Tag: Report Card

2019 Developer Report Cards: Bethesda Softworks


There should be no surprises in this report card.

Bethesda’s performance in 2019 indicates a company that has become wholly incompetent and is either incapable of or unwilling to fix its flaws, but instead has chosen time and time again to double down on everything that it does wrong and throw consequence into the wind. Let’s look at Bethesda’s 2019 release record:

  1. Fallout 76 – I could spend hours writing about how Fallout 76 continued its uncontrolled blaze in 2019. Of the numerous screw ups in 2019, perhaps the most insulting comes in the form of Bethesda delaying the Wastelanders update, that big content dump that was supposed to add in the human NPCs and do…something. Instead Bethesda shat out a paid service for which the services people paid for straight up didn’t work. I have long since given up on the people still spending money on Fallout 76. If you get fleeced by Bethesda, you have no one to blame but yourself.
  2. The Elder Scrolls: Blades – It doesn’t surprise me at all that Elder Scrolls Blades is a commercial success considering in the mobile sphere you could feed people the video game equivalent of asbestos and they will happily throw tons of money at you and ask for more. At the end of the day it is still a low quality, low effort facsimile of an Elder Scrolls game that punishes you for playing it and always has its hands out for another tenner.
  3. Rage 2 – Does anyone even remember that Rage 2 released in 2019? Rage 2 peaked at 13 thousand players on Steam and in one month more than 85% of those people dropped off and went to play something else. Reviews point to Rage 2 being boring, repetitive, and short. Rage 2 also implements a ridiculously convoluted system to buy DLC expansion. You can’t buy the expansion outright, you have to buy bundles of Rage Coins and use those. The first expansion costs 1,500 Rage Coins ($15) but you can’t buy 1500 Rage Coins, you have to buy the 500 RC pack and 1,100 RC pack which is $15 anyway and leaves you with 100 RC left over.
  4. Wolfenstein Youngblood – On the subject of things nobody asked for, Wolfenstein Youngblood comes hot on the heels of The New Colossus dividing Wolfenstein fans. Youngblood released at half the cost of Rage 2, which doesn’t quite explain how the game managed to hit less than half the peak number of players. Youngblood was a smattering of bad ideas; Obnoxious protagonists? Check. Forced coop with awful AI? Check. Obtuse RPG mechanics in a shooter? Check. Microtransactions? Of course.
  5. Wolfenstein Cyberpilot – And speaking of things nobody asked for, how about a game that nobody purchased? Cyberpilot is a VR spinoff that peaked on Steam at 24 users. That’s not a mistake, twenty four user peak at launch for a game that costs $20 and so far could only convince 92 people to leave a review. And this was a collaboration between Machine Games and Arkane Studios! Not enough players at peak to fill up a Battlefield server and only 36% approval.
  6. Commander Keen – As of this writing (November 13), there has not been hide nor hair of the mobile Commander Keen game since it was unveiled at E3, but I am going to talk about it because it is germaine to the conversation. Nobody wants Commander Keen on mobile, and Bethesda’s embarrassing announcement trailer was unlisted because of the dislike ratio. None of the Keen social media accounts have been updated at all since the announcement. If Commander Keen the mobile game was silently killed off, it would do less damage to the franchise than releasing it.

Bethesda (and its subsidiaries) shoveled out more unwanted garbage in 2019 than any company with its size, franchises, and experience ever should. The Fallout 76 team has shown nothing but incompetence over the entire year, not to mention a complete lack of caring for systematic and repeated lies made to the public. Their releases in many cases not only floundered, but may have done long term damage to their associated brands. In the case of Rage 2, you have the most disappointing awaited sequel since Dambuster messed up Homefront. For Cyberpilot, a low-effort attempt at cashing in on a trend. In Commander Keen? The shameless skinning of a beloved old IP.

With all of that considered, I have to give Bethesda in 2019 the grade of:

2019 Developer Report Cards: Ubisoft Edition


Oh Ubisoft! What can I say about Ubisoft that hasn’t already been said about Flint’s water supply?

