Ubisoft learned from backlash over Watch Dogs downgrade, says CEO

By Sherif Saed

Ubisoft learned valuable lessons from fan backlash over Watch Dogs’ graphical downgrade.

Watch Dogs, a game known more by its graphical downgrade than its actual gameplay, has proved to be an important learning opportunity for publisher Ubisoft. The company will now only show games at E3 that are playable on target hardware.

Speaking to The Guardian, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, “With E3 2015 we said, ‘OK, let’s make sure the games are playable, that they’re running on the target machines.’

“When we show something, we ask the team, make sure it’s playable, make sure gamers can immediately see exactly what it is.”

As for Watch Dogs itself, Guillemot believes that it was a good first step in the franchise, saying that first iterations in franchises hardly succeed on everything they set out to do.

“We’re incredibly happy with the sales of the game and the experiences that the people are having,” he added. “So it’s a franchise. It goes into the franchise barn and now we figure out what to do next. It’s something that we can build on now.”

Ghost Recon: Wildlands and For Honor, the two major announcements from Ubisoft at E3 last month, were both playable.