Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "CALL OF DUTY KILLER XDEFIANT GETS SHUT DOWN BY UBISOFT"

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnalyticIn this segment, Analytic Dreamz explores the closure of Ubisoft's XDefiant, set to go offline completely on June 2, 2025. We'll discuss the immediate changes like the halt in new registrations, downloads, and in-game purchases. Refunds are on the table for recent buyers, with the Ultimate Founder's Pack purchasers and those who made in-game transactions in the last month getting their money back within eight weeks. Initially launched in May 2024, XDefiant saw a stellar start, hitting 1 million players in just 2.5 hours and averaging 300,000 concurrent players in its first 48 hours, featuring beloved characters from Ubisoft's extensive library. However, the game's player count plummeted, with numbers below 20,000 by August 2024, unable to stand out in a saturated FPS market. We'll delve into Ubisoft's broader challenges, including significant layoffs, the closure of several studios, and a tough year marked by other game flops and ongoing issues. Analytic Dreamz will analyze what this means for Ubisoft and the future of free-to-play shooters amidst industry-wide layoffs and economic pressuresPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We have to figure out as the gaming community. Let's figure it out together. Titanfall, Hyperscape, battle-borne, lawbreakers. Y'all let me know what you think also should be added to that list. Because ladies and gentlemen, it's a sad day in history for another so-called Call of Duty Killer. Now, of course, I love competition in the gaming space because I think it brings out the innovative features as far as to get the consumers on your side to showcase you provide the better game loop, which is why I believe we received one of the best call of duties in the past five to six years.

Call of Duty Blackop Six is one of the greatest call of duties of all time as far as a total package. Right. So when we're getting into X Defiant, ultimately being one of the more popular downfalls as far as a call of duty killer, because initially, it did reach a million players within 2.5 hours of launch. It did have 300,000 concurrent players within the first 48 hours. What happened? Literally featured characters from all the population. Ubisoft titles such as Splinter Cell, the Division, Watchdogs. I've been asking for a Splinter Cell since the inception of this podcast. I love stealth games and I say it all the time on my analytic dreams video gameplay walkthrough on Spotify to see the video along with the audio.

You know, shame's plug. But when I'm playing video games, stealth aspects were always intriguing to me simply because of me growing up, especially with my cousin playing Splinter Cell to the point where you realize, hey, I think this type of style of gaming is one of my favorites as far as the actual gamer. So whenever I see stealth aspects and other video games, I always compare it to Splenersel, which brings me back to the point, why haven't we received the new Splenicel game? But that's okay? Because, you know, that's for a whole other segment.

For today, we're talking about the downfall of X-defined, unfortunately, as it was officially announced that all ex-defiant servers will go offline June 2nd, 2025. Registration and downloads are no longer available. Purchases have been disabled. If you wanted to play the game, which we know you didn't. But if you wanted to play it, you still can't. Saddened history. Now, this does not bring me joy because like I said at the beginning of the segment,

I enjoy competition But these jokes have to fly Because guess what If you're gonna call yourself a call a call of duty killer With ex Well supposedly ex call of duty developers Working on this game Basically bragging about how

They was holding them back or something like that And then you come out with this game Shows a lot of promise And now Not only does it show a lot of promise When you just come out with the most blasphemous statements Like Oh we don't need skill base

match we don't need skill based matchmaking or it makes it too arcade or it was a lot of different takes on how actually let's just get into the the the crust of it right the reason why ex defiant

failed is literally because after the launch X Define didn't know what his player base wanted and the whole player base was out here flying around like they was Superman and no that's not an ability in the game they was just straight up cheating

So not only is the community disrespecting the developers, developers disrespecting the community, you have, as far as a free to play game, you have X-defined whole financial model based on in-game purchases. If you have a free-to-play model, you have to entice people to want to purchase things in your game to support the longevity of it. But of course, the trash skins, there were no alternative options as far as making something look better, which you may have had to pay for. But at the same time, if it's a free to play game, there's no reason to not pay for it if you get it for free initially. And it's a great game.

That's a very important and, right? So, of course, X-defined did not generate enough revenue from micro-transactions to be considered profitable. And of course you have the intense competition in the FPS market as far as it being highly saturated when Black Ops first was revealed as far as Black Ops 6 because now you're dealing with one of the, well, they didn't know it at the time, but now they're dealing with one of the greatest call of duties of all time. And in the form of what they said they was about to kill, right? Obviously, I don't think they ever said that verbatim, but it was implied always. talking about how it was ex-call-a-duty developers working on this game and how, oh, this is like creativity just let loose and they wasn't restricted by the call-of-duty rules or whatever. Also, the decision to shut down X-Define was more of Ubisoft's broader strategy because I don't

know if y'all been paying attention. Ubisoft is on the ropes right now. As far as a boxer, they would be knocked out and the judge. the referee is basically counting to 10 and right now ladies and gentlemen that referee is at least at seven is getting spooky to the point where i had to cover ubisoft again in december 11th 2024 shameless plug just type in ubisoft analytics in the shabre well ubisoft analytic dreams with a z people forget the z but i guess you know that's not how you're supposed to spell dreams but Of course you see the title, Analytic Dreams with a Z, Ubisoft.

