Ah yes devoloping games for fans without actually knowing or getting an idea for what they want or dont want in the game is a great idea.If I was building somebody a multimillion dollar house I would just build it the way I wanted instead of asking how they would like it to be.After all, they are just the ones who will be paying for it so their opinion isnt important.

Because not accepting random game design ideas stops game developers from doing research into what people want from games?

Fantastic logic there, Dirtymurph...

lol

quote:

Originally posted by UbiRazz:
Because not accepting random game design ideas stops game developers from doing research into what people want from games?

Fantastic logic there, Dirtymurph...

Whats wrong with what I said? I was replying to MrRandoms post and didnt quote him because I forgot.Since you brought research up. Judging by the way a lot of the games have turned out lately a random idea or two from a few fans that went straight to the trash would of been the closest thing to research these games wouldve seen judging by the way they turned out.Obviously all the games arent like this but too many are. Do you read all the forums? Not listening or having any form of dialogue with us is what they are best at aside from not supporting some of their games.I know this post is a bit much but the "Fantastic logic" in the end UbiRazz is the way a lot of these games are handled,or not handled.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dirtymurph,

quote:

Originally posted by UbiRazz:
Because not accepting random game design ideas stops game developers from doing research into what people want from games?

Fantastic logic there, Dirtymurph...

Do not go there Razz. Many of us here knows that Ubi does some research, but fails to give the fans what they want. It has happened to many times and is why many of us think that community idea threads are a waste of time as Ubi will create the game they want and not what the gamers want.

i wanna work on ubisoft i just fished school now i need a university career or i just do courses for be a part of the team??? wtf

Yes, several people read the forums here and many other forums but a lot of people on here (yourself included, it seems) have a blind belief that these forums are the sole voice of gamers worldwide and Ubisoft should follow these posts exactly. The idea that the most vocal people online can guarantee a strong business in multiple countries and cultures is preposterous. This is why Ubisoft has a several full departments where research is done into exactly what gamers wants from games, all over the world. What works, what doesn't.

Using this information we make our games. Some of it will be in direct contradiction to the handful of fans who inhabit certain forums but we always ensure that what we're making hits something akin to a checklist of features that are required for the game to 'work'. This is why Ubisoft is successful with its brands and one of the largest games companies in the world.

Like I said earlier, we do read these forums - much like I'm doing right now - and we use what's said on here as another area of research. We have so many different ways to conduct our research in so many different groups of people around the world that to focus purely on the message from a few when everyone else says something else is wrong. We have some of the most talented and respected game designers in the industry and if they believe that X is the way forward and our research agrees with it, we'll do that. Even if you don't like it. Why? Because it's the right thing to do for the brand, the game, the company and gamers out there who want an amazing experience.

Your last paragraph is unfortunately exactly how Ubisoft thinks.The problem is that its not the message of only a few.If Ubisoft were more involved in the communities then they would understand that. Pick a random game on these forums and ask people if they are happy with the support and the way the game has been handled otherwise.Or better yet do it in every game forum simply to get an idea of how people here feel.Go to any game related site and ask those same questions about Ubi games. You are obviously not as involved with some of the communities as I am for you to say something like its only the "message of a few". Im sorry but this is simply not true and will offend a lot of the people that read it.

How many people out there buy a video game? If it's a top seller like the Prince of Persia, Halo, Gears of War, whatever, then millions are sold but lets say a million. How many are on a forum? Let's say ten thousand (a huge overestimation as I'm sure you'll agree). Are these ten thousand voices the majority? Clearly not.

This is why we do research in many, many different places and in many, many different ways. We do listen to the voices in the forums, and they're heard in Ubisoft, but if the few (well, ten thousand in my example) say one thing and the other nine hundred and ninety thousand say something else, who do we listen to?

Having said that, what if the forums say X and a lot of our other research say the same thing? Then of course we'll follow that and see what we can do about it. You can't blind yourself to the fact that people who post on forums are not as numerous as the numbers of people who buy and play games. One of the biggest reasons people post on here is to make their voices heard and the most vocal people are the unhappiest people. It's entirely possible that most people out there are very happy with a game/feature produced but only the unhappy people go on the forum to vent (which is often the case) and then is it wise to listen to these few?

Edit: my point is that we can't solely listen to people on forums as they're simply not enough of the gamers/fans on there. If there were more we could give it bigger weight but we have to throw your lot in with everyone else, who also have an opinion which is equal in importance to yours. So although you and everyone on your forum might say one thing, that doesn't mean it's the majority or the right thing to do for the game/brand. We always have to try to do the right thing for our customers and believe it or not, we actually have to justify ourselves with research into proving we're doing the right thing to upper management before we're even allowed to do it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: UbiRazz,

Im not talking about just the forums of these games but their actual communities as well. Research is done by people and people make mistakes. I dont know where or how you do all your research but its flawed somewhere in the process. I am actually part of these communities and play these games regularly, I know what people think about them. If you played these games regularly and were as widely involved with them you would understand where Im coming from. If I actually put in the time to prove my point and produced overwhelming evidence you would still say what youre saying now. Its hard to be unbiased when they are paying you. I also dont want you to think Im in some way attacking you because that isnt the case.Its just extremely frustrating to hear Ubi employees say things like youre saying when the community actually feels differently for some of these games and no Im not just talking about the people on these forums.

