"what happened??"

“Shareholders need to get comfortable not owning their yacht”
- The truly rich people own the banks. Its their world, we just rent some space in it.

Companies need to get comfortable not owning my money!
- Shit I'm getting confortable not having any money and I don't like it

I for one appreciate that ubisoft chose the top down view of poop as their logo. it's the perfect symbol for everything they represent and they're incredibly brave for wearing it proudly on their chest.
- I thought it was symbolizing them circling the drain, at least when it comes to quality...
- He means like the stylized anime or emoji one ya dullard. 💩

Looks like gamers got comfortable with not owning Ubisoft games, just like he wanted.

They could have got away still if they actually make good games
- Yup. Millions subscribe to MMOs and Game Pass. Live service games like Genshin Impact and Fate/Grand Order are incredibly popular. There are also games with crazy intrusive DRM like kernel level spyware and always online DRM that are still installed by millions. How can you look at these stats and not think people are fine with paying for temporary games? If the game is good enough, players don't care. Ubisoft's problem is their games aren't good enough.
- Making good games is probably not as easy as it seems though.
  
  you seem to be 300x more knowledgeable than the suits that run these companies
  
  So is spending hard earned salary on a Ubisoft game

Shareholders need to get confortable not owning the value of their share.
Seriously, it in the name: they hold shares not their value.

CEO's need to get comfortable not owning anything anymore
- CEOs need to get comfortable with not existing.
  CEO at my job can’t even do the most menial task in the warehouse. Companies will be fine without their posh little darlings

Shitty companies need to get used to loosing money

The 5 year price graph is much nicer to view.
- I originally used the 5 year one but I thought it wouldn't be as "accurate" to their most recent disasters

Ubisoft will look up and shout “save us!”
And we will whisper
- Why'd you post a picture of my parents arguing about me under the word no?
  
  Ali I see is a "pretty butterfly"
  
  That's not what's in that picture.

I want to be optimistic that the industry will learn from these failures but they only ever seem to learn the wrong lessons
- UbiSoft will fail and get bought up by Microsoft, who will have learned the exact opposite lesson because their stock price went up.
  Meanwhile, Larian will keep churning out bangers until someone eventually offers the owners a too-stupid-amount-of-money to turn down, and then it will be folded into the enshitificatio engine, too. Or they'll release a flop, lose access to low-interest loans, and collapse under their own weight. Thus proving good games aren't worth the risk to make.
  
  Man, I really want to assume our lords and saviors will keep putting out perfect games, and yet we've been burned in our history.
  CDPR put out a half-baked Cyberpunk after a year of hype. Valve put out "Artifact", the Dota card game. It feels like the really inventive studios sometimes get tired of the working formulas they're adored for and end up putting out things not many people like - possibly as a way of doing a personal passion project.
  I'll be happy if that never happens for Larian, but it's a worrying possibility.
- The fact that so many people use Steam mean that gamers haven't really learnt either. Some games are DRM-free on Steam, but a lot aren't.
- Yep, after the bombing of Suicide Squad's game, and Hogwarts selling 24 million units, Warner's exec said they would still try to push live services.

Of course I'm really not a fan of whatever they do and I would never buy an Ubisoft game for at least a decade now, but I still think that a lot of people should don't know what buying means and that they never, ever bought (and hence owned) a game or movie. Those are not material goods like a car, which you can physically transfer from one person to another. Those are intellectual goods, and ownership here means you own all rights for it, which usually only the publisher has. What you buy online or in a shop is mere a license to watch/play/use/whatever and a medium with the associated data (like a DVD).
Therefore "piracy" had never been theft (or robbery, as it is called so nicely on German news). It is a license violation. Just that doesn't sound as demonizing as the publisher want it to sound.
- It's really very simple:
  When it's for the benefit of the Owner class (in this specific case mainly Publishers) it's ownership hence people are told they're buying games (only to discover after paying that it's not so) and piracy is described and even in some countries treated as Theft.
  When it's for the benefit of citizens in general it's intellectual property and it's not really owned by them when they buy it (only licensed, often in such a way that they can lose access to what they were told they were buying) and if they do happen to created intellectual property themselves it can easily be taken away from the by the Owner class who "curiously" even in those countries which treat Piracy the same as Theft won't be criminally held responsible for it.
  It's the good old "one rule for thee another for me" so popular with authoritarians, especially Fascists (which probably explains why Germany is one of a few countries in Europe that criminalizes piracy, but de facto only treats it as such when it's the little people doing it).
  
  Are you calling the Federal Republic of Germany fascist?
- Cars have copyright too you know, you can't make another car that's exactly like a Civic and not get sued, and we still own them, so what are you even on about?
  
  That is a patent, not a copyright. If you sell you car, you don't have it anymore. If somebody steals your car, you don't have it anymore. What I'm on about is the difference between material and intellectual goods. You can read it up, if your school didn't cover it.

