Blitzkrieg!
Member
Ah, you may be correct here.
Ubisoft Carves Out Top Games Unit - Valuation of €4 bln, Tencent to get 25% stake, manages 3 big IPs (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six)
MiguelItUp
Member
Exactly. I would hope everyone has realized Ubisoft's quality has been slipping more and more over the years. The trajectory would've surely remained the same regardless of AC:Shadows' existence.
The current market cap for Ubisoft is less than half that.
Topher
Identifies as young
Edit:
I told you! I told you not to judge too early.
Just wait for the likely report in a few weeks/months saying how it "underperformed" to confirm this if you don't believe it yet. You are on the stages of grief. When that report drops we shall bump some recent posts and see what people have to say then.
The game sold less than the last one and also costs probably a TON more, look at Spider-Man 2. These woke devs costs have skyrocketed due to wokeness in employment. No way doing worse than the last game surpassed expectations. Still feeling confident fellas?
Who are you talking to? I've yet to see anyone claim Shadows was going to save Ubisoft. The game could have outsold every AC ever made and not be enough to save Ubisoft. That doesn't mean the game "underperformed" either.
ValiantInstance
Member
Yves Guillemot will be like Mr House one day, living in a machine still pulling the strings.
It is remarkable and infuriating how he continues to hang on.
It is remarkable and infuriating how he continues to hang on.
Edit:
I told you! I told you not to judge too early.
Just wait for the likely report in a few weeks/months saying how it "underperformed" to confirm this if you don't believe it yet. You are on the stages of grief. When that report drops we shall bump some recent posts and see what people have to say then.
You think deals like this are done within a week?
what does this even mean? lmao.
viveks86
Member
I don't doubt the evidence. Just your conclusion based on the evidence. The deals negotiated are over IP ownership and strategic alignment that would span several years. The deal would have been negotiated and agreed on several weeks ago. And it makes perfect sense to delay a game launch when such discussions are happening so that immediate launch anxiety/perception doesn't bias the negotiations. But it probably took a month just to get signatures, let alone finalize the press release.This initiative seems to have been agreed on a few months back when there were official discussions of merger and acquisition between Ubisoft and Tencent. Here's an excerpt from October of last year:
But then it appeared that talks were on hold due to disagreement on the value of the newly formed subsidiary.
So naturally Ubisoft delayed ACS's release date to release the game in the best possible state and pushed to maximize the game's early financial performance in order to negotiate a better deal and extract more value in their IPs with Tencent, which I believe they were mostly successful on as they have been touting every new milestone that AC: Shadows has reached in a short period of time.
Some tweets on player count has no bearing on what was happening (or in this case, already happened) in the background. You can may be argue that it was an effort to drum up positivity in preparation for the press release, so that it doesn't sound like a distress sale (even though it is). But that's about it.
Mister Wolf
Member
Stocked jumped up.
It's a subsidiary so they still own it. It's more likely that they're moving them so they can sell the smaller stuff without issue.
MiguelItUp
Member
It's so bizarre to me how folks want Shadows to be the main reason behind Ubisoft's failings all because of the "outrage". The ship was already sinking, hell I don't even think a single extremely successful release could save it.
Topher
Identifies as young
PeteBull
Member
I draw 2 conclusions from that- inevitable AC in ancient china, likely with all kinds of "chi, meditation, martial art forms" and 0 DEI aka no black protag gonna be there but proper chinese male, tencent gonna make sure AC:S situation wont be repeated.
Hell im getting excited already since i love my anime/manga/text novels with setting in ancient china, i will be their target customer once again, instead of "modern audience " =D
Hell im getting excited already since i love my anime/manga/text novels with setting in ancient china, i will be their target customer once again, instead of "modern audience " =D
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Blitzkrieg!
Member
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
This is a typical corporate manuever with fluid internal structure (Sony done it multiple times with TV batnch and Electronics in general) and more or less few things has changed, if any. Yes, Tencent invested 1 billion and gained 25%, but with Ubisoft's scale it's pocket money and Tencent still doesn't own 75% of the joint venture. 1 billion is like 1.5 AC game budget with marketing, not much.
On the other hand Guillemot basically outmanuevered shareholders and made his biggest franchises more or less private and hidden them away from volatile stock market. Kudos to him that he makes shit sound more significant that it really is.
On the other hand Guillemot basically outmanuevered shareholders and made his biggest franchises more or less private and hidden them away from volatile stock market. Kudos to him that he makes shit sound more significant that it really is.
Blitzkrieg!
Member
Uh, their valuation was $1.7 billion at the time of the transaction. They needed the cash infusion to stay solvent and pay down debt. It’s stated in the press release.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
They've basically spun their 3 franchises in a 100% Ubi-owned and closed subsidary that was instantaneously valuated at 2.5x the price of the mother company lol.
I'm no financial expert but I can smell a fishy practice when I see one.
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
If the spin out a subsidiary they may be able to put development teams there and offer them different benefits and compensation based on what they are working on. Also allows them to do the accounting and assets different. they can spin some debt onto the new company or other accounting moves like that.
