Skull and Bones hasn’t managed to break the 1 million player count yet, something that most AAA titles can usually do within days of being launched. Exclusive sources have shared some interesting details with Tom Henderson (Insider Gaming) that Ubisoft’s first title priced at $70 is currently sitting at around the 850,000 player count mark. This figure includes those who are playing it for free with an 8-hour trial period. Per an unnamed internal source on the development team, Henderson was told “I think we all know this is a $30-$40 game at best, but it’s not in our control to determine those things.”
A long journey
Skull and Bones was released on February 16 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Amazon Luna. While that may only be just a couple of weeks ago it has been in development for roughly a decade and, after many delays resulting in pushed-back release windows, is said to have cost Ubisoft in the range of $200 million to develop. It’s also been reported that the publisher isn’t expecting to recoup its development costs back.
The game has had a significant amount of media coverage throughout the years regarding its progress so it wouldn’t be a far stretch to expect more in terms of a larger player count. That aside, Skull and Bones has had to deal with many changes during its development cycle, and at this point, only those who’ve been there from the start, nearly 10 years ago, know how much has been scrapped, redone, and simply started over from scratch. According to Henderson’s report, thousands of employees in eleven different studios oversaw its development.
Post-launch reactions
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Skull and Bones hasn’t managed to cross the 1 million player count mark yet since it currently has a Metacritic score of 57. The numbers only get worse with a user score of 3.6 which is ranked from over 800 user ratings. It can’t be helped that the game is constantly being compared to another Ubisoft, Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, which had been a huge hit for the publisher and was well received for its sea battles and pirating adventures. It’s a given, that even though while that game was released in 2013, many are wondering how Skull and Bones ended up being as it is.
Discussion (14 replies)
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Related article: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2024-skull-and-bones-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-and-the-utterly-bizarre
WAIT WAIT WAIT
Ubisoft calls this game a AAAA release?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!
"Skull and Bones is arguably worse than AC4 in some regards. Meanwhile, beyond the technology, we've got issues with the core game design - not to mention its bugginess and lack of consistency and polish".
I generally ignore most of what Ubisoft does. What kind of game is this (besides some sort of sailing/pirate action/adventure game)? Is it a MMO, single player, or ???
n/m ... Wikipedia and I figured it out.
It's a WBPA game as I understand it.
WBPA? I'm not familiar with that acronym. Wandering Butt-Pirate Affiliation?
You lost me at Ubisoft.
Water Based Pirate Adventure.
I hope we are seeing the end of the "live service title" era.
Yeah, pretty much the same. I've got a little interest in Avatar but between being completely burnt out after the last movie and it being Ubisoft I'll probably never get it unless it's free.
Me too but doubtful. There've been a few different stories recently about various publishers dealing with their failed live service attempts but it usually ends up sounding like instead of acknowledging how many PC and console players don't like them they just figure that a new strategy or some tweaking will solve it. We know they're basing this stuff on a ton of market research but somewhere along the line, they miss the mark on why some live service games are hits and others totally flop. Here's one about Sony/Bungie.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/playstation-head-wants-bungie-to-take-accountability-for-development-timelines-and-expenses/[/URL]
Regardless though, I'm not into them at all. If the game is complete I don't mind paying $60-70, it still hurts, but if it's a game I like and has been well made I know I'll put ~100 hours into it and enjoy that. However, back on topic for this game, as the anonymous employee said, they knew this should've been a $30-40 game and that's something publishers need to consider if they plan to exploit the community for in-game revenue.
I don't know mch about this game since I have no interest in pirate themed anything, I did get asked by ubisoft to fill out a survey for this game so at least they should not be surpried by that, that I did not get it.
They'd never admit it publicly that they bet too much on the wrong horse. But that doesn't mean they won't silently alter course and spin it like it's their new novel idea.
As for market research that is like statistics, it will show whatever they want it to show. I bet Busch did market research too before they put out the ad that cut their sales in half.
Kinda sad that AC4: Black Flag came out over 10 years ago, and yet people are saying it is a much better sailing+pirate game than this one (with comparable or even better graphics!). Ubisoft can't even match up to their own older games that they put out many years earlier!
Just like Microsoft supposedly did market research that led them to put out the "Duke" controller for the original Xbox (the original super-huge controller) that almost no one liked. Good gawd that thing was unwieldy. I don't know what kind of "research" they did, but it was very, very wrong.
Are there pirate adventures that are not water-based? Cuz it seems sailing usually goes hand-in-hand with pirate stuff. Unless we're talking sand pirates or space pirates (not many of those left thanks to Samus Aran) or sky pirates or whatever other kinds of pirates are out there. Ninja-pirates? Pirate-ninjas?
It is an industry wide problem. Volition couldn't match previous saints row games either. Just as rocksteady couldn't match the arkham games, and machinegames will never be able to match new order.
It is what 10-15 years of diversity hires and firing or telling veterans to shut up and get in with the program will do to a game developer.
No it's because there is no land based piracy. Part of the reason the game feels meh. Oh and from what I read no on ship combat either.
Interesting, because the video @DrezKill linked clearly shows one crew using grappling ropes to haul in an adjacent ship. I wonder if the scene quickly jumps to a stat screen when the ships make contact? [edit: no, I don't care enough to investigate any further; I stopped at "Ubisoft".]
The game looks like a jumbled mess, but the graphics are a huge step up from DirectX 7 graphics in the old Sea Dogs circa 2000.