Ubisoft stock is tanking hard after disastrous earning report
- Thread starter Kotaro
- Start date
Kotaro
Member
Timeframe and franchise brand matter.
For example Monster Hunter Wild sold 8 million in 3 days, then went to sell 10 million in 2 months. Another example Dragon Ball Sparking Zero sold 3 million in one day, then went to sell 5 million in a month. For an established franchise as calibre as Assassin's Creed, 6-8 million PLAYERS by end of year is a flop. (If PLAYERS is used as as metric, the number should be a lot higher than UNITS SOLD)
Well they did announce 1, 2, 3 million milestones, so stop with the excuse. If there's another milestone, earning reports is the perfect time to announce it. So that tells you they haven't done 4 million
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
So will they announce every million? Ubisoft announced 1.8M players for Valhalla and then nothing. All we got are revenues, not sales.
This is TLOU2 all over again when ND remained silent for almost 2 years before announcing 10M and posters like you incorrectly resonated that they weren't even at 5 or 6 million, which is laughable.
Besides, not like this matters to you. They could have announced 100 million and you guys would be "Ackshually, those aren't sales".
Don't let me stop you from living in imaginary land though.
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Kotaro
Member
The only ones living in imaginary land is ubishills like you and topher and dforce etc, desperately wanting to believe Shadows to be successful when the reality is it's flopping like a dead fish, Ubisoft stock tanking, the company needed a bailout from Tencent. And chuds are living and enjoying every moment of it
Topher
Identifies as young
Says the guy who claimed KCD 2's Steam peak of 256k was "bad".
I said in this very thread that it looked like Shadows was performing about average as far as AC games go. I think that's a reasonable take. Not one based on a silly "chud" vs "woke" culture war.
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Bernardougf
Member
In the end it should sell more than enouth to not be a flop ... but definitely not the success that could/should have been. We can all agree that it left a good amount of money on the table for brownie points.Says the guy who claimed KCD's Steam peak of 256k was "bad".
I said in this very thread that it looked like Shadows was performing about average as far as AC games go. I think that's a reasonable take. Not one based on a silly "chud" vs "woke" culture war.
DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
No.
Most games rarely sell as fast as Monster Hunter Wilds. Street Fighter 6 sold 4.4 million copies in 1 year and 6 months. It has a bigger budget than Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. According to your logic, Street Fighter 6 is a flop because it didn't sell as fast as Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, another established franchise.
Mirage hit 5 million players in 3-4 months.
Shadows is ahead of Mirage and right behind Valhalla.
That's not how you break down video game sales.
Hawk The Slayer
Member
Doom The Dark Ages.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
And you desperately want Shadows to flop. The difference between us and you is that we live in reality and don't believe in bullshit data like the OP with a bunch of made up numbers.
>Shadows is the second bestselling game of the month: Ignores it
>4 million players: Ignores it
>Second highest launch window revenues in the franchise: Ignores it
>Ubisoft stocks continues tanking as it has for the past 4 years: You see! Shadows is a flop.
Lol.
I didn't buy Shadows and think Ubisoft's catalog is garbage. Doesn't mean I'll start being a moron and make shit up just to push my agenda. I also don't even believe it's a smashing success. It's in line with the rest of the series and below Valhalla.
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Topher
Identifies as young
Yep, that's fair. AC in Japan was supposed to be a monster AC game, but Ubisoft fumbled so much of this game's development and PR. It wasn't a flop, but that doesn't make it a success either. I agree with you. It probably could have done a lot better. And I don't even think it was that good of a game. I gave it a 5/10 in the OT. Said it was one of the worst AC games I've played in a while. And yet I'm a "ubishill" according to Kotaro? That's just not a rationale take.
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Kotaro
Member
Pretty sure it's already a flop and the investors agreed with most of us
Astray
Member
Your mistake here is trying to argue with facts and logic to a guy who takes cockroach serum injected into the brain.
Never argue with Asmongold listeners.
Astray
Member
I still argue that the biggest issue of this specific game is Ghost of Tsushima beating them to the punch.
Everything you do right has likely already been done right by Ghost. And a lot of their efforts to differentiate have been jumped on by internet retards.
