Ubisoft

Ubisoft Entertainment SA ( ; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include Anno, Assassin's Creed, Driver, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy's, and Watch Dogs. The company was initially founded in 1984¹ by Yves Guillemot, who continues to serve as its chairman and CEO, and his four brothers to provide computing software for the French agricultural sector, but moved into the more lucrative sector of video games by 1987. Its first achieved commercial and critical success was the 1995 platform game Rayman, allowing the company to expand worldwide, particularly in Shanghai, Canada, and other European countries. In the early 2000s, Ubisoft acquired the Tom Clancy's and Prince of Persia series, the later which ultimately led to creation of the Assassin's Creed series and other open world game series like Far Cry. The company successfully fended off a hostile takeover by French media conglomerate Vivendi by 2018, part of which came from Chinese media company Tencent acquiring a portion of company shares. Tencent continued to invest in Ubisoft through the 2020s, and further increased their investment to give the Guillimots and Tencent majority control of the company as to prevent a shareholder takeover.…

Ubisoft Entertainment SA ( ; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include Anno, Assassin's Creed, Driver, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy's, and Watch Dogs. The company was initially founded in 1984 by Yves Guillemot, who continues to serve as its chairman and CEO, and his four brothers to provide computing software for the French agricultural sector, but moved into the more lucrative sector of video games by 1987. Its first achieved commercial and critical success was the 1995 platform game Rayman, allowing the company to expand worldwide, particularly in Shanghai, Canada, and other European countries. In the early 2000s, Ubisoft acquired the Tom Clancy's and Prince of Persia series, the later which ultimately led to creation of the Assassin's Creed series and other open world game series like Far Cry. The company successfully fended off a hostile takeover by French media conglomerate Vivendi by 2018, part of which came from Chinese media company Tencent acquiring a portion of company shares. Tencent continued to invest in Ubisoft through the 2020s, and further increased their investment to give the Guillimots and Tencent majority control of the company as to prevent a shareholder takeover. With the larger investment from Tencent, Ubisoft underwent a major reorganisation in January 2026, dividing the company amount five creative houses, including Vantage Studios and Massive Entertainment, each overseeing specific series and organised to act self-sufficiently from the larger company. ===Financial concerns and major restructuring process (2023–present)=== Citing disappointing financial results in the previous quarter, Ubisoft cancelled another three previously unannounced games in January 2023. In an email to staff, Yves Guillemot told employees to take responsibility for the company's forthcoming projects, asking that "each of you be especially careful and strategic with your spending and initiatives, to ensure we're being as efficient and lean as possible", while also saying that "The ball is in your court to deliver this line-up on time and at the expected level of quality, and show everyone what we are capable of achieving." Union workers at Ubisoft Paris took issue with this message, calling for a strike and demanding higher salaries and improved working conditions. In August 2023, Ubisoft announced that it had reached a 15-year agreement with Microsoft to license the cloud gaming rights to Activision Blizzard titles; this came as part of efforts by Microsoft to receive approval from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The agreement would allow Activision Blizzard games to appear on Ubisoft+, and allow Ubisoft to sublicense the cloud gaming rights for the games to third-parties. As part of a cost reduction plan, Ubisoft reduced its number of employees from 20,279 in 2022 to 19,410 in September 2023. In November 2023, Ubisoft laid off 124 employees¹ from its VFX and IT teams. In March 2024, Ubisoft laid off 45 employees¹ from its publishing teams. Another 45 employees were cut between its San Francisco and Cary, North Carolina offices in August 2024. By the end of September 2024, Ubisoft had reduced its number of employees to 18,666. In 2024, Ubisoft released multiple games that experienced underperforming sales and declining playerbases post-launch, which included Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Skull and Bones, XDefiant, and Star Wars Outlaws, causing its stock to fall to nearly its lowest levels in the previous decade. As a result, the company announced it was launching an investigation of its development cycles to focus on a "player-centric approach", and opted to delay its next major flagship game, Assassin's Creed Shadows, from November 2024 to February 2025¹. On 16 October 2024, over 700 Ubisoft employees in France began a three-day strike, protesting the company's requirement to return to the office three days a week. The strike, organized by the STJV union, involved Ubisoft's offices in Paris, Montpellier, Lyon, and Annecy. Workers expressed dissatisfaction over a lack of flexibility, salary increases, and profit-sharing, which they believe the company has ignored. Ubisoft has yet to address the union's concerns. In December 2024, Ubisoft announced that its free-to-play game XDefiant would be shutting down in June 2025, less than a year after its initial release. They also announced that its lead development studio Ubisoft San Francisco, and Ubisoft Osaka, were to close, resulting in up to 277 employees¹ being laid off. In January 2025, Ubisoft closed the Ubisoft Leamington studio and downsized several other studios, resulting in up to 185 staff being laid off as part of ongoing cost-cutting measures. Around September 2024, one of Ubisoft's shareholders, AJ Investments, stated it was seeking to have the company purchased by a private equity firm and would push out the Guillemot family and Tencent from ownership of the company. Bloomberg News reported in October 2024 that the Guillemots and Tencent were considering this and other alternatives to shift ownership of the company in light of the recent poor financial performance. Later reports in December 2024 suggested that Tencent was seeking to capture a majority stake in Ubisoft and take the company private, while still giving the Guillemot family control of Ubisoft. In January 2025, it was reported that the Guillemots had also considered carving out certain Ubisoft assets into a new subsidiary, which would allow Tencent to make targeted investments to increase the company's overall value. Ubisoft announced this subsidiary on 27 March 2025, devoted to its flagship Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises; the subsidiary will consist of the franchises' assets and development