As much as people would like to think this is all cleverly planned to screw the consumer over I'm fairly sure Ubisoft isn't intentionally releasing half baked products just to get mediocre reviews and get slammed by public opinion. Every publisher/developer wants that universal praise that comes with 9's and 10's. Increasingly lower reviews will hurt sales and stir shareholders who in turn will influence the company into taking greater care when working on future products.

Yeah, that's all sorts of shitty. I appreciate getting stuff for having played legacy content/games, but don't package it in such a shitty way. Take a cue from Bungie! Send players a bunch of cosmetic goodies (such as Destiny emblems if you've played earlier Bungie games), don't lock other players out of fucking chests.

@humanity said:

It is rather childish... Also, it is clear the "worst this and that" had to be put into context. That is the problem with EA winning "worst company in America". When put into context, a game publisher has no place "competing" with a biotechnology corporation or an international bank.

It is, however, a wake up call. At this point, it became clear EA resented being put in that position... Whether it was the shareholders or the public opinion that hurt the most, they had to address it and work to get out of it. Some would say they did too little, too late, but at least they did pay attention.

I believe something like this could be a wake up call for Ubisoft too. The point is, the games are not complete experiences, and while I am sure they didn't plan to screw the consumer over, there is a third possibility: they just don't care if the public sees them as half baked products and get slammed by some people that feels screwed over. Even when everyone wants the praise that comes with 9s, there is extra effort associated with it; so why go the extra mile if 7s are enough? Why would they? Whether the game is a 7 or a 9, they still see enough money and new UPlay subscriptions to justify the franchise path. They are so out of touch or so deep into that path, they don't care when some vocal people on the internet complain (people will always complain), if there are new consumers to cover for the ones lost over past mistakes... Unless they get a wake up call.

@hermes: it will not be a wake up call for anyone. EA did not radically change anything after receiving that ridiculous award.

@humanity: Terrible PR (and poor Old Republic performance) were, ostensibly, some of the reasons that made Riccitello step down...

Used to be one of my favourite companies in the early/mid 2000s. Nowadays I don't even buy their games anymore. Don't regret it though. Simply can't stand it anymore. A shame really, because they've got plenty of talented people working for them.