Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed that they are pushing through with the plans to make a new subsidiary.
In March of this year, Ubisoft revealed plans to make a new subsidiary which will be 25 % owned by TenCent. The subsidiary will publish their biggest franchises, like Assassin’s Creed, and the big studios behind these games will fall under it.
We reported on Charlie Guillemot returning to the company last May as part of the ‘internal transformation committee.’ Yesterday, Ubisoft’s announced that the subsidiary will have two CEOs, in Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot.
But they made a bigger announcement in private, to their employees. As reported by Insider Gaming, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said this in an internal letter:
I’m writing to you from the Montreal studio to officially announce the creation of the new subsidiary that has been discussed over the past few weeks.
It felt important to me to be close to the teams and talents who contributed to the extraordinary rise of the incredible brands Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, and who are at the heart of this new structure.
This subsidiary is part of Ubisoft’s broader reorganization, which we will structure into Creative Houses. It is the first in a new organizational ecosystem.
Yves went on to explain how Derennes and Guillemot will lead the subsidiary, and reassured employees that these new plans will work out for everyone involved. He also explained the extent of TenCent’s involvement in the subsidiary:
In terms of our collaboration with Tencent on the subsidiary, it will take the form of the one we can have with top-notch consultants. They have just announced the creation of a dedicated team for this mission. Christophe, Charlie, and their teams will benefit from Tencent’s guidance and expertise but will remain fully autonomous to act on it or not.
The big takeaway from this letter is that Ubisoft was still figuring out how they would form the new subsidiary and reorganize the company around it last March. So there was still some uncertainty if these plans were going to go through for about four months.
We assume fans will be reassured that TenCent won’t be intruding in the subsidiary’s activities too much. This is already TenCent’s MO, as they also allow Riot Games, which they fully own, to operate autonomously as well.
Of course, we don’t know if Ubisoft will be ultimately vindicated about these plans until we see it become a success, or not. We would like to err on the side of hope on this one, not only for the sake of our favorite games, but for the developers who make these games at Ubisoft.
