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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and

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Speaker 1: I love all things tech and welcome to our third

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Speaker 1: installment on the history so far of the video game

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Speaker 1: developer company Ubisoft. Now. In our first episode, we learned

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Speaker 1: how five brothers in France diversified the family business of

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Speaker 1: selling farming equipment by getting into hardware and software distribution.

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Speaker 1: You know computer hardware and software as you do. We

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Speaker 1: also learned how they took that business and then they

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Speaker 1: built a new company centered around developing and publishing video games,

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Speaker 1: and how that company, Ubisoft, grew steadily. And in the

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Speaker 1: second episode, we followed up on Ubisoft having a success

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Speaker 1: with a game called Raymond and an early acquisition of

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Speaker 1: a US based video game developer called red Storm, and

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Speaker 1: how the company launched into an era of expansion that

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Speaker 1: was impressive by any measure. The company opened up new studios,

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Speaker 1: they bought out other companies, they acquired assets from organizations,

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Speaker 1: some of which were also coincidentally founded by those brothers,

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Speaker 1: and all while a bigger fish in the form of

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts was circling the company with a threat of

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Speaker 1: a hostile takeover. Now, at the end of that last episode,

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Speaker 1: we learned that e A divested itself of a large

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Speaker 1: number of shares and Ubisoft, and with the threat of

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Speaker 1: a hostile takeover fading away, Ubisoft pushed even harder to

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Speaker 1: grow while launching and advancing franchises like Far Cry, Assassin's Creed,

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Speaker 1: and numerous Tom Clancy related video game titles. Another asset

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Speaker 1: that originally belonged to a different company founded by one

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Speaker 1: of the Gilmo brothers was a Quebec studio that had

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Speaker 1: been part of long Tail Studios, and that trace its

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Speaker 1: origin back to Gerard Guillman. And that's a case in

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Speaker 1: point right. Anyway, Ubisoft would purchase that Quebec studio from

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Speaker 1: long Tail, and long Tail would retain its other studios

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Speaker 1: for the time being, and then you know, Ubisoft just

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Speaker 1: folded that into Ubisoft's Quebec office. And I realized, I

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Speaker 1: keep saying Quebec and Quebec and that's just me, I guess. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: as I mentioned in the last episode, ubi Soft had

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Speaker 1: recently purchased a company called Alliant, which what made free

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Speaker 1: to play games, and we would soon see elements of

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Speaker 1: the free to play micro transaction strategy work its way

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Speaker 1: into various Ubisoft games, even those that are not themselves

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Speaker 1: free to play games. We would see that micro transaction

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Speaker 1: make its way into Triple A titles. So let's see

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Speaker 1: what happens next, because this episode should bring us up

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Speaker 1: to present day, and it's going to include some particularly

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Speaker 1: dramatic story, including another possible hostile takeover and widespread allegations

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Speaker 1: of serious misconduct within the company. In two thousand twelve,

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Speaker 1: Ubi Soft released Far Cry three. Now, if you recall,

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Speaker 1: the original Far Cry game came out of a different

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Speaker 1: development studio called Crytech. Cry Tech built a game engine

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Speaker 1: called the cry Engine and built the original Far Cry

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Speaker 1: in that game engine. Then Ubisoft bought that i P

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Speaker 1: for the Far Cry series, as well as the right

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Speaker 1: to use that particular version of the cry Engine, and

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Speaker 1: from that moment forward, the cry Engine forked into two pathways.

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Speaker 1: At Crytech, it remained the cry Engine and continued to

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Speaker 1: evolve there. Under Ubisoft it would turn into the game

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Speaker 1: engine called Dounia, and it would evolve separately. So these

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Speaker 1: diverging pathways, UBI Soft continued to tweak and build onto

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Speaker 1: the Dounia engine, and far Cry three came out of

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Speaker 1: Dounia two, which included some new features like global lighting

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Speaker 1: and lighting and video games is a really big deal,

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Speaker 1: which I get sounds pretty obvious, because, after all, our

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Speaker 1: vision is based off of how light interacts with the

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Speaker 1: environments around us. A lot of recent focus on video

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Speaker 1: game graphics has really been about the interplay of light

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Speaker 1: with different surfaces. You may have heard of ray tracing

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Speaker 1: that mostly refers to the way light behaves with specific

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Speaker 1: types of surfaces, like a pane of glass or a

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Speaker 1: reflective puddle of water. Well, the Dounia two engine was

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Speaker 1: kind of a step toward that direction, although ray tracing

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Speaker 1: wouldn't really be a thing you would hear about in

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Speaker 1: the video game world for a bit longer. Far Cry

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Speaker 1: threes pre sales were a little bit underwhelming. Now, just

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Speaker 1: in case you're not aware somehow, pre ordering or pre

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Speaker 1: sales that just means you lay down your cold hard

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Speaker 1: cash for a game before that game is even available,

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Speaker 1: and the idea is that the moment the game does

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Speaker 1: come out, you've secured your coppy. Now, in the old days,

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Speaker 1: when physical media dominated the video game market, this was

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Speaker 1: something that gamers would do at retail stores, so that

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Speaker 1: when those game copies showed up to their local store,

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Speaker 1: they would have a reserved copy of their own, and

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Speaker 1: in theory, they wouldn't have to worry about the store

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Speaker 1: having sold out of the game before they were able

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Speaker 1: to get there. Today, in the era of digital delivery,

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Speaker 1: a pre order means that again in theory, anyway, you

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Speaker 1: should be able to download a game the moment it

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Speaker 1: goes live, and so your gaming experience will start as

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Speaker 1: soon as you've got enough of the game downloaded to

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Speaker 1: launch it, and so it's kind of dependent on your

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Speaker 1: internet connection speed. In recent years, companies have even allowed

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Speaker 1: downloads to begin way ahead of schedule. And then the

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Speaker 1: moment a game goes live is kind of like a

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Speaker 1: switch turning off, and it allows gamers to access a

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Speaker 1: game that has already been installed on their systems. So,

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Speaker 1: let's say a game goes live of at midnight, the

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Speaker 1: game has already been downloaded to the gamer's machine. It's

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Speaker 1: just that the activation code isn't uh isn't actually active

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Speaker 1: until midnight, and then boom, you can start playing game.

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Speaker 1: Companies love pre orders because it looks great on a

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Speaker 1: balance sheet, you know, to get those revenue numbers up early.

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Speaker 1: It's a great thing to share with shareholders, to say

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Speaker 1: to your your stockholders, hey, this game is going to

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Speaker 1: do incredibly well. It helps bring the share price of

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Speaker 1: your company up, The value of your company goes up.