Anyways, on whatever podcast platform you listen on, and the segment of me talking about how Ubisoft shares fell 17% after it delayed one of his more premier Assassin Creed games, which is Shadows. Because they finally, just how you know they're on the ropes. People have been asking for Assassin Creed Japan game forever, right? Tell me why it took until this year, for them to announce it, showcase some gameplay, and guess what, they still delayed it

because they are so scared that if this flops, that it will be inevitably over for Ubisoft. As Tinsent, a significant shareholder, is literally contemplating taking Ubisoft private because of the financial downturns and unsuccessful game releases. I mean, you have Star Wars for crying out loud. The only open world Star Wars game ever,

of all time the only open world star wars game of all time if somebody wants to play an open world star wars game guess who owns it you be soft guess what happened when star wars outlaws came out nobody played it how in the world does those two things correlate so honestly you'll be soft just fumbled the ball if you can't make a you uh the first open world star world star wars game popular if you can't do that and then your first ever assassin creed game in Japan which fans been clamoring for you just been ignoring them like hey we'll do that at some point but now that some point is now and you still can't get it right everybody is upset over the shadows game which you know that's a whole other discussion but they are upset so

as far as facing financial setbacks it only makes sense that they basically end extified because of the pressure to cut financial liabilities. And at this point in time, being a free-to-play model with literally not enough revenue to even break even, it makes sense that you have to pivot resources away from underperforming projects. And it's already not performing well.

So now if you remove more resources to save money, it's going to be less that gets fixed in the game. and it's already broken. So at this point, Ubisoft is really in a whole world of trouble, which is bringing me back to my beginner, my beginner point. But before that, let's just talk about how

Ubisoft, at first they didn't want to just cut the game entirely, right? Back in August, 2024, they started to cut off some developers of X-Define after they finished the game, because, you know, this game, this gaming industry, is very high turnover rate, which is why I've never wanted to be a game developer, but I super respect everybody who's in their field, because I ain't going to lie. It has to be a grind.

Never know when your next paycheck or your next game or your next opportunity is going to come, right? So I really respect them as far as what they do. But let me tell you something. The gaming industry as a whole has laid off a total of 13,000 people. So as far as X-defined laying off 10 developers, we didn't. really think too much of it but then Ubisoft's San Francisco Ubisoft's Osaka and Ubisoft's Sydney teams all were closed all of them no longer here they are finished they were laid off they are I know okay y'all get the point right so basically that resulted

in 277 job cuts so now you're looking at it from from a perspective that of how Hold up. Is you be soft in trouble? Which brings me into the fruition of the whole Tencent threatening to take over because y'all are blowing too much bread out here. Y'all are basically losing every single turn. Well, every single time we turn around, you lost money. You ever know that person that got paid and in the next week he talked about, man, I can't wait to my next paycheck.

I'm down to my last hundred. My brother, what would you do with the other $2,500, which you? You just, so you're just blowing money? All right, let me just, let me hold on to that. And now, now I'm your financial advisor. How about that? I'm going to manage your wealth because obviously you can't. That's basically what Tencent is telling Ubisoft essentially,

because if you go private, basically it helps because with you going private, Bloomberg reported that your stock would sore, well, would raise, rise, whatever, however you say, about 13. 31%. This is literally Bloomberg's report of Ubisoft. They said if Bloomberg said if Ubisoft went in went private, their stock was sore by over 31%. So yeah. I don't know why it's at its lowest point since 2016 2013 as far as you be saw a Ubisoft's current stock. All I got to say is you have all the resources and IP and in the world to have hits and you ultimately fumbled.

So with that, one could say that you had all the positive reception leading up to Star Wars Outlaws and to Assassin Creed Shadows. And now both both of those games unequivocally have let down gamers specifically in the year of 2024. because shadows don't come out to like 2025. Y'all get the point. All right. So with that being said, it brings me back to my first point. And to round this off, I will say once again,

Titanfall, HyperScape, BattleBorn, and Lawbreakers. I wonder what game is now added to that list. Sad day in history, man. So with that being said, click my link to your in my bio. Let me know one of my social medias. What do you think about X-Difying being shot? shut down and being completely taken offline June 2nd, 2025. And what is your overall takeaway from this unfortunate debacle of not only X-Defined,

but Ubisoft as a whole?