Rumour: Ubisoft Turmoil Continues as Shareholders Consider Buyout

At this point, everything is up in the air. It also bothers me that the article did not mention, any time at all,....Beyond Good And Evil 2....That being said.

Top game developers seem to have lost their way because they have forgotten, or have been pressured to forget, by shareholders.....Fun Comes First.

I have not heard any woes from Nintendo. Look at the sales charts, in any country...Nintendo games are always on top. What truly cracks me up, is before the Switch came out gamers were saying Nintendo is dying, they should just focus on games!

Guess what, that is all Nintendo has ever done, and that mentality has moved the Switch to staggering sales numbers!

I own more games for my Switch, than any other current console. Why?!?!? Because Nintendo games are FUN and I do not get nickled and dimed for content!

Gaming is not dying, just certain developers, and it is all because of their greed.

Always said Sony should buy them. Good single player games and also have a number of live service games going.

Come on, Sony... Do the right thing.

Ubisoft put themselves in that situation with their Always Online restrictions, microtransactions and shutting down games people paid full price for.

In another words they are better off in Tencent's hands.

Wonder what would happen with the Ubisoft/MS deal that was needed to push through ABK?

The company seems like a giant, bloated, headache to manage. So it's no wonder Tencent wants to negotiate more control before pulling the trigger.

i'm not a huge fan of Tencent so i hope it doesn't happen. i mean in a perfect world i'd love to see sony step in, but can they handle a studio of this size? i'm probably one the bigger fans of the ac series on here , so i just want to see the series in good hands.

I dont think I have bought an Ubisoft game for years now, since AC Valhalla. Sadly, they just seem to have lost their way.

They seem far more interested in trying to make money than good games now, and the launch state of SW Outlaws and their Avatar Pro patch recently just seems to affirm this.
(I know the aim is to make money, but you should be looking to do that by making good games that people want).

I also think their strategy of putting games on sale so soon after launch is really doing them no good whatsoever, as more than any other publisher the running joke is to wait a month or 2 for the sale.

AC Valhalla was my last nail to franchise coffin. And there is nothing interesting for me in their portfolio right now (except Prince of Persia, that I'm still going around).

I really don't like all the companies Tencent is investing in. It doesn't seem like anything good will come out of Tencents investment into games, long term.

@LuXifer I agree, very bloated. They have like 20k employees which would be triple or four times the size of Playstation Studios. Sony, please stay away from Ubisoft. Yikes!

Maybe see if they want to get rid of some IPs, but other than that, nope, many better choices out there.

Just focus on Kadokawa, and then put a ring on Square Enix already.

Ubisoft is not an enticing company to buy, they need to reduce headcount to 1/4 of its current size, they many projects in eternal limbo, recent releases poor reception and low sales with their future state to be losses as well.

Ubisoft gets so much hate and I don't think all of it is deserved. I just base this on the fact that I have not played a single game of theirs in the last 10-15 years that I didn't enjoy or get a lot of fun out of. There's been some missteps with some game development decisions, but I feel like most of the issues come from upper management and higher. Even Outlaws has been somewhat enjoyable for me, albeit a bit boring at times.

Or put another way, for a developer whose releases I genuinely look forward to time after time (I'm still fairly optimistic for Shadows), I'm surprised they're in the news this much.

I also think some of it is weird luck on my part? Everyone mentions how Ubisoft games are buggy, it's basically a meme, but I've never really had issues that were noteworthy. A crash here or there, a minor graphical bug once in a blue moon, etc. The games always ran smoothly for me, always. Even the ultimate meme, AC Unity ran almost without a hitch for me, aside from falling through the map once or twice and a few other things that I considered pretty minor. I had probably 10x more crashes and more issues playing Dead Rising than AC Unity, but AC Unity is still the "lol broken game" meme poster child.

Hopefully they can improve their issues to satisfy their customer base. I still like AC a lot and again, I still have not played an Ubisoft game that made me want to not support them... yet.

how long ago was the splinter cell remake announced and we haven't seen a single thing about it? i eventually want to check out the starwars game if they can get it fixed up , but mostly the only thing i really care about from them is ac.

