According to Ubisoft's own Chief Executive Officer, sales of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint were "very disappointing" compared to previous entries in the series. Released earlier this month to a flurry of bad reviews due to excessive grinding, forced always-online gameplay which was poorly paced, and an absolutely ridiculous amount of microtransactions, Ghost Recon Breakpoint has been previously best described as a pay over play game.
The Ghost Recon team hoped the game would be played for years to come, with developers previously calling the world "almost infinite" in terms of experiences. However, after release it began to look as if players would have to come up with those promised entertaining experiences themselves, as the only thing the game seemed to offer was the same repetitive base infiltration combat and level grinding as in other Ubisoft titles, save for the times players get brave enough to try and defeat the Behemoths.
According to a report released by MarketScreener, Ubisoft has updated their financial targets for 2019-2020 fiscal year, based in part due to poor sales of Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Yves Guillemot, Co-Founder and CEO of Ubisoft, praised the growth of the company's PC operations, as well as Ubisoft's push in the Asia and esport marketplaces, but lamented they did not properly capitalize on the potential of Ghost Recon Breakpoint. "Critical reception and sales during the game's first weeks were very disappointing," Guillemot said.
CEO Yves Guillemot offered some thoughts on why sales of Ghost Recon Breakpoint were below their expectations, stating it is harder to generate interest for a sequel to live multiplayer games. He also mentioned gameplay innovations were very important to the company, but "to win over players, these innovations need to be perfectly implemented in order to offer an optimal experience. This has not yet been sufficiently the case with Ghost Recon Breakpoint." Guillemot also admitted the game did not come with enough unique factors in order to distinguish it from other titles on the market.
With the recent news following this financial report which sees multiple hotly-anticipated Ubisoft titles like Rainbow Six Quarantine and Watch Dogs: Legion delayed until 2020, perhaps all of the negative feedback and criticism the company has received regarding Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint has finally begun to sink in. While Ubisoft is sure to take a monetary loss by delaying so many of their games to the next fiscal year, the extra development time will hopefully allow for those games to become more like the polished, complete experiences the company used to be known for.
Source: MarketScreener