Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed Syndicate Sales Clearly Impacted By Assassin's Creed Unity

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#1 deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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Assassin's Creed Syndicate's launch week sales were "clearly" affected by the underwhelming Assassin's Creed Unity, Ubisoft has admitted.

Speaking last night during an investor call, Ubisoft exec Alain Martinez explained that the negative reaction to last year's Assassin's Creed had sparked a noticeable dip in franchise sales year-on-year.

Unity arrived with an array of bugs and low performance across all platforms, although images taken from the game's PC version - which seemed to fare worst - ended up being most widely shared. Ubisoft issued a number of patches over subsequent months but by then the damage had been done.

"Clearly in our first week we were impacted by what happened with Assassin's Creed Unity," Martinez said.

But Syndicate's second week sales beat those of Unity's, he continued. And, all things considered, Syndicate may still end up beating its predecessor.

"We seem to experience the same sales curve as [Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag]," Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot noted. "Versus Unity, Syndicate was down in the first week but nicely outperformed it in its second week as it benefitted from positive word of mouth."

Guillemot would not answer whether combined two-week sales of Syndicate were still below those of Unity over the same period, but again pointed to Black Flag as an example of where lower launch sales were evened out by a much higher cumulative sales in the long run.

Player engagement for Syndicate is far higher than last year, Guillemot concluded, and Ubisoft is confident that Syndicate will do the business over the whole holiday season due to positive reviews and word of mouth.

SOURCE

Ubisoft, sales are down because while Unity was a disaster, yes, players are sick and tired of the same thing over and over. There is scope for some real brilliance with Assassin's Creed, if you would just give it some breathing room, which you simply refuse to do. The smart thing to do now would be to just let the franchise rest for a couple of years - focus on milking Watch Dogs, The Division, and Far Cry in the meanwhile, maybe bring back Prince of Persia - and reboot it in a few years without all this baggage. Otherwise, you will drive your flagship brand into the ground.

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#2 freedomfreak
Member since 2004 • 52420 Posts

Can't say I blame people for not getting this, but I'm glad I did.

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#3  Edited By Desmonic  Moderator
Member since 2007 • 19990 Posts

They need to replay AC1 and AC2 and understand the "feeling" that made those games great and created the original fanbase. It's not so much that Syndicate is bad, but the run from AC:Revelations to AC:Unity only saw 1 highlight: Black Flag. Even then, as an AC game that one is still bad (great pirate game with a fun sea/world to explore and conquer though!) as it's non-boat mechanics were still pretty broken.

And, yes, for the love of god stop having an AC game per year. People will likely appreciate the franchise a whole lote more if you make 1 great game every 2-3 years rather than a copy-paste job (faults and all) every single year. What's dumb is that they have more than enough AAA IP's to make a nice rotation and not have any of them feel milked...

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R4gn4r0k

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#4 R4gn4r0k
Member since 2004 • 45993 Posts

Yeah he clearly says only the first week was impacted by Unity, but sales were already up.

I'm definitely not tired of the series yet... But the teams could do with a year off to flesh out gameplay elements of the game some more.

Sometimes the games just feel like a lot of ideas and gameplay elements thrown together, without being allowed the proper time to form something coherent.

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#5 deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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@R4gn4r0k: I think he said that sales in the second week were up compared to the second week sales Unity posted, not that the second week performance caused sales to be cumulatively up.

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#6 R4gn4r0k
Member since 2004 • 45993 Posts

@charizard1605: Yeah like you put it. It was this part I was referring to:

"Clearly in our first week"

Sounds like he is brushing it off like it's not even that big a deal.

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#7 deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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@R4gn4r0k said:

@charizard1605: Yeah like you put it. It was this part I was referring to:

"Clearly in our first week"

Sounds like he is brushing it off like it's not even that big a deal.

Ah, okay.

I don't know, Unity itself was a massive decline from III and Black Flag, and if Syndicate is a further drop (it may be, because unlike Unity, Syndicate has to compete with Halo, Call of Duty, Fallout, Tomb Raider, Star Wars, and Just Cause), then we are already reaching sub-5 million category. Is it worth it to keep making these one a year after that? They might be better served with a hiatus in that case.

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#8  Edited By Ten_Pints
Member since 2014 • 4072 Posts

I'm glad there are repercussions for shitty release practises.

Maybe Ubisoft will think twice in the future before releasing something before it's ready.

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#9 deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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@ten_pints said:

I'm glad there are repercussions for shitty release practises.

Maybe Ubisoft will think twice in the future before releasing something before it's ready.

This, plus the Batman debacle, gives me some hope.

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#10 drinkerofjuice
Member since 2007 • 4567 Posts

Hey Ubisoft, here's a wild idea: Why don't you wait a couple of years before releasing the next game? It's quite clear your audience is experiencing series fatigue, since there have been at least 15 AC games since 2007.

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#11  Edited By deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
Member since 2006 • 82724 Posts

@drinkerofjuice: If we only count the games promoted as 'mainline' and not the sidestories told in handheld games, digital only games, mobile games, and so on, we have:

Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed Revelations
Assassin's Creed III
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Assassin's Creed Unity
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Assassin's Creed Syndicate

That's ten of these games in eight years. It's crazy. And if we were to throw in the side stuff as well - Altair Chronicles, Discovery, Bloodlines, Chronicles China, and so on - then the number goes up by even more.

