This scenario might seem almost too outlandish to believe, but given the track record of certain companies going to great lengths to stifle consumer feedback, it’s not surprising. Many corporations seem determined to silence their customers, avoiding open discourse to dodge the backlash that inevitably follows questionable practices.
Ubisoft stands out as a prime example of a company that wants nothing more than for consumers to shut the fuck up and stop talking about them. The publisher has an uncanny ability to embarrass itself on an almost weekly basis, whether through botched AAA releases or controversies surrounding its creative decisions.
The delay announcement for Assassin’s Creed Shadows epitomizes this, as it draws criticism for its heavy-handed diversity and equity agenda and its revisionist portrayal of Japanese history. The game controversially reimagines a Black historical figure in 1600s Japan as a fictional samurai warrior, complete with gameplay elements that allow players to decapitate and dismember Japanese characters to the backdrop of hip-hop music spliced with oriental Japanese music.
Every misstep Ubisoft takes seems to amplify its already strained relationship with consumers, leading to continual PR disasters one after the other. Recent Steam releases like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and now Star Wars Outlaws have faced tepid receptions, where player counts have been dismal. The company’s inability to connect with its audience has had tangible financial consequences, with plummeting stock prices and waning consumer trust.
Previously, we discussed the underwhelming performance of Assassin’s Creed Mirage on Steam. After a 12-month exclusivity period on Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store, the game finally arrived on Steam, launching with a hefty 50% discount. Despite this, it managed a peak concurrent player count of just 7,870 a shockingly low number for a AAA title.
While the year-long wait may have diminished interest given the fact that those who already wanted the game would’ve already done so by other means, the steep discount and the franchise’s established reputation should have compensated for some of that decline. Comparatively, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which debuted on Steam a full two years after its initial release, still managed to hit a peak of 15,679 players.
This stark contrast underscores the dwindling appeal of Ubisoft’s offerings over the last couple of years alone.
The trend becomes even more apparent with Ubisoft’s other recent releases. Skull and Bones, marketed as the first “quadruple-A” game, peaked at a mere 2,615 players, which for an MMO that likely spent a decade in development hell is hardly sufficient.
Most recently, Star Wars Outlaws, a high-budget heist game set in one of the world’s most iconic franchises, debuted on Steam on November 21st. Despite massive marketing efforts, it reached only 2,492 peak players. For what is reportedly Ubisoft’s most heavily advertised game in 2024, this performance is nothing short of disastrous.
The continued string of high-profile failures has severely damaged Ubisoft’s public image. According to a report from Fandom Pulse, insider sources claim the company is pressuring Valve to take action against publicly accessible player data on platforms like SteamDB. This data, including concurrent player counts and other statistics, has become a readily available tool for consumers to gauge interest in games, and a source of embarrassment for underperforming titles like Ubisoft’s recent releases.
This, of course, is purely speculative, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Ubisoft were lobbying Valve to revoke third-party access to the Steam Web API behind closed doors.
It’s reminiscent of Twitter’s actions under Elon Musk, where free API access was replaced with expensive subscription fees. That move not only alienated developers but also led to the removal of features like direct clip-sharing from Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation consoles, all in Musk’s desperate bid to recover the losses from his failed investment.
According to FandomPulse, insiders suggest that Ubisoft and other companies are pressuring Valve to block API tracking that exposes sensitive data, such as concurrent player counts. These metrics have increasingly highlighted the underperformance of high-profile games.
For instance, the latest big AAA release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, faced heavy criticism for its modern-day political messaging. A notable in-game cutscene features a companion coming out as non-binary to their parents, complete with terminology from our world rather than the lore-rich, mystical setting of Thedas. While inclusivity can enrich storytelling, many fans saw through BioWare’s bullshit as an unnecessary injection of real-world politics into a universe of magic and dragons.
The game’s commercial performance reflects this backlash, with reports suggesting it sold around one million units after multiple weeks and peaked at only 89,418 concurrent players on Steam, shockingly low for a massive AAA RPG. Even niche titles like Farming Simulator 2025 managed to outperform it.
Similarly, Star Wars Outlaws reportedly sold just one million copies in its first month, a glaring shortfall considering Ubisoft’s acknowledgment that AAA titles with budgets exceeding $100 million need to sell 10 million copies to profit. These dismal numbers underscore the financial and reputational challenges Ubisoft and other developers are facing in the current gaming landscape.