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calico
Member
We got a 4m sales announcement for TLOU2 within a few days of release. We had a 5m announcement for Tsushima around the time Valhalla launched.
Valhalla selling more in ~6 weeks than TLOU2 or Tsushima did in ~half a year (at least in the US) is probably our best early data point about how well Valhalla was selling.
calico
Member
DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
We don't know how far behind it is.
PeteBull
Member
Bro, it wouldnt even have 8milion players if ubi/ms offered it "for free" on gamepass
Azure Crystal Gaming
Member
So why did this game fail? I want more indepth answer that goes beyond "woke" The gameplay for the girl looks really fun because I prefer stealth kills in the dark.
calico
Member
Tsushima existing probably didn't help, but it's not like there aren't plenty of areas where Tsushima could be improved. 'Like Tsushima but better' might have been a smarter play than 'Like Tsushima but worse and with two DEI protagonists'.
They got lucky with GoT2 not offering a non-woke alternative honestly.
DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
Indiana Jones was able to reach 4 million players, and the sales were terrible.Bro, it wouldnt even have 8milion players if ubi/ms offered it "for free" on gamepass
PS Store
US: 21st
Germany: 15th
UK: 19th
France: 16th
Spain: 17th
UK Physical
WEEK 15 - 5th
WEEK 16 - 9th
WEEK 17 - 16th
WEEK 18 - 5th
WEEK 19 - 4th
Split Fiction was released in March 2025, the same month as Assassin's Creed: Shadows.
PlayStation Store
APRIL
Assassins Creed Shadows
US - 9th
EU - 7th
Split Fiction
US - 13th
EU - 9th
Split Fiction has sold more than 2 million units in the first week and 4 million as of May 2025. The game is currently selling slower than Shadows.
You guys just make up random claims without looking up the data. lol
This game would easily pass 8 million if was on Game Pass and it's tracking well after launch.
calico
Member
If we want to set aside 'woke' (and it is not really a culture war thing per se, the protagonists simply don't appeal to enough of their audience), I think that splitting the abilities of the traditional AC protagonist (godlike at combat, stealth and mobility) across two protagonists is a fundamentally flawed idea. It is contrary to what allowed AC to break beyond the stealth genre niche and go huge in the first place.
If they really wanted to follow the two protagonist approach, it should have been a single button press to instantly tag them in and out. I still think that's not ideal, but creating a system where you literally cannot do x because you aren't playing as the character who can do x is not AC, it is anti-AC.
PeteBull
Member
When we know Indiana barely sold and still got 4m players coz of gamepass, thats ez to make proper guestimate thats how many premium subs of gamepass there is, since only premium allows u to get day1 games, lets assume out of those 4m players 3,5m were from gamepass, add 3,5m players from gamepass to current players AC:S got and how many we got? Below 8m like i stated. And thats not even taking into consideration free on gamepass would reduce ubisoft premium players and normal sales by a lotIndiana Jones was able to reach 4 million players, and the sales were terrible.
PS Store
US: 21st
Germany: 15th
UK: 19th
France: 16th
Spain: 17th
UK Physical
WEEK 15 - 5th
WEEK 16 - 9th
WEEK 17 - 16th
WEEK 18 - 5th
WEEK 19 - 4th
Split Fiction was released in March 2025, the same month as Assassin's Creed: Shadows.
PlayStation Store
APRIL
Assassins Creed Shadows
US - 9th
EU - 7th
Split Fiction
US - 13th
EU - 9th
Split Fiction has sold more than 2 million units in the first week and 4 million as of May 2025. The game is currently selling slower than Shadows.
You guys just make up random claims without looking up the data. lol
This game would easily pass 8 million if was on Game Pass and it's tracking well after launch.
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Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Yes and then nothing for months from ND. We had one data point. Ubisoft didn't even reveal Valhalla's sales. For Shadows, we have 1M and 3M players. I think they announced 2M, but I'm not sure. Point is, no publisher announces every million milestone and Ubisoft was even more tight-lipped with Valhalla's numbers.
Not sure where you got this? Circana?
I'm saying, no one knows. Even the 3M figure is somewhat nebulous because of Ubisoft+ Premium on Xbox and PC. We have too little data to go on one way or another, so making up numbers and claiming they're factual is just culture war bullshit.
DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
That's not how it would work. Assassin's Creed is a bigger video game title.When we know Indiana barely sold and still got 4m players coz of gamepass, thats ez to make proper guestimate thats how many premium subs of gamepass there is, since only premium allows u to get day1 games, lets assume out of those 4m players 3,5m were from gamepass, add 3,5m players from gamepass to current players AC:S got and how many we got? Below 8m like i stated. And thats not even taking into consideration free on gamepass would reduce ubisoft premium players and normal sales by a lot
Assassin's Creed is also available on more platforms. The chances of reaching more players are higher.
Kenpachii
Member
Grok estimation is even worse for AC Shadows.
Budget: 350 million dollar
Sales number so far: 1.75 million copies
MEGA FLOP
WIth there recent flops from other titles i wouldn't be shocked if that number needs to be way higher then just cover costs of the game. The whole company rests on it it seems like.
CosmicComet
Member
AC Shadows has like the longest credits ever just to be the most mid game ever.
Teams can be 30-100 people and put out masterpieces as clair obscure showed.
You don't need a bunch of redundant people and fake positions eating into your budget.
Teams can be 30-100 people and put out masterpieces as clair obscure showed.
You don't need a bunch of redundant people and fake positions eating into your budget.
Just block everyone and move on. It seems like discussion with yourself is the only one you can hold.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Pretty much quantity over quality. Huge bloated game that overstays its welcome every time.
There was a thread recently asking people if they finished Shadows and a good chunk of them said they got bored and dropped it.
calico
Member
They did 1,2,3 then stopped. I do think once enough time passes '4m players' probably does become a negative announcement rather than a positive announcement, in which case they might not be inclined to announce it even if they have passed it.
From the (Circana/NPD) US Top 20 for that year and from the sales announcements of the games it beat.
iirc the only early indicator we had from Ubisoft for Valhalla was that it had outperformed AC3 (and thus every other AC), and I believe we may have had early sales announcements for AC3 we could infer from. I also believe some time later they made another statement that actually it did not beat AC3 for copies sold when considering a longer launch window, but that it still made more $$ (due to mtx).
Topher
Identifies as young
Grok estimation is even worse for AC Shadows.
Budget: 350 million dollar
Sales number so far: 1.75 million copies
MEGA FLOP
I don't think anyone has suggested that Shadows would "break even" at 2.4 million sold. Telling that this "pirat_nation" fails to include the prompt. Two can play that game:
Of course, that is bullshit.
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thismeinteil
Member
Can't believe you bring up TLOU2, like that helps your case. It sold over 4M in its first couple days, only to take almost two more years and plenty of discounts to sell 6M more. And this at a time when PS4 sequels to the PS3 games were massively outselling their predecessors.
Uncharted 4 sold 8.7M in 7 months, ultimately selling 18.6M copies. GOW sold 5M its first month, took a year to hit 10M, and ultimately sold 23M copies. Not only was TLOU a bigger hit than Uncharted 3 or GOW3 on PS3, TLOU2 had a MUCH larger install base to sell to.
Even a new IP like Ghost of Tsushima was able to trade blow for blow with TLOU2 and has sold 13M. Pretty sad when TLOU2 started out with the most hype, easily selling the most of any Sony game ever in its opening weekend, only to have to crawl to 10M over 2 years. It should have easily crossed 25M by now.
So was TLOU2 a flop? Nope, and no one claimed it was. But, what is true is it massively underperformed. It left A LOT of money on the table just to virtue signal. Why do you think Sony is in no rush for TLOU3, with Druckman saying there probably won't be one? Why do you think the 2nd season of TLOU, that follows TLOU2, has lower TV and user ratings than the first season?
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Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
It doesn't even help my case because I don't need it. Ubisoft outright didn't announce sales figures for Valhalla beyond 1.8M players at one point. The assumption that every million milestone must be reported is not only false, but aggressively stupid. Look at the other AC games for precedents. Is Ubisoft behaving differently with the Shadows reports compared to Valhalla? No, they aren't, so there's no conspiracies at play. Their numbers could be horrible for all we know, but we don't have enough to go on. They could also be solid, but once again, we lack information. 3 million players reported almost 2 months ago means nothing and they were radio silent with Valhalla besides talks about revenues/profits.