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Speaker 1: Lots of positive things can happen due to those numbers

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Speaker 1: from a corporate standpoint, and it really helps balance out

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Speaker 1: the costs of development. And I mentioned that in the

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Speaker 1: last episode that those can get really high. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk more about that in this episode. But from a

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Speaker 1: gamer perspective, it satisfies an urge for gratification, at least

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Speaker 1: for the feeling that you get when a game comes

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Speaker 1: into your possession, But it also comes along with risks.

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Speaker 1: But as of the game isn't very good or if

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Speaker 1: it has a lot of bugs or other issues, then

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Speaker 1: the gamers who pre ordered it are stuck with it.

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Speaker 1: You didn't give the industry time to dive into and

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Speaker 1: dissected the game, right. You didn't get a chance to

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Speaker 1: read the reviews and find out if the game was

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Speaker 1: actually any good or if it was well made. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you saw an awesome trailer for the game and that

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Speaker 1: sold you on the experience, so you PLoP down your

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Speaker 1: sixty dollars or whatever to pre order the game. Only

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Speaker 1: when the day comes and you finally get it, you

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Speaker 1: realize that the playing experience just doesn't live up to

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Speaker 1: that trailer. If you pre order, you also typically pay

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Speaker 1: whatever the highest price is for that version of the game.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes games will launch and for whatever reason, it

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Speaker 1: becomes clear that there's just not a big place in

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Speaker 1: the market for that game, at least not as big

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Speaker 1: as what the company was anticipating, and typically companies will

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Speaker 1: mark down the price of a game when that happens.

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Speaker 1: Recapturing some of the cost of development is better than

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Speaker 1: not getting anything, so it can pay if you just

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Speaker 1: wait a little bit, even just for a short while,

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Speaker 1: to make sure that one the game is worth it,

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Speaker 1: and to maybe the price comes down so that even

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Speaker 1: if the game wasn't perfect, with the lower price, it

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Speaker 1: is worth it. Pre Orders would later introduce other issues

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Speaker 1: in the gaming industry in general. For example, one way

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Speaker 1: to encourage people to pre order a game is to

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Speaker 1: pay exclusive content to a specific outlets pre order system.

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Speaker 1: So if you were to pre order a game with

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Speaker 1: one retailer, then you would get one set of exclusive content.

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Speaker 1: But if you had gone with a different retailer, you

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Speaker 1: would get a different set of exclusive content, and there'd

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Speaker 1: be no way for a completionist to get everything because

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Speaker 1: of how that content gets sliced up like that. Now,

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Speaker 1: later on you might get a Game of the Year

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Speaker 1: edition that groups them all together, but that's much later,

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Speaker 1: and this would be something that gamers would complain about

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Speaker 1: with Ubisoft titles further on, particularly with Watchdogs. The Far

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Speaker 1: Cry three numbers, as I mentioned, were a little disappointing.

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Speaker 1: Now that being said, once the game came out and

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Speaker 1: reviews started coming in, sales actually started to pick up.

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Speaker 1: Most reviews praised the game play and the setting. There

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Speaker 1: were some criticisms that were leveled more against the story

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Speaker 1: and the characters, which saw gamers take on a protagonist

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Speaker 1: who is trying to rescue his friends who have been

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Speaker 1: captured by modern day pirates and smugglers. Some critics felt

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Speaker 1: that the speed at which your character, who kind of

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Speaker 1: starts off just as a normal average guy, suddenly becomes

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Speaker 1: like an unstoppable killing machine was just unrealistic. And it

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Speaker 1: also follows the trope in which you've got a group

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Speaker 1: of natives who are incapable of helping themselves, and so

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Speaker 1: they have to rely upon some white champion to come

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Speaker 1: into the picture and save them. Ubisoft developers were creating

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Speaker 1: a game in which morality wasn't an absolute, so you

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Speaker 1: could play in a way that was, you know, considered

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Speaker 1: morally good or morally evil. But in the process they

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Speaker 1: also relied kind of heavily on some pretty negative narrative elements.

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Speaker 1: So far, Cry three would end up being a success,

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Speaker 1: but it would take a little more time for those

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Speaker 1: sales numbers to come up. Meanwhile, Ubisoft was really leaning

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Speaker 1: heavily on the Assassin's Creed franchise, releasing Assassin's Creed three

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Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve. Now, you might have heard me

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Speaker 1: say in the previous episode that Ubisoft is a company

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Speaker 1: frequently associated with crunch around this time, and crunch refers

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Speaker 1: to the amount of intense work that leads up to

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Speaker 1: the release of a game. When you look at the

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Speaker 1: release schedule of Assassin's Creed games, you start to realize

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Speaker 1: that this could be a pretty grueling schedule. Uh. I'll

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Speaker 1: just talk about the main release games in the Assassin's

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Speaker 1: Creed series. These are the ones that came out for

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Speaker 1: consoles and computer systems. But keep in mind there were

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Speaker 1: a ton of Assassin's Creed games, some of which were

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Speaker 1: released for handheld systems, some for mobile devices like smartphones,

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Speaker 1: some for computers and consoles, but they weren't part of

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Speaker 1: the main storyline. So I'm just gonna look at the

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Speaker 1: main one. You've got the first game in two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: you had Assassin's Creed two, which came out two years

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Speaker 1: later in two thousand nine. Then you've got Assassin's Creed

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Speaker 1: Brotherhood and add on kind of to Part two that

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Speaker 1: came out in two and Assassin's Creed Revelations in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven, which also tied back to Assassin's Creed two.

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Speaker 1: Now I just mentioned that Assassin's Creed three came out

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Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, Assassin's Creed four Black Flag, which

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Speaker 1: was again my personal favorite of all the Assassin's Creed

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Speaker 1: games that I have played, but I have not played

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Speaker 1: all of them. That one came out in Assassin's Creed

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Speaker 1: Rogue and Assassin's Creed Unity both came out in two

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Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, so we got two Assassin's Creed mainline games

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Speaker 1: that year. I have a little bit more to say

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Speaker 1: about unity in here. But just imagine two major releases

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Speaker 1: of a flagship franchise in the same year. That is crazy.

