Ubisoft recently announced big changes to how it publishes and release its games, and now a new report reveals more may be coming to the company. According to Bloomberg, those familiar with the situation have said Tencent, the Guillemot family, who founded Ubisoft, and other minority shareholders are looking into a buyout to take the company private.
Tencent already has a 9.2% stake in the video game publisher, while the Guillemot family has about 20.5%. The report does note that these talks are in the early stages, and since this is all information through sources, it might not happen at all.
However, it does show potentially more turmoil behind the scenes at Ubisoft. On September 25, executives announced it would be delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows out of November into February of next year. It told players that this was to ensure the highest level of polish, but told investors that it would be pivoting to a more “player-centric approach” and would be making some changes. It would no longer use a season pass model to incentivize players to spend more money on games for perks like early access and exclusive missions, and would once again be releasing games on Steam day one on PC instead of only on its own platform.
“Our second quarter performance fell short of our expectations, prompting us to address this swiftly and firmly, with an even greater focus on a player-centric, gameplay-first approach and an unwavering commitment to the long-term value of our brands,” CEO Yves Guillemot said in a statement to investors.
This news caused Ubisoft shares to rise up to 33%, a huge gain considering it’s been trading at its lowest levels since 2015, according to analysts, with an over 40% drop since January. Recent drops were attributed to the mediocre reception of Star Wars Outlaws, which launched at the end of August to “softer than expected” sales. The Outlaws team is also working to address player feedback with a series of planned updates.
