There’s been some breaking news around Ubisoft today. According to a reportfrom Bloomberg, the French video game industry giant is considering leaving the publicily-traded and family owned ways behind, to seek shelter from recent stock lows under Tencent’s umbrella. This should worry those who’ve been paying attention to major gaming news over the past few years.
It’s no secret that Ubisoft hasn’t been doing well as of late. The company’s stocks have dropped 54% in value this year, and investors have reportedly been pressuring the company to go private to help flip this downward trend. Tencent already owns around 9% of Ubisoft through previous investments (which helped fend off Vivendi in the past), and reports back in 2022 revealed Tencent wanted to increase its ownership in the company significantly.
It’s easy to see how Ubisoft got here. Recent releases haven’t been especially great, nor performed well. Everyone can (and will) point and chuckle at Skull & Bones, but recent releases like Star Wars Outlaws, XDefiant, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora haven’t exactly raked in the cash. Add on top of that big releases getting going missing (remember Beyond Good and Evil 2, where is that?), and the low it’s been enduring makes sense in this rough market.
But even still, we live in a post-Embracer disaster and Microsoft x Activision Blizzard acquisition world. It’s hard to be optimistic when we’ve seen in recent years that such big business moves leave many looking for work. Now, I don’t believe Tencent should be immediately slammed for the sins of Embracer and Microsoft’s suits, but there’s a good reason acquisitions leave a bad taste in mouths right now.
Also, let’s be real, this, if it comes to pass, could potentially be good for Ubisoft in the long term. Being public does, generally speaking, encourage corporate behaviour that incentivises short term gains over long term performance. There’s a reason Ubisoft has been churning out Assassin’s Creed games as often as it can, with sequels often inheriting faults, as well as lacking significant experimentation or risk-taking. You gotta release the greatest hits, mate! Gotta keep the people happy! Tencent, if it was so inclined, could steer the ship towards better climates. Yes, that’s a Skull and Bones gag.
Also, with all the spending Tencent has been doing as of late, it hasn’t gained a reputation for widespread layoffs like Embracer of Microsoft has. Though, it’s worth noting that Riot Games – which is owned by Tencent – cut roughly 11% of its staff recently. Though, one could point to a large portion of those cuts hitting esports staff, R&D staff working on in-progress games like the MMO, and general developers on Riot Forge and Legends of Runeterra. I’d say that cuts are cuts, and 11% isn’t something that can just be disregarded. But even so, many of the new Tencent studios out there have remained largely cut-free.
Those are the potential pros at play. The negatives are still there. The company going private would mean that it takes power out of shareholders’ hands, for better and for worse. Tencent in the driver’s seat could steer the company in the direction of its biggest hits via more live service releases. As much as I love For Honor, the loss of a company largely dedicated to AAA single player experiences would hit hard. It also means less visibility. As a publicly traded company, Ubisoft right now has to disclose info on its performance. Under Tencent, we might see info released as part of the wider-companies’ annual report, but the wealth of knowledge will surely decrease.
Then there are wider problems. More and more of the industry is being gobbled up by giant corporations. Tencent is one of them, as are Microsoft and Sony. Less independent pillars in the space means less variety, fewer options. An oligopoly means less competition, and while we’re lucky to have a bustling indie space putting out great games, big companies are incentivised to eat competition, and prioritise profits and wealth generation. This isn’t a video game specific thing, by the way. See Pepsi and Coke, at your local store.
Yves Guillemot has wanted to keep Ubisoft family owned for years for a good reason. He clearly believes, or once believed, that the best hands are their own. And while there are some good reasons (not just limited to bad video games) to be sceptical of such beliefs, a strong, separate video game giant can only be good for the health of the industry. The problem is, of course, that Ubisoft isn’t so strong these days. Hence its current predicament.
As for why Tencent of all companies may want to buy Ubisoft, the industry is going through somewhat of a landgrab right now. Tencent, which generates billions of dollars every year, is looking to expand its net over Europe and American studios in order to control not just the big financial wins in terms of video game releases next year, but five years from now, ten years from now, etc. It is in it for money, obviously. It has a lot of cash to spend and a lot of companies just so happen to be going cheap right now. But Tencent isn’t hoping to own the next big video game trend for the love of the game (or the games), it’s because it’d rake in the profits from such a release. And you can bet it’ll be steering companies towards what it believes has the capacity to do this.
Nothing is set in stone right now, and Ubisoft may remain public, but it’s another big step towards a bought and sold industry. It’s tempting to get hyped up over it, and hey, it might end up being good for Ubisoft developers and players if it happens. But for now, caution is sensible as we hang back and see how this plays out.