Kilau
Member
Awake employees cost more than asleep ones. Business School 101.
Arachnid
Member
SomeNorseGuy
Neo Member
I just hope that the ANNO team can find a way to splinter off from Ubisoft. The only games from that company I've enjoyed in almost a decade (apart from South Park: FbW & Mario + Rabbids).
Haint
Member
Basically they diluted Ubisoft shareholders 25% in exchange for Tencent's 1.25 Billion cash infusion. Far as I can tell Ubisoft/shareholders still own 75% of the subsidiary, less Tencent's 25% stake. Since insider traders crashed the stock before Sheboss Wars Outlaw's was even known to be a bomba, the stock has basically already been priced as though they were declaring bankruptcy next week and auctioning off all the IP, which is why a defacto 25% dilution actually raised the share price.
I'm not sure why the French government wasn't stepping in to refinance or defer debt payments or something if it was really that dire, they're like you guy's number 1 employer and most culturally significant companies (certainly media companies) by far. Too preoccupied with importing and financing masses of fake asylum seekers to rape your women I guess.
I'm not sure why the French government wasn't stepping in to refinance or defer debt payments or something if it was really that dire, they're like you guy's number 1 employer and most culturally significant companies (certainly media companies) by far. Too preoccupied with importing and financing masses of fake asylum seekers to rape your women I guess.
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GudOlRub
Member
I'll only believe developing an AC game costs 500 mil when I see it..
And if it does cost that much, whomever is making those decisions needs a restraining order, apart from the pretty graphics literally nothing else about these games justifies such a high cost.
Hollowpoint5557
A Fucking Idiot
It means that if you are a Ubi shareholder you got caught carrying the bag. Gut the company, sell off the valuable I.P.s and screw the investors. Hope you guys didn't invest too much $$.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
AC Shadows is literally made by 18k people and that's excluding the marketing. End titles alone lasts for 20 minutes.
GudOlRub
Member
Sauce?
And even if there were, those 18k people did not all work on the game at the same time nor were they all salaried, much of the work was outsourced for sure with fixed budgets.
A credited studio doesn't mean literally everyone in that studio worked on the game.
So, until I see otherwise, 500 million sounds like cope to me.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
I don't even know what to tell you. We live in world where comparable in scale and scope of production CoD cost like 700mil with marketing. AC is CoD-level multiplat franchise and I have a feeling that I'm being quite modest here, considering all the delays and further marketing damage control.
CompleteGlobalSaturation
Member
I was hoping this would include all Tom Clancy games.
I just want to see a new Splinter Cell dammit!
I just want to see a new Splinter Cell dammit!
VulcanRaven
Member
recursive
Member
They already knew that. This was likely in the works for quite some time.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
$0 in Ubisoft. I'm a smarter investor
Unknown Soldier
Member
Lmao so now we actually know how successful Shadows was
Ubisoft is being carved up and Tencent is taking ownership of the only parts that will survive
Ubisoft is being carved up and Tencent is taking ownership of the only parts that will survive
VulcanRaven
Member
Its not like the deal was planned this week.
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Mattyp
Not the YouTuber
I’ve been saying for months even Assassins being successful won’t save this company their overheads are insane.
This should have some legal repercussions, yes they control ownership over these different entities but at the bottom of it they’re selling a large part of those entities off. Those assets are Ubisofts only value and they know it.
Giving Tencent a much larger slice of those companies without buying Ubisofts dead stock and devaluing it further in my opinion. I believe the only reason they’re doing this is to eventually spin off assets for further cash injections.
We’re ‘just’ selling Farcry, Ubisoft its self isn’t changing! Etc.. or the back catalogue.
This should have some legal repercussions, yes they control ownership over these different entities but at the bottom of it they’re selling a large part of those entities off. Those assets are Ubisofts only value and they know it.
Giving Tencent a much larger slice of those companies without buying Ubisofts dead stock and devaluing it further in my opinion. I believe the only reason they’re doing this is to eventually spin off assets for further cash injections.
We’re ‘just’ selling Farcry, Ubisoft its self isn’t changing! Etc.. or the back catalogue.
GHG
Gold Member
Black_Stride
how you doing?
Didn't even manage to last a year longer than the date of our discussion.
Fantastic drugs by the way.
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seb85
Member
It means this the subsidiary will be managed by completely new executives , and Ubisoft will not have any business decision over these titles , the new subsidiary will have the right to do whatever they want with these titles which mean you might get a better games
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
New shell company is wholly owned by current Ubisoft, my man.
StueyDuck
Member
the house of cards seems to be falling quicker than i expected.
it was inevitable however. Chinese Ubi will be funny to watch with how inherently political most of their games are (like real world politics, not silly i don't know what a penis is politics).
We already saw such intervention with siege where they wanted to (i don't know if they ever did) remove blood and symbols of skulls and all sorts o censorship.
it was inevitable however. Chinese Ubi will be funny to watch with how inherently political most of their games are (like real world politics, not silly i don't know what a penis is politics).
We already saw such intervention with siege where they wanted to (i don't know if they ever did) remove blood and symbols of skulls and all sorts o censorship.