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Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed Syndicate would follow in two thousand fifteen, and

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Speaker 1: then we finally would get a one year gap between

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Speaker 1: major releases in the main storyline, with Assassin's Creed Origins

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Speaker 1: hitting in two thousand seventeen. Then we get Assassin's Creed

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Speaker 1: Odyssey in two thousand eighteen, then we get another one

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Speaker 1: year gap, and this year we got Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Now, again,

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Speaker 1: those are just the major games. There are at least

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Speaker 1: an equal number of other titles that are spinoffs of

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Speaker 1: this franchise, but they don't qualify as part of the

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Speaker 1: main sequence of Assassin's Creed titles. Now, it was almost

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Speaker 1: as if the Assassin's Creed franchise was like a sports game,

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Speaker 1: because you know, every year we expect to see a

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Speaker 1: new version of specific sports franchises like Madden right, and

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Speaker 1: we expect to see an updated player roster to reflect

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Speaker 1: the most current version of teams in various sports. But

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Speaker 1: we were getting that in this fantasy sci fi Assassin

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Speaker 1: based game series. There was a real danger of oversaturating

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Speaker 1: the market and burning out the player base, not to

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Speaker 1: mention working the developers into an early grave. Though to

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Speaker 1: be fair, it wasn't like the exact same group of

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Speaker 1: developers were making every single game in the series. This

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Speaker 1: was spread out across the global network of studios at

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Speaker 1: UBI Soft, with specific studios kind of taking point on

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Speaker 1: the big titles. Ubisoft Montreal was largely responsible for the

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Speaker 1: main development of the main series, but this also meant

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Speaker 1: that as Zubi Stuft tried to keep up the pace,

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Speaker 1: it would occasionally release games that, at least initially were

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Speaker 1: pretty darn broken. Assassin's Creed three had its historical setting

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Speaker 1: take place during the American Revolutionary War, so it actually

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Speaker 1: took place in the American colonies. The game added lots

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Speaker 1: of new features to the Assassin's Creed franchise, including the

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Speaker 1: ability to command a ship like a sailing ship, and

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Speaker 1: that would become a much larger part in Black Flag later, obviously,

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Speaker 1: because that's a that's a pirate game. But it also

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Speaker 1: featured a pretty long lead up to the point where

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Speaker 1: anything assassiny happens. You're playing that game for a long

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Speaker 1: time before you start getting into something that feels like

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Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed. Now, overall, the game got positive reviews, though

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Speaker 1: a lot of articles that rank the various entries of

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Speaker 1: the Assassin Creed series will frequently put Part three in

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Speaker 1: the bottom half. It's not the bottom bottom, it's not

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Speaker 1: the worst of the games, but it typically does not

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Speaker 1: merit inclusion in the top fifty percent on a lot

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Speaker 1: of lists. In two thousand thirteen, Ubisoft made another pair

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Speaker 1: of acquisitions, purchasing the Future Games of London studio out

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Speaker 1: of um well it says here London, the UK, and

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Speaker 1: also the Digital Chocolate studio that was in Barcelona, Spain. Now,

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Speaker 1: these studios focused primarily on developing games for mobile and

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Speaker 1: social networking platforms. Also side note, the company Digital Chocolate

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Speaker 1: was founded by Trip Hawkins. Now that's the guy who

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Speaker 1: founded Electronic Arts, which coincidentally was the company that for

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Speaker 1: a while looked like it was on the verge of

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Speaker 1: doing that hostile takeover of Ubisoft. But Trip Hawkins had

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Speaker 1: left long before that. And he's also the guy who

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Speaker 1: was behind the failed three D O console, which I

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Speaker 1: covered in a recent tech Stuff series. Anyway, Ubisoft acquired

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Speaker 1: the Barcelona studio, but not the overall company of Digital Chocolate.

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Speaker 1: Hawkins had already stepped down from leadership at Digital Chocolate

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Speaker 1: a year earlier, and the company would only be in

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Speaker 1: business for one more year before it sold off its

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Speaker 1: games to another company, so it didn't stick around for

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Speaker 1: very long. That summer, Ubisoft went public with some news

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Speaker 1: that wasn't so pause. Someone had managed to find a

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Speaker 1: vulnerability in Ubisoft's corporate network, probably through a web vulnerability,

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Speaker 1: and they breached Ubisoft systems. According to the company, this

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Speaker 1: meant that up to fifty eight million people may have

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Speaker 1: had their user names, their email addresses, and their encrypted

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Speaker 1: passwords exposed. Now that's obviously not great, but it could

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Speaker 1: have been a lot worse. The fact that the passwords

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Speaker 1: were at least encrypted means they weren't immediately useful to

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Speaker 1: the hackers. The hackers would first need to break that

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Speaker 1: encryption to get at the passwords that were encrypted underneath.

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Speaker 1: But it serves as a great reminder for all of us. First,

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Speaker 1: we should all choose strong passwords for the services we use. Second,

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Speaker 1: we should use a unique password for every single service,

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Speaker 1: because if someone manages to breach a service you use,

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Speaker 1: they could potentially get at your password, And if you're

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Speaker 1: using the same password everywhere. You've just handed them the

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Speaker 1: key ease to everything, right. You don't want to do that.

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Speaker 1: It can really put you at risk. Or if you're

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Speaker 1: trying to be really careful and you find out that

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Speaker 1: your password was potentially stolen, then you have to go

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Speaker 1: through the hassle of changing that password for every service

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Speaker 1: you use, which is not super fun. The third point

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Speaker 1: I would like to remind people to do is to

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Speaker 1: get a password vault program to keep all your passwords.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them also have password generators built in,

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Speaker 1: and those will create really strong passwords on your behalf

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Speaker 1: and keep track of them. Uh. It takes a lot

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Speaker 1: of the work out of trying to practice good security habits,

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Speaker 1: so quick reminder there. Ubisoft stated that this security breach

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Speaker 1: did not touch any systems that stored payment information, so

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Speaker 1: that was also a big relief. People with accounts on

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Speaker 1: Ubisoft services received messages that urged them to change their passwords,

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Speaker 1: since a determined hacker might actually go through the trouble

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Speaker 1: to decrypt passwords if they had enough time. I'm in

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Speaker 1: processing power. Security experts criticized Ubisoft, saying that it failed

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Speaker 1: to be transparent about what security measures were actually in place.

