Welcome to any office, or rather, anything ever. It sucks.
And yeah, it definitely shows in the products when the creation process is a soulless assembly line of burned-out human robots.
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"Why I Quit My Dream Job at Ubisoft" (blog post from former AC: Syndicate developer)
- Thread starter sflufan
- Start date
And yeah, it definitely shows in the products when the creation process is a soulless assembly line of burned-out human robots.
Sword Of Doom
Member
The part about "tunnel vision" really resonated with me. It's a problem with a lot of large companies.
Did you read the entire thing?
Did you read the entire thing?
ChimpanzeeThat
Member
I find the multiple studios thing really weird when it comes to Ubisoft games lately. I do get it but i think too many chefs in the kitchen doesn't work so well. Their games are way too formulaic for me, which is a shame because i think the IP they have is actually pretty awesome.
Activision have it nailed down IMO with their COD titles and annual releases. Say what you like about them, but they produce a lot of new content and each studio now gets 3 years to work on their games. Black Ops 3 really started to show the benefits of this, with full on modes and customisation for campaign, multiplayer and zombies mode.
Activision have it nailed down IMO with their COD titles and annual releases. Say what you like about them, but they produce a lot of new content and each studio now gets 3 years to work on their games. Black Ops 3 really started to show the benefits of this, with full on modes and customisation for campaign, multiplayer and zombies mode.
Starsailor
Banned
I disagree. Every ubisoft game have personnality.
You're talking about same gameplay. But they spend a lot of time on each open world universe.
I'm playing syndicate and i'm still amaze by the amount of detail and life in this game after 30 hours (and i'm at 40%)
True enough. But with fewer voices, at least the other people have a chance of their own shouts to be heard and a shouting match has some capability to be productive. Once you exceed a certain threshold arguments just become noise.
Uh, no it is. Ubi is an extreme example because they have a super tight release schedule for AC games and they need to crank them out fast, but even if they had more time they would still need a large team. You can't make AC with 5 friends in a basement.
mullet2000
Member
As someone with an undergrad in History and a Masters in Archival Science, I'm super jealous of this guy.
You can understand why Ubisoft environment or any other AAA dev environment isn't for everybody. But in the other hand Ubisoft alone provides jobs for over 10K devs and stuff. That comes with good and bad things. I follow on twitter few Ubi devs who are happy with their position and work environment so it is not everything bad.
Starsailor
Banned
You know they recruit right? i mean, many times during the year. You should try.
new junior poster not knowing proper behavior on these forums
Evolution of Metal
Member
Those 10 studios aren't all doing the same thing. You will find multiple studios in Black Ops 3 credits: Treyarch, Beenox (PS3/X360 port), Raven (maps), Activision Central Studios etc. Here are full credits, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more people than Treyarch employs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCE31YsnEs
You will even see like 5 smaller studios at the end of credits. Black Ops 3 development involved more than 10 separate studios.
Starsailor
Banned
Oh come on guy... you can't recreate the reality, we KNOW the nostalgia fags is real with "ocarina of time, AC2 " blah blah shit. I saw skyward sword destroy in gaf, i saw each game AC destroy in gaf (EACH GAMES even brotherhood and black flag) because it wasn't AC2, i saw MGS5 destroyed too blah blahblah
you can't hide that nostalgia (and the ubisoft bashing since two years) because i'm a junior poster. That's unfair.
Starsailor
Banned
I don't know about that but , mirrors edge or mass effect are made by many teams too?
Mass_Pincup
Banned
There's those buzzwords again "soulless" and "factory made" At least Ubisoft Montreal is working on vastly different franchise since it's inception. EAD is basically a sequel factory so you talking about their games being the same while praising EAD is quite ironic.
Starsailor
Banned
well i don't know how to call them :/ and the fag word is not limited to this awful website
Astral Dog
Member
"Dream Job"
...at Ubisoft!? 😕
...at Ubisoft!? 😕
Pantaghana
Member
On this site that word is only used by clueless idiots.
lukeskymac
Member
Not being as good as AC2 != not being AC2
Also, good luck lasting long here after that string of posts.
Starsailor
Banned
well this job have much more liberty than a developper.
Being an historian or a sociologist and working for them is good, it's like making a research for a lab, and send intel and informations about what you discover and then, they use it to create a full 3D world.
Wont have any time. Ill be too busy playing all the trail blazing mid tier games growing from the soil fertilized by the carcass of a finally fallen incumbent.
Theoritically it's a cool idea.
Starsailor
Banned
I already explain myself and i said i was sorry for that "bait" gif post at the beginning (also it wasn't a troll, i was fully expected a ubisoft bashing after the title of that topic). I'm still sorry about that, i don't know what i can do for more.
As for the subject i remember an emission about indie developers. One of them tell that those have much more liberty but it's more difficult to them because they may not have the speciality in economy or accountabily to sustain the little enterprise.
Dr.brain64
Member
Good read. It's always a hard decision but I feel he will not regret it.
stufte
Member
I mean, yah I can think of 1000 other words to use instead of fag. How old are you that you think that fag is acceptable word to use in that context?
HammerFace
Banned
As an undergrad in Game Design this is exactly what I fear, and exactly what I, for some reason, have to justify to everyone why I want to work in a smaller studio or why I wish midtier development studios were still prevalent.
My housemate is also Game Design and he used to have dreams and aspirations of working on massive projects but as the years have gone on he has changed his mind and he really doesn't know what he wants anymore.
My housemate is also Game Design and he used to have dreams and aspirations of working on massive projects but as the years have gone on he has changed his mind and he really doesn't know what he wants anymore.
