Assassin’s Creed Exec Reveals AAA Games Need 10 Million Sales to Break Even
Marc-Alexis Côté, the Executive Producer for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, disclosed that AAA games must sell around 10 million copies to break even. Speaking at XDS24, Côté highlighted the rising development costs and fierce competition in the gaming industry, emphasizing how the budget for AAA titles has skyrocketed in recent years.
“The cost of making games has increased tenfold since the first Assassin’s Creed,” Côté explained, noting that both production complexity and team sizes have expanded significantly. He stressed that only a handful of games each year manage to reach the 10 million mark, pointing to sports titles, established franchises, and surprise hits as the main drivers of success.
Côté further revealed that Ubisoft’s competition extends beyond other studios—it’s also competing against its own back catalog. When a new Assassin’s Creed title is released, it often faces stiff competition from older, still-popular games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which continues to look good and offers a cheaper price tag.
Côté’s statements are especially relevant given Ubisoft’s recent struggles with Star Wars Outlaws, which reportedly sold just 1 million units in its first month. Despite some positive updates and upcoming content, the game’s performance on Steam has been dismal, with only 651 peak concurrent players on its launch day—far lower than many anticipated.
This reveals the tough reality of AAA gaming: with rising costs and slim margins, only a few major hits make the cut each year.
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Let's do everything in our power to make they they don't even come close to that number 😂😂
cant wait to see them go belly up and be an example for future generations
Hey they admitted it, I will at least give them this much.
Is crazy that huge AAA games need to sell 10 million l, they won't even sell 1 or 2 million, no way they will do 10+ million.
2 or 3 million sales if that but doubtfull.
If yasuke isn’t out of the game, I’ll NEVER buy it.
After attacking gamers on all fronts and causing a civil war on Wikipedia over Yakue, no one outside reviewers and content creators are going to bother playing this game except for Free or $5 bin.
I remember only a few developers making Doom and that gaming was like an underground movement.
What went horribly wrong?
Was it when these corpos went Public on the stock market with billions going to execs?
Most can barely play through a tutorial…
For me it’s over…on a two year don’t buy nothing boycott.
Almost seems just to either wait to new triple a games go onsale or don't buy it at all
Remedy said that they need to sell 3-4m copies on their games to make even cause Controll came in 2019 and it sold 4,5m copies while Alan Wake 2 sold a bit more than 1m copies
10 million to break even……darn
Will you stream ac shadows?
Yeah, a 7 feet tall black "samurai" would totally blend in feudal Japan…🤦♂️🤦♂️🤣🤣
My grandma always said: "No matter what they tell you in school, the Samurai were trans-gay-pansexual- black dudes"..
Man, UBIWOKE never disappoints…🤡🤮🤮
I think you are underestimating AC as a series. This series has a very large fanbase. Valhalla and Odyssey both sold millions. This game is made by the same team behind Odyssey. It will sell well despite backlash from Yasuke. Why else do you think Ubisoft is thinking about making more AC. They have AC4 Remake in the works. It wasn't my favorite, but a lot of traditional AC fans seemed to.
Stop spending 400 million to make a game.
Poopuke = no moneyuke…
Bro I am laughing so hard watching you trashed all these woke games 😂😂
2:43, Ubisoft, it's in dire strains because keep virtue signaling nonsense pandering to non-gamers hear well Dragon Age The Veilguard story instead going to slow build up goes right to the chase, looks RPG but looks like generic hero shooter, & its dialogue was all over the place, AC Shadows fiasco, Star Wars Outlaws underperformed. NFT game crypto bros ain't touching with 1000ft pole because Ubisoft are desperate avoid being bought out by Tencent
There's 25 minutes of new gameplay footage on ENFANT TERRIBLE's youtube channel. It's no Ghost of Yotei but it looks pretty dope.
To say something like that is a huge red flag that indicates that they have given up. Star Wars outlaws, Dragon Age, sea of thieves, and now this . I just have a huge feeling that Ubisoft is going to declare bankruptcy next year.
The second people feel a game is infected by "DEI", it will NOT sell. You might as well light the millions of dollars on fire. We're not doing the woke stuff anymore.
if i remember correctly Valhalla sold pretty well, 4 years ago/to this day over 20 million "vikings playing"
hi 8Be
It makes me sad when the first assasins creed game out it changed the face of gaming. How the mighty have fallen.
2024 was the year of saving money. 😂
Just curious…how many copies did Baldur's Gate 3 sell?
10 million copies sounds like Mario Kart figures.
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Never buying it unless Yasuke is out of this game
All we want is a good game.
Ubisoft are asking ‘Where are the gamers?’
We are here but you are for aiming the game on a minority demographic of WOKE gamers and they won’t make the income quota you need to break even.
Remember when the Attitude Era of wrestling had the promo ‘GET THE F OUT’ when they lost to WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
UBISOFT ‘GET THE WOKE OUT’ and you might start making money again.
I was so excited for this game that i even planned on taking off work all weekend and just playing AC and eating nachos for 3 days straight. Now im not even sure ill buy it at all
You dont know where the money went?! Lol i can tell you
All the BS these "AAA" game companies have been doing has finally caught up with Ubisoft.
Ubisoft will be the first to fall, they will not be the last.
We are literally within a couple years of a gaming market crash unless the medium makes a complete 180 degree turn, and companies start taking quality seriously again. And that's looking at the timetable generously.
I've been saying it for years this is where gaming was headed, that the market would crash unless people stopped buying substandard products, and bankrolling these companies' dumb decisions, and nobody took it seriously until the past year or so. It took Ubisoft reaching this point, where they'll have to be bought out, for gamers to realize how seriously f'ed the gaming industry is, and has been for years.
The only quality you're going to find is with indie games, and they'll be the only ones left standing when these big companies fold.