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Speaker 1: A few experts pointed out that while passwords may have

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Speaker 1: been encrypted, there was no indication as to how Ubisoft

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Speaker 1: was encrypting them, and weak encryption could really be an issue. Generally,

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Speaker 1: the response was that Ubisoft's approach didn't inspire confidence, and

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Speaker 1: a more recent hack this year seems to give a

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Speaker 1: bit of credence to those concerns. Now, when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we'll revisit the subject of hackers, except this time it

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Speaker 1: will be within the context of playing a hacker in

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Speaker 1: a video game. But first, let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: In Ubisoft launched a new I P in the form

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Speaker 1: of Watchdogs. The game series is set in a world

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Speaker 1: not too different from our own, one in which electronic

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Speaker 1: devices gather endless amounts of data that corporations then used

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Speaker 1: to make let's see, I think the technical term is

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Speaker 1: gobs of money. In each of the games, you play

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Speaker 1: as a hacker protagonist or sometimes multiple protagonists, who has

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Speaker 1: to navigate this dystopian surveillance world and compromise systems and

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Speaker 1: turn the technology against the corporate overlords, and navigate the

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Speaker 1: seed criminal underbelly of society, and generally try and accomplish

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Speaker 1: specific goals that may or may not be selfish. Ubisa

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Speaker 1: Montreal was responsible for the first title in the series,

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Speaker 1: and they would also create the sequel that would come

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Speaker 1: out in the third game in the series, watch Dogs.

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Speaker 1: Legion just recently launched in but this one actually came

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Speaker 1: out of Ubisoft Toronto, not Montreal. Now, I've mentioned a

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Speaker 1: few times about how games have become incredibly complex and

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Speaker 1: as a result, the cost of development goes up, which

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Speaker 1: in turn puts a lot more pressure on finding ways

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Speaker 1: to make a profit from a game. And just to

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Speaker 1: give you some perspective, the budget for the first Watchdogs game,

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Speaker 1: which had been in development since before, was nearly seventy

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Speaker 1: million dollars. Now these days, it's not unusual for a

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Speaker 1: triple A title to have a budget comparable to what

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Speaker 1: you would see for a feature length film, which is incredible.

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Speaker 1: In addition, around one thousand people worked on Watchdogs, and

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Speaker 1: Ubisoft Montreal built it using a brand new game engine

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Speaker 1: called Disrupt, which Ubisoft Montreal had also built. Those guys

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Speaker 1: are pretty busy. The title sold four million copies in

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Speaker 1: its first week, which broke the company and the industry's

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Speaker 1: then record for most copies of a brand new I

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Speaker 1: P sold within that first week. It would then go

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Speaker 1: on to sell at least another six million copies, So

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Speaker 1: that first Watchdogs game wasn't without some road bumps upon

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Speaker 1: its release. Some people were upset that Ubisoft created not one,

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Speaker 1: not two, but four different Collectors editions of the game.

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Speaker 1: In addition, a few people alleged that Ubisoft had purposefully

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Speaker 1: and artificially made the game look better graphically when they

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Speaker 1: did a video preview of the title at E three.

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Speaker 1: They claimed that the end game, the one that actually

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Speaker 1: came out, that the graphics had been downgraded. Ubi Soft,

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Speaker 1: for its part, categorically denied this claim. Critics praised the

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Speaker 1: game's gameplay and the setting of Chicago, but there was

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Speaker 1: a less of a positive consensus about the story and

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Speaker 1: the characters of the game. Now, I'm going to go

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Speaker 1: ahead and close out the Watchdogs discussion here because as

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Speaker 1: I just think it makes more sense to to follow

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Speaker 1: up on that rather than the go year by year.

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Speaker 1: So the sequel, Watchdogs Too, came out two years after

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Speaker 1: the first game. So this one came out in Twix,

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Speaker 1: and this one was set in San Francisco, and the

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Speaker 1: protagonist was again a hacker, but a different character than

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Speaker 1: from the first game. Would be Soft tweaked a lot

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Speaker 1: of the gameplay elements after having received feedback on the

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Speaker 1: first Watchdogs game, and Watchdogs two would launch with a

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Speaker 1: few glitches and bugs, which frustrated critics and fans, but

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Speaker 1: it would be Soft would fairly quickly follow up the

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Speaker 1: launch with a game patch that helped smooth out these problems.

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Speaker 1: Generally speaking, critics also seemed to like the tone of

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Speaker 1: the second game more than they liked the tone of

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Speaker 1: the first game. The original Watchdogs had a fairly serious tone,

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Speaker 1: and the sequel had some more lighthearted and silly moments,

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Speaker 1: and also had a protagonist who wasn't so stoic as

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Speaker 1: the main character of the first game. Many people, however,

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Speaker 1: also pointed out that the main character of the second game,

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Speaker 1: his name is Marcus, was written in such a way

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Speaker 1: as to make him a good person within the narrative

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Speaker 1: of the game. And that's fine, except the game also

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Speaker 1: allows players to do stuff like harm or kill innocent

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Speaker 1: bystanders that doesn't affect the way the story unfolds, So

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Speaker 1: you could play Marcus like a homicidal maniac, but narratively speaking,

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Speaker 1: within the game, you would be treated as if you

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Speaker 1: were still this really good guy with a strong moral code.

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Speaker 1: So there's a bit of a disconnect there. Like Far

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Speaker 1: Cry three, the pre or sales for Watchdogs two didn't

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Speaker 1: meet company projections. It would take more time for players

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Speaker 1: to commit to buying the game and reaching the sales

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Speaker 1: figures that Ubisoft had been hoping for. And then we've

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Speaker 1: got watch Dog Legion, developed primarily by Ubisoft Toronto. This

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Speaker 1: title came out in late October twenty twenty after being

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Speaker 1: delayed half a year. Um and I'll talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the decision to postpone games towards the end

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Speaker 1: of this episode, and I'm sure the pandemic didn't help

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Speaker 1: at all, But this game shifts the action to London, England,

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Speaker 1: and it also features a pretty neat concept for the protagonists.

