Ads Poping Up in Assassin's Creed are a 'Technical Issue,' Ubisoft says
Following criticism leveled at Ubisoft for ads appearing during gameplay in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the company is defending itself, claiming that a „technical issue” was to blame.
Ubisoft has once again become an object of dispute and controversy. This time the French company has, to put it mildly, lost some points with gamers with a new form of advertising in its games. It turns out that other Ubisoft games have become a platform to promote Assassin's Creed: Mirage.
The issue gained publicity after more gamers began to complain online that, among other things, while playing AC: Odyssey they suddenly saw a large banner advertising the latest installment of the series grow in front of their eyes.
The worst part, however, is that the offer appeared - as is often the case in such cases - not in the game's main menu, but during the gameplay. Below you can see the footage shared on Reddit by a user known as triddell24. The clip shows how the player tries to open the map in the game, but is greeted with a full-screen advertisement informing of a 20 percent discount on AC: Mirage.
The above example is from the Xbox version of the game, but PlayStation users were also said to experience a similar situation in, for example Assassin's Creed: Origins.
Ubisoft's reaction
To the storm unleashed online by disgruntled gamers, was eventually adressed by Ubisoft. From the information it provided, we learned that a "technical issue" was to blame..
"We learned that yesterday some players encountered pop-up ads while playing certain Assassin's Creed games. This was the result of a technical issue, which we addressed as soon as we received such reports," explained the company's spokesman, Fabien Darrigues, in a statement to the editors of The Verge.
As the journalists of the aforementioned website rightly pointed out, it is hard to believe that the games started displaying Black Friday ads by themselves. Without the interference of developers, this would simply be impossible. Thus, the suspicion arises that Ubisoft may have been testing this type of solution in its games, but as a result of this "technical issue" the banners reached a wide audience.
In conclusion, it is difficult to be surprised by the bitterness of players. When spending money (often not insignificant) on the purchase of a particular game, they hope to receive in return many hours of good and, importantly, undisturbed fun. Here, however, there was a problem with the latter aspect.
