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G2ThaUNiT on 04 October 2023

I personally don't understand why there's this disconnect with reviewers. Motorsport is now an 18 year old franchise and Horizon is now 11 years old. There wasn't much of an issue like this for years. 



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Spade on 04 October 2023
VersusEvil said:

Imagine it’s 2023 and you buy an Ubisoft game (bad enough) day 1, heck imagine buying any Ubisoft game day 1. There isn’t another company in the industry that games depreciate faster, in a month the gold ultra deluxe edition with be £19.99. Garbage company, love to see ACM get ragged on by the critics. 

Lol that dent Ryuu gettin called tf out. 



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WoodenPints on 04 October 2023
shikamaru317 said:
Ryuu96 said:

I mean, an 82 would basically be around the average for modern AC.

  • Black Flag - 85
  • Unity - 71
  • Syndicate - 77
  • Origins - 85
  • Odyssey - 84
  • Valhalla - 83

Ubisoft titles in general lately struggle to go above 85. So high 70s, low 80s is basically the Ubisoft average in recent history, Lol.

Why I think Avatar and Star Wars will hit low 80s as well. Ubisoft's last title over 85 was Rayman Legends.

You forgot Rogue which got a 73 I believe.

I think it's pretty telling that out of all those AC games from the last decade, the RPG ones overall got the highest scores with only Black Flag able to match them out of the classic formula games (and it was only able to do so because it shook up the classic formula so much by adding in all of the naval stuff with naval combat and whaling and such).

I personally think that both Syndicate and Black Flag were underreviewed by critics, as well as Odyssey and Origins, the critic averages for the rest feel about right to me.

Trust me, I like the classic AC formula games, always have (my ranking for the series has Black Flag and Syndicate both in the top 5), but the fact of the matter is that critics don't seem to like the classic AC formula any longer, and Syndicate selling like half the copies that previous classic formula AC games sold also suggest that the majority of gamers were getting bored of them as well. Ubisoft made the right call deciding to evolve the series to the RPG formula, as evidenced by the immediate upturn in both reviews and sales in the wake of 3 classic AC formula games in a row underperforming (AC Rogue, AC Unity, and AC Syndicate). 

Sales went up from 5.5m in 2 years on Syndicate to 10m+ on all 3 RPG AC games. Reviews went up from an average of about 75 on those 3 classic formula games (Unity, Rogue, and Syndicate) to an average of about 84 on the RPG games. Ubisoft made the right call, it's backed up by numbers. Ubisoft's best bet moving forward would seem to be sticking with RPG for brand new games and graphics/QoL update only remakes for the classic fans. 

I liked Origins and I think they got the balance right with the shift to a RPG whilst still including enough of the stealth gameplay.



Ryuu96 on 04 October 2023
Machiavellian said:
Ryuu96 said:

I just said that they'll likely wait until his contract expires in April 2024 because it will be less costly than terminating him, Lol.

The reason I think he will be leaving is multiple.

  1. I don't believe someone like Bobby who has been his own boss for so many years now, will actually like suddenly not being the boss and having to answer to someone else, that is Phil Spencer now, Bobby no longer will be making the decisions, Phil will. It's like Phil said when someone asked him about Bobby's dislike of Game Pass and his belief that titles shouldn't launch into it, Phil's response was simply Bobby isn't making the decisions anymore, I am. I think Bobby is the sort of arrogant, self centred twat who will hate having to answer to someone else and lose his power because that is what is happening here, once the acquisition closes, Bobby will lose power.
  2. He's going to make hundreds of millions from this deal, he can comfortably retire for the rest of his life. Remember it was Activision-Blizzard (Bobby Kotick himself) who sought out an acquisition after the mess that happened. I'm fairly confident that Bobby just wants to wash his hands of the whole thing now and semi-retire, he is 60 years old.
  3. The CEO position is null and void once the acquisition closes, there is no CEO, that role will be dissolved, just like it was dissolved in Zenimax, just like it was dissolved in all their other acquisitions. The only CEOs in Microsoft are Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Phil Spencer (Microsoft Gaming) and Ryan Roslansky (Linkedin CEO) and that's cause Linkedin is limited integration into Microsoft but Activision-Blizzard will be under Microsoft Gaming. Therefore even more degradation of Bobby's power.
  4. You tell me what sense it makes in having Rob Kostich (President of Activision) and Mike Ybarra (President of Blizzard) report to Bobby Kotick who reports to Phil Spencer who now makes all of the decisions for Activision-Blizzard instead of just having Rob Kostich and Mike Ybarra report directly to Phil. Bobby becomes nothing more than an overpaid middle-man. Bobby Kotick only needs to stay for the transition and then he can go, unless you believe that Rob Kostich and Mike Ybarra who have been running Activision and Blizzard now for years, can't run Activision and Blizzard, then we have bigger problems.
  5. Bobby Kotick isn't the dude managing the day to day operations, Kostich and Ybarra are. Bobby is just the dude making the business decisions but the business decisions under Xbox are going to be vastly different now because of Game Pass, something which Bobby doesn't agree with. Bobby's direction of business will NOT align with Xbox's direction of business. That doesn't mean one is wrong, it just means they have two different directions.
  6. Bobby is a walking PR disaster waiting to happen.
  7. We have multiple reputable journalists who say Bobby will leave post-acquisition closure, I'm not talking random gaming journalists or some dudes on 4Chan but actual reputable business organisations who are very clued into the stock market and have very strong business related sources. I can't remember which it was but I think it was Bloomberg who said Bobby is leaving.

