Following the delay of ‘Watch Dogs,’ Ubisoft’s shares fall 22-percent

By Ryan Fleming October 16, 2013

following the delay of watch dogs ubisofts shares fall 22 percent — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Check out our full written Watch Dogs review.

Originally scheduled as a launch title for both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs has been delayed, causing a significant drop in the publisher’s stock price, according to GI.biz. Following the news of the delay, the stock price dropped 21.31-percent, and may dip further.

Along with Watch Dogs, Ubisoft’s open world racing game The Crew was also delayed, but Watch Dogs was among the most anticipated launch titles for the next-gen system while The Crew never had a firm release date. The decision to hold Watch Dogs back to give it more time to polish may be a strong affirmation of quality over all else, but the game was consider by many to be a must buy for the new consoles.

Sony also was offering a bundle pairing Watch Dogs with the PlayStation 4. A decision hasn’t been made on what or how to replace the game yet, but Amazon has confirmed that it won’t delay the shipment of the console itself.

One saving grace for Ubisoft is that it still has Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in the pipeline for both the current gen and next-gen. The franchise has sold over 57 million copies over five games, and the most recent is expected to do well. Ubisoft also has Just Dance 2014 coming for the next gen systems, which has a much smaller, but still devoted fanbase.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…

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Tommy François, who served as Ubisoft's vice president of editorial and creative services, left the company last week, Business Insider confirmed, after obtaining an internal email from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. Although Guillemot didn't comment on the reasons for François' departure, it came just a week after Business Insider recounted reports from both current and former Ubisoft employees, who said the executive would comment on female colleagues' appearances and inappropriately massaged co-workers. He also discussed masturbating during a 2016 business trip to Montreal, the employees told Business Insider.

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Here’s how to get Watch Dogs 2 on PC for free with Uplay

watch dogs 2 free uplay hackerspace

To help build hype for its recent Ubisoft Forward event, Ubisoft allowed viewers to claim Watch Dogs 2 for free. The catch? You had to log in to Uplay during the live broadcast. Unfortunately, the service was plagued with issues during that time, likely caused by an overload of users trying to access it. Ubisoft Forward passed with few users having redeemed the game.

Not wishing to add more bad press to the company's recent collection of terrible news, Ubisoft quickly announced it would allow Watch Dogs 2 to be redeemable by anyone that logged into Uplay after the event. To claim the game, you simply need to head to Ubisoft's portal and log into your Uplay, or create one if you're new to the service. And that's it! The game should appear in your Uplay games library. The operative word being should, as after claiming the game for ourselves, it is still yet to appear in our list of games 10 minutes later. However, when we reload the portal link, it simply states that we've already claimed our copy, so hopefully soon my Uplay account will update. We will make sure to update this article the moment that change happens.

Gaming

Login error plagues Ubisoft Forward event as viewers try to get free Watch Dogs 2

ubisoft forward uplay login issues watch dogs 2 free in

Ubisoft Forward, Ubisoft's digital showcase for its upcoming games, was plagued by Uplay log-in issues, as viewers attempted to claim the promised free copy of Watch Dogs 2 for the PC.

Ubisoft said that it would be giving away free downloads of Watch Dogs 2 to people who would watch Ubisoft Forward live. All they had to do was to log in with their Uplay account during the broadcast. However, that turned out to be a problem, with #CANTLOGIN flooding the Twitch and YouTube streams of the virtual event.