Ubisoft to Buy Codemasters...........

[shadow 6]

Longinius, take a look at LOMAC. Ubisoft has a way of screwing products that don't sell on every platform like hot cakes. And let's face it, if OFP2 stays true to what OFP stands for it will never beat FarCry, Splinter Cell etc in number of sales. It's simply not arcade enough to be a mainstream game. And Ubi only looks at the money coming in and nothing else.

But here's hoping OFP2 will sell enough for Ubi to want 200 expansion-packs just like the R6-series

[Supah 0]

UBI soft has released IL2FB and its patches (for free). Plus an addon pack. All releases were done in a ok manner except for Aces Expansion Pack which was released in the us 3 weeks before the EU. Thats the stupidest thing i have ever seen in my entire life. It so obviously induced piracy ..... I hate staggered release dates

[Colossus 2]

I just tried to get support form UBI (just for testing)

and everytime I click on the Canadian support link I came on the Canadian site for UBI.

After clicking on support on that page, I came back to the orginal page I started with.

Good support I will say  

Start (main page to UBI)

2nd (support by Technichal support)

3rd (Links to support sites)

4th (Canadian Site)

Final (back to 2nd after clicking on support)

I want to speak with the webmaster!  

PS: Don't sell Codemasters to the devil  

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

Hey look, Ubi has a Swedish website

[Dauragon 0]

What No Swiss website http://www.ubisoft.ch

[berghoff 11]

I rather have Ubisoft than EA, but they are still both kinda bad

[kerosene 0]

Is ubisoft a plc?, we could all buy 1 share each and then we be entitled to harass them at their meetings.

[Jahve 0]

Oh man!

This is terrible news  

The one company left which still supports their products is about to be bought  

Actually, the PUBLISHER or DISTRIBUTOR like CM, does in most cases not have any infliction when it comes to content.. The only thing you noticed of CM for OFP1 was that they made the cds, published them, had a CM logo on the cover and had bis put in a CM logo in the game, and mirror patches and allike.

So what if ubi buys cm? Then the CM logo at the startup will either be changed, or replaced by a ubi logo.

It would be worse if ubi bought BIS, then they'd really f**k it up, as with Raven Shield.. Lets say that ubi releases a patch for the game Raven Shield. Then the next day, or in some cases, after a few hours, they release a hotfix for that patch.. Essentially a patch for the patch, because it was ubi who also develops that game.. but here, in OFP-land, BIS develops and releases patches.. So all is well... allthough the Olso-office of ubi could deserve a few molotovs, imo.

[Acro 0]

What's so bad about Ubisoft? Rainbow Six: Raven Shield and IL 2 Sturmovik were published by them. You can't say that all their games are arcadeish.

[FUBAR 0]

It will be a sad day for everyone if UBI buys Codemasters, UBI's future is Console games 1st, PC 2nd, from what I have seen with UBI they have a policy with PC games of send it out now even though it is broke, and maybe we will fix it later, they offer next to no support for their games and rely on community support, if you need to speak to their support you can email them (but dont expect a reply) or you can call a premium rate number and hear someone tell you to format and reinstall everything, or that problem is known about and may be fixed in the next patch.

RvS and Lock On are glowing examples of how to screw up potentially good releases, both were released too early with too many show stopping bugs, hell even Lock On could not run on a 98 OS when it was released, and for anyone from UBI or the Dev's to even say that they were not aware of that bug before release is nothing more than a LIER. RvS introduced more bugs than it fixed.

BIS would be better to produce/develop OFP 2 and any future products in their own name, because UBI will surly put a stain that will be hard to remove from BIS's excellent reputation.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

Quote[/b] ]BIS would be better to produce/develop OFP 2 and any future products in their own name, because UBI will surly put a stain that will be hard to remove from BIS's excellent reputation.

That’s Unrealistic. Ofp sold over 1 million copies. The amount of marketing and everything around is impossible to handle for a game developer.

[Heatseeker 0]

Ubi published many good games, Splinter Cell, Far Cry, PoP sands of time, IL2, Lock on and soon GR2 that looks promissing. OPFR is the only Codemasters game that i own .

My main concern is UBI's main interest in the console market and how usualy that aproach is bad for PC games in terms of quality, technology and support.

Multiplatform games dont take advantage of PC's full potential and are usualy based on obsolete old generation technology.

But that seems to be the way to go, seeing that the GR series sold over 5 milion copies to all platforms and the game was far from revolutionary or spectacular.

They still released Far Cry so i think OPF2 would be safe, cant help to feel a bit scared about BIS but this doesnt necessarily have to be a bad thing .

[Jahve 0]

It will be a sad day for everyone if UBI buys Codemasters, UBI's future is Console games 1st, PC 2nd

Then BIS will just find a new publisher.. They probably wont wait around for the publisher to get their hands out of their asses.