We do know the deal, Activision-Blizzard is coming under Microsoft Gaming and will report directly to Phil Spencer...We've already been told that.

We both agree that he is leaving and I didn't say Microsoft will terminate him early, I said they'll likely wait for his contract to expire, I don't believe it was a coincidence that he specifically pointed out that his contract only lasts until April 2024 and he will stay as long as Microsoft needs him for the transitional process.

Ryuu, we only know the surface of the deal.  Just know that ABK will be part of MS gaming is about all we know but if you believe merging a company as big as ABK is just that simple you are getting ahead of yourself.  There is a lot that goes into the acquisition and details we will never know.  If Bobby wanted to he could pretty much negotiate whatever position he wants and also who he reports to.  

The main point I am stating is that your use of the term Termination is vastly wrong.  Bobby will leave as I stated because its time for him to retire and he saw this huge money grabbing opportunity to do so because MS was thirsty.  Your statements make it appear as if Bobby is just going to walk into the office one day and bam, Phil is going to tell him his time is up.  That is not going to happen.  Instead as I stated, Bobby has already negotiated his retirement and he will leave when he feel like it.  He isn't going to be terminated.  He will be making a lot of decisions before and after the sale and if he so chooses, he can stay on doing whatever he has negotiated until he is ready to go.

As for being a PR disaster, I actually disagree with this.  PR stuff on the level that he has faced is pretty much small potatoes.  One thing is a constant, especially in high level C positions, if you pretty much just keep your mouth shut, gamers have a pretty short attention span and move on to something else.  None of that stuff actually going to really mean anything.

As for Bobby as CEO not making the decisions that has put the company where its at.  I believe you are letting your bias cloud your vision.  There are no decisions that get done without the CEO approval.  All C level execs report to Bobby and for a company that is not as diversified as MS, that means he does make and approve just about everything that goes on in the company.  Having sat through multiple C level exec meetings, all projects, direction of the company and day to day business deals, acquisitions you name it are discussed and approved or denied by the CEO.  Like I said, just because you do not like the guy do not get it twisted that he runs the company.  He is not managing the grunt level details but all major decisions and directions goes pass him before getting done.

Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming

Bobby Kotick previously stated that he doesn't agree with "the idea of a multi-game subscription service as a business proposition." While that may seem like a roadblock, Spencer laughed when we asked how he'd handle their different ideologies when the deal closes. "Well, there's a different person making the decisions," Spencer laughed.

We literally KNOW that Bobby Kotick will be reporting to Phil Spencer because Microsoft literally told us, Lol.

"If Bobby wanted to he could pretty much negotiate whatever position he wants and also who he reports to."

Lmao. What? No he couldn't. The CEO role will be dissolved once Activision-Blizzard comes into the fold because there exists only 3 CEOs in Microsoft, the ones I listed, and two of those only exist because they count as separate divisions. Activision-Blizzard will not. Bobby reports to Phil and that's the end of the story, he can't change that, Phil will be his boss.

Yeah, sure, I used termination wrong because they technically won't terminate him, they'll just wait until his contract is over, I never said they'd immediately fire him, Lol. They'll just let the termination date lapse and then let him go without trying to convince him to stay. Bobby hasn't negotiated a contract with Microsoft, when he was speaking about his end date to his current contract he was talking about the one he currently has with Activision-Blizzard.

Ultimately, Phil will be the one making the decisions, and Phil's business decisions are vastly different to Bobby's, he's even railroading Bobby before the deal is even complete, Lmao.

That PR disaster with Activision-Blizzard contributed to forcing their sale, Lol. Microsoft is as well a company that is paranoid about its PR image, sure they have issues still like any other company but they don't tend to walk head first into disasters.

Bobby runs the business, I never argued otherwise, but he doesn't not manage Activision and Blizzard on a finer level like Rob and Mike do. If you think they make suggestions to Bobby and all he does is approve them then there's no reason that Phil can't do that either and guess what, Phil is going to be doing that, Lol. Instead of Rob/Mike > Bobby > Phil we can simplify it and make it Rob/Mike > Phil.

Bobby becomes a useless middle-man whose business ideas are completely different to Phil's, in the long term he would be nothing more than an annoying distraction constantly disagreeing with Phil and Xbox's future plans. I'm not saying Bobby is a BAD businessman, he has been VERY GOOD for Activision-Blizzard but now ABK will be under Xbox and Bobby will no longer be making the business decisions, Phil will.