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Speaker 1: So instead of playing as an established main character and

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Speaker 1: playing that character all the way through, in Legion, you

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Speaker 1: pick a starting character. But then you can also switch

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Speaker 1: identities as you play as characters who are recruited into

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Speaker 1: an underground hacker resistance organization. So recruiting someone gives you

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Speaker 1: access to them as a playable character, and each in

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Speaker 1: game candidate has their own skills and quirks. Some might

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Speaker 1: be really good at hacking industrial equipment, some might be

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Speaker 1: able to call upon friends to help them out in

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Speaker 1: the scuffle. And there's also a spy who is a

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Speaker 1: total James Bond gadget guru type. London is pretty dang dystopian,

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Speaker 1: even for a Watchdogs game with an authoritarian government that's

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Speaker 1: cracking down on the hacker group. The game has received

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Speaker 1: fairly positive reviews, though not as high as the previous

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Speaker 1: games in the franchise. Also, I mentioned earlier that there

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Speaker 1: was another Ubisoft data breach in and it ties into

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Speaker 1: Watchdog Legion because a ransomware group. You may have remembered

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Speaker 1: that I just recently did an episode about ransomware. But

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Speaker 1: a group called e Gregor claimed to have copied the

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Speaker 1: source code for Watchdogs Legion and then threatened to release

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Speaker 1: it if they weren't paid off. And at first there

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Speaker 1: was some skepticism about whether or not they had access

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Speaker 1: the the source code. Uh, and then apparently they were

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Speaker 1: not paid off, and then not too long ago, the

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Speaker 1: source code has been found with various tracker programs leaked

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Speaker 1: on the internet. So that's kind of yikes. Alright, So

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Speaker 1: back to Ubisoft's timeline. In two thousand fourteen, Ubisoft would

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Speaker 1: release Assassin's Creed Unity, often cited as one of the

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Speaker 1: lesser entries in the main series because of some bugs

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Speaker 1: and other issues. The company also opened up the door

429
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: for more criticism as well when gamers discovered that there

430
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: would be no playable female characters for multiplayer. There was

431
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: a call on Ubisoft to explain why that was, and

432
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: the explanation the company gave boiled down to it would

433
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: have been too hard to include playable women. Essentially, it

434
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: would have been too much work to put in that

435
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 1: art and the animations, and that in turn caused a

436
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 1: series of discussions in which critics and even a former

437
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: Ubisoft developer questioned their reasons that they gave. The messaging

438
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: was clear from external sources anyway, Representation in games was

439
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: really starting to matter now. You could argue actually that

440
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: it always mattered, it just wasn't paid attention to until

441
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: relatively recently. Let's get back to and what would another

442
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 1: year be like without an acquisition or fifteen would be

443
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 1: Soft bought a French game company called Ivory Tower, which

444
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 1: had developed the online racing game The Crew, and would

445
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: be Soft also acquired a Halifax studio from a well, hey,

446
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: look at that, long Tail Studios, the same Guillamont founded

447
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 1: studio that gave UBI softmore developers in Quebec a few

448
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: years earlier. Yep, long Tail Halifax, which originally launched in

449
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, would become UBI Soft Halifax in two

450
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. Speaking of Ubi Soft Quebec, the studio was

451
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: the lead developer in its first Triple A title that year,

452
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: that being Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Now. In this game, the

453
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 1: player would be able to control a pair of protagonists

454
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: and their brother and sister team, which allowed players to

455
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: control a woman assassin for the first time in the

456
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: main series of games. Now, there had been smaller Assassin's

457
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: Creed spinoff titles that had a female protagonist already, which

458
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: was another piece of evidence actually that seemed to contradict

459
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: the women are too hard to insert into the game

460
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: argument that they used for Unity. Syndicate got mixed to

461
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: generally positive reviews. I have this game. I've played it,

462
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: but I never finished it. I think I got about

463
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: maybe halfway through before I just kind of lost interest.

464
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: And I also always preferred to play as the sister

465
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: ev to the brother Jacob. Uh. She was just a

466
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: much more interesting character to me, much more intelligent, and

467
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: was much more stealth based, and Jacob was like, I

468
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: hit them with my stick real hard. Anyway. On some

469
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: missions you just can't choose. You have to play one

470
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: or the other. You don't get the option. So whenever

471
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: I had to play Jacob, I did. But I always

472
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: looked forward to switching back to Evie because I just

473
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: thought she was a more interesting character. The game was

474
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: set in London in the nineteenth century. It had a

475
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: very steampunk sensibility to it, like the Assassin's Hit Him Blade.

476
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: You had also had like a grappling hook, something that

477
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: some reviewers really didn't like because they felt that it

478
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: kind of took away from the other assassin screed games. Uh.

479
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but that's just my opinion. It

480
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: also got dinged by critics for other gameplay features, namely

481
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: trying to control a horse and cart on the streets

482
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: of London and various high speed chases and race sequences,

483
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: And yeah, that part of the game was not so

484
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: much fun for me. Much later, various people who worked

485
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: on Syndicate would reveal that bringing Evie into the series

486
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: was a serious challenge because there were internal obstacles that

487
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: writers and developers had to navigate and a yield resistance

488
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: to allowing the team to make Evy a significant part

489
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: of the game in the first place. The general philosophy

490
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 1: seemed to be a belief that games with a female

491
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: protagonist just don't sell. I mean, that was the message

492
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: they were getting over and over again. And the gamers

493
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: just don't want to play games that have women as

494
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: the protagonist. They just prefer to have, you know, good

495
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: old manly men instead. Now, that attitude went all the

496
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: way up to Sage Escoway, who had been serving as

497
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: the head of creative in Ubisoft for more than a decade,

498
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: almost two decades at that point, and he could get

499
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: really involved with a major plot and character decision in

500
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: Ubisoft games even at that point. So ultimately, if he

501
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: didn't want it in the game, then it wasn't gonna

502
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: go into the game, and he was really dead set

503
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: against having according to other reports anyway, dead set against

504
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 1: having a female protagonist. Now, sticking with us for a second,

505
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,959
Speaker 1: this issue would again come up in a later Assassin's

506
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: Creed entry. Out of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Now that one

507
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand eighteen, and recently as of

508
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: this year, stories have emerged that the development team originally

509
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: wanted to make a character called Cassandra the Soul protagonist

510
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: for this game, but they were shot down by Askaway

511
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: and his team, and the reason that they were given

512
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: was that again that idea that women heroes just don't

513
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: sell games, which, hey, someone should probably let the tomb

514
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: Raider teams know about that, because that seems like a

515
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: problem anyway. Because of that opposition, the developer team was

516
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: compelled to give gamers a choice so they could play

517
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: as Cassandra, as had been intended from the start, or

518
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: they could choose to play as her brother, Alexios. Now

519
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: we'll get back to sexism and misogyny and stuff before

520
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. It is not a good

521
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: look and in fact makes us look like another you

522
00:31:57,800 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: B company that I've talked about in the past, that

523
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: be Uber. That's how bad it gets. But one other

524
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: thing that happened in that will focus on next is

525
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: remember when Electronic Arts quietly scooped up a significant percentage

526
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: of ownership and Ubisoft and that led to that fear

527
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: of a hostile takeover. Well, let's get ready to repeat

528
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: history like we're going into the Animus, to go back

529
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: into time, because in the fall of Vivendi, another French

530
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: company which has a history even more complicated than Ubisoft does,

531
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: revealed that it had purchased a big chunk of uby

532
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: Soft shares, And we get ready to go on that

533
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: hostile takeover ride all over again. Before we do that, though,

534
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsors. Eve

535
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: Guilmant stated that Ubisoft would fight off any hostile takeover

536
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: attempts from Vivindy, But boy howdy, it sure did look

537
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: like that was how this story was gonna go. It

538
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: looked like Vivindi was ultimately going to take over ubi Soft.