Lunarorbit
Member
It's a flop. They spent a ton of time and money on this. This is their flagship release for this quarter. Their stock is in the toilet.
Ghost of yotei is coming out relatively soon which will kill sales. This isn't Odyssey or origins. Instead of taking their own advice about not releasing an ass creed every year they released mirage last year and shadows now after a delay.
They announced a shit load of new ass creeds and are releasing black flag again. It's oversaturation. The same way gaas has been failing is the same reason here: too much 3rd person competition, lack of innovating on ideas, delays, and yearly releases. Ubisoft can't sustain this pace. They aren't and never have been Capcom or Konami.
The studio is toast
Wilhelm_85
Gold Member
But what if it's really that simple? Or rather, they just completely fumbled their long-anticipated attempt at a Japan setting in countless ways, with the Yasuke bullshit just being the most prominent piece, and that pushed away a lot of people who otherwise would have been interested.
I hope this fails hard enough for Ubisoft to repent and change how they approach game development for this series but not enough to completely tank the company.
thismeinteil
Member
The big difference is with this release they wanted to own the "chuds." You can see that in the fact that the influencer they spent the most on was Hassan. A guy who doesn't play many games, but mostly talks politics and is far Left. They were trying to pump as much positive info about the game as possible.
They also set the precedent themselves announcing each 1M player milestone for this game. You don't think if it was constantly rising they wouldn't be pumping out 4M, then 5M, then 6M, just to own those incels they hate so much?
And what about the investor call? Game has been out for months and they only focus on a couple Day One "numbers." No wonder their stock dropped so much that day.
Astray
Member
How did they get lucky when Yotei isn't even out in their launch window? Also it's not woke whatsoever so no clue where that is coming from.
The problem for Ubisoft isn't that this game flopped, it's that everything else flopped.
Just look at this list of big AAA games, all published in 2020 and after (source):
2020
Hyper Scape? Flop.
Watch Dogs: Legion? Flop.
Immortals: Fenix Rising? Flop.
2022
Rainbow Six Extraction? Flop.
Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope? Flop
2023
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora? Flop.
2024
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown? Flop.
Skull and Bones? Flop.
XDefiant? Flop.
Star Wars Outlaws? Flop.
Consider that each of these is at least $50m, and that all these releases are supposed to have their long tail sales helping the company with revenue in addition to new AAA revenue, instead they were money-losers from the get-go! It gets even worse because going through that list, there are dozens of titles coming out that I have never even heard of!
Ubisoft needs like 3 successes like Shadows a year to be able to turn around that ship. 1-2 hit games every 3-4 years cannot cut it when you have almost 20k employees to pay.. And they're not even getting that!
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Audiophile
Member
Best thing that can happen in my eyes in terms of the games -- namely Assassin's Creed -- is they eventually crumble, the IP gets sold off and the stars align with a quality, focused dev team under another company taking it on. A team who appreciate the original games and make a successor that's very much a love letter to the ACI, ACII & ACB days, and to a lesser extent, the ACR & ACU days.
Maybe, if at all, that's 10, 20yrs from now, but I'd love to see it one day...
These bland cookie-cutter RPGs set in large open areas can go suck a lemon, I wanna see dense, rich living worlds full of hustle and bustle, rooftops I can jump across. Charm in the story and characters, atmosphere in the environment and a distinct soundtrack that ties it all together.
Maybe, if at all, that's 10, 20yrs from now, but I'd love to see it one day...
These bland cookie-cutter RPGs set in large open areas can go suck a lemon, I wanna see dense, rich living worlds full of hustle and bustle, rooftops I can jump across. Charm in the story and characters, atmosphere in the environment and a distinct soundtrack that ties it all together.
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calico
Member
Because the marketing for it began. If it had offered a non-woke alternative to Shadows, more would have decided to just wait and get that instead, but they got lucky and it didn't.
ValiantInstance
Member
What does it do particularly different that you haven't seen a million times already? It's another in a long line of cookie cutter Ubisoft open world games and the writing gets more braindead by the year.
