Why For Honor is dying in the West to live in the East. | Forums

[Vakris_One]

Posted in another forum, but I suspect it applies here as well. Mods will decide, of course.

Tencent (a LARGE Chinese company who shares user data and technology from partner companies with the Chinese government) owns a large stake in Ubisoft now, including the "For Honor" title. You see, as part of doing business in China, you have to partner with a Chinese company and share all of your information with that company, which is obligated to share that info with the Chinese government. Also as per the Chinese government's requirements, all media that portrays Chinese characteristics and wants to do business in China must portray China as great and superior.

JJ is fashioned after their most favorite general in history. No lie, they have gigantic statues of this guy all over China...some as big as buildings. It's no stretch that including this guy was no simple creative idea, and that his superiority to most other classes was not just a whim, but a direction from Ubi's new masters.

The game is tanking because Ubi wants access to the Chinese market.

It's also not a stretch to believe that the perks system may have had some Tencent influence as well, since they own League of Legends. Asian games love systems like "perks" because they make you stay and grind harder and longer. They play by the rule of large numbers. It doesn't matter if 500 people leave...or 5,000, or even 50,000. Threre's a market of 100's of millions available. This would also explain Ubi's complete silence on this matter so far. It's possible that they're already salivating on the Chinese market, so losing us doesn't even count as a blip on the radar.

Of course, someone's going to reply that Tencent is only a financial invester and has no creative control. I say that an investment measured in billions gives you more control than Ubi would ever admit. I also know the Chinese system because I deal with the Chinese every day as part of my job. Along with dealing with them directly, there's considerable research involved in the Chinese system. No company that wants access to that market, that accepts billions in investment money, gets to make their own rules for their game anymore.

Face it. The game we love got sold out, and we have billions to one odds that it will ever come back. Literally.

What exactly are you basing your opinion on that this game was sold out to the Chinese market? That fact that Chinese warriors got added to the game?

Jiang Jun is not overpowered, he's pretty average in 1v1s and he's a good pick in 4v4s. That's pretty much the average state that most heroes are in - average in one mode while good in another. Kensei, Warden, Conq, Zerker and Highlander are statistically all better than JJ as they are quite decent in both 1v1s and 4v4s. By your own logic this would be unnaceptable to the Chinese government since these heroes can also beat JJ (aka Guan Yu) in a 1v1 fight given equal player skill.

Perks are a design change to the way gear works but it's a huge stretch to assume that this was done in order to break into or conform to the Chinese market. Plenty of games have similiar types of stat boosts on character gear without it being linked to China. This one is a pretty flimsy argument if you don't mind me saying.

Tencent investing in Ubisoft is an interesting argument but just because a company buys shares in another company doesn't by default mean that this company now pulls Ubisoft's strings. Not unless they buy a controlling stake in Ubisoft (i.e. over 50%), which Tencent has not.

Would this thread have been made if the new heroes were say Aztec warriors or Spartans I wonder?

[Herbstlicht]

Ah I give up on this. Constructive talk is about keeping things simple and orderly. If you have an well educated, academic background, you should know that referring to superlatives and directly or indirectly insulting people- you assumed in your post before I am american and thus would not understand. To be more concrete, not only feels kinda racist against the Americans but still feels like an insult to me because as long as Trump is President there, the implications are clear.

But stuff like this might only apply to my little academic world where anyone that's worth his name might only give you a sad smile for the way you presented your information here.

As I might have implied - actual talk about the topic in a reasonable way might have been rather interesting due to a lot of dynamics going on between Asia and the West in the industry. With Rainbow 6 we even have a polarizing example of what does happen to internationalize a gaming experience.
But this is way pretty much no way; Forum culture maybe is just this: one posts and defends, because everything other are posting that isn't clear agreement is an attack on you, your believes and thus its imperative to interpret everything in a way it ought aid you and - maybe even unconsciously - "throwing insults".

With me hating to not talking about the topic in any post I make though, one last addition on topic.

The game got negative Reviews on Steam since .. ages. I too experienced a lot of friends quit. I will experience more doing so. But I am not on PC, playing on PS4. The Scene there overall is a stable one. People come back. People leave. New people arrive. Old people come back. New people leave.
With no game being able to recreate the experience For Honor is able to deliver, it kinda has a monopoly and thus will stand - if not strong, that at least solid enough to sustain its self. For me, that's already enough. I got my servers, I got better balance and another interesting and nicely researched Faction (opinions might differ on that, I know, just stating what I think about it ^^).

Maybe, I just can't take stuff like this too seriously due to the reason that, as a not-so-young and casual gamer that spends most of his time with his studies and readings, I don't care enough about anything that doesn't really threaten or inconvenience me. And whenever "bad stuff happens that's real bad", I am rather sure to get to know it. But yet, I have to fall victim to any of this. Because if today you could fall victim to any company with stakes in another .. oh boy, where would we be? Ah right. In 2018. Where you can purchase pretty much all marketing relevant information for pretty much every street in every city in every country in this world. Not saying I don't care about it, but it just "is". So the information about Tencent is nice. Part of this read was nice. But there won't be a dramatic end coming to For Honor due to an international release anytime soon I guess. Might be wrong. But feels unlikely.

[Wookiescantfly]

With no game being able to recreate the experience For Honor is able to deliver, it kinda has a monopoly and thus will stand - if not strong, that at least solid enough to sustain its self.

pretty much this. As irritated as I tend to get with the game, For Honor satisfies an itch for the type of medieval combat game you really can't replicate on consoles. As much as "get a pc hurr durr" is a realistic way to go about that problem, I don't want to go spend a couple hundred, if not over a thousand, dollars on a PC to play one or two games on it. Which effectively gives For Honor an interesting monopoly for the time being.

