After reports surfaced that Ubisoft would disband the team behind the great but commercially unsuccessful Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, one of the leads from Baldur’s Gate 3 harshly criticized the publisher’s strategy.
Who is criticizing Ubisoft and why exactly? Michael Douse is the Director of Publishing at Larian Studios and is known for openly criticizing certain issues within the gaming industry – such as mass layoffs.
In his recent posts on X, the lead behind the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 comments on a report concerning the disbanding of Ubisoft’s team that worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. He believes what is happening there is attributable to the “broken strategy” of the French publisher.
Here is one of the trailers for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown:
Focusing on subscriptions is a mistake
How does Michael Douse justify his criticism? Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a great game that scores an average of 85 to 87 across all platforms on metacritic.com and has earned a “Very Positive” rating on Steam (with 83 percent positive reviews).
The reason that the new Prince of Persia is not a financial success, despite its quality, is according to Michael Douse because of Ubisoft’s prioritization of its own subscription service, Ubisoft+. It was a mistake, according to the publishing expert, to release The Lost Crown on Steam only seven months after its launch.
If it had been released on Steam, it would not only have been a market success, but there would probably also be a sequel, because the team is so strong. This is a completely wrong strategy. The hardest part is developing an 85+ game – it is much, much easier to publish it. It simply should not have been done the way it was done.
Michael Douse on X
A problem with Ubisoft+ was that the last notable blockbuster for the subscription was probably Far Cry 6 from 2021. Subsequent titles such as Avatar or Assassin’s Creed Mirage fell short of expectations. When Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown landed on Ubisoft+ in early 2024, according to Douse, the subscription count was likely at a low point.
For the publishing lead of Larian, it is clear that one should not prioritize their own platform or subscription strategy over sales numbers. If they do, it is equally bad for developers and players.
If the statement “Gamers should get used to not owning their games” is true due to a particular release strategy (subscription over sales), then the statement “Developers must get used to having no jobs if they make a critically acclaimed game” (platform strategy over title sales) is also true, and that is simply not reasonable – even from a business perspective.
Michael Douse on X
According to the well-known industry insider Tom Henderson (via insider-gaming.com), Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is said to have sold about one million copies by October 23, 2024. A report from eurogamer.net states that Ubisoft is still working to get the game into the hands of even more gamers, such as through the Mac release in the winter.
Ubisoft executives themselves seem to share parts of Michael Douse’s criticism, at least regarding the availability of Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Steam from day one in February 2025 – something that hasn’t happened with a Ubisoft game since 2019. You can read more about this here: Ubisoft abandons its own launcher for Star Wars Outlaws, crawling back to Steam – has it gone that badly?
