I make no secret of my biases. My preferences and aversions are pretty well known, but some feelings just can’t be worn on a regular sleeve. In other words, I cannot express my contempt for Ubisoft enough.
The company just doesn’t stop – has never stopped – giving us grim things to talk about. As a basic videogame publisher, Ubisoft is among the slimiest, but the abuse and outright crimes at the company extend far beyond the usual, as we all know.
And now the company’s “apolitical” games are starting to wear something on their own sleeves – a seeming love for fashy propaganda.
Here’s something I’ve realized over the years: When Americans say “political” they actually mean “partisan”. So basically anything the Dems and Cons are perceived to disagree on (whether or not they actually disagree on it is somewhat irrelevant, this is about media optics, not actually voting records).
“Wasp with a mushroom for a head” looks a lot like a Rayman character.
You know, from back when they made games that didn’t require horrendous abuse and dogwhistling.
“… Pictured here as a wasp with a mushroom for a head,”
I love how your mind works you beautiful bastard
Ubisoft is really lucky EA, Activision, and Konami exist.
Jim screaming in the background of the trailer fuggin killed me
Not to distract from Ubisoft’s nonsense, but Activision-Blizzard making a game named after a conflict that was all about politics and claiming that it’s not political is absolutely taking the piss. Also, this style of raised black fist is one of the options for the robot uprising symbol in Detroit: Become Human, because David Cage is a hack writer who basically just took a bunch of preexisting symbolism and recycled it for his game about robot emotions.
The Streisand effect is strong with this one. Let’s keep talking about Abusisoft.
as angry as he gets in these videos, it looks like Jim’s having a lot of fun making them, and that makes me happy.
‘Our games are not political.’ Says a company who releases more politically themed games than anyone else. It’s like Nintendo saying we don’t like it bright and colorful.
Remember when Jim had a segment called “oh, Ubisoft”, where there was kind of a playful tone to Jim commenting on how bad Ubisoft was?
We can never go back to those days.
When CIA runs out of countries, so it moves into videogames: The game.
The Brazilian soldier girl wears an skull mask? If you know anything about the history of the police in Brazil, you know that is also an alarming sign. She might as well have a Bolsonaro lower back tattoo.
This is Jim Sterling, when not viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses.
God, that animated Yves head was terrifying. You should use that more often.
Remember when Jim had the “oh ubisoft” segment when we thought they were just incompetent and a bit shit. That was a simpler time
You just know “Umbra” was their backup name and they originally wanted to call the villain organization “The Internationale Clique” before someone told them they weren’t allowed to
Ubisoft writers: “What should Farcry 6’s story be about?”
Ubisoft CEO: “Just write what you know”.
Writers: “Oh so oppression, suppressing the truth, or evil leadership?”
CEO: “Yes.”