That's messed up. What does Nintendo have to do with any of this?
crazygambit
Member
Compsiox
Banned
They could have a bunch of medium sized teams working on different things but nope. Every game gotta have infinite content n stuffs.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It's incredibly naive to say that Ubi's games have no personality, I mean when you can spend 40 minutes walking around the world and still not see even half of what it has to offer in terms of "mise en scene" for lack a better term. Anyway, this sounds very similar to what i've been told by people who work at Disney studios on their huge CGI films, it's kinda par for the course when you're working on such a huge project.
They created an engine solely dedicated to making mid-sized projects easier:Ubiart, which is still being used for projects.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
What sucks about that whole thing is that you have really talented people comparing gaming notes with or without industry defining choices as your outcomes. It's gotta be a mess when heads collide.
It's wider in this case - as we're talking about an established mindset that is deeply embedded in the particular company's culture.Ramenman said:
But yes, it's absolutely not the case for every developer/publisher - and some "AAA"s that are primarily praised for their production values were done on remarkably tiny teams in comparison.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Which is exactly what they're doing?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You're going a little overboard here. This thread has been incredibly tame.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
So basically, AAA development at Ubisoft is exactly the same as all the other studios that develop AAA games. This is pretty much a given but good to know.
That was a great read - and also Syndicate is braw. From the comments he's proud of working on it.
He says that in the article. But he attributes the problems specifically to excessively large, international teams - studios like CDPR and Valve don't do that.
He says that in the article. But he attributes the problems specifically to excessively large, international teams - studios like CDPR and Valve don't do that.
Starsailor
Banned
I'm quite amazed by your reaction because i think you would understand what i mean by that (and my purposer wasn't to being insultant to the others) consider the fact you see the AC2 "block" everyday on Gaf.
But i'm sorry for my double mistake, i will not make it again. I was just point on the fact that...nostalgia can "kill" actual games. Or even the soul of gamers, by being stick into the past.
So if you react like that, that mean i was really far the red line. So i'm sorry for all gaffers i offended.
Regardless of how derogatory and problematic the word "fag" is,
1. Using it like this is likely to get you banned
2. Why are you even posting if this is an "awful website"? Why bother being here?
¯\_(ツ
_/¯Edit: thanks for apologising. I don't think anyone was completely disagreeing with your point, just how you got it across.
I thought that, too! There was a thread about that PoP last week right?
Syndicate is really good - and there's almost no point playing the other ones to catch up. The overall lore is in tatters at this point, and that's the only possible reason to play all of them.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Not necessarily. The core concepts are the same, (expanding team sizes etc etc.), but they put out these super large games in relatively quick fashion. I think that's the main difference compared to other studios.
I kinda understand the sentiment, but it'd be best not to enter what is a relatively tame thread with immediate hostility, or to have such hostility in the first place. ESPECIALLY with the use of the word fag. That's godawful.
Starsailor
Banned
I was talking about 4chan not neogaf. And i didn't mean to get banned. But well, i'm sorry for that. I assume my error and the consequences.
I mean, I understand why you're annoyed and I've seen people on GAF overly nostalgic about different game series, but there's a better to convey your thoughts in post even if you've disagreed. At least you're explaining yourself after your drive by post, but generally a lot of junior's don't and it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.
Also as mentioned, I don't think people here are really focused on discussing AC, saying that it's crappy now
OK fair enough. I also edited my post above - good job for apologising.
GTAV seems like a good example of how a very large number of developers in different teams around the world can collaborate effectively.
The problem with a lot of recent Ubisoft games is they all seem to be built based on an internal design handbook rather than someone's creative vision. All of their open world games follow the exact same formula: a main storyline surrounded by smaller, repetitive "activities," such as gathering resources of some kind, collectathons, etc. Unlike games like The Witcher 3 or GTAV, there's very little variety outside of the main missions. Essentially they vastly improved AC2 over the first game and now use that exact same formula for every game they make.
The problem with a lot of recent Ubisoft games is they all seem to be built based on an internal design handbook rather than someone's creative vision. All of their open world games follow the exact same formula: a main storyline surrounded by smaller, repetitive "activities," such as gathering resources of some kind, collectathons, etc. Unlike games like The Witcher 3 or GTAV, there's very little variety outside of the main missions. Essentially they vastly improved AC2 over the first game and now use that exact same formula for every game they make.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Interesting article.
It mirrors the experience of a guy I know who works at Ubisoft Montreal. Fortunately for him, he was recently assigned to work at the Fun House studio, which focuses on projects built by smaller teams (à la Child of Light, Valiant Hearts etc.). He says he's much, much happier there than he was working on AAA titles (titles which he actually doesn't even like at all as a gamer xD).
He's obviously talking about his personal experience, which was at Ubisoft for 10 years, so the title reflects that. And his personal experience is certainly mirrored by tons of other people working in the AAA industry. It's a generalization that won't apply to every AAA work experience but surely will to many of them. I fail to see the problem.
It mirrors the experience of a guy I know who works at Ubisoft Montreal. Fortunately for him, he was recently assigned to work at the Fun House studio, which focuses on projects built by smaller teams (à la Child of Light, Valiant Hearts etc.). He says he's much, much happier there than he was working on AAA titles (titles which he actually doesn't even like at all as a gamer xD).
Well. I guess he can't win. lol
He's obviously talking about his personal experience, which was at Ubisoft for 10 years, so the title reflects that. And his personal experience is certainly mirrored by tons of other people working in the AAA industry. It's a generalization that won't apply to every AAA work experience but surely will to many of them. I fail to see the problem.
Are you sure about that?
Starsailor
Banned
Well i falled on the bait of the "junior poster" thing. That's why i was angry in my post. And that wasn't cool. But i think we need a real debate about the nostalgia in video games (and a calm debate). Because gamers can impact videogame industry.
Twillight Princess is a good example of that.
But hey i stop here, we change the subject again...