I suggest writing down your game idea and instead of sending it to Big Commerical companies that don't listen try contacting indie companies instead .

Or create a free open source game project on sourceforge (Being open source the game can be done in OpenCL or OpenGL and then available as Windows/Linux and Mac)

EA Games and Ubi have proven over and over and over again in the last 6 to 9 years that they do not LISTEN to community and customers , they do not do decent beta testing on PC platform and they don't care about quality or pride of a product as long as they can sell it the way they want to earn the money they want in the marketing method they have always used.

Typical Example of the ideas that people are constantly throwing at Ubi for FREE to improve game series like R6 , GR , SC and yet each game in the series keeps on getting worse and worse .

Plus theirs talk about Ubi talking to PR or media about the next steps in Anti pirating for Ghost Recon 4 , here is an idea make GR4 decent without bugs and increase LAN coop , remove DRM and you will get a LOT MORE people considering buying it .

Games are like Milk , if it leaves a sour feeling in our stomach we wont keep on buying the product .

Razz, there is no problem doing research in different places. Still, if one really thinks hard about it, statistically, if there are 8 out of 10 people on the forums asking for something or saying something is wrong, that same sampling is taking places elsewhere. Example: we have 8 gamers here saying that R6V/2 was buggy and not worth the money that they paid, the same number of people in Wembly Stadium will have the same opinion except that instead of just 8, we now have about 75,000 saying the game is buggy and not worth the money.

This is why it is agreed here that Ubi does not listen to their customers. Ubi may have sold a million copies, but 800,000 of those customers are dissatisfied and will not buy another Ubi product again, much less state their dissatisfaction (Business 101 here) by either writing, calling or joining a forum.

Wonder why Ubi had 50.8% lower profits this past fiscal year? Part of it is due to lack of quality games. Piracy is just part of it too, but not when it reflects losses that large.

quote:

Example: we have 8 gamers here saying that R6V/2 was buggy and not worth the money that they paid, the same number of people in Wembly Stadium will have the same opinion except that instead of just 8, we now have about 75,000 saying the game is buggy and not worth the money.

that example doesnt work you will find over half the people who sign up for a forum do so because they have a problem with the game or dont like the game and want to complain about something. so you will find the majority of people who dont come on the forums are perfectly happy with what they have.

a forum is a rubbish way to judge numbers as the majority of people are here because they had a problem with something, very few people will sign up on a forum just to say "this game was great"

quote:

Originally posted by WhiteKnight77:

quote:

Originally posted by UbiRazz:
Because not accepting random game design ideas stops game developers from doing research into what people want from games?

Fantastic logic there, Dirtymurph...

Do not go there Razz. Many of us here knows that Ubi does some research, but fails to give the fans what they want. It has happened to many times and is why many of us think that community idea threads are a waste of time as Ubi will create the game they want and not what the gamers want.

Example ... The Farcry Community Wanted More
Of What Farcry 1 Was About .. Jack Carver , Trigens . Etc .. What Did We / They Get A
Game That Has No Relevance To Farcry At All .
No Jack Carver , No Trigens , No Proper Storyline Which Felt As It Had A Meaning .
They Got A Game Which Has A Grand Theft Auto Style Play To It With The Most Boring Storyline Ever Made ... And Then They Called It .FARCRY 2
After How Succesful Farcry 1 Was They Insulted
The Name By Giving Us Something That Didnt
Deserve The Name ...

I wondered when you'd chime in WhiteKnight, you don't disappoint. So, 8/10 people on a forum have taken it upon themselves to say that they're unhappy (the exact reasons behind their unhappiness is irrelevant as we're talking about actions here) but 2/10 are happy. So, imagine you're happy with a coffee you've just bought from your local coffee shop. You'll probably recommend it to friends in the area and colleagues, that's very normal and natural. Now imagine you're unhappy with coffee from the same shop. How many people are you going to tell about your displeasure? Probably all the same people you'll tell you're happy and even more people that you wouldn't normally tell. You'd actually go out of your way to tell people you were not happy with it. Perhaps you'd even stop people on their way in and mention to them that your coffee was rubbish and they should spend their money elsewhere.

My point earlier and the point I'm making is that if you're unhappy with a product then you're going to complain about it, almost always telling more people you'd tell than if you were happy. This is what you see on forums - more complaints than happy people. Like when there was a RROD problem with Xbox 360, there was a huge poll asking people to state whether or not they're happy or unhappy with the length of life of their console. Of course that's inherently bias as only the unhappy people would take the time to actually fill in such a questionnaire. So although maybe 8/10 people on a forum are unhappy, they're not representative of the consumers and gamers at large and worldwide.

Now, onto fiscals. Why have we seen a drop in sales (not profits, very different things) for the first quarter? There are multiple reasons as to why this is and these are all detailed in our fiscal statement over here. The key things are: piracy rates for the DS (where a lot of sales are made up from) is increasing and we're losing sales to this and because of the economy people are buying less games and therefore our back catalogue sales aren't as high as last year. To say that we're not selling as much because of "quality" is ignorant of the market, economy and industry as a whole.

I think caswallawn also concedes to my point