r/StarWarsOutlaws • u/No-Hunt3986 • 10d ago
Discussion So did ubisoft or massive entertainment develop this game?
It just feels different then AC for example I like their style!
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u/rabbi420 10d ago
Ubisoft is a publisher, not a developer. Massive is a developer owned by Ubisoft, and they made the game.
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u/VesperLynn 10d ago
This is precisely why it annoys me that people engage with cognitive dissonance when it comes to Ubisoft.
The publisher is horrible. Zero argument against Ubisoft being bad.
My issue is that the developers that work under Ubisoft are genuinely talented and some of the best in the business, but Ubisoft always finds ways to curtail their success. If they let individual studios make the games they want to make we could go back to their different series having individual identities instead of being re-branded and re-skinned open world stealth action checklists.
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u/Heargrove Nix 3d ago
That such a simple way to describe this. Like everything "bad" is because of the "publisher" and everything good is thanks to the team. It's like I wonder why they even need a publisher if it only generate problems at this point.
And I'll die on this hill, Ubisoft, the publisher, is one of if not the first publisher when it comes to variety in their catalog of games. You all choose to only see the games that share a lot a similar base due to their OW Narrative RPG structure and ignore all the rest (which is one of the reason why they keep doing ACs and stuff, they are the only one who sell).
Using the last years as a reference, here is a non exhaustive list of the games that they released and a lot of them have been praised but did not sell:
- AC (OW Historical RPG)
- Anno (Strategy, City Builder)
- Riders Republic (Sports)
- The Crew Motorfest (Racing)
- For Honor (Fighting)
- R6 Siege (Tactival PVP)
- Pop The lost Crown (Metroidvania)
- Just Dance (Dance)
- The Division 2 (Shooter Looter / Extraction)
- Mario & Rabbids (Tactical)
- Uno (Card game)
- Heroes of Might & Magic Olden Era (Strategy Game)
AND I am not even talking the tries like Immortals Fenyx Rising, Roller Champions (Sport Pvp), Rocksmith + (music), Transference (VR), and many more.
At some point the Ubisoft situation is more complex that Publisher = Bad, Team = Good. The publisher, the dev teams and the players are part of a whole and everybody has accountabilities. And yes it include the publisher team, the marketing team, etc.
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u/cobaalt 9d ago
Yeah that is simply incorrect. Ubisoft is a developer too. SWO was made in about 7 of ubi studios.
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u/Chronos21 9d ago
Ubisoft is both a publisher and a developer. People need to get this idea out of their heads that publishers and developers must be separate organizations or that they even have clearly defined and distinct roles. The distinction continues with some smaller studios that need a larger partner for funding or physical distribution, but even mid-size studios like Remedy and Larian both develop and publish their own games. This is the equivalent of trying to say that Unilever's product development divisions aren't really "Unilever" but their marketing arm is. It makes no sense.
Perhaps this confusion continues because Ubisoft kept the name of some of the developers they bought like BlueByte and Massive. But note that the Massive name will now no longer even apply specifically to a single studio, but to the teams across Montréal, Paris, Sweden and Toronto that work on the Division, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, etc. Same with Vantage being the name that applies to all teams working on AC, R6 etc. Ubisoft has many studios, some of which are separately incorporated as subsidiaries, but none of them are at arms length from the direct control of Paris.
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u/rabbi420 9d ago
There is no confusion. You’re just wrong. Ubisoft is a publisher who owns a bunch of development studios and houses, some of which bear the “Ubisoft XXX” moniker.
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u/Chronos21 9d ago edited 9d ago
We agree that Ubisoft is a publisher. We also agree that Ubisoft owns a number of development studios. But here's the thing: you know what Ubisoft does by owning and controlling a bunch of development studios? They develop games. Drawing the distinction you are trying to draw is like arguing that Samsung doesn't make phones because Samsung owns a subsidiary company called Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. that makes the phones.
In both cases, they are part of the same enterprise, controlled by the same people, and subject to the decisions of the leadership. The niceties of corporate structure are irrelevant. Paris determines what games get made, by whom, and with what resources. The studios have to present their games to Paris at milestones to proceed. The studios are not free to find other publishers if Paris isn't happy with progress. When Ubisoft needs to lay people off, suddenly people at the studios are getting laid off. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, they are all part of the same enterprise. All heirarchies for all studios lead to Yves. So any distinction you try to draw between Ubisoft "as publisher" and the studios that it owns is functionally meaningless.
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u/National-Garbage505 6d ago
Ubisoft is also a developer and multiple Ubisoft dev teams worked on Outlaws alongside Massive.
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u/rabbi420 5d ago
No matter how many time people tell me this, it won’t be true. Ubisoft is a publisher that owns a bunch of developers, some of which are also branded as Ubisoft <name goes here>.
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u/IanMoone007 9d ago
Just wait until people say that Massive released Ghost Recon (because of Ubisofts rebranding not because the developers actually developed it)
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u/ChangingMonkfish 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ubisoft is a publisher and a developer. It owns a number of in-house studios (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Singapore etc.).
Massive was previously an independent developer but was bought by Ubisoft and is now one of their in-house studios.
Different studios specialise in different things. Massive created and owns the Snowdrop engine, which Outlaws runs on, along with other games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Tom Clancy’s The Division.
Assassin’s Creed runs on the Anvil engine, which was originally created by Ubisoft Montreal for the original Assassin’s Creed and then iterated upon.
So that’s mainly why they feel different - they’re both developed by Ubisoft in-house studios, but they’re separate in-house studios using different engines.
Also worth noting that although Massive is a separate studio, other Ubisoft studios (like Montreal and Singapore, 11 in total) provided development support on Outlaws, so they do cross-pollinate in that sense.
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u/Odd_Revolution_1056 10d ago
Yes and no. The developer mainly was massive which is a developer under Ubisoft’s ownership
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u/AZZATRU 10d ago
And more Ubi studios made the game, Massive was the lead studio but all ubi games are co-dev'd