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Tencent, Guillemot Family Mull Ubisoft Buyout Amid Share Slump (yahoo.com) 32

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Tencent and Ubisoft's founding Guillemot family are weighing a potential buyout of the French game maker, according to Bloomberg News. The move comes as Ubisoft's shares plunged 54% this year, hitting decade-lows after production delays and weak sales. Tencent, which bought 49.9% of Guillemot Brothers in 2022, holds 9.2% of Ubisoft's voting rights, while the Guillemots control 20.5%.

Further reading: Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece.
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Tencent, Guillemot Family Mull Ubisoft Buyout Amid Share Slump More

Tencent, Guillemot Family Mull Ubisoft Buyout Amid Share Slump

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  • Spend 8 years on a World of Warship simulator instead of the Black Flag sequel that players wanted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      I'm sure you're a big fan but the fate of one or two games does not sink a major publisher like this.

      • If S&B cost $800M as rumors say, it could.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          That's the high end of an estimate that they spent over the course of a decade. Meanwhile they bring in about $2 billion a year https://companiesmarketcap.com... [companiesmarketcap.com] .

          Game and movie studios occasionally flub a big budget project. It's pretty unusual for something like that to have such a drastic effect on the value of the studio without there being a lot of other problems on top of that though.

      • I'm sure you're a big fan but the fate of one or two games does not sink a major publisher like this.

        Actually the fate of two games most definitely does sink a major publisher like this. These were major major investments tying up not only years of development time, and costing huge amounts of money, but were also flagship product demonstrations of the capabilities of a publisher - something that is needed to present to investors.

        The big projects can very much determine the fate of a major studio, it's not about how much it costs, but how much an investor thinks your company is worth based on what you prod

  • Self inflicted (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mitreya ( 579078 )

    hitting decade-lows after production delays and weak sales

    This is entirely self-inflicted by Ubisoft.
    For example, just a random example: to set the game in feudal Japan and make (one of) the two main characters Black (even if based on a real name from history). And the question is -- Why?

    • As my DND dungeon master would put it: You can do anything, so long as you can justify it.
      For example, the Japanese have featured the guy in a number of games. It helps that there actually isn't much known about him other than he actually existed and was apparently a total unit in order to overcome the biases of the time. So, they have a free hand in their storytelling.
      From what I've been told, storytelling wise he's supposed to be the "loud" character to the female "quiet" more ninja character. She hid

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Mitreya ( 579078 )

        As my DND dungeon master would put it: You can do anything, so long as you can justify it.

        That's very true. I believe the problem they are running into is that they had no storytelling plan, not really. The game is not out yet, so I could be proven wrong (i.e., lets see how the story actually goes).

        there actually isn't much known about him other than he actually existed and was apparently a total unit in order to overcome the biases of the time

        From what I understand, available evidence indicates that he was taken on as a curiosity by a noble and disappeared to Jesuits after that noble died. I am not a historian, but it seems pretty clear that he didn't gradually rise through the samurai ranks or anything like that.
        I suppose they could hav

        • Yeah, this one is just as baffling. You would think they have some cultural consultants on retainer.

          I heard that they had one, but it seems that she turned out to be incompetent in some ways, I guess? Or that wasn't her specialty? They also featured a rather famous clan's symbol (Kamon?) that they didn't ask to use, and worse, had it upside down.
          But those are actually minor easy to fix things. Explain the gate and Kamon as a "glitch" if you have to.

          You are probably right about that. I'd be very curious to see if a "same" title without any controversies attached to it would do better on the market.

          In my case, and from what I'm hearing, their games are just considered not worth the price. I don't want to have to deal with all the DRM nonsense they pla

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mitreya ( 579078 )

            she turned out to be incompetent

            It really feels like Ubisoft has gone out of their way to hire incompetent people at all levels. This cannot be achieved accidentally.
            The whole story with Star Wars Outlaws issuing a patch that strongly recommended for people to start a new saved game (because they will eventually face progress-blocking bugs down the road otherwise) is hard to imagine. I am not a game developer, but I think that this could have been fixed (and/or perhaps a compensation could be offered for people who bought early access $

            • Ubisoft, Sega, Firaxis, EA, and some others.
              Mostly the "big names"
              There's listings on steam that show whether or not a game has it.

      • But anyways, the bigger problem may be that they've gone from being innovation to releasing just massive numbers of basically the same titles

        I think this is it, did AC:Shadows change the AC gameplay loop in any appreciable way? Is it fun or is yet another AC game with a map flooded with interest points and enemies that simply scale with level and taking down the same style encampment over and over again in what feels like a beautifully crafted but ultimately empty gameworld?

        The last AC I played was Odyssey and while it was enjoyable towards the middle the end turned into a slog and much like any of the AC games I have played towards the end it f

        • The last AC I played was Odyssey and while it was enjoyable towards the middle the end turned into a slog and much like any of the AC games I have played towards the end it feels like "there's so much to do and all of it is equally boring"

          That's basically what ended up turning me off the series.

          I haven't played Hitman (Agent 47) in a while either, but at least there you had 'lots' of ways to achieve your mission, a fair amount of replay ability.

          Assassin's creed had too many "do the same thing in a slightly different spot" for me.

          • Also the core gameplay loop of sneak around, silent kills, hide your evidence is completely destroyed by the end since you know all the patterns so you can just womp through like an action hero. Definitely feels like the core loop has not expanded upon, those mechanics felt the same as ACII which is still considered by many as the best of the series.

            I think also me personally having never played a Souls series game before going through Elden Ring really makes something like AC feel unfulfilling in comparis

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Because it's a cool story? That's not the problem, the problem is that Ubisoft games are just not that interesting for the cost.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by wiggles ( 30088 )

        Wikipedia article on this guy is very unauthoritative. It was edited to include the wishful thinking of the editors.

        It's turned into the Ministry of Truth at this point - unreliable for anything controversial.

    • Lack of care and/or attention to detail would be the main reason. One of the major controversies was the inclusion of a likeness of the One-Legged Torii Gate with a figurine. The original One-Legged Torii Gate is a concrete structure located near the blast center of the Nagasaki atomic bomb site. An analogy would be using a likeness of the fallen World Trade Center towers in merchandise. In the best case scenario, Ubisoft developers had no idea their structure looked similar to One-Legged Torii Gate. The wo
    • What happened to Ubisoft:

      - Skull and Bones was a bomb that sucked up resources for years.
      - Their new tentpole shooter XDefiant had a decent audience at launch, but the player base shrunk rapidly. Rumors are that XDefiant will stop producing new content, failing to become the new battle-pass-seller that they hoped for.
      - Assassin's Creed seems to be doing fine. I found a link that claims AS Mirage sold ~5 million units. And Rainbow 6 still prints money.
      - Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs Legion had decent sales,

      • One more point, the whole "Get Comfortable' With Not Owning Games" probably hasn't helped either.

        https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/12/7119694909428128764/

  • Wonder twin powers active, form of even more insidious EA.

  • Ubisoft: Get used to not owning your games.
    Gamers: Get used to not owning your company.

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