@Kriandis At this point im 100% sure it's canceled. It's been in development hell for so long it would never live up to the hype. I hope I'm wrong but oh well.... without confirmation from ubi we can only wait

@twitchtvpat cough prince of persia sands of time remake cough

@Simu001 well that one has a reason they showed off the remake and people hated it , and surprisingly they actually listened and ditched that remake and started from ground up.

That’s sad, Ubisoft have good ideas for their games, sometimes the execution isn’t there, they’ve become too much commercially focused and less creative. Doesn’t mean their products are that bad, but they need to step up their game, they can do it. They’re big and they still have resources to turn things around. Maybe thinking differently will help.

Anyway, I hope it doesn’t come to that. I was thinking this ridiculous idea, but what if Sony or Microsoft buy them out? Maybe they can save enough of the company and rethink their whole process at the same time.

Here’s a plan for relaunching Ubisoft: start investing more money in what fans want - finish developing the Prince of Persia remake, the Splinter Cell reboot, Beyond Good & Evil 2. Also, rethink the whole Assassin’s Creed formula by removing the futuristic backstory and making the series about exploring different eras with different gameplay for each one, make them shorter but meaningful and interesting, you can use your Infinity idea to tie them together with a single launcher. You can bring back some classics in need of a remaster, that way you won’t overspend, I know it cost money but still less than producing a new IP. Restart development on Immortals sequel and make a brand new 3D platformer with Rayman, we’ll all buy it, especially since Astro Bot showed us there’s still a market for good platformers. Ok Crash 4 didn’t perform well, but you can still take a chance there! All these ideas are doable if you want to take the time to look into them. As for your financial woes, cut the fat on redundant stuff and lower the salary for managers like Nintendo did, temporarily, it’ll be fine! In a couple years of doing all that, Ubisoft will be back!

@Simu001 what if they doubled down and did another singapore government contract like skull and bones making so eventually it comes to market lol

@twitchtvpat True, well I just hope those projects see the light of day before ubispft gets dissolved into tencent or whatever. At this point it seems hard to believe that ubi can turn the ship around. But stranger and less predictable things have happened so we'll see.

@RagnarLothbrok Who knows. I dont even know how well skull and nones did. From what little I know not too great. Doesnt help that ubi made the AAAA comment which gave us a nice meme if anything

Sony buying Kadakawa doesn’t look so bad when comparing it to Tencent buying Ubisoft. Or anyone else really.😂

I’m not a fan of Tencent, I don’t see that doing Ubisoft any good, but it’ll probably happen unfortunately.. Tencent is going to try to buy their way to the top..

I wish Ubisoft could to find away to bring back their magic from the past without a takeover.. PS2/Xbox-PS3/360 era were their more prominent years that I remember with Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and Prince of Persia to name a few.

I feel no pity for Ubisoft. This company did this to themselves. Out of all the publishers I think I've been interested in maybe one game from them (Star Wars Outlaws) in the last 10 years. They've just ran themselves into the ground chasing the golden goose live service hype. You reap what you sow.

Division 3 and Splinter Cell remake looking bad then

@Kriandis well said and I fully agree! It's hard to believe people actually thought Nintendo was dying about a decade ago.

Then again, people have believed dumber things so it's not that big of a shock lmao.

@Luna-Harmony And the prince of Persia remake...

Given that Ubisoft have been putting out nothing but mediocre stuff (with an exception or two) for the longest time, I honestly am not surprised whatsoever.

Ubisoft has a lot of cool franchises they could use (Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and even, Prince Of Persia), but even if or when games from said franchises release, it's almost guaranteed that they'll be rushed in all aspects.

It's sad, but Ubisoft chose quantity over quality and it's really biting them in the rear now.

I unironically think that if a Chinese studio took control of Ubisoft properties they'd be able to make most of them huge successes...but also F2P Gacha hells.

I think it's a plan to have done this all along but the CEO

@Nexozi Hopefully not lol

the endgame here is that a crazy number of people are going to lose their jobs

@Foreverisdark94 Yea would be awful if Sony got ownership of assassins creed, splinter cell, far cry, the crew, and watchdogs etc.

