Patcher/Modder gets offered contract to Ubisoft if only he lock his patches to Ubi games

[maekster]

UBI IS AT IT AGAIN 

 

Patcher Ragnos1997 who make patches for low end systems so that they can run modern games was offered a contract at Ubisoft to patch their games. 

 

This dude made AC4 Black Flag run on a 650, Core 2 Duo and 4GB RAM. 

 

 

Here is a message from his official FB page  

 

Soooo here's what Ubisoft offered me:
-Job Payment
-Low Specs Patch LOCK to UBISOFT GAMES ONLY
-Official Advert
-Low Specs Patch included with the game release
-Delete all Current Released Low Specs Patches

Thats all cool Ubi, but what is really funny is that if you don't know how to optimize your games why would I spend my special time trying to find a way to fix something with special equipment you'll provide me and already knowing that its not fixable..thats simply not worth it, I mean its just so stupid from such company like Ubi, I would rather earn 5x less for all patches released to date than 10x more for one single patch for ubisoft game, sorry ubi but Ragnos has something else in his mind 

This was a great opportunity for me to become popular but nope, theres no money that can buy me! Negotiations broken down with Ubi, my ship is sailing in the right direction 
‪#‎r1997‬

 

 

Link: https://www.facebook.com/Ragnos1997OFCyt/posts/990662317617681 

Original Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/2oswp8/my_friend_makes_low_specs_patches_for_people_who/

 

 

 

 

 

[79wjd]

I'm not saying he's crazy....but he's crazy. 

 

Based on the comments he's made, Ubi would pay him quite a bit more than hes earning now. 

[AlRayes_BRN]

Good for him, he should be proud for ditching those ba***rds

[Sharkyx1]

Well of course, if they paid him, i think they'd expect him to not work on other games.

 

but whats so special about the patch, my brother played ACIV on a 560ti and 965BE fine.

 

It would be this forum to say something negative about UBI on this topic, when they are trying to hire a guy specifically to help improve low end performance

[Jerakl]

Well of course, if they paid him, i think they'd expect him to not work on other games.

 

but whats so special about the patch, my brother played ACIV on a 560ti and 965BE fine.

 

It would be this forum to say something negative about UBI on this topic, when they are trying to hire a guy specifically to help improve low end performance

So he's not allowed to work on patches for other games in his spare time? That would be ridiculous. But then again, it's ubi. They always manage to stretch the limits of ridiculous.

[JayD]

I don't mind that he wouldn't be able to work on other games since many companies have exclusionary/non-compete contracts while working for them, but the fact that they wanted him to REMOVE all existing patches as if they never existed is disgusting.

[ComradeHX]

I'm not saying he's crazy....but he's crazy. 

 

Based on the comments he's made, Ubi would pay him quite a bit more than hes earning now. 

But he would have to go down with the sinking ship(which is Ubisoft).

[Sidiox]

So he's not allowed to work on patches for other games in his spare time? That would be ridiculous. But then again, it's ubi. They always manage to stretch the limits of ridiculous.

No it's not, he could use the technologies acquired in working for Ubi for his other projects, which are projects of the competition, so it would make sense for Ubi to not want him to make more patches for other games. What I don't like however and which is a sick move is that they wanted him to delete all his other patches, those should always be available .

[Sharkyx1]

So he's not allowed to work on patches for other games in his spare time? That would be ridiculous. But then again, it's ubi. They always manage to stretch the limits of ridiculous.

i wouldn't expect him to be paid to work on ubisoft titles and still work on other compainies games as well, thats just not a very good point to stand on ubisofts side

[Jerakl]

No it's not, he could use the technologies acquired in working for Ubi for his other projects, which are projects of the competition, so it would make sense for Ubi to not want him to make more patches for other games. What I don't like however and which is a sick move is that they wanted him to delete all his other patches, those should always be available .

Any way you look at it it's still full of stupid.

[Manny Calavera]

Whatt????? This system specs should be allready supported by default!

Lazy lazy greedy ubi.

[CyanideInsanity]

Well of course, if they paid him, i think they'd expect him to not work on other games.

 

but whats so special about the patch, my brother played ACIV on a 560ti and 965BE fine.

