Ubisoft Reacts To For Honor Boycott Threats

As you probably already know, players have been up in arms recently regarding For Honor's ridiculous microtransaction and in-game currency pricing. For Honor's game director, Damien Keiken, recently made some pretty controversial comments on the topic to make matters even worse. He tried to justify the outrageous pricing scheme by saying that players shouldn't have the intention of unlocking everything and that most players only play one character anyway. These comments neglected to actually address the reasoning for the high prices, and enraged the For Honor player base even more, rightfully so I might add.

The For Honor community has had enough with Ubisoft's disrespectful business model, and they've decided to start a boycott of the game on April 3rd. While action definitely needs to happen, I think the community should show how serious they are by boycotting the game more than just one day. While it's definitely a start, more needs to be done to show Ubisoft that they need to respect their player base and the community as a whole. If we let developers get away with things like this, the more slippery the slope becomes, and the more common this practice will be. The idea for the boycott was started by Reddit user "jbaayoun", and it's currently one of the top posts on the subreddit with over 1000 comments.

On top of this specific 'blackout' post, there has been a growing thread on the subreddit attempting to receive a response from Ubisoft. The thread features varied suggestions and reasonable requests made by the community in an attempt to change the game in a positive way and reinforce longevity. "Jbaayoun" explains that Ubisoft has been communicating very poorly since launch, and the statements that they do make are always vague, leaving players with more questions. The biggest request from the community is simple. More and better communication is needed. While the boycott was definitely sparked by the recent microtransaction controversy, the For Honor community is requesting answers for a plethora of issues dating back to the game's initial release including frequent disconnects and server downtime.

While the 'blackout' is definitely just the beginning of this movement, Ubisoft has already taken action. Ubisoft released an update this morning that makes the process of obtaining steel a little less time-consuming:

All matches steel income are increased by 25 percent
Daily Orders steel income are increased by 33 percent
Side Orders steel income are increased by 50 percent
Community Orders steel rewards are increased from 500-1000 to 2000 Steel

This update, according to Ubisoft, makes obtaining steel about 45% faster per two-hour interval. While this is definitely a start, I don't think it's sufficient enough, especially considering they only implemented this change after the community threatened to boycott the game. It makes you think whether or not Ubisoft would have made these changes if the community didn't decide to take action. Even with this new update, obtaining all the bells and whistles for all the characters is still a seemingly impossible task. The blackout will still be taking place, and it's up to Ubisoft to make up for their lack of communication and action at this point. Ubisoft is on thin ice.

"Jbaayoun" finishes his statement by expressing how the community needs a reason to stay involved with For Honor. If Ubisoft doesn't respect the community enough to even issue proper responses to issues, then why should anybody stay invested in For Honor. Stay tuned to GZU for further news.