In a recent interview at XDS24, Marc-Alexis Côté, Executive Producer of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, shared a sobering insight into the financial demands of AAA game development from Ubisoft’s perspective. According to Côté, breaking even on a major AAA title now requires selling around 10 million units.
This staggering figure reflects the ballooning costs of development, exacerbated by companies like Ubisoft that continue to expand their teams and indulge in overly ambitious projects. Selling games on platforms like Steam also incurs additional fees, from platform cuts to credit card transaction costs, further increasing the amount of sales needed to break even.
Modern AAA games often take around four years to develop nowadays, with budgets ranging into the $100 to $200 million territory before factoring in marketing and advertising expenses. As such, the financial risks are immense, particularly in an industry plagued by quality control issues, political agendas, and mounting consumer fatigue. The AAA model seems unsustainable from a business perspective.
If Ubisoft’s break-even estimates are accurate, the failure of recent titles to barely surpass the 1 million sales mark signals significant financial losses. For instance, Steam’s transparency regarding concurrent player counts serves as a glaring reminder of this struggle, and it’s no wonder companies might want to hide such data.
Perhaps the solution isn’t to obscure failures but to address the root causes. Maybe it’s time to refocus on making better games that prioritize quality and player enjoyment over political ideology. With gamers around the world feeling the pinch of economic constraints, they’re less willing to invest $60 in poorly made products.
The expectation has shifted: consumers want value for their money, not games bogged down by heavy-handed messages or design choices that prioritize diversity and inclusivity in ways that alienate core audiences. For example, character designs that rely on exaggerated “representation” fail to resonate with players, especially when they seem to equate inclusivity with unattractive, masculine portrayals of “real women.”
If publishers want to regain consumer trust and profitability, delivering high-quality, compelling experiences should be the focus, not virtue signaling.
You don’t need an overly attractive super models to make your game a success, but designing characters who are intentionally off-putting to adhere to BlackRock’s ESG and DEI mandates will always drive customers away. That’s not even accounting for the broader issues plaguing AAA gaming today, bland, uninspired storytelling, increasingly sanitized content, and designs that insult the player’s intelligence.
With rising costs of living, consumers are more cautious than ever about where they spend their money. They’re no longer willing to drop cash on a product sight unseen, especially when companies like Ubisoft churn out progressively ugly and politically charged content that leaves them with low expectations. Unsurprisingly, many gamers simply avoid these titles altogether, which likely explains the supposed push to obscure unfavorable performance metrics.
This trend isn’t unique to gaming. Struggling industries like Netflix and comic books have adopted similar tactics to mask their underperformance.
Netflix now measures viewership based on total stream time divided by runtime, a metric that obfuscates actual audience engagement. Meanwhile, Marvel and DC rely on distribution models that bypass traditional retailer sales to hide the fact that modern comics, featuring gender-swapped, race-swapped and homosexual reinterpretations of iconic characters, are failing to sell.
Whether it’s gaming, streaming, or comics, the trend is unmistakable: prioritizing ideological agendas over consumer preferences consistently leads to failure. Yet, instead of taking a step back and reevaluating their approach, these companies double down on pandering, seemingly content to drive themselves out of business.
Crunchyroll recently removed the ability for users to leave comments under reviews, citing hateful rhetoric directed at specific LGBT-themed media prominently displayed on users’ home pages. Given that the overwhelming majority of people aren’t part of the LGBT community, it raises questions about why such content is being pushed so aggressively, especially when studies suggest individuals would rather watch maggots than depictions of same-sex intimacy.
This move mirrors other examples of corporations attempting to control narratives around their products. YouTube, for instance, removed the public dislike counter years ago, conveniently shielding companies like Disney and major game publishers from public backlash over their garbage content giving them a bad image.
Similarly, Ubisoft’s alleged push to restrict Steam’s tracking tools fits into this broader trend of suppressing transparency and limiting consumer feedback. These companies don’t want you to know how poorly their products are performing, they just want you to consume without question.
Despite bloated development budgets and unnecessary staffing levels, Ubisoft and others continue to release games that require selling millions of units just to break even. When Assassin’s Creed Shadows inevitably fails to hit its ambitious sales targets, they’ll likely point fingers at consumers for the failure.
If insider reports are to be believed, even with a grain of salt, there’s merit to these claims. Ubisoft and other unnamed companies lobbying Valve to restrict API access would be hitting a new low. Rather than fix their mistakes or make better games, they’d rather bury their failures and shift the blame onto gamers instead.