Investors: You didn't do it sneaky enough! Shhhh

Pretty sure their recent stock drop has more to do with them releasing a bad game based on a dying IP than on what an exec said months ago.
- I wouldn't know it's a bad game since I won't buy it because of what an exec said months ago.
  
  Given how often we see games selling extremely well even after the companies behind them do awful stuff you're in a very small minority.
- The announcement of the game left an extremely bad impression too, because the game was $60 or $70 but didn't include all the content, there were three other tiers or "editions" you could buy, the last option being the $8 subscription service that had a shiny blue border around it and included all the content.
  
  Wow, I had no idea they pulled that bullshit too. Fuck that.
  
  Isn’t Ubisoft infamously known for this subscription model on all of their products?
  
  The greed goes deep. It's funny that micro transactions hardly ever were micro. If it's was a few cents for a pure cosmetic item I might even do that from time to time, but take the discord cosmetics 50ct I might buy sth blinky, but they want 5-10€ for that shit

I call this "The curse of Might and Magic". This franchise was established by Jon Van Caneghem who founded New World Computing. The company later got into financial trouble and was absorbed by 3DO. Over time (mainly due to the commercial failure of its console, which came after the acquisition of the M&M property), 3DO started slipping into the hole. It dissolved, and in its fire sale, Ubi purchased the rights to Might and Magic. The rest, as they say, is history...
- So, it's the Hope Diamond of Computer Game IPs?
  They better sell that IP to The Smithsonian.
  BTW what do we have to pay an entry fee to The Smithsonian, and The British Museum is free to anyone that can make it there? Seems like something our taxes should be taking care of.....
  
  Unless they changed something in the last year or so, all the Smithsonian buildings in DC have free admission.
  
  Generally The Smithsonian locations are free to enter. Some parts cost extra like the butterfly room at the natural History one.
  A quick Google says the only one that does cost anything is the Cooper Hewitt in New York.
- At least we have that fanmade expansion for Heroes 3.
  
  And before that, Swords of Xeen, as MM 5.5. But other unofficial spinoffs, in particular the King's Bounty series, weren't half bad, either.
- man, do I miss might and magic. I think imma play through Xeen again soon.
  
  World of Xeen? Such a fun concept, combining the two games. I've been trying to run the mod that lets you play 6, 7 and 8 within the same game, but my current PC can't handle it.

Shareholders need to get comfortable not buying a new yacht

- Ubisoft stopped priacy by making games so bland their not worth the effort to download.
- Being a pirate is alright with me!
- https://youtu.be/dWEm6oIYeHk
  Yar!

I was a huge fan of Ubisoft. I basically stopped playing any of their games after Assassins Creed 3, with the exception of AC: Black Flag, which I got from the high seas, ironically.
- I haven't played AC. My experience lies mostly in Far Cry. I got a free copy of Far Cry 3 with my Radeon HD 7770. Little did I know that's where the series would peak. It's one of the games I wish I could play for the first time again. Vaas is easily one of the best written and (and especially) acted bosses in a game ever. He's such a pain in your ass until you kill him, then the final boss sucks so much, you miss him.
  
  Far Cry 5 is the best story IMO
  the boss characters are great and the girl that uses the powder to attack you is the greatest part in the game. Sad that she isnt one of the end game bosses because that part was rad.
  My favorite easter egg is also, if you don't arrest the dude at the very beginning of the game, the game ends and you see the credits like you beat it
  
  I stopped playing after Vaas died lol

"You will own nothing and you will be happy"
- My depression make me immune to that

Question, is buying games on Steam "owning"?
- Depends on the game.
  There's a surprisingly large amount of games on steam that are DRM free, meaning once downloaded, running the game doesn't actually require steam.
  
  They should all be like this.
  
  But then, how do you keep the game for later, like reinstalling it on a system that does not run steam, that won't work right?
  
  I imagine it would be for older games though?
  
  Is there an easy way to check which games in my library are DRM free?
- Buy games on GoG when you can
  
  I prefer to buy from Steam because they allow me to play my games easily and invest time and money in Linux which results in more freedom for all gamers. I've been very disappointed with GoG's record on Linux.
  
  You still don't own them. Read their ToS.
- Sadly no, your Steam account can be closed at any time and you have no recourse to access your purchased content if that happens. Likewise, Steam can suspend service and you lose access to your content as well.
  But that's not just a Steam thing, it's digital media as a whole. Even a physical disc is not ownership, it's just a license to access the content it contains.
- No, it’s not. If Valve goes belly up you can kiss your games and the infrastructure they need goodbye. Also you don’t get to resell games you already own or give them away and selling accounts is against ToS. If you die your games are gone, you can’t give your account away legally.
  
