Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world hacker, Watch Dogs, one of the mostly hotly anticipated games of the year, has run into a PR disaster. A new story trailer released on Thursday for the already 6-month delayed game shows the effects of noticeable graphical downgrading, sparking vocal concerns amongst the gaming community. Can Ubisoft turn it around before its too late? Of course they can, but they need to act quickly.
Watch Dogs currently ranks as the 5th most pre-ordered game in the USA, an impressive indication of the impact the E3 2012 reveal and subsequent E3 2013 showing had on the gaming world. Ubisoft’s new IP is so hot they are internally estimating global sales of a lofty 6 million units, which would make it one of the most popular titles in their library, right up there with the likes of Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed. With fans eagerly awaiting Watch Dogs’ release this May after its initial Nov 2013 date was pushed back “to take extra time to polish” the title, a new trailer was released on Thursday to ramp up the pre-release hype. Here it is:
This trailer was issued with a statement from Ubisoft EMEA senior VP of sales and marketing Geoffroy Sardin, saying: “We are extremely confident that the additional time we afforded the dev team to refine and polish the game will be more than worth the wait.”
Oops. No doubt about it, the graphical downgrading compared to the impressive E3 2012 and 2013 footage is evident. The realistic explosions, quality lighting and overall polish that made early footage so drool-worthy appears to have been removed. Some downgrading was to be expected; it’s known that publishers take highly polished code to be displayed at shows like E3, and with Watch Dogs being a cross-gen title coming to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, and PC, compromises to the new Disrupt engine would have to be made to create a game that fits them all.
Pockets of vocal fans think Ubisoft has gone too far though, and are publicly lashing out. The following two GIFs are popping up everywhere, showing a noticeable dip in quality between E3 2013 footage and the recent gameplay. Not the kind of press you want to be dealing with when release is just 2 months away:
So can Ubisoft rescue Watch Dogs’ first taste of bad PR and keep it on top of people’s most wanted lists? Of course they can. It doesn’t look anything close to ‘bad’, not by a long shot. They just need to get their act together quickly. This is becoming as much a mini-study in effective PR as it is about the game, and so far the results aren’t what you’d expect from a AAA publisher.
A trailer should paint your game in the best light possible – that’s a given. The new trailer, released on Ubisoft’s official YouTube channel, looks downgraded – that’s a given too. Yet Ubisoft maintains that Watch Dogs is still as graphically stunning as the footage shown at E3 2013, as highlighted by this tweet.
Why then release a trailer that doesn’t show the game at its stunning best? Surely that in itself is a monumental cock up? The handling of the aftermath hasn’t been brilliant either. Take Ubisoft’s Tessa Vilyn, who made a needless faux pas on her Twitter account:
The tweets have since being removed, but the resulting backlash is clear to see on her page. People knew what she really meant, of course they did, but the fact remains she used the words “crappy graphics” not only in relation to Watch Dogs but also to another game. Unfairly too, I might add. There was nothing “crappy” about Outlast’s graphics. We’re not bashing Tessa, but if you’re trying to fan some flames, don’t do it by throwing the PR equivalent of verbal gasoline on them. That was just a bit silly now, wasn’t it?
During a live stream Q&A session on Twitch yesterday, Watch Dogs creative director Jonathan Morin actively dodged the chance to go in-depth on the issue. Instead, he told fans not to worry about the graphics and stated that the recent previews, which were played on the PS4, have all said positive things. He also highlighted that the development team has continued to “push global effects and graphics”. A replay of the Q&A is unavailable at the time of writing.
He’s right, the previews have been positive, but looking around you’ll be hard pressed to find one that highlights anything about Watch Dogs’ graphics. In fact it’s a consistent omission now that it has been highlighted. There’s probably nothing in that; it would have also been mentioned if the graphics were looking poor, but it’s an inadequate response nonetheless. This was the perfect opportunity to instantly ease the situation and specifically talk about the way the trailer looked, not dodge and deflect the issue.
Make no mistake – Watch Dogs’ gameplay premise is immense. The level of interactivity protagonist Aiden Pearce has with the fictional Chicago makes it unlike anything we’ve played. Ubisoft should simply use that card to their advantage. If you needed to scale back the Disrupt engine to keep the promising gameplay intact, just tell us! Don’t try to hide it. Personally, I’d applaud the decision. At the end of the day, gameplay is what really gets our juices flowing and the larger console audience is still on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Scaling back those visuals a bit for a better all-round cross-gen experience would make sense.
Alternatively, if the graphics really haven’t downgraded and this is just an unfortunate case of YouTube trailer compression, Ubisoft needs to state as much and put our minds at ease with new gameplay footage – and quickly. Rumours and mistrust propagate like wild fire on the internet and Ubisoft will know this needs addressing as a priority. Concerned murmurings that their other hotly anticipated title The Division might suffer the same fate are already surfacing; dodging one issue just makes speculation over another worse.
What do you make of it all? Rushing to cancel the pre-order or is the backlash unjustified? Sound off in the comments below.
