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.
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.
There was a big deal about Ubisoft removing Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 last year, and I remember it because I was in the middle of a replay of the first game, and I quit as soon as they announced they were pulling it. Honestly, I haven't checked to see if they actually removed them; they may have reneged on that decision over the backlash. I'll try to reinstall it tonight and see if I can still access it.
But that announcement was when people really started to hate on Ubisoft for their poor business practices, which led to the comment mentioned in this meme. It started because they talked about removing access to paid-for games.