I know it's off-topic, but I just don't understand how some of the world's largest game developing companies (ie, Ubisoft) ended up making some of the worst choices? How and when did they crash and burn so hard? lol
Even though I know it's always all about the money -- I just can't wrap my head around it.
It's because they concentrate more on getting every bodies cash first with customer satisfaction coming pretty much as a last priority. Once you've given them your cash, that's it, you're not as important. If you've already given them the cash then you can wait until their crappy DRM service is up and running properly because you've nothing left to give them.
Again, with stuff like microtransactions in full priced retail games, day-1 DLC cut from the game, on disc DLC, flat out broken games, unnecessary subscriptions, unnecessary always online DRM for single player games etc. etc. etc. it's just about draining as much cash from their customers as humanly possible, with customer service happening after they've exhausted all ways of milking the cash.
Hell, look at the latest Assassins Creed. I've not played it (likely never will) but it's hard to not have seen how broken that thing was on release, yet they were more bothered about fixing the microtransactions and advertising the season pass rather than getting to work on fixing the bloody game. They shouldn't be advertising a season pass AT ALL if the game isn't even working properly yet.
I'm not naive. I know they're a business and they're there to make money but as a business, they should be making sure their existing customers are happy before they start mugging you. If they did that, they probably wouldn't have gained as much infamy as they now have. They're 'too much' about the money though to the point where it impacts them negatively as a company. Hell, I would have probably tolerated their liberal use of stuff like microtransactions if I didn't already view them in such a negative light.
It's probably why Nintendo are viewed as such a fantastic customer friendly company. They're one of the few who still prioritize the bare minimum you expect from a developer and give you a game that actually works on release with little to no major faults, whilst Ubisoft are giving you a very broken product with priority being on how they can make more money from the broken product rather than fixing the friggin' thing first.
Same with Rockstar. When GTAV:Online was released they made fixing the 'economy' a high priority so that they could sell you their microtransactions, rather than fixing the server issues stopping over half their customers from even being able to play it in the first place. That's another company that has somehow gotten away with some terrible decisions recently.
