Some time ago, a meeting took place between Ubisoft representatives and its shareholders, during which the company’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, openly admitted that Star Wars: Outlaws was a failure. He blamed the poor state of affairs on the weak condition of the franchise and the game’s lack of polish.
Reasons for Star Wars: Outlaws failure
For Star Wars Outlaws, we didn’t reach our sales targets. The game suffered from a number of items. First, it suffered from the fact that it was released at a time when the brand, the brand that it belonged to was in a bit of choppy waters. And the game had a few items that still needed to be polished, and they were polished and debugged in the early weeks, but it did affect sales volumes.
Guillemot also noted that the most important fixes were implemented in the first weeks after the release, but this didn’t significantly affect the sales of the production. However, the company didn’t give up, and the game’s upcoming release for the Nintendo Switch 2 has been described as a “new version of the title.”
Star Wars: Outlaws launched at the end of August last year, but it didn’t enjoy much popularity. Within a month of its release, the game sold in just one million copies. Such a poor result was undoubtedly very unsatisfactory for Ubisoft.
As for the state of the Star Wars brand, it’s hard to say if it was really in such a tough spot. However, just over a year before the launch of Outlaws, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was released, which turned out to be a commercial success. Recently, the game Star Wars: Battlefront II has been also making a comeback.
Increase in players’ criticism
During the same meeting, the risks to which Ubisoft may be exposed were also presented. Guillemot stated that there has been a significant increase in criticism on the Internet recently, which could negatively impact the company’s business.
Ubisoft is exposed to risks of damage to its reputation resulting from online bashing, understood as massive, sometimes virulent and organized campaigns of criticism against its products, teams or public statements.
The boss of the French company clarified that such campaigns can be launched in response to developers’ decisions, technical issues, or statements that are seen as controversial by certain groups of players. No specific examples were indicated, but the situation of Yasuke in the recently released Assassin’s Creed: Shadows immediately comes to mind. This is also connected to Star Wars: Outlaws, which was ridiculed at its release due to pervasive bugs.
The changing perception of the video game industry as a cultural and artistic medium is also leading to an increase in criticism based on ideological or societal considerations, sometimes to the detriment of technical or gameplay aspects. This trend increases the risk for publishers such as Ubisoft of being exposed to controversy relating to social, moral or identity standards associated with their productions.
The Sands of Time coming soon?
During the conversation, there was also some good news for fans waiting for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. Although the exact release date hasn’t been revealed, Ubisoft’s CFO, Frederick Duguet, directly conveyed that the game is very close and will be released before Splinter Cell Remake.
As you know, we’ve got some iconic brand names in our catalog that we can either activate or reactivate with little investment. This goes to the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which is going to be released very soon, or even Splinter Cell later on.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was announced back in 2020, while Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Remake was announced in 2021. Fans of both titles are therefore forced to wait really long for their launches.