 

It would be this forum to say something negative about UBI on this topic, when they are trying to hire a guy specifically to help improve low end performance

 

By this point ubi should already be able to competently do it themselves... I really doubt they actually need anyone else to make their games more optimized over all, including on lower end systems. You don't become one of the big guys in gaming without learning the tricks of the trade.

[JAKEBAB]

Man i wouldnt blame him if he took the job but whatevers his choice money isnt everything to everyone.

[moppop]

Good for him for making a decision.

 

However, I may be in a minority, but he could have well handled it a little bit better. Reading what he posted and what was readable in the original email, it seems like he got the offer today, got excited posted about it, then decided that it wasn't for him, and then proceeded to pretty much burn a bridge all in the span of a few hours. Even though he mentions 'negations broke down', it really seems a bit...fast... almost like there weren't really any negotiating and barely any time 'thinking about it'. He's young. He's 17, and he'll probably end up going places, but this is one of those face-palm moments where he could have handled turning down Ubisoft in a much, much better and professional way that would still leave doors open should the situation change one way or another. 

[Guest]

-Delete all Current Released Low Specs Patches

It seemed like a reasonable offer up until this.

There's just something profoundly wrong with the people at Ubisoft.

[SirPaul]

So he's not allowed to work on patches for other games in his spare time? That would be ridiculous. But then again, it's ubi. They always manage to stretch the limits of ridiculous.

It's not ridicolous, Let's say that by working in IBM, everything you will develop / invent  belongs to IBM.

Or, I am a game programmer, and officially i have in my contract that i cannot make other games -indie- style in my spare time. 

Fortunatelly our CEO is good guy who allows me to do my things.  But contract does not allow it .

 

[moppop]

It seemed like a reasonable offer up until this.

There's just something profoundly wrong with the people at Ubisoft.

 

I don't agree with it, but I do see the logic as a CYA move, especially since it seems like they were going to promote him as a brand (ie: keep his YouTube Channel) and leverage his current followers. Let's say a bug crops up in one of the patches for a non Ubisoft games that he release. That could, and I emphasize could, lead Ubisoft into a sticky PR/legal situation (not that they don't already have plenty of those anyway). That said,even if he deletes them from his wordpress blog, you can never really, truly delete something from the Internet.

[Jerakl]

It's not ridicolous, Let's say that by working in IBM, everything you will develop / invent  belongs to IBM.

Or, I am a game programmer, and officially i have in my contract that i cannot make other games -indie- style in my spare time. 

Fortunatelly our CEO is good guy who allows me to do my things.  But contract does not allow it .

 

It would make sense to me if it was like then if he used company equipment to do it.

 

I don't really get some of the intellectual property things companies have. Oh well.

[StingBull]

I'm not saying he's crazy....but he's crazy.

Based on the comments he's made, Ubi would pay him quite a bit more than hes earning now.

So? There is no guarantee that he will keep that job. What if Ubisoft just fire him the next month? Ubisoft reportedly fires entire QA teams after the project is "finished".

[Silent_Xaxal]

Stickin' by his principles. I like this guy.

[moppop]

Guys, I think this is a hoax.

 

I was reading over the email a few times and there's just a number of things that don't sit right with me.

 

Here's a link to the 'email' from 'Ubisoft Referral Program' http://i.imgur.com/A8MzQzb.png

 

The things that don't sit right with me:

 

• Inconsistencies in the 'disivion'. It's from 'Ubisoft Referral Program' , but lists the program as 'Contracts program', the signs off as 'Ubi Contracts Management Team' and goes through Ubisoft Support. That doesn't make a single lick of sense.
• The letter which was sent that same day in the e-mail doesn't know who the 'RagnosTech TM Corp' owner by real name, but knows enough about them that they'd be willing to send a legal document over? Baloney.
• The consistent change of the "Ubisoft", "Ubi" and "ubi". That doesn't make sense and would never happen in a real e-mail from a sales or HR representative. More baloney.
• There is horrible language in the text that no sane business (even though Ubisoft is French) would use. It seems like it comes from someone that has a poor grasp on English and absolutely wouldn't be a point contact in the hiring process.
  - "...your low specs patches as you call that are getting high hype at our fourms..."
• 'Negotionations' happen in 5 hours? Really?! The e-mail is dated as 12-9, and the Facebook post announcing the possibility was 12-09. Ragnos1997's 'decision' comes 5 hours after announcing it.
• Ragnos1997 is 17. In Bosnia. That's going to be some mountain of paperwork.
• Ubisoft tends to change and/or theme their logo for each of their games. Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C 
  - The logo we see in the e-mail is curious from Assassin's Creed 3 (Trailer). Why in the world would a new-hires 'contract' division of Ubisoft used a themed logo from a game that's two years old?!

