THE gaming industry feels ruthless at the moment, with sky-high expectations that come with every release.
Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft is known for holding lofty expectations, and even admittedly this recently.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was critically acclaimed[/caption]
For many developers Star Wars Outlaws would have been seen as a huge success, selling around a million copies.
However, following its launch Ubisoft decided to delay the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows due to the “learnings” from Outlaws.
This shows that even games that most people would consider successful, can be seen as a failure by Ubisoft.
First reported by French journalist Gautoz, the Ubisoft team that developed Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was dissolved a few months after the game’s launch.
The Lost Crown is a metroidvania, which goes back to the roots of the Prince of Persia series, namely exploration.
However, metroidvanias are a more niche genre of gaming and people seem to prefer 3D action-adventure games.
No sales statistics have been released for the game, but it received overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Gautoz reported that the game didn’t meet sales expectations and that the team was disbanded shortly after launch.
The team apparently pitched a sequel to Ubisoft, which was rejected, and two expansions, only one of which was approved.
Gautoz also claims that the team was very happy while working on The Lost Crown, and that those burnt out from working on Beyond Good and Evil 2 moved over to the project.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Ubisoft confirmed that the team had moved on to other projects, but asserted that they’d not been laid off.
Senior producer Abdelhak Elguess said: “I’m extremely proud of our team’s work and passion at Ubisoft Montpellier to create a game that resonated with players and critics alike, and I am confident in its long-term success.
“Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is now at the end of its post-Launch roadmap with three free content updates and one DLC that released in September.
“We are now focusing on making the game available to more players: it was recently launched on Steam, and will be available on Mac by this winter.
“Most of the team members who worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have shifted to other projects that will benefit from their expertise.
“We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future.”
Ubisoft also confirmed that it’s looking into developing a new Rayman game.
Many of The Lost Crown’s team made some of the best Rayman games, Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, so this would be a perfect fit.
The lost art of gaming
We’re glad to hear that developers weren’t laid off, and that they’ve been moved to other games that play to their obvious strengths.
In the gaming industry it’s all too common that devs are laid off as soon as they fail to meet expectations.
Hi-Fi Rush also achieved critical acclaim and good sales, and Microsoft still decided to close down the studio Tango Gameworks.
In general, it seems critical acclaim isn’t enough anymore, and developers are no longer rewarded for their hard work.
If the industry continues to give developers unattainable targets and measuring success solely on sales, then in a few years there likely won’t be any high-quality games in development.
Companies need to start measuring a game’s success by the quality of the product, and look at other aspects of the business for why that didn’t convert into sales.
Poor marketing, high prices, and annoying microtransactions can all lead to lack of sales, rather than the game not being up to par.
Luckily, in this instance it seems that Ubisoft is taking a level-headed approach to restructuring.
If you want to read more about recent releases, check out our Sonic x Shadow Generations review.
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