Of the many, MANY game developers and publishers who are struggling right now, you could point to Ubisoft being among the “lowest of the low.” They are a company that tried to do several “big swings” with key IPs, and they didn’t land. Or, at the most, they didn’t land as much as they had hoped. This continued a rather distressing trend of the publisher not delivering on promises and wasting money where it shouldn’t have, not to mention releasing games before they were ready. As such, its stock prices tanked, and rumors started to go around that the company’s investors would’ve been fine with it being sold off.
Sure enough, earlier today, there was a rumor that Tencent was up for potentially buying the publisher, and almost immediately after that news broke, the stock prices went back up. According to Yahoo Finance, which you can watch in real-time, the Ubisoft stock price went up 30%, which is quite a big jump in context. The reason for this is obvious: if there were to be a sale, those with stock in the company would gain more value in its stocks, and that could be very beneficial to all involved, especially if they wanted to sell the stocks while they were at a new peak. “Buy low, sell high,” as the saying goes.
To be clear, there hasn’t been any confirmation that Tencent is seriously interested in this, nor has Ubisoft itself stated that they are seriously looking into getting bought out. Plus, if we’re being honest here, Tencent isn’t the most beloved company in the world, as they are one of many who have been attempting to buy up lots of gaming companies to make bank off them. That has led to several layoffs over the years, including some serious layoffs within Riot Games in 2024.
It’s true that Ubisoft isn’t doing much better, as pretty much every game that it released in 2024 has been a flop or had a lukewarm reception, and the games it released in 2023 weren’t as successful as past titles or even made waves. Its CEO has been at the head of many of these controversies, including claiming its long-delayed pirate title was a “AAAA game” even though it didn’t measure up to that in any respect. Then, more recently, he blamed gamers for “not liking solid games anymore,” referring to the company’s latest release, even though, by its own admission, it’ll spend the next few months trying to “make it better.”
So, no matter what happens next, the company needs to shape up or be shipped out.
