Larian Studios publishing director Michael Douse, who also participated in the creation of Baldur's Gate 3, criticized Ubisoft's approach to releases. At the same time, he took a rash stance on the reckless statement of one of the studio's bosses, who said that games do not belong to gamers.
For context, let us recall that Ubisoft recently disbanded the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown metroidvania team. The game did not meet management expectations, so the developers were redistributed to three other projects. Michael Douse from Larian Studios decided to explain what strategic mistake has been letting Ubisoft down time and time again.
He published a lengthy post in which he stated that leaving Steam for the sake of promoting its subscription was fundamentally wrong. In his opinion, if the studio had released Assassin's Creed Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in the Valve store at launch, the games would have been much more successful.
If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong.
At the same time, Michael Douse touched on one controversial phrase by Philippe Tremblay, head of the subscription department at Ubisoft. He said earlier this year that gamers need to come to terms with the fact that the games do not belong to them. The head of publishing house Larian Studios recalled these words and reminded that due to the wrong strategy the studio will fire valuable personnel:
If the statement «gamers should get used to not owning their games» is true because of a specific release strategy, then the statement «developers must get used to not having jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game» is also true, and that just isn't sensible — even from a business perspective.
Recall that Ubisoft recently announced a new part of Rayman. Meanwhile, the fate of the studio itself remains uncertain due to its financial situation.