[AjLavJu]

it is also happening with the Blizzard / Activision with their new Diablo III immersive experience.....why do you think it is developed by the Chinese company instead of Blizz it self?

[Archeun]

We all get to choose what we buy.

[Herbstlicht]

We all get to choose what we buy.

But we only partially have any saying (if at all) in how it evolves But true words, those.

[Tundra 793]

Can't believe no one's brought this up yet, but; Rainbow Six Siege, another Ubisoft title, recently and very publicly was announced that it was going to undergo visual changes to better conform to the Chinese market it's about to enter. https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/3/18...ox-one-ubisoft
So for one game they're openly and willingy altering art assets and icons to comply with the Chinese requirements, including stuff like blood, gore and skull/skeleton imagery.

But over on For Honor, we got a 2 week event going on with the same amount of blood and gore we had at launch, but now with added skeletons roaming about as well.

If For Honor was doing anything to appeal to the Chinese market, I'm pretty sure we'd know about it.

EDIT; You always forget how powerful a tool Google can be; https://www.marketscreener.com/UBISO...-4719/company/

2nd EDIT;

Posted in another forum, but I suspect it applies here as well. Mods will decide, of course.

Found the other place where you brought this up, and I swear by the gaming Gods, journalism 101 should be taught in friggin' kindergarten.

Forum user Energized_ posted this link and comment;

https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/29/17...soft-explained ... you have to be faking kidding me .. TENCENT HAS ITS DIRTY HANDS IN UBISOFT? i lost all trust in ubisoft.

Which you, One.Enemy, replied to with;

Then it's all but confirmed. Tencent also makes Wechat, and as part of being allowed to be such a big company, it shares all of its data with the Chinese government. Everything the Chinese do with their phones is done through Wechat, most phone games are via Tencent, and Tencent will share everything with the Chinese government. If Tencent owns some of Ubi, then it's acting as the gateway to the game into China, of which sharing user data is a mandatory requirement.

First off; the Ubisoft End User Licence Agreement specifically states that user data is collected and stored, and will not be shared unless authorized by a user, or is required by law, usually in cases of fraud and the likes. You can read all about that here; https://legal.ubi.com/eula/en-US

Secondly, quoting the aforementioned article regarding Tencents shares;

The deal keeps control of Ubisoft with CEO Yves Guillemot and his family, while giving the publisher an established channel for bringing its biggest games into the world’s largest gaming market.

The minority stake doesn’t give Tencent sway over the French company. “It is more like a piece of the action and a view into Ubisoft, the chance to publish Ubi’s games, and a better listening post in Western Europe,” says Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad.

That should pretty much debunk any and all claims about Chinese influence on the game itself.

All that's left is for you to prove that Ubisoft is unlawfully sharing private user data with the Chinese government. Which would be a pretty huge deal. Like groundbreaking.

[Alustar.exe]

Posted in another forum, but I suspect it applies here as well. Mods will decide, of course.

Tencent (a LARGE Chinese company who shares user data and technology from partner companies with the Chinese government) owns a large stake in Ubisoft now, including the "For Honor" title. You see, as part of doing business in China, you have to partner with a Chinese company and share all of your information with that company, which is obligated to share that info with the Chinese government. Also as per the Chinese government's requirements, all media that portrays Chinese characteristics and wants to do business in China must portray China as great and superior.

JJ is fashioned after their most favorite general in history. No lie, they have gigantic statues of this guy all over China...some as big as buildings. It's no stretch that including this guy was no simple creative idea, and that his superiority to most other classes was not just a whim, but a direction from Ubi's new masters.

The game is tanking because Ubi wants access to the Chinese market.

It's also not a stretch to believe that the perks system may have had some Tencent influence as well, since they own League of Legends. Asian games love systems like "perks" because they make you stay and grind harder and longer. They play by the rule of large numbers. It doesn't matter if 500 people leave...or 5,000, or even 50,000. Threre's a market of 100's of millions available. This would also explain Ubi's complete silence on this matter so far. It's possible that they're already salivating on the Chinese market, so losing us doesn't even count as a blip on the radar.

Of course, someone's going to reply that Tencent is only a financial invester and has no creative control. I say that an investment measured in billions gives you more control than Ubi would ever admit. I also know the Chinese system because I deal with the Chinese every day as part of my job. Along with dealing with them directly, there's considerable research involved in the Chinese system. No company that wants access to that market, that accepts billions in investment money, gets to make their own rules for their game anymore.

Face it. The game we love got sold out, and we have billions to one odds that it will ever come back. Literally.

If you read this with in a Russian accent, the whole post in 500, no 5,000, NO 50,000 times better! I can't thank you enough for the lulz. You sir, are exactly what I needed after a **** day at work!

[One.Enemy]

Alright...well, I gave my thoughts on the matter for people to talk about, but it seems that's not what people want. Rather than get into some flame wars and repeating my same points over and over, I'm just going to step away knowing I said my piece based on what I know. Somehow, I forgot that people are still going to be people...never anything more, never anything less. Just who they are.

Enjoy, all.

[Tundra 793]

Alright...well, I gave my thoughts on the matter for people to talk about, but it seems that's not what people want. Rather than get into some flame wars and repeating my same points over and over, I'm just going to step away knowing I said my piece based on what I know. Somehow, I forgot that people are still going to be people...never anything more, never anything less. Just who they are.

Enjoy, all.

On the contrary, I did want to talk about it, I just talked about how you were wrong on a few counts, proved why you were wrong on those counts, and invited you to prove the rest of us wrong on the last count.