Gaming

Larian isn't making another Baldur's Gate.

They were decent to the Anno series, but honestly that's probably just because they didn't see the value in messing with the formula that Anno solidified around the time of the acquisition and it reliably boosts their numbers with strategy gamers who otherwise might not be customers of Ubisoft's at all

More like, company keeps pushing for short-term profits, runs out of goodwill built up in the past.

I'll be sad if For Honor stops being supported

Semper ubi sub ubisoft

Came here to say this.

Unfortunately, that's not how this works.

This is late stage capitalism, execs are judged on how much money they managed to squeeze out before the company died. They'll be hired immediately specifically to do it again somewhere else.

The company dying in incidental.

Some will take the blame, take millions as parachute payments, then the low level workers will have their jobs cut.

Not sure what you mean. They needed more NFTs and AI from what I can tell! /s

Honestly though whenever I hear big companies like this fail, it keeps making me go back to the Steve Jobs interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM

Farm labor is complicated and specialized.

Hey now, I know a bunch of farm laborers and started out as one myself.

They are nowhere near qualified for farm labor. That requires being able to work, not just regurgitate platitudes from the most recent bullshit management fad.

Management will destroy this world.

They've gone plaid

Not just Uplay, but also their activation servers. Their games make calls to their endpoints to authenticate if you own/access the game and DLC. If those activation servers are decommissioned without a replacement, your game won’t activate and you’ll lose access to DLC.

They announced they would do this for legacy games several years ago, and I was going to lose access to all the DLC I paid for with my Splinter Cell Blacklist game that I physically owned on a Wii U disc way back in 2013. Bought all the DLC because I loved the game. After enough gamer backlash, Ubisoft backpedaled and the activation servers remain for now. However, the concern is still there that I’ll lose the stuff I paid for when they decide they can’t serve it anymore or if they go bankrupt. Without them updating the game code or open sourcing it, I lose updates, DLC, etc.

We need digital ownership reform, or else it’s piracy time again. This will especially be critical when Gabe steps down from Steam and new owners are appointed, or if Steam goes public.