  Yeah, that's what I thought. Not trying to be a smart ass, I just keep seeing things like this for Ubisoft and other companies and people just crap on them, but then Steam is almost never criticised for the same issue (or I am not seeing those memes). I guess Valve makes enough other things right so people are more happy to overlook this?
  
  But you can, write your ID and Password on a paper under your keyboard and "forget" it before death.
- You can run them only a limited time without Valve giving their ok. I do say "no".
- No. Do you prefer subscription services?
- Not unless it's DRM-free. You don't own games that have DRM. You just have a license to use them, which can be revoked at any time.
  
  So in other words, no, since it's impossible for a Steam game to be DRM-free. Some have less DRM than others, but unless they let you download an installer that you can use without connecting to their servers then there's still DRM.
- May be an unpopular opinion but I don't care what happens to my games when I die because I will be dead. If I want to pass something on to any kids I have it will be memories.

No worries, at no point in recent years have I been feeling I "owned" a ubisoft game. Not even played them. I'm that committed to follow thge instructions of some dipshit.
- Word. I stopped after the second game wouldn't play because their shit drm/servers... Luckily lesson 2 was a gift.

I think in the context of why he said this was something like an interviewer asking "what would have to happen for cloud gaming to take off and see bigger numbers"
There is enough to get mad about to waste time getting mad at imaginary things.
- you're acting like ubisoft doesn't actively try to incentive this and push subscription services with overpriced game "editions"
- I think a lot of clickbaitiness comes from asking a radical question and then running around with the answer. I think take 2 was asked if gta 6 would come to GamePass and they said no it won't, which somehow became a big news lol
- So, saying people should "get used to cloud gaming and subscription only" in the future gets a free pass, even if the people that said it are the one trying to create cloud gaming and suscription only games?
  
  Who said that?
  Be specific, include the word “only” as you quoted, and very important: Don’t lie.

Could also be that their latest game on ps5 looks worse than a 5 year old PS4 game.
Also despite the repetitive nature of those games, I still always stuck by games like assassin's Creed, but I didn't even give the new one an hour before I just got sick of it

I think this is correlation without causation. Or at least not exclusively, or even mostly. Don't get me wrong he's still a dick.
- If you view the statement as a cause itself instead of a symptom, sure. Ubisoft has a shitty corporate mindset and that is directly reflected in the quality of the games they publish.

Gamers are comfortable with that already. It's the default.

I love how G*mers decontextualised this just to circlejerk.
When Valve has made G*mers comfortable not owning their games.
- It’s talking about “for subscription services to work” not licenses
- You're allowed to say gay.
  
  You're allowed to say gamer
- You can be arrested just for saying you’re a gamer.
  
  I wish that was true.

Still confused about this one.
If there’s a reason Star Wars Outlaws is mediocre, for example, it doesn’t have much to do with microtransactions or game renting.
And the quote that was offered was between investors when asking why Ubisoft+, their subscription service that lets you cheaply rent games, wasn’t doing well.
Might be a point of obviousness, but: Most of us own most of our games. Those of us not owning games via subscription rental are choosing to do that, because we don’t care about completionism or playing a title once a year for nostalgia.
Ubisoft is low on creativity and their games don’t interest me, but I’m sometimes weirded out by the illogical way they’re painted as evil, or the way this stupid quote suggests they’re “Cumin’ for muh game discs”.
- Ubisoft removed Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 from their online game library, claiming some BS like they want to focus their attention on newer games. The original games had no online services; it shouldn't take any effort to provide access to them online.
  Everyone who owns them through Steam or Ubisoft Connect can't play them anymore, unless they still have a physical disc for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 consoles. If you bought a digital copy, you paid for a game that you can no longer play.
  THAT is why this quote is especially evil. Not because of some choice of subscription vs. buying, but because Ubisoft has the ability to make our fully-paid for games unplayable.
  
  Wait... WHAT?! I can't play my copies of AC 1&2 on Steam anymore?
  
  Is this at all accurate?
  The closest thing I could find when I searched for this topic is that the multiplayer and online services related to those games were being taken offline. Given you can still play Counter-Strike 1.6, I can see some frustration on that, but I also didn't think many people knew AC1 had any multiplayer features.
  Anyone reading can go and take a look at current reviews on Steam for Assassin's Creed 1 and 2. The newest reviews come from the last few weeks, and no one is highlighting "Ubisoft STOLE this game from me, CANNOT BE PLAYED" etc.
  Which makes it hard for me to respect memes like this one when the reactions, at least in part, seem to be driven by constant misinformation. Ubisoft games are absolutely mediocre, I can agree with that, but there is absolutely no need to lie about them.
  I am aware of the game preservation movement, focused on The Crew, and I'm in favor of that. I still don't think it had anything to do with the quote. No one in game publishing makes a business around taking away games people were already playing.