Ubisoft needs to chill.

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#12  Edited By Desmonic  Moderator
Member since 2007 • 19990 Posts

@charizard1605: You missed Revelations which is still a main entry dude.

Edit: Also, I'd argue Liberations was very much a side-story game.

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#13 deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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@Desmonic said:

@charizard1605: You missed Revelations which is still a main entry dude.

Right, I did.

Jesus, we're literally at the point where there are so many that you can forget games now. Zelda and Metal Gear are not even at that point, and those franchises are 30 years old.

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#14 Eikichi-Onizuka
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@charizard1605: You forgot Revelations.

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#15 deactivated-583e460ca986b
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And people say Nintendo milks their franchises to death. There have only been 8 Mario Karts in 23 years. Ubisoft more than exceeded this number for Assassin's Creed in just 8. Oh well. Syndicate seems to be a pretty good game. I plan on picking it up next week.

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#16 Cloud_imperium
Member since 2013 • 15146 Posts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0tAgd-aP2U

Loading Video...

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#17 R4gn4r0k
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@charizard1605 said:

Ah, okay.

I don't know, Unity itself was a massive decline from III and Black Flag, and if Syndicate is a further drop (it may be, because unlike Unity, Syndicate has to compete with Halo, Call of Duty, Fallout, Tomb Raider, Star Wars, and Just Cause), then we are already reaching sub-5 million category. Is it worth it to keep making these one a year after that? They might be better served with a hiatus in that case.

I think as gamers we can say that AC could do with a year off, maybe even two.

But Ubisoft recently stated that Unity did really well for them. Syndicate is not doing bad either. Don't know specific numbers.

But it's still doing really well for them. I got this off the steam page:

Ubisoft Quebec, in collaboration with Ubisoft Annecy, Bucharest, Kiev, Montreal, Montpellier, Shanghai, Singapore, Sofia, Toronto studios

That's how many studios worked on Syndicate xD. It must be doing well for them if they have so many people working on it.

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#18 deactivated-5c8ff6a32bb23
Member since 2012 • 3185 Posts

It might also have to do with it being Assassin's Creed 23.

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#19 ironcreed
Member since 2005 • 14195 Posts

I enjoy the series, but I would enjoy it even more if they gave it an overhaul and a fresh direction over the course of around 3 years. Give it a rest and people will then have a reason to get exited for it all over again. Common sense.

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#20  Edited By A-new-Guardian
Member since 2015 • 2458 Posts

Assassins Creed is the definition of milking.

Get your shit together Ubisoft and don't throw shit and just see what sticks. Try to improve upon the things that actually work.

Also the storyline has veered off so much from the main plot, it's just uninspired garbage right now.

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#21 DaVillain  Moderator
Member since 2014 • 55898 Posts

Black Flag was the last AC I played on PS4 and I'm on a hiatus for this series until further notice. [Better yet, I'm retired]

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#22 Litchie  Online
Member since 2003 • 34468 Posts

I'm just surprised it took people this long to get tired of AC.

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#23 Phazevariance
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@a-new-guardian said:

Assassins Creed is the definition of milking.

Get your shit together Ubisoft and don't throw shit and just see what sticks. Try to improve upon the things that actually work.

Also the storyline has veered off so much from the main plot, it's just uninspired garbage right now.

Lets be honest here, COD is the definition of milking. AC just followed suit.

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#24  Edited By deactivated-5d6bb9cb2ee20
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@Phazevariance said:
@a-new-guardian said:

Assassins Creed is the definition of milking.

Get your shit together Ubisoft and don't throw shit and just see what sticks. Try to improve upon the things that actually work.

Also the storyline has veered off so much from the main plot, it's just uninspired garbage right now.

Lets be honest here, COD is the definition of milking. AC just followed suit.

There is one Call of Duty game a year (each by a different developer, usually with a two year development cycle), nothing more, and they are also usually very good. Assassin's Creed has had ten mainline games in eight years, fourteen if the spin offs are included, and the majority have been trash.

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#25 Coolyfett
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@ten_pints said:

I'm glad there are repercussions for shitty release practises.

Maybe Ubisoft will think twice in the future before releasing something before it's ready.

Ubisoft thinks their AC games are a match for GTA. GTA doesnt come out over here. If Ubisoft would take more time with their games people would anticipate them but Coolyfett is like WHO CARES when it comes to AC. Ubisoft they make broken games and then over hype them to sell. When they take 4 to 5 years to make a game PROPERLY let Coolyfett know.

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#26 Coolyfett
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@Phazevariance said:
@a-new-guardian said:

Assassins Creed is the definition of milking.

Get your shit together Ubisoft and don't throw shit and just see what sticks. Try to improve upon the things that actually work.

Also the storyline has veered off so much from the main plot, it's just uninspired garbage right now.

Lets be honest here, COD is the definition of milking. AC just followed suit.

John Madden Football needs to have a word with you lol.

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#27  Edited By ReadingRainbow4
Member since 2012 • 18733 Posts

Playing black flag now and besides the tailing missions, this games fun. Although sailing can be a bit boring, I wish there was move involved with it.

Yarrr matey.

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#28 deactivated-5e0e425ee91d8
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Yahtzee had a great joke in this weeks ZP on Syndicate. I won't spoil it by typing it out, but the jist was the POP guys are gone, only sideburns remain.