I’m not defending Ubi here, they absolutely should have ripped this code out. They had to know the outrage that it would generate.
But it might not have been a management decision. It could have been a “20% time” project where a developer designed and implemented a system that they thought management would like, and then it never got ripped back out after it was rejected. Those projects are usually barebones and use existing assets as much as possible, so it wouldn’t even mean that they had to stand up other systems to support it… They could just link to an existing ad from something else.
That would imply they give a shit. Which they don’t. If there’s a chance they can squeeze 1€ extra out of their customers they will go for it, even if it enrages everyone.
I’m not defending Ubi here, they absolutely should have ripped this code out. They had to know the outrage that it would generate.
But it might not have been a management decision. It could have been a “20% time” project where a developer designed and implemented a system that they thought management would like, and then it never got ripped back out after it was rejected. Those projects are usually barebones and use existing assets as much as possible, so it wouldn’t even mean that they had to stand up other systems to support it… They could just link to an existing ad from something else.
That would imply they give a shit. Which they don’t. If there’s a chance they can squeeze 1€ extra out of their customers they will go for it, even if it enrages everyone.
A side project like that shouldn’t be merged into the production code base.