ValiantInstance
Member
In my head canon the series died with Desmond. Black Flag is a spinoff.Best thing that can happen in my eyes in terms of the games -- namely Assassin's Creed -- is they eventually crumble, the IP gets sold off and the stars align with a quality, focused dev team under another company taking it on. A team who appreciate the original games and make a successor that's very much a love letter to the ACI, ACII & ACB days, and to a lesser extent, the ACR & ACU days.
Maybe, if at all, that's 10, 20yrs from now, but I'd love to see it one day...
These bland cookie-cutter RPGs set in large open areas can go suck a lemon, I wanna see dense, rich living worlds full of hustle and bustle, rooftops I can jump across. Charm in the story and characters, atmosphere in the environment and a distinct soundtrack that ties it all together.
Denton
Member
You are right that Ubisoft has a very impressive string of flops on its resume for the last few years (and you still missed some, like canceled Division Heartland, or stuck in dev hell Beyond good and evil or PoP remake), but do you really think it is likely that AC Shadows actually reached profit? With its (probable) budget and known numbers? I just don't see how it could reach it anytime soon. Even if it sold better than Outlaws or Avatar (which it obviously did).
Astray
Member
What exactly was woke about it though?
Maybe not yet, but it's not meant to sell for 2 months and completely stop, they're gonna be putting it on sale and in bundles for years. It has certainly sold far more copies at full price though. Digital copies mean that titles have super, super long tails in circulation before they're considered "done".
The big issue is Ubisoft has not replenished its stock of "viable hits" for years now (Shadows is like their 1st big hit since 2020), and most of the previous hits (like say, AC Origins or Odyssey) cannot sell unless they're essentially being given away at $10 or less. Long dev times mean that things might not improve much on that front until 2026/2027.
StreetsofBeige
Member
They also had that roller blade game and I'm pretty sure some noname obscure PC shooter that came and went. I forget the name and if it and whether it was F2P or paid.......... (edit.... it's Hyper Scape as you wrote. I had to google the name to make sure that's what I meant)
Problem with UBI is they got so many employees so they got to churn out games fast because there's only so many AC and Farcry kind of games they can make at a time.
Many of their games are also stretched thin with hardly any marketing sinking the game at the first step. So somehow they got money to make the game, but no money to keep it going in terms of marketing/advertising.
They also got a knack lately for DEI-ing a big name game like SW and AC, which just tanks sales. If they did that for a small game, it wont be as bad as sales werent expected to be big to begin with. But when they do it a big selling franchise, the negative sales effect will be huge.
calico
Member
Switching to a DEI protagonist. If there's anyone left at Ubisoft with common sense, they breathed a huge sigh of relief when the trailer dropped and it was revealed that Ghost had gone in the same direction as Shadows. Ubisoft put themselves in a position where Ghost had a clear shot to curb stomp Shadows just by revealing a sequel with a role-appropriate protagonist, but it didn't come to pass.
Denton
Member
You are right that games usually sell for a long time...if they have great word of mouth, which I am not really seeing with ACS. Hence my skepticism that it will reach profitability anytime soon. I really doubt Ubisoft is particularly happy with its performance.
Pasta la Vista
Member
They completely fucked Desmond's arc. Not only that, Connor was the most unlikeable protagonist and he was this massive lumbering beast that felt so out of place in the role.
I was so so hyped for AC3, during the PS3 era it was the first game I ever bought digitally just because I wanted to get into the game ASAP. Ended up having to force myself to finish it then ultimately let down with how they did Desmond dirty just so they could kill him off and basically reboot the franchise.
Personally I wasn't a huge fan of Blackflag, too much naval combat shit got in the way of the parts I really wanted to play.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
I think this is a very valid point. Ubi's last declared "player" number was 3 mil. And so we know it sold less. Based on various options (well outlined in the quote), top line for sales should be around 2.5 mil as an estimate.
It "seems" that Ubisoft converted these "payers" into higher tiers of spending judging by their other reports, but it's impossible to accurately determine that. And I think this game won't have nearly the legs of the previous games, but of course that's a big unknown.
I am just surprised Tencent ponied up so much cash, but I guess a)They have RMB to spare and b)Not many big publishers left they could buy.
Kotaro
Member
After the first year, most non-Nintendo games are heavily discounted.