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Desperate Ubisoft Enacts Their “Biggest Marketing Campaign Ever” for Star Wars Outlaws

Video Games

| Aug 5, 2024 |

Ubisoft is bracing itself for a rough ride with Star Wars Outlaws. The game has been criticized since its trailer for having a protagonist that feels like little more than a watered-down female version of Han Solo, a generic look, non-stop ‘member berries, and a pricing system that makes you pay more than the $69.99 base price to get the whole game. Last week, Ubisoft released a preview through IGN, and it was lambasted for its awful AI and some surprisingly bad graphics and gameplay. The forecast for this game is not good, and Ubisoft needs it to be a big hit, especially considering it’s their only big release aside from Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which is even more troubled than Outlaws. So, Ubisoft is pulling out all the stops to offset a potential disaster, from some artificially generated hype to what appear to be dirty tricks to make gamers who purchase Star Wars Outlaws keep paying long after they have the game in their hands (figuratively for Steam players).

First, That Park Place published an article about a German YouTube channel called PietSmiet that admitted that a third-party agency was given their review of the Star Wars Outlaws preview gameplay for approval. The “intermediary agency” asked PietSmiet for “a lot of changes” to their video, with particular attention to some of the wording used in the beginning. PietSmiet reasoned that, since they liked the game, this would not be a problem. They later decided it was not right to post the video since it had been influenced like that, and they took it down. PietSmiet stressed that this was not Ubisoft, but come on, who’s kidding who here? Why would a third party review and request edits in a video made about Star Wars Outlaws if it wasn’t doing so on behalf of Ubisoft? Mark Kern explains this a bit in an X post:

That Park Place also reported on a German video made by Cyberpunk XX detailing how Ubisoft shmoozed YouTubers into giving Star Wars Outlaws positive reviews. This is part of what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot called their “biggest marketing campaign ever” in an earnings report call, which includes flying reviewers out to Los Angeles to play the game for four hours, taking them to Disneyland for a day, taking them on whale watching boat tours (which, if you’ve never been on one, are fun), introducing them to the cast and crew of the game, and giving them Nix plush toys. Several YouTubers posted about their experiences on X:

It’s important to note, as That Park Place does, that this is standard practice not just for video game studios but for entertainment companies in general. Critics are often flown out to lavish parties and given gift baskets before a screening of a high-profile movie. It’s not so much that it’s being done but that it’s being touted as part of the biggest marketing push Ubisoft’s ever made, plus that it’s coinciding with the other things Ubisoft is doing. (And taking people to Disneyland and whale watching seems a bit excessive even for a press tour.) Mark Kern goes into the details of this as it pertains to video game companies:

Here’s where it gets really sleazy. Master of the TDS has been working hard over the last few months, exposing how video game companies use bots to give the appearance of interest in their games – kind of like having a tea party with your imaginary friends. Here, he has a post showcasing the bot comments to a leak about Imperial Death Troopers appearing in Star Wars Outlaws:

Finally, Mark Kern posted an image of what Ubisoft calls its “seasonal road map” for Star Wars Outlaws, showing “character packs,” “cosmetic bundles,” and “story packs” that will continue to roll out in 2025. These are in addition to the ones announced in April.

This all suggests that they know Star Wars Outlaws is in trouble. Sure, they’d have done some of this no matter what, if only because it’s a AAA game that cost a lot of money (very little of which appears to have gone into the graphics), but this amount of astroturfing is nuts. Ubisoft is going to need a miracle to make this one a success.

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