Ubisoft confuses me as a gamer and as a guy who writes about games. On one hand, they are constantly pulling maneuvers that make you wonder what chucklehead is driving the vehicle. On the other hand, they’re competent enough to put out some actually good games and fix what they screw up. Let’s look at Ubisoft’s 2019 releases.

  1. Trials Rising: It came out, it sold copies. Honestly don’t have much to say about this one.
  2. Far Cry: New Dawn – If you enjoyed Far Cry 5, New Dawn was basically an expansion pack’s worth of content at an expansion pack’s price of $40. If you enjoyed Far Cry 5 and wanted to see what happened following the rather crazy ending, well you pretty much got what you wanted. As far as Far Cry plots go, the story was fine. Just fine. It allegedly sold worse than Far Cry’s prior spinoffs including Primal so perhaps it would have been better off as a cheaper DLC release for Far Cry 5 instead of a standalone title.
  3. Anno 1800: Anno 1800 marks the first of Ubisoft’s titles this year to go to the Epic Store for exclusivity on PC. It sparked quite a controversy since the title had already been available for pre-order on Steam before Ubisoft summarily yanked it. Not willing to let that controversy hold it back, Anno 1800 evidently went on to become the fastest selling Anno game. It also seems to be very well received by those who bought it, looking at Steam reviews.
  4. The Division 2: And here is where Ubisoft first pooped the bed. By all means The Division 2 was exactly what a game sequel should be. It implemented a lot of lessons from its predecessor and actually fixed them instead of ignoring/exacerbating them. It wasn’t perfect, The Division 2 launched with some issues surrounding loot and the first raid was kinda crap because console players literally couldn’t handle it. And Ubisoft fixed most of those problems and has been supporting the game with some good content. Unfortunately for them the appetite of the general consumer base just wasn’t looking for another open world sequel and The Division 2 hasn’t quite lived up to expectations in terms of sales.
  5. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint – If there is one positive thing that can be said about Breakpoint, it’s that it beat the sense back into Ubisoft (hopefully). Breakpoint is a dumpster fire that should have never been acceptable within Ubisoft and its failure not only snapped their stock price over its knee, it led to a restructuring of how Ubisoft approves games. Riddled with major game-breaking bugs, obviously half-assed systems, and drowning in microtransactions, Breakpoint shouldn’t have been this broken given how close it is to Wildlands. It serves as a reminder that Ubisoft’s titles are quickly hitting the singularity, becoming so blandly similar that they are hard to tell apart.
  6. Just Dance 2020: I’m sure it will do just fine.

2019 also brought us changes in Ubisoft’s business plan, primarily the announcement and launch of Uplay+. This may come as a surprise, but I honestly don’t have much of a problem with Uplay+ from a consumer standpoint. As with any service, it’s a value proposition. If you want to keep buying your games and “own” them, whatever that means in a world where games as a service ties your playability to servers remaining online, you can still buy the game. If you want to spend $15 to binge some Ubisoft games for a month and then cancel, you can do that too. If you think that long term subscriptions in exchange for having the best versions of Ubisoft’s titles is worth it, go ahead. It’s as valuable as you think it is, and obviously Ubisoft knows this because it’s not mandatory in any sense.

I’d like to give Ubisoft a higher score for having their come to Jesus moment during the last gasp of 2019. Unfortunately their moment of lucidity was not due to personal reflection but due to the potential for financial ruin brought upon by the insane failure of Ghost Recon and the potential that their upcoming titles could perform worse, a game that they were all too happy to release in its state and with all of its microtransactions. At the same time, the company is not completely incompetent and has shown that it is somewhat capable of learning from mistakes. Ghost Recon has received a couple of patches since launch and they have promised more coming.

At the same time, this is a company that supports its products. Ultimately I have to give Ubisoft a B- for 2019. Let’s hope the failure of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint teaches them a lesson. Let’s also hope that I get around to making more of these report cards.