Just minutes before it was set to deliver its financial results for the first half of its 2025-26 fiscal year, Ubisoft mashed the brakes on the whole thing, postponing the release of its results to an unspecified future date. The company also requested that European exchange Euronext halt trading of the company’s shares and bonds from November 14 until the publication of its results.

  • TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    Ubisoft is a textbook example of what happens when you pin your companies revenue on a small handful of IPs and milk them to the absolute fucking limit. I like assassins creed, but I’ve played enough of them for the rest of my life. Make something new my dudes.

    • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      They have so many great IPs that are just gathering dust or in development hell, yet they keep milking the same few games every year.

    • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      You cheer this on, but what are the odds that saudi arabia buys them up?

      How many things do you want owned by the worst country bar none for human rights? (yes I am aware the US is racing to catch up, but is nowhere near as bad per capita).

      • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Yeah, it happens to prevent a mass sell-off because of speculation.

        Even if the news is positive, postponing is enough to make people speculate, so it’s a valid reason to halt trading.

        Although I doubt it’s gonna be positive news for shareholders.

      • Kjell@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        It happens sometimes. Usually it is when there are rumors that will have a significant impact on the stock. In that case the stock can be halted until the company gives a statement about it. I’m not sure if it is the company can halt it, I think they can request it and provide information why it should be halted and then it is up to the stock exchange to determine. And the stock exchange has its own rules for when to halt the trade.

        I expect Ubisoft to update during the next week or perhaps already during the weekend and then the trading can continue.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      14 hours ago

      Oh it has, but the implications become clear when you look at the ones that did. Like evergrand…

  • zerofk@lemmy.zip
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    18 hours ago

    Either way, he recommended that everyone “freak the fuck out for the next few days and speculate as much as possible until they announce something,”

    Advice after my own heart. Freaking out and speculating are always the best move.

  • dbtng@eviltoast.org
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    20 hours ago

    The only games in my Steam library that I can’t play are Ubisoft.
    Fuk Ubi. Forever. I would be happy if they went under.

    • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The only Ubi game I play is Just Dance Now. Sadly I can’t think of a non-Ubi alternative to that gameplay :/

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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        15 hours ago

        The rabbit hole goes deep on this one.

        I found it surreally hard to find new dance game - until I discovered that much of the player community had (I guess?) moved to an open source game engine called StepMania.

        I play StepMania happily enough, now. It is nice how many different songs I can now add with community contributed step configurations.

    • mirshafie@europe.pub
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      19 hours ago

      The Sands of Time series and Beyond Good and Evil are incredible, and they’re on gog. I’m thinking of getting them, but I have no desire whatsoever for anything that Ubisoft, EA or Activision makes.

  • Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    All you had to do was make good and fun games. How do you fuck THAT up??? Especially when you were already doing it.

    And not to mention…

    “Hey guys, what can we make that people really want?”

    “I hear people all the time over the last decade asking for a new Splinter Cell game.”

    “Yeah, ok, Brad. We’ll call that plan B… Every year with this asshole. Does anyone have any REAL ideas???”

    Because fuck gamers, right, Ubi? Expedition 33 showed the world what current games makers can do when pricks in suits arent around to muddy the waters. The quicker UBI folds, and all that talent leaves to make something that they actually want to make the better.

    • carlossurf@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      Nah fuck that if they make a new splinter cell game it would end up being open world with a cosmetic store

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      To be fair, they are too big.

      They just have too many employees and costs. The way they’re organized, they’re stuck with gigantic budget, milquetoast, broad appeal games just to attempt sales they need to break even, with all the inefficiency that comes at that team size… unless they fire a ton of people and split up the rest.


      My observation over the past decade is that “medium size” is the game dev sweet spot. Think Coffee Stain, Obsidian, and so on.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      They are also hellbent on infecting everything they touch with Denuvo malware. I haven’t bought anything of theirs in years for that reason alone.

      • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

        Oh wow you anger much less easily.

        I started boycotting when they started forcing uPlay even in Steam games.

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        I have a lifetime boycott of all things Ubisoft for this very reason. I bought game after game after game from the late 90’s until early 2000’s. 100% of them were legal purchases and with the CD in the drive… "please insert CD " error

        Then I became the lead developer for gameloft.com and saw how completely incompetent the French leadership of the company is. Absolute morons to the highest levels.

        Never another penny shall be conveyed to Ubi from my holdings.

        edit: You wanna know what I’m talking about? Ok. They import the director from France. He does not speak English, he does not speak Quebecois, which is very different than Parisian French. He has no knowledge of the games industry whatsoever, but is a cherished family friend. He cannot communicate with anybody in written or verbal ways. He shows up for work at 10am and takes 2 hour coffee with other “leadership” and then lunch. Then he comes back from a 2 hour lunch, and him and come C-Level turnip laugh at his Billy Bass for 30 minutes. I am not making any of this up. This man installs a friend he met into the position of Executive Producer. The man’s previous experience was managing an Esso gas station. No embellishment. So I’m the Sr dev and I’m the fucking acting director, account manager, game designer, executive producer, producer, technical producer, project manager, director of production, developer, creative director, QA lead, every god damned thing just to get some corny-ass games produced.

        edit2: Laughing at a Billy Bass. A Billy. Bass. Singing. Fish. Laughing at it uproariously.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      All you had to do was make good and fun games. How do you fuck THAT up???

      By treating their paying customers like worthless trash/criminals/scum/pirates/etc. Which is what Ubisoft has spent the past 10 years doing.