teams, and have dedicated leadership. Tencent will make a €1.16 billion investment in the new subsidiary, giving it a 25% stake at a valuation of €4 billion; the value of this subsidiary is larger than the current valuation of Ubisoft, which is based on Tencent's belief that these properties are undervalued. Ubisoft stated that the subsidiary would "focus on building game ecosystems designed to become truly evergreen and multi-platform". The new subsidiary, Vantage Studios, was unveiled in October 2025, with Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot to be co-CEOs. With its financial quarterly report on July 2025, Ubisoft stated that it will reorganize into "creative houses" that will "enhance quality, focus, autonomy and accountability while fostering closer connections with players", with the previously announced Tencent-backed subsidiary as an example of such a division. At the end of August, Ubisoft sold the rights to five of its titles, including Grow Home and Cold Fear, to Atari SA. During October 2025, Ubisoft said it was looking to cut about 60 positions at Ubisoft Redlynx, and pushed for voluntarily layoffs at Massive. Just prior to releasing its half-year financial report in November 2025, Ubisoft announced it was delaying the report, and further requested that Euronext stop all trading of its shares, which was explained to employees as "to limit unnecessary speculation and market volatility during this short delay". On 21 November, Ubisoft released its half-year financial report, where it announced that it had reduced its number of employees to 17,097 by the end of September 2025. Ubisoft acquired March of Giants, a free-to-play MOBA developed by Amazon Games's Montreal studio, in December 2025 in the wake of Amazon cutting back on internal game development. Ubisoft's acquisition included members of its development team, including senior production lead Alex Parizeau and creative director Xavier Marquis, formerly of Rainbow Six Siege. In December 2025, approximately 60 workers at Ubisoft Halifax voted to unionize with CWA Canada, forming the first union of Ubisoft workers in North America. On 7 January 2026, it was announced that Ubisoft was closing the studio, affecting 70 people; Ubisoft claimed that the decision to close the studio was made prior to their unionization. In January 2026, Ubisoft reported that it was undergoing a major restructuring, organizing the company into five creative houses, each "will be shaped by distinct creative 'genres' led by dedicated high-profile, incentivized teams with a unique set of expertise in those genres" and "have full financial ownership and account for economic performance." With the announcement, the company also cancelled development of six games, including the planned Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, and said layoffs are expected as part of this reorganization. Yves Guillemot said that after COVID, Ubisoft had taken on several projects in anticipation of growing market demand that never materialized, and this change was needed to recoup around $200 million in costs. Following this, Ubisoft laid off about 100 staff at Red Storm Entertainment in March 2026 and terminated further game development at the studio. The company cancelled Alterra, a game mashing up elements of Animal Crossing and Minecraft, that was never formally announced but rumored to be in development since 2024. No additional layoffs were planned around this. By the end of March 2026, Ubisoft had reduced their number of employees to 16,590. On 19 June 2026, Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot and a flight instructor died at the age of 69 when his Cessna 421 Golden Eagle crashed into a field shortly before 6:00 p.m. while on approach to the La Baule-Escoublac Airfield in La Baule-Escoublac, Pays de la Loire, France. ===Game engines=== ==Litigation== ===2020 sexual misconduct accusations and dismissals=== ===Other lawsuits=== In 2008, Ubisoft sued Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM), a DVD duplication company for $25 million plus damages for the leak and distribution of the PC version of Assassin's Creed. The lawsuit claims that OEM did not take proper measures to protect its product as stated in its contract with Ubisoft. The complaint alleges that OEM admitted to all the problems in the complaint. In April 2012¹, Ubisoft was sued by John L. Beiswenger, the author of the book Link who alleged copyright infringement for using his ideas in the Assassin's Creed franchise. He demanded $5.25 million in damages and a halt to the release of Assassin's Creed III which was set to be released in October 2012, along with any future games that allegedly contain his ideas. On 30 May 2012, Beiswenger dropped the lawsuit. Beiswenger was later quoted as saying he believes "authors should vigorously defend their rights in their creative works", and suggested that Ubisoft's motion to block future lawsuits from Beiswenger hints at its guilt. In December 2014, Ubisoft offered a free game from its catalogue of recently released titles to compensate the season pass owners of Assassin's Creed Unity due to its buggy launch. The terms offered with the free game revoked the user's right to sue Ubisoft for the buggy launch of the game. In May 2020, Ubisoft sued Chinese developer Ejoy and Apple and Google over Ejoy's Area F2 game which Ubisoft contended was a carbon copy of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. Ubisoft sought copyright action against Ejoy, and financial damages against Apple and Google for allowing Area F2 to be distributed on their mobile app stores and profiting from its microtransactions. In November 2024, two Californians—Matthew Cassell and Alan Liu—filed a class action lawsuit against Ubisoft in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, after Ubisoft announced the shutdown of The Crew servers. Cassell and Liu accused the company of misleading players into believing that their purchases of the game were permanent instead of buying limited licenses and for "falsely represent[ing]" that the physical copies contained the game's files instead of simply a key to unlock the DRM for the game. In January 2026, former Ubisoft worker Marc-Alexis Côté said he will sue the company for CAD 1.3 Million over a forced exit from the company. He claimed he was replaced and that he learned in the summer of 2025 it was looking for a new boss for the Assassin's Creed franchise, he was told the role was not to be based in Canada and instead in France, the lawsuit allegedly claimed that he was offered a "Head of Production" role, Ubisoft told him not to go to work on 13 October, a day before he was departed, his lawsuit also asks for 75K$ CAD in damages and severance pay In April 2026, French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir with support from Stop Killing Games sued Ubisoft over the shutdown of The Crew, asserting Ubisoft misled consumers on the permanence of availability for the game.

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