News - Ubisoft sells more than 9 million copies of Watch Dogs

[HEXUS]

The firm's latest financial report shows a 65 per cent increase in sales.

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[shaithis]

This is why I won't pay more then £20 a game.

Sub-standard, over-hyped, under-performing and graphics neutered on release compared to pre-release demos. And they sell 9m copies!

[s_kinton]

Most of these are in CEX from what I've seen this week - haven't picked this up yet, may do in the future. Killzone: Shadow Fall was in the shop next to it for £10 - bargain!

[OilSheikh]

I bought the PC version of the game and it took me 4 months to finish the game at a rate of 1 hour per day.
I installed the E3 MOD and the graphics were mesmerizing.
I hated these things about the game though :
- Clara had way too many tattoos and piercings
- T-Bone is a white guy pretending to be a Rastafarian with braided hair, metal in goatee and a ring around his nose?!
- The bit about getting involved with a black gang dragged down the story
- Sex/Nudity bits here and there, which were completely unnecessary

[RobbieRoy]

I hated these things about the game though :
- Clara had way too many tattoos and piercings
- T-Bone is a white guy pretending to be a Rastafarian with braided hair, metal in goatee and a ring around his nose?!
- The bit about getting involved with a black gang dragged down the story
- Sex/Nudity bits here and there, which were completely unnecessary

I've got to ask why those particular things irritated you!

[bridges009]

Does this include the Nvidia bundled copies? I got a copy 'free' with my GTX760; ironically I had to dial the Nvidia Experience recommended settings way down to get it to a playable state.

[Spud1]

This is what good marketing can do for your game

Watchdogs was an awesome concept and could have been so good...but ended up being a very average and repetitive GTA clone. Such a shame, I just can't motivate myself to pick it up and try and play it anymore. Never finished it.

A better story, more obvious nudity and more than just mashing a single button to "hack" stuff would have made such a difference. OK so maybe the nudity is just a personal thing, but the other two points are genuine

[crossy]

Does this include the Nvidia bundled copies? I got a copy 'free' with my GTX760; ironically I had to dial the Nvidia Experience recommended settings way down to get it to a playable state.

Razer were also giving away copies if you bought their gaming peripherals - although they never got around to sending me my copy (keyboard bought from Scan), despite me submitting the claim a couple of times.

That said, Ubi aren't my favourite people at the moment - having all kinds of issues with AC:BlackFlag making the game pretty much unplayable.

[Otherhand]

I bought the PC version of the game and it took me 4 months to finish the game at a rate of 1 hour per day.
I installed the E3 MOD and the graphics were mesmerizing.
I hated these things about the game though :
- Clara had way too many tattoos and piercings
- T-Bone is a white guy pretending to be a Rastafarian with braided hair, metal in goatee and a ring around his nose?!
- The bit about getting involved with a black gang dragged down the story
- Sex/Nudity bits here and there, which were completely unnecessary

Clara was a blatant ripoff from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, right down to being an inexplicable love interest for the white-bread middle aged guy at whom no woman like her would ever look twice.

T-Bone is Al Jourgensen from Ministry (Chicago band, featured in the soundtrack from "Jesus Built My Hotrod") with a brain transplant from Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes. His look has nothing to do with Rastafarianism, and everything to do with Al.

I thought the sex slave stuff was pretty tasteless, yeah. It's the old "have your cake and eat it" thing, where you get to see horrible things done to women, stare at them naked for as long as you like, and then go and brutally punish some guy for it. You're the hero!

Despite all of this, I thought the game was actually pretty decent. I don't think it necessarily merited 9m sales, but there's a lot of potential in this series. I liked it better than any GTA, if not as much as Sleeping Dogs. It brought some genuinely new things into the genre, and the DLC was surprisingly good.

[GuidoLS]

While not a fan (at all) of piracy, I'm even less of a fan of DRM - and Ubisoft's DRM is nothing short of onerous, so I've made it a habit of steering clear of, and quite possibly missing out on, some of their better games.

Now that they've hired Jeff Skalski away from EA, I'm even less inclined. If the name doesn't ring any bells, just Google Dungeon Keeper IAP... lack of integrity would be one of the nicer things that could be said about the man.

[Otherhand]

While not a fan (at all) of piracy, I'm even less of a fan of DRM - and Ubisoft's DRM is nothing short of onerous, so I've made it a habit of steering clear of, and quite possibly missing out on, some of their better games.

Now that they've hired Jeff Skalski away from EA, I'm even less inclined. If the name doesn't ring any bells, just Google Dungeon Keeper IAP... lack of integrity would be one of the nicer things that could be said about the man.

In what way is their DRM different to Steam's? I think it does everything the same, pretty much (can be run in offline mode, updates with offline data when connected next, etc).

[eiamhere69]

Ubisoft have been this way for years, since Splinter Cell Conviction (long Dev phase) and Assassins Creed (the first, although the second improved things, it's been a steep decline since brotherhood).

[GuidoLS]

In what way is their DRM different to Steam's? I think it does everything the same, pretty much (can be run in offline mode, updates with offline data when connected next, etc).

The biggest difference between Steam and UPlay is that once you register/install a game from Steam, that's it - you can move it from machine to machine to machine, no problem. With UPlay, you can re-install to any machine you want, but then you still need to go on-line and activate it again - which is great, if their servers are up, and pure misery of their servers are down. Up until 2 years or so ago, UPlay was always online - they finally listened (to a degree) to their consumers, but not completely. It's also still in question as to if UPlay is *still* installing what's essentially a root-kit on your computer, without permission. Even now, they "suggest" that you don't use the menu>settings in the Uplay Client - please ensure 'Always start Uplay in offline mode' is not enabled.

The game in question for this story (Watch Dogs) was a complete and total disaster for the PC on launch day. Because of UPlay. (http://www.vg247.com/2014/05/29/10-r...s-to-kill-drm/). Same for AC3. And every other AC game. AC1 was the last title I purchased from them. And that will remain the case.