A developer is the client of the publisher. And a good publisher wouldnt push back the release of a title just because they want to release another game the same day or month.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

It will be a sad day for everyone if UBI buys Codemasters, UBI's future is Console games 1st, PC 2nd

Then BIS will just find a new publisher.. They probably wont wait around for the publisher to get their hands out of their asses.

A developer is the client of the publisher. And a good publisher wouldnt push back the release of a title just because they want to release another game the same day or month.

There's a lot we don't know. BIS has most likely already signed a contract with Codemasters about ofp2. Since the developers need money from the Producer in order to finance the development of the game.

I'm not a lawyer but Ubi buying CM would most likely result in Ubi having the exclusive rights to be the producers for ofp2.

[SpecOp9 0]

Hmm, this is indeed interesting, I wonder if it has any effect on BIS...

Yes, it does, finally more publicity because codemasters sucks at it

[Madus_Maximus 0]

OFP got little publicity from CM because they were affraid it may flop and that the market wasn't ready for such an open and revolutoinary game, that's all. I can't blaim them, they're not exactly the richest publishers around so I don't think they'd want to waste money on something that can potentially fail.

OFP 2 will be a different story, they'll put a lot more money effort and time into advertising it and it'll do much better than the original in terms of coverage.

Just had a thought, maybe this is linked to the later release? Maybe they're getting less funding to do what they want because of the possible take over? Worth a thought.

[Nathanz 0]

Great, ubi will put some "anti warez" software in it and it will stop people that have bought the game and allow warez to play it.

Has happend to me

[Madus_Maximus 0]

And some other security features which dont work because it detects a CD writing software on your computer and doesn't allow you to play.

[bn880 5]

The worst thing I could smell coming from this is UBI forcing BIS to add some Company server CD-Key registration every time you start a Network game. I hate that with a passion in the new R6. And it just makes it 10x more difficult to do things on Lan's and run MP tests etc. Imagine if the CD-Key server goes down, and will be down 10 years from now... you'r game is in a sense useless/expired.

[Longinius 1]

Quote[/b] ]And Ubi only looks at the money coming in and nothing else.

Which company doesnt? Besides, they still put out niche titles like I said. XIII being a perfect example. Silent Hunter III, IL2 and Lock On being others.

Quote[/b] ]UBI's future is Console games 1st, PC 2nd, from what I have seen with UBI they have a policy with PC games of send it out now even though it is broke, and maybe we will fix it later,

1. The entire industry is focusing on consoles, thats where the money is. Its not a Ubi thing.

2. The entire industry puts out broken PC products, some more broken then others.

Quote[/b] ]they offer next to no support for their games and rely on community support, if you need to speak to their support you can email them (but dont expect a reply)

Support is handled on a country by country basis, and there for it varies from territory to territory.

Like I said before, Ubisoft has developed some problem products. But most of them have been of high quality. At any rate, if BIS is bought, it will be them developing it. Their call, their product. Yes, a Ubi producer, but same old team. Unless they up and quite of course.

[stevevcb 3]

I really hope Microsoft jump in. I used to hate MS's approach to games publishing, but they've really got to grips with it over the last few years.

I've only bought two Ubisoft games in the past few years and I won't be buying anymore. Raven Shield's SDK was sunk in the water (the main reason I bought it was because I was looking forward to seeing the Rogue Spear mod community working with a good engine) so all you get now is new maps, which aren't as good as the originals. I bought Lock-On, and it wouldn't work acceptably at anything aside from minimum settings, and then it would crash or hard reboot my system if I wasn't sat in my seat properly. The patch broke the training missions for me, so I was unable to learn how to actually play the game, so I returned it to the shop and got Knights of the Old Republic instead.

I'm going to miss Codemasters. Micro Machines on the Sega Mega Drive was the first game I bought. But sadly, they're going the way of Microprose and Psygnosis

The only solution I can see is if we all dig in our pockets and buy BIS

[red oct 2]

i don't think XIII was one of ubisofts finer games. i heard some baaad reviews of that game. there really aren't too many game that Ubisoft produced that i actually liked. i didn't like Splinter Cell at all or Rainbow 6. i just couldn't stand how stupid and predictable the A.I. where. im w/ Kooky i'd rather see Microsoft buy them out than EA or Ubi. yea, yea, we all know what the crittics say (Microsoft= evil facist empire, blah, blah, blah,) yea whatever. fact is Microsoft can get things out faster than any other company and unlike EA, they aren't affraid of a little violent content in their games.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

And Microsoft can invest HEAVILY in something if they want and not fear that they'll lose loads of money because they have such a large surplus.

[Bordoy 0]

Most of my games which i own on any console/pc is published by Codemasters, close second is Novalogic.

If not EA or Ubisoft then who? Activision (with games such as Total War series and Call of Duty)?

[stevevcb 3]

Microsoft would be a good bet. As Madus Maximus said, they can invest in whatever they want, and as a result the developers get the funding to really a put a shine on the games.

Activision aren't too bad, but they're sort of like mini-EA if you ask me. EA has FIFA and the other sports games, Activision has Tony Hawk and the extreme sports licenses.