539
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: Between twenty fifteen and eighteen, Vivendi would continually attempt to

540
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: increase its holdings and Ubisoft getting larger and larger percentages

541
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: of shares in the company. Meanwhile, the Guilman brothers, whose

542
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: shares in the company amount to about nine percent of

543
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 1: total ownership back in twenty we're doing everything they could

544
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: to increase their own holding in uby Soft and secure

545
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: votes from other shareholders to prevent Vivindi from taking over,

546
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: and at one point, Vivindi pressured ubi Soft to try

547
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: and have them include Vivendi executives on the Ubisoft board

548
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: of directors. You know, after all, according to their argument,

549
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: Vivendi owned more than of the company at that point,

550
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: and they argued that that should give them a seat

551
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: at the table at the board of directors. But the

552
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: Guilman brothers countered this argument. They said that such an

553
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: arrangement would be a conflict of interests because Vivendi and

554
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: Ubisoft were competing in the same market place. So the

555
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: brothers were successful and staving off that move, and the

556
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: two sides were in a bit of a stalemate, and

557
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: each side was trying to scoop up shares whenever they

558
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: became available on the market to prevent the other side

559
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 1: from getting controlling interest. In the meantime, even though Vivindi

560
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:32,280
Speaker 1: repeatedly said it wasn't seeking a hostile takeover, the company

561
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: would acquire another Guilment operation, the game studio game Loft.

562
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: You might remember I mentioned that one in the last episode,

563
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: and how did Vivendi takeover game Loft while they did

564
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,919
Speaker 1: it via a hostile takeover? So it would be Soft

565
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: executives weren't terribly convinced of Vivendi's sincerity regarding the whole No, seriously, seriously, dude, No,

566
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: I'm not after your company like that just didn't come

567
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: across as genuine. I imagine. In two thousand eighteen, after

568
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: the battle of attrition in which both sides were trying

569
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 1: desperately to counter the other, they came to some sort

570
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: of agreement and Vivindi agreed that it would divest itself

571
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: of its shares and Ubi software over the course of

572
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: the next couple of years, and at that point, Vivindi

573
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: owned more than twenty seven per cent of Ubi Soft.

574
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Vivindy also agreed to a condition that it

575
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: would not acquire shares a Ubisoft for at least five years.

576
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: After this transaction, other investors, including the brothers themselves, would

577
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: buy up some of those Vivendi shares, kind of splitting

578
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: them up between them and one investor that acquired five

579
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: percent of all of the shares of Ubisoft was Tencent.

580
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: That's the Chinese conglomerate that has stake in multiple companies

581
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: around the world, and it has created tension in various markets,

582
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: but that's a story for another time. But they are

583
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: a significant holder in in the video games industry in general,

584
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: and this investment represented something of real value for Ubisoft

585
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,240
Speaker 1: as well. It represented the chance to make a bigger

586
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: impact in the Chinese market, and that represents billions of

587
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:19,879
Speaker 1: dollars in revenue, so it wasn't an unwelcome investment. While

588
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: Lubisoft and Vivendi were still jockeying for position in a

589
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,919
Speaker 1: battle to own the company, Ubisoft kept doing the two

590
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: things that really it had become known for, publishing video

591
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: games and growing, expanding the company even more so. It

592
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 1: opened up studios in the Philippines, it opened up one

593
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: in Serbia, and it acquired a mobile game studio in

594
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: France called catch App. And Ubisoft did shut down one

595
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: studio in ten that was Ubisoft Casablanca in Morocco. Uh

596
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: They said that the way that the video games industry

597
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: was moving, there was just no real place for that

598
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: studio anymore, so that one got shut down. But also

599
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:04,879
Speaker 1: in a former Ubisoft developer named Maxim Beaudoir wrote a

600
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: blog post explaining his decision to leave Ubisoft, even though

601
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: it was his quote unquote dream job. Now in that post,

602
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: he revealed that the process of creating a game and

603
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 1: Ubisoft was just so gargantuan that it was hard to

604
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: feel that you were actually contributing anything significant, and he

605
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 1: explained that Ubisoft just had so many studios working on

606
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: each title that development literally never stopped during the week,

607
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: because while it was quitting time at one studio, there'd

608
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: be another studio in a different part of the world

609
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: where the day was just getting started, and so developers

610
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: would just be picking right up where the others had

611
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: been leaving off. And with as many as a thousand

612
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: people working on a single game, he said, you just

613
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: couldn't avoid but feel like you were a little cog

614
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: in a giant machine, and cogs are replaceable, which he

615
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 1: said was having a really big negative impact on morale

616
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: and motivation. He said that if you get to a

617
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 1: point where each person is specializing to such a minute

618
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: degree because you have just so many different bodies working

619
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: on this game, then it doesn't take a lot of

620
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 1: imagination too to envision a scenario where the company replaces you,

621
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: because it's a very specific task that you are doing.

622
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: So he said that that was really demotivating for a

623
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: lot of people. He said that these were problems that

624
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: go along with creating huge games with equally huge teams,

625
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: and this was not necessarily specific to Ubisoft itself, but

626
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: rather is an industry problem, and the push to crank

627
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 1: out title after title in big franchises perpetuates this problem,

628
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: and it can burn out developers in the process, and

629
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 1: it can also have an effect on gamers who start

630
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: to feel like they're getting too much of the same

631
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Now, there have been a lot of

632
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: pieces written about the trend of open world games in general,

633
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: because those are some of the biggest, most sprawliest games

634
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 1: in gaming, and the fact that that has on the

635
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,240
Speaker 1: gaming experience. There's been a lot of criticism directed towards

636
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 1: games that are huge and open but maybe not that

637
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: interesting to inhabit or to explore or to play in,

638
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 1: or that these games often have so much busy work

639
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,720
Speaker 1: in the form of like side quests or fetch quests

640
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: or Lord help you if you have escort mission or

641
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 1: or things like that, and they become tedious to play. Anecdotally,

642
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: I can say at least that there are more than

643
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: a few games that I've been a really big fan

644
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: of that are big and sprawling Like. I love games

645
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: like Skyrim and Fallout and Assassin's Creed, Black Flag and

646
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, but it's actually pretty rare that

647
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: I finish the storyline of those games. I will pour

648
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: dozens of hours and I will chase down quests, and

649
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: eventually I lose steam before I ever see the end

650
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: of the story. Now, a big part of that is

651
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: my fault, of course, you know, I owned up to that.