Gross. As many mistakes Ubisoft has made, they’ve still had some good output. If that gets put in the hands of Tencent, I worry about the future of their big franchises. Don’t think there could be a worse outcome.

I don’t like the idea of Tencent owning anybody, but if it must be done, the lesser of two evils would be for them to push Ubisoft on through and leave their filthy fingers off of Kadokawa. Nobody really cares if Ubisoft is driven (even more) into the ground, but FromSoft is sacrosanct.

@Nexozi that’s a good idea. maybe sony could even bring AC multiplayer back

So - why would Tencent want to take all the financial risk - and all the Guilmot family to control the reins (when it's that very problem that has lead to the sales/share-price crashing). They've already had their share value decimated (almost literally as well as figuratively) and yet, they would invest more without controlling the output/direction? I don't think so.

I personally do not wish for the collapse of Ubisoft - I just want them to wake up and make good games. I've bought a lot of their games - so I can't say they're all bad... however... they've been increasingly reducing their catalogue of active games to a handful, and they are not doing a particularly good job of shepherding and protecting even their best brands.

IF Tencent buy them out, I don't think it will bode well for the devs; and I'm not convinced that it bodes well for the gamers as well. And no - consolidation doesn't help this either.

@Balaam_ how is it the lesser of two evils...what evils do you mean? Why do you think a company like Tencent (one of the biggest in the world) would just stop with Ubisoft? Ubisoft is still chump-change... especially after the dive in stock price.

Please don’t cancel the division 3.

@Ken_Kaniff I'm sorry - you haven't bought a game of theirs in the last 10 years - but because of Star Wars Outlaws wasn't what you wanted, you want 20,000 people to lose their jobs? Because you're disappointed? Did you actually even buy Outlaws? Or are you just venting?

I've not played Outlaws - so can't comment meaningfully... however, I doubt it's really as bad or as disappointing as you think - from an objective perspective. It may have disappointed you - but that's entirely subjective. It may have made some poor choices as well (though it seems like they are at least belatedly trying to shift course).

@Major_Player outlaws doesn't require always online. You need to be online when installing, then it's not required anymore.

A while back I wouldn't have put a good word in for Ubisoft with their copy paste games, trend chasing bs. However they recently have been releasing really good games without anything insidious, or at worst things that are industry standard like season passes. The new prince of Persia, outlaws, avatar and AC nexus where actually all simply good games.
The default outrage, half truths, complete misinformation and just general hatefulness of the community really hurt these actually good games. So many have a strong opinion on games they haven't even played yet.
Is Ubisoft my favourite publisher? Absolutely not! They have a long way to go, but they won't go anywhere if the discussion around them remains so toxic and without any nuance.

To quote Birgirpall....
"Ubisoft, plez"

If Sony bought them that would be huge but I guess Tencent is the closest.

The company needs to die at this point and sell off the franchises to smaller companies who still care about making games.

Tencent will just increase the slop count tenfold.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare It dissapointed everyone, hence the bad sales.

What are you even talking about?

@tameshiyaku : The fact that it requires a connection to even start the game is an issue all on its own... while The Crew, For Honor and others are just plain criminal to just demand connection at all times.

Ubisoft's current market value is quite low. The only thing is whoever bought them needs to deal with the bloated company. If Sony can deal with it, they do have some interesting IPs.

@Major_Player considering one would want to get it patched before playing, online first time around is almost a prerequisite with all games these days, but that's a whole different can of worms 😂😭
At the same time, people acting like games worked flawlessly back in the pre-internet days clearly have their nostalgia goggles on.

@Nexozi Yes plus 20000 employees more then ALL Sony studios put together. Yes stay away from this nightmare and moneydrain.

@tameshiyaku Well all of my older games own from the PS1 still work. I only had one game that didn't work on the PS2 so yes I will gladly go back to the past. The PS3 those games worked with small patches, PS4 wasnt that great but OK this gen a nightmare.

@Flaming_Kaiser ooh yes... this Gen's a nightmare for various reasons, no discussion about that.

