Ubisoft found themselves in hot water recently when it was revealed that one of the missions featuring Jabba the Hutt in the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws game would be sold as day one DLC and locked behind a pricey paywall and the game’s special edition. Understandably this went on to cause much anger in the community, especially as Jabba has featured heavily in marketing to this point.
The games industry is at a very interesting point, the last few years have seen an increase in games as a service, micro-transactions, and DLC. There has also been even more pushback from players, as games seem to be more about being vehicles used to make a quick buck, than being actual creative endeavors from studios that want to make a stamp on the medium.
Star Wars Outlaws was looking great until…
This most recent controversy isn’t new for Ubisoft, with them having used a similar practice in many of their titles throughout the years, Assassin’s Creed being the main culprit. It’s also become something of an industry practice with every publisher jumping on the same bandwagon.
However, this time it’s a lot worse if you ask me. The content in question is a mission for Jabba The Hutt in their upcoming title Star Wars Outlaws, and it’s worse because Jabba is shown off in the trailer and the game’s promotional art. So, to find out that some of the Hutt-related content is available on Day One and locked behind a paywall is unfortunate, to say the least.
I understand expansions that provide new locations and big new stories being added for a fee later down the line, and I’ll gladly pay for that stuff when it launches, but withholding content that’s already been completed and is in the game on day one is a terrible practice and needs to stop. Sal on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared a passionate post about the issue and I wholeheartedly agree.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan and Ubisoft partner, I think it's important for me to address the Star Wars Outlaws situation. Locking a mission line featuring the iconic character Jabba the Hutt behind a paywall on day one feels pretty underhanded.
The success of games like…
— Sal 🔜 W.A.S.D (@salvahed) April 16, 2024
Jabba the Hutt is the ultimate symbol of greed and gluttony, he is the epitome of capitalism gone rampant, he is a wretched and despicable character with no redeeming qualities and we cheer when Leia chokes him to death. Ubisoft has unintentionally made Jabba the Hutt the face of their own greedy business practices and I cannot imagine they see the irony in that at all.
Ubisoft is no stranger to controversy
The frustrating thing is, we see this from Ubisoft on a regular basis, most games they release be it single-player or multiplayer are absolutely flooded with these predatory monetization schemes. Every new Assassins Creed game will have a standard edition, a deluxe edition, a gold edition, and an ultimate edition, often with day one content locked or you are paying for DLC expansions that won’t be released for several months to come.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora still has not released its expansions and that game came out in December, we are 4 months into 2024 and content that people could pay for at launch has not been released.
If it’s not asking us to pay for unreleased content months in advance, then it’s scummy in-game purchases in single-player games. Assassins Creed Mirage among other recent titles was criticized for including time-boosting items players could pay real money for, it gives the impression that Ubisoft sees it’s players as nothing more than cattle to be milked for easy money.
Ubisoft’s latest major release, Skull and Bones, took 11 years and just as many studios to produce, it finally released as their first so-called, ‘AAAA game’ and it was met with much backlash for its live service elements and game-play that left much to be desired. All it had to be was Black Flag without the assassin stuff, but instead, it was their next big overpriced live service game and it was woefully underwhelming.
Games are meant to make money, but they should also be good
But Dustin you might say, gaming is an industry and industries exist to make money! And you’d be right, these companies need to make money so they can continue to put out games for us to play and hopefully enjoy. But you know what sells well? Good video games are made by passionate teams that care about doing right by their players.
Recently we’ve seen multiple live service games fail because the corporations behind them wanted to make easy money, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League in February was a very good example of this, and it is already on deep sale less than 3 months post-launch. Because it was full price, and players are sick of getting screwed.
February saw the release of Helldivers 2 from Arrowhead Games, if I described it to you, on the surface it would sound like every other live service game we’ve seen come along and fail immediately, it’s got micro-transactions, battle passes, and it is an ever-evolving live service. These descriptors are kryptonite to games these days, but not Helldivers 2, it goes out of its way to be a fun and engaging game first and foremost, with its extra paid content being secondary to the experience.
Furthermore, you can earn the premium currency used to buy battle-passes and extra skins in the game, so as a player, you never feel like you’re being held at gunpoint to spend extra money to get the latest cool skin. Ubisoft and companies like it could learn a thing or two from Arrowhead, which has shown its commitment to the players and not their wallets.
Unfortunately, these practices are commonplace nowadays, and Ubisoft isn’t the only perpetrator, but merely the latest. Activision Blizzard does the same with Call of Duty, Epic with Fortnite, EA with EA Sports FC 24 , and so on. This won’t come to an end any time soon, unless we, the gamers, stop it.
But, what do you think? Am I being too harsh on one of the industry’s biggest companies? Let us know in the comments!