652
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: I feel compelled to complete every side quest I can

653
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 1: before I move on with the story, because I always

654
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: worry that if I continue the story, I might miss out,

655
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: I might go too far to complete certain side quests.

656
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 1: And I want to see everything until I'm just tired

657
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: and I stopped. So I sabotage myself. But I'm not alone.

658
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: And recently there's been a growing kind of resistance to

659
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: this trend of the big sprawling games, or at least

660
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 1: there's been a renewed interest in games that are more

661
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: compact and less dependent on this concept of it's got

662
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: to be the biggest X game ever, you know, Fallout

663
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: or sky Rim or Elder Scrolls, I guess I should say.

664
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: And we're starting to see at least some people push

665
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,479
Speaker 1: back against that, although the studios are definitely still going

666
00:40:55,560 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: down that pathway. In would be Soft acquire the i

667
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: P for a free to play game called grow Topia.

668
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: It acquired Freestyle Games in the UK. They turned that

669
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: into their own Ubisoft studio, and they opened up new

670
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: studios in Berlin, in Bordeaux, in another one in Canada,

671
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: another one in Stockholm, and and it released more games obviously.

672
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: They released games like Ghost Recon wild Lands, and they

673
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: also released a game called for Honor. That last one

674
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: was actually a new i P, which is kind of interesting,

675
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: you know that you weren't seeing a lot of new

676
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: ip s from moviestuft to this point. It was mostly another,

677
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: you know, another entry in the various franchises, but in

678
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: this one players control a warrior who belongs to one

679
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 1: of four factions. You've got Vikings, You've got European style Nights,

680
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: You've got Japanese Samurai, and you have Chinese Warriors. And

681
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: the game is primarily an online multiplayer action game. There

682
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 1: is a single player campaign as well, and the online

683
00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: multiplayer has seasons of faction wars and during the faction

684
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: war during a season, the activities across all playable platforms

685
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: of this game determine which factions have control of different

686
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: territories on the world map, which is kind of a

687
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: neat idea. And early on there were some technical issues

688
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: with this game, particularly like if someone left a match early,

689
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,439
Speaker 1: it can crash a whole game. But it has since

690
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: been patched and their ded Kids servers that have improved

691
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 1: its stability. Uh, I don't know how healthy the traffic is, Like,

692
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: I don't know how popular the game is. It does

693
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 1: seem like Ubisoft has sort of slowed down in its

694
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,399
Speaker 1: support of the game. They aren't releasing as much new

695
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: content for for Honor recently as they hadn't passed, but

696
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: it was interesting that they took this risk. In eighteen,

697
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: UBI Soft would acquire Blue Mammoth Games, which was headquartered

698
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and they also bought four Studio. They

699
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: opened up more studios around the world, including yet another

700
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: in Canada, so many in Canada, another in the Ukraine,

701
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 1: and one in India, and it launched Far Cry five

702
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: and a real quick aside on that one, So Far

703
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: Cry five moved the action to America and this was

704
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: a big departure for the series. In promotional materials, it

705
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: looked like the antagonists in the game we're going to

706
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: belong to a far right militia slash cult group, and

707
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: there was a lot of buzz leading up to the

708
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: game's release about what sort of political statement the game

709
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: might make given the real world political climate of the

710
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 1: United States, and much of the criticism myself for the

711
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: game centered on the lack of a real perspective on

712
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: anything substantial. Some critics were a bit more devastating in

713
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: their review than others. For example, Polygon reviews subtitle was

714
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:46,799
Speaker 1: a horrible story, ruins and enjoyable world. Yikes. Now, I

715
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:48,800
Speaker 1: have not played this game, so I have no stake

716
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: in this. I don't doesn't do anything for me if

717
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: it's good or not good. But everything I've seen tells

718
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 1: me that I feel like I would kind of agree

719
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: with that Polygon review based on what I've read. Along

720
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: with the complaints about the lack of substance. Was a

721
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,399
Speaker 1: continuation of a trend of building a game on top

722
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 1: of a really heavy set of concepts, but then putting

723
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: sort of frivolous and silly and arcady type things on

724
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 1: top of that, and then on top of that creating

725
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: a sense that you're a bad person for enjoying the

726
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: silly things that the game has put in there for

727
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 1: your entertainment. I've seen similar stuff in games from other publishers,

728
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: like the Grand Theft Auto series. I've seen that there too,

729
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: But that's arguably a topic for another podcast. Fortunately, I

730
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: have another podcast that is coming out soon. That's a

731
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: that's foreshadowing. By two thousand nineteen, Ubisoft head around sixteen

732
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: thousand developers in its various studios around the world, which

733
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: is an astoundingly large number of developers. It was producing

734
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: more Triple A titles than its competitors, sometimes two or

735
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: three times as many titles per year as their competitors.

736
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 1: How Where, it was also lagging behind its top competitors

737
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,240
Speaker 1: when it came to certain metrics like the net revenue

738
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: generated per employee at the company. The financials pointed to

739
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 1: sort of a law of diminishing returns. Ubisoft made the

740
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: choice to postpone half of the titles it had planned

741
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: to release in twenty nineteen and pushed them back to

742
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: and the goal here was to give the titles more

743
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: time to evolve and develop. Now, generally, Ubisoft had a

744
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 1: decent reputation as far as a more typical production problem

745
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:38,880
Speaker 1: type approach, like they weren't known for crunch at this stage,

746
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 1: not like other companies were, not like Ubisoft had been

747
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: known for a few years earlier. But in another very

748
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 1: critical way, the company's reputation was about to take a

749
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: huge hit. In twenty a ton of allegations about sexual harassment, assault,

750
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: in general toxicity, and Ubisoft's management became public. Like to

751
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: chronicle all of these allegations would take a full episode

752
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: and it would get really ugly, but it became clear

753
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: that there was a deep systemic issue with sexism, misogyny, harassment, abuse,

754
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: and hiding that abuse within certain divisions of Ubisoft, particularly

755
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,760
Speaker 1: in Paris and in Montreal, though definitely in other offices

756
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: as well. Throughout twenty numerous reports surface that detailed a