Their business ideas are completely different, Xbox is all in on Game Pass, Bobby hates it, Xbox wants to do something with Cloud, Bobby thinks it's useless, what else is there for him to do or say? He isn't onboard with Xbox's vision, it's time for him to step aside, Activision and Blizzard can cope without him since they're managed already by Presidents.

It doesn't mean he's a bad businessman, it means they have different business ideas which aren't compatible with Xbox's vision.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 04 October 2023

Ryuu96 on 04 October 2023

Told ya, the 8/100 was fixed and now it's up to 85.



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shikamaru317 on 04 October 2023
gtotheunit91 said:

I personally don't understand why there's this disconnect with reviewers. Motorsport is now an 18 year old franchise and Horizon is now 11 years old. There wasn't much of an issue like this for years. 

I'd say the disconnect started as soon as Horizon 3 breached the 90 barrier:

Here are the chronological order of Forza scores on Metacritic (highest reviewed platform used for the 2 and 3 platform Forza games):

  • FM1- 92
  • FM2- 90
  • FM3- 92
  • FM4- 91
  • FH1- 85
  • FM5- 79
  • FH2- 86
  • FM6- 87
  • FH3- 91
  • FM7- 86
  • FH4- 92
  • FH5- 92
  • FM reboot- 84

As you can see, Forza Motorsport starts off consistently 90+ on 1-4, then Horizon 1 launched to a respectable 85. Then Turn 10 rushed out their series reboot on 5 as an XB1 launch title when it wasn't ready for release (with car count from 4 to 5 dropping from 500 to 200 and track count dropping from 26 to 17), causing a huge 12 point drop in average review scores from FM4 to FM5. Then Horizon 2 got a 1 point improvement over Horizon 1. Next was Motorsport 6, which boosted car and track count substantially over Motorsport 5, giving the series a review recovery of 8 points (though still 4 points south of the Motorsport 1-4 average of 91). Then Forza Horizon 3 broke the 90 barrier. This seems to have set in motion the start of the disconnect for critics being unable to separate Horizon and Motorsport as 2 separate franchises. FM7 releases and in spite of big improvements to car count and track count over 6, a noticeable graphics leap on brand new tracks, and numerous mechanics improvements, Motorsport 7 breaks the trend of Motorsport review recovery by losing a point over Motorsport 6. Then comes Horizon 4 and 5 (both in a row while Turn 10 rebuilt their Motorsport engine and started making car and track models from the ground up for Xbox Series consoles), both maintaining the 90+ scores of Horizon 3. 

Now drops Motorsport reboot, and it is sitting at 85 currently on Opencritic and 84/84 Xbox/PC on Metacritic. Even though they took an extra 4 years over the old every 2 years release schedule for Forza Motorsport games, in order to boost car and track count as much as possible and avoid the huge review drop they saw the last time they rebooted the series with Motorsport 5, they still couldn't manage an increase in review scores over Motorsport 6 or 7, instead coming in 2 points below Motorsport 7 on Metacritic. 

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 04 October 2023

Ryuu96 on 04 October 2023
shikamaru317 said:
gtotheunit91 said:

I personally don't understand why there's this disconnect with reviewers. Motorsport is now an 18 year old franchise and Horizon is now 11 years old. There wasn't much of an issue like this for years. 

I'd say the disconnect started as soon as Horizon 3 breached the 90 barrier:

Basically when Forza Horizon became mainstream.

Or would we say that was Forza Horizon 4?



Ryuu96 on 04 October 2023

Love seeing developers defend other developers and educate gamers when they make bad takes.

So here is a Cyberpunk developer defending Bethesda and educating a gamers bad take, Lol.

Another from Tantalus South



shikamaru317 on 04 October 2023

Well, anyway, I will happily play both AC Mirage and Motorsport reboot, no matter now poorly critics review a game they can't dissuade me from playing it if I was already interested in playing it. It will be awhile though before I can get to either of them, right now I'm trying to plow my way through the remainder of the Yakuza series to prepare for the 2 new entries in November and January. Plowing through Yakuza 4 still, which is a rather meaty game with lots of side content (around 80 hours if you want to do everything apparently), just finished the 3rd playable character last night, Tanemura, and am finally to the Kiryu chapter now. May need to skip side content on some of these just so that I can get 4, 5, 6, 7, and Ishin remake done in time to play Gaiden in November.



G2ThaUNiT on 04 October 2023
shikamaru317 said:

Well, anyway, I will happily play both AC Mirage and Motorsport reboot, no matter now poorly critics review a game they can't dissuade me from playing it if I was already interested in playing it. It will be awhile though before I can get to either of them, right now I'm trying to plow my way through the remainder of the Yakuza series to prepare for the 2 new entries in November and January. Plowing through Yakuza 4 still, which is a rather meaty game with lots of side content (around 80 hours if you want to do everything apparently), just finished the 3rd playable character last night, Tanemura, and am finally to the Kiryu chapter now. May need to skip side content on some of these just so that I can get 4, 5, 6, 7, and Ishin remake done in time to play Gaiden in November.

Damn, you're making the games sound like they're Redfall quality