A new report from Insider Gaming claims that Ubisoft continues to deal with a lot of internal turmoil.
While Insider Gaming doesn’t actually bring this up, we feel it is necessary context to remind readers of the troubles stemming from 2020. Ubisoft’s own Wikipedia page documents the wave of accusations of sexual misconduct & harassment targeted against the company.
We won’t revisit all these details, but aside from the loss of trust of Ubisoft employees towards management, we had learned along the way that the company had long fostered a toxic work environment, even among workers who did not experience misconduct. That relates heavily towards many of the details Insider Gaming does report on today.
Mismanagement issues in the company are well known. We have all had our fill writing about the delays of Ubisoft Singapore’s Skull & Bones, the seemingly insurmountable challenges surrounding Beyond Good & Evil 2, and the terrible restart of development for the Prince of Persia Remake. Ubisoft’s upcoming free-to-play shooter XDefiant has also seen constant delays from apparent scope creep, but that points to another issue in the company.
Another ongoing identified issue with the company is the way they chase gaming trends too late. They cancelled Ghost Recon: Frontline after finding fans were not on board with the franchise’s switch to battle royale. Subsequently, they gave up on Ubisoft Quartz after finding the market was no longer there.
Currently they are going for live service extraction shooters, with the likes of The Division Heartland, Far Cry Project Maverick, and an upcoming original WWII themed shooter. In fairness to Ubisoft, they are about as late to the live service party as Sony is, with none of their shooters still getting released yet.
Insider Gaming uncovered one particularly disliked policy: the Return to Office mandate they are slowly rolling out across all their studios, all around the world. The mandate requires workers to spend at least two days in the office moving forward.
They started instituting this policy last September, but this February the rule will roll out for the Global Publishing division. We shouldn’t have to explain to you readers how return to office mandates have wreaked the lives of workers who had gotten used to telecommuting throughout the pandemic.
But Insider Gaming’s sources believe management’s unpopular and counterproductive actions are reflecting on their own products. If that’s true, the effect on Ubisoft’s games is somewhat mixed.
For example, the recently released Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an early highlight of 2024, with a Metacritic score of 88. It is believed to have made a modest $ 15 million in revenue at 300,000 concurrent players. That definitely could be better, but it may also mean it has already broken even, with its modest scale.
A bigger fumble is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which should have benefited by association from the coinciding release of the film Avatar: The Way of Water. At a peak of 1.9 million players, it is estimated to have made $ 133 million in revenue, far below other Ubisoft original titles. For example, Ubisoft’s The Division made $ 330 million on its launch week.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is generally seen as a return to form for the franchise and with 5 million players, has made an estimated $ 250 million. Ubisoft’s near future is Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Red, the latter of which is expected to be both unveiled and released this year.
If the full range of allegations are true, the picture that really emerges around Ubisoft is of a company that has seen decades long success in spite of itself, not one that has gone astray in recent years. So as long as they can pull enough things together to keep releasing games, the company could keep going indefinitely as it is. But we hope accountability is coming for the sake of the people who were harmed by this company, as those investigations and lawsuits continue under the radar.