757
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: really awful situation within the company. Numerous women reported that

758
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: they had either experienced or witnessed firsthand unacceptable and in

759
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: some cases at least arguably criminal displays of behaviors and

760
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:50,280
Speaker 1: management practices. It also became clear that Ubisoft's HR department

761
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: had fallen far short of where it needed to be,

762
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: like it should have been responding to these allegations, but

763
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: in many cases it seemed as though human resource has

764
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: existed largely to silence allegations and to protect a group

765
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: of executives and managers who are kind of insulated from

766
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: suffering any consequences. And it really did sound a lot

767
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: like Uber when Uber was at its worst, before that

768
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 1: whole system came crashing down. These accusations went all the

769
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: way up to the executive level, and a lot of

770
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,720
Speaker 1: them were aimed at Sair Gascuay himself. Now, as I mentioned,

771
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 1: Escoay had served as a creative director at Ubisoft for ages,

772
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: essentially having the ultimate say about what could or couldn't

773
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: go into games. Developers frequently indicated that it was Ascuay

774
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:42,479
Speaker 1: who would argue that games should feature male protagonists, and

775
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,160
Speaker 1: he was also said to have conducted business meetings in

776
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: places like strip clubs, which I think we can all

777
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: agree on is not an appropriate place to do business, unless,

778
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:56,399
Speaker 1: of course, you work at or with that club in

779
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: some way, then sure, okay, but it's certainly needed a

780
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: hostile work environment for a lot of people at the company.

781
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: Several women alleged that Ascaway had acted inappropriately with them

782
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: or with colleagues of theirs, and that he made inappropriate

783
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: comments sometimes worse, and he allowed for an extremely sexist

784
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: work environment. There were claims that it was unusual to

785
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:25,319
Speaker 1: see pornographic images or videos on computers within his department,

786
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: and that this was essentially overlooked or perhaps maybe even encouraged,

787
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, a fraternity, like the stereotypical

788
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: fraternity at a party college. And it was not, as

789
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 1: I said, a good look under intense pressure would be

790
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: soft responded by getting rid of many of those leaders

791
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:49,879
Speaker 1: who came under those allegations. Some of them resigned, being

792
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: told to do that by the company. Essentially some of

793
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: them were fired. There were questions about whether or not

794
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: Eve Guillmant knew about these problems within the company, I mean,

795
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: he CEO after all. At least a few reporters have

796
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: suggested that it would be unusual for him not to

797
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: have known, because some of these complaints stretched back more

798
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: than a decade now. Among those at Ubisoft who left

799
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: were Ash roff Ismail, the creative director for Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

800
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: He left after several uh sexual harassment claims were leveled

801
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:31,800
Speaker 1: against him. Maxim Belande, the co founder of Ubisoft Toronto

802
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 1: and the one of the vice presidents of the editorial department.

803
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: Tommy francois another vice president of Editorial and Creative Services.

804
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 1: Janice Mallett, the managing director of Ubisoft Studios in Canada,

805
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: Cecile Cornet, the head of Global HR, and serge Ascoay

806
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: himself left the company. On top of these, Michel Ansel,

807
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 1: the creator of Raymond and Beyond Good and Evil, would

808
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: also leave UBI saw on Cell came under fire for

809
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 1: alleged toxic leadership behaviors. Now, as far as I can tell,

810
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: these did not seem to extend to sexual harassment problems,

811
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 1: but that he did create a hostile work environment and

812
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: was reportedly very difficult to work with. Now, according to

813
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: the complaints, he would change the requirements of games and

814
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: and throw development into chaos, and some employees said that

815
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:28,919
Speaker 1: he could be really abusive on sell for his part,

816
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: denies these allegations. He says they're not accurate, and he

817
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: would go on to retire from the games industry, including

818
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: his own studio that he had founded, and go to

819
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: work on a wildlife sanctuary. And he continues to dispute

820
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: the claims that had been made against him, since all

821
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: the complaints would be soft executive leadership have made some

822
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 1: big changes at the company. They created some new positions

823
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: to oversee workplace culture worldwide, and they created another one

824
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:59,360
Speaker 1: that will be in charge of leading initiatives to improve

825
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion within the company. They also announced that

826
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: bonuses for team leaders are going to be tied to

827
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: creating positive work environments. Meanwhile, the company continues to conduct

828
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:15,279
Speaker 1: internal investigations as it tries to assure shareholders that real

829
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,560
Speaker 1: change is happening behind the scenes. This isn't performative at least,

830
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: that's the argument being made now. On top of all that,

831
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 1: there was a recent incident at Ubisoft Montreal. A threatening

832
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: call of some sort was made to the office or

833
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: relayed to emergency services, which prompted the evacuation of the

834
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: Ubisoft Montreal headquarters, with some Ubisoft employees essentially barricading themselves

835
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:47,880
Speaker 1: on the offices rooftop. Initial reports indicated that there was

836
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: some sort of hostage situation going on, and it was

837
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: a tense situation for many hours until ultimately authorities determined

838
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: that the whole thing was prompted by a hoax. There

839
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: had never been a real rent as of this recording,

840
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 1: there is no word on who made that initial call

841
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: or what motivation they had for doing it. On the horizon,

842
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: Ubisoft is working on the next Far Cry game, Far

843
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: Cry six. That one's due out in UH. They're still

844
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: work being done on the Beyond Good and Evil two game,

845
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: which I think is a prequel. UH. There is an

846
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,799
Speaker 1: update coming to the city building game The Settlers, which

847
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,760
Speaker 1: I don't think has had a game in that series

848
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 1: for more than a decade. So that's kind of interesting,

849
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: and I'm sure at some point I will have to

850
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:35,879
Speaker 1: do a follow up episode on this series to talk

851
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: about what Ubisoft has done in the wake of twenty

852
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: In the meantime, it will be really interesting to see

853
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: how the company handles itself and whether we will see

854
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: a new Ubisoft with new games, new characters, new I

855
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Speaker 1: p new approaches as a result of all this, because

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Speaker 1: arguably it should become easier to work in things that

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Speaker 1: immediately aligned with saers Ascoway's vision of what games should be.

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Speaker 1: So maybe that means in the long run, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: get games that that break free of those restraints, and

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Speaker 1: that could be really cool, but we'll have to wait

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Speaker 1: and see. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions

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Speaker 1: for future topics I should tackle on text Stuff reach

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Speaker 1: out to me. The Twitter handle is text stuff h

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Speaker 1: s W. This concludes our three part series on Ubisoft

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Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff

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Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.