Think Ubi's end is near.

@Fishnpeas so you said "the company needs to die"... you understand how many people will lose their jobs? So if UbiSoft collapses, how will it make your life better? Did you buy the game? How many hours did you play of it - to make up your mind that it was so disappointing the 20,000 people need to lose their jobs to make you feel better in yourself?

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare 100% agree. The company needs to do better not die. The crap always rolls downhill so the shareholders and directors will profit if ubisoft is bought out but the actual real workers will suffer and ultimately loose their incomes. Its disturbing how many gamers think that's acceptable.

@Northern_munkey I don't understand what is going on with people - I totally understand people wanting companies to do better - to have better writing - to make less hand-holdy games... that's fine. However, I don't understand how or why people have become so self-entitled that they think because they were disappointed that people should lose their livelihood. Especially as I suspect that most haven't even bought the games they are complaining about. It's like we're living in a kindergarten.

People need to explain what they want - and what they don't want. Simple. Not become a lynch mob.

@Rich33 putting games on sale so soon after launch

more than any other publisher the running joke is to wait a month or 2 for the sale

This never happened with the PS5 version of Star Wars Outlaws digital and disc.

@PorkChopExpress I'm really looking forward to The Division 3.

They should have focused on this game and put avatar and sw outlaws on the back burner imho.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare why whould anyone keep their job if they are bad at it?

Do you think companies must retain people simply out of the goodness of their hearts?

People like you need a serious reality check on how the world actually works.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare You have entitlement backwards, people who work at game companies are not entitled to employment simply because they show up.

They are selling a product, if people do not like those products then it is down to the employees to change course and offer a product that people want. If they are unwilling or unable to make changes in the organisation they work in then they need to find a company willing to accept their ideas.

@Fishnpeas simple thing... don't buy the game... see, it's literally that simple. You're saying that they need to be punished because they're not making the game that YOU want. There's this myth that there are universal 'good games' and that studios should just make them. That is exactly the mindset that got Ubisoft into trouble in the first place.

Of course companies should be aware of the market also - they should be responsible to shareholders after all. You don't be wishing for them to collapse... instead, hope they make games that interest you. If not, don't worry.

And you didn't answer my question - did you buy Outlaws? What was the last UbiSoft game you bought?

@tameshiyaku : I'm not sure what games you played in the past but I have games from 3 generations prior I don't recall needing a day 1 patch to start the game never mind a forced online connectivity to play single player levels.

Could the older games used a better optimization?...sure...but even today we can't seem to get any game to run without an issue even after 20 initial patches and constant balance updates.

Game development have gotten worst not better.

@naruball no thanks sony would lock all their games to PlayStation

@Toot1st not necessarily. They could have a Bungie like deal.

@tameshiyaku I have no issues with patches but man it's like they go next level this generation to make a unfinished impression. If even the firstparty games have issue then you know it's not going well.

@Flaming_Kaiser I know there'll be the occasional exception, but looking across the board it's a western publisher problem.

@Major_Player not talking about always online, which wouldn't have been a feasible expectation with older console gens.
I mean performance problems f.e. PS1, N64 and Saturn often ran at 20fps and below, pal region games usually worse. Clipping errors, game breaking bugs and the usual glitches and jank.
Despite all this it didn't matter, we enjoyed these games despite their technical flaws and things that would have been considered as unfinished these days. That changed with the internet where people would discuss these things more and more, to the point where people consider anything sub 4k 60fps as unplayable, while also getting pissy towards devs about delays. If publishers need to be called out on greedy bs, then I'm all for it, but Devs get crapped on from both sides. Games haven't gotten worse necessarily, but "gamers" have.

@tameshiyaku I agree but the Japanese are following suit fast. You know the times you got a discount to play a early acce game and now we pay to be the testers so sad .

Ubisoft used to make some of the best games but now they are a shadow of their former selves which is a shame but you reap what you sow.
They never listen to the players who are the ones who will buy their games and make them money and this is why they are in the position they are in now.
They have released flop after flop and they still will carry on regardless and this is why AC Shadows will be their final nail in the coffin for Ubisoft.