[Misanthrope]

I don't mind that he wouldn't be able to work on other games since many companies have exclusionary/non-compete contracts while working for them, but the fact that they wanted him to REMOVE all existing patches as if they never existed is disgusting.

 

Yep, that's one of the key points here I'm glad someone catched it. To elaborate let me explain what they tried to do is BS: They wanted him to stop all his current patches, remove the old ones, and work exclusively for them. A their behest, meaning they would be in control of when and if he releases a performance patch at all. If you think about the pretty fucking obvious and intentional downgrade to Watchdogs for example, or the artificial padding of requirements lately, this means they just wanted to brime him, in the form of a job offer that was more of a non-job offer: We'll pay you to immediately and retroactively stop fixing our games so we can leave them broken at the behest of Microsoft and Sony so their consoles again look like good products and we don't have some kids like you showing them up as the bs they are.

This is like hiring someone who makes a 60FPS patch and telling him "Listen, lots of money here! Come! Just....you know you can't legally release any more patches or for other games and you have to delete all your current patches and not release anything until we say if okay if we ever say that which we mostly wont"

[brownninja97]

people make it seem like this is ubisoft being silly but im pretty sure that another company would do the same thing, its just that they tend to not make deal about it because a lot of devs dont have a lot of money on their hands. This guys stands out because he has refused as a result it makes it seem like ubiosft is being bad again. Try to look at this from a non-judgemental standpoint and you will see the whole picture then

[carolkarine]

You know guys, I'm beginning to think you can't be satisfied. You ask for games to demand high end hardware, then bitch and moan when it comes out and you can't play it. Sometimes it's not poorly optimized, it's just that it's way too damn much for your system. While AC:U was a broken mess, I highly doubt that another six months would have made it run that much better on cruddy systems without drastically changing some of the gameplay, especially involving the crowds of people.

[Titanicium]

Guys, I think this is a hoax.

I was reading over the email a few times and there's just a number of things that don't sit right with me.

Here's a link to the 'email' from 'Ubisoft Referral Program' http://i.imgur.com/A8MzQzb.png

The things that don't sit right with me:

Inconsistencies in the 'disivion'. It's from 'Ubisoft Referral Program' , but lists the program as 'Contracts program', the signs off as 'Ubi Contracts Management Team' and goes through Ubisoft Support. That doesn't make a single lick of sense.

The letter which was sent that same day in the e-mail doesn't know who the 'RagnosTech TM Corp' owner by real name, but knows enough about them that they'd be willing to send a legal document over? Baloney.

The consistent change of the "Ubisoft", "Ubi" and "ubi". That doesn't make sense and would never happen in a real e-mail from a sales or HR representative. More baloney.

There is horrible language in the text that no sane business (even though Ubisoft is French) would use. It seems like it comes from someone that has a poor grasp on English and absolutely wouldn't be a point contact in the hiring process.

- "...your low specs patches as you call that are getting high hype at our fourms..."

'Negotionations' happen in 5 hours? Really?! The e-mail is dated as 12-9, and the Facebook post announcing the possibility was 12-09. Ragnos1997's 'decision' comes 5 hours after announcing it.

Ragnos1997 is 17. In Bosnia. That's going to be some mountain of paperwork.

Ubisoft tends to change and/or theme their logo for each of their games. Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C

- The logo we see in the e-mail is curious from Assassin's Creed 3 (Trailer). Why in the world would a new-hires 'contract' division of Ubisoft used a themed logo from a game that's two years old?!

 

To be honest: I have seen some pretty horrible english being written by the people who hire people in the company my father works for (about 100 employees and working with circuit boards and the like) so horrible english is not a certain sign it's not from Ubisoft. But your various points seems convincing to me so I would say you might just very well be right.