Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French
video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer.
They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ( ...
headquartered in
Saint-Mandé
Saint-Mandé () is a high-end commune of the Val-de-Marne department in Île-de-France in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. It is one of the smallest communes of the Île-de-France by land area, but i ...
with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include ''
Assassin's Creed'', ''
Far Cry
''Far Cry'' is an anthology franchise of first-person shooter games, all of which have been published by Ubisoft. The first game, '' Far Cry'', was developed by Crytek to premiere their CryEngine software, and released in March 2004. Subsequen ...
'', ''
For Honor
''For Honor'' is an action game developed and published by Ubisoft. The game allows players to play the roles of historical forms of soldiers and warriors such as knights, samurai, vikings, controlled using a third-person perspective. The game ...
'', ''
Just Dance'', ''
Prince of Persia'', ''
Rabbids
''Rabbids'', also known as ''Raving Rabbids'' (French: ''Lapins Crétins''), is a multimedia franchise developed and published by Ubisoft. It originated as a spin-off video game from the ''Rayman'' video game series, 2006's '' Rayman Raving Rabb ...
'', ''
Rayman
''Rayman'' is a franchise of platform video games, created by video game designer Michel Ancel for Ubisoft. Since the release of the original '' Rayman'' game in 1995, the series has produced a total of 45 games across multiple platforms.
The ...
'', ''
Tom Clancy's'', and ''
Watch Dogs
''Watch Dogs'' (stylized as ''WATCH_DOGS'') is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Ubisoft, and developed primarily by its Montreal and Toronto studios using the Disrupt game engine. The series' eponymous first title was rel ...
''.
History
Origins and first decade (1986–1996)
By the 1980s, the Guillemot family had established themselves as a support business for farmers in the
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
province of France and other regions, including into the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The five sons of the family – Christian, Claude, Gérard, Michel, and
Yves – helped with the company's sales, distribution, accounting, and management with their parents before university. All 5 gained business experience while at university, which they brought back to the family business after graduating. The brothers came up with the idea of diversification to sell other products of use to farmers; Claude began with selling
CD audio media. Later, the brothers expanded to computers and additional software that included video games.
In the 1980s, they saw that the costs of buying computers and software from a French supplier was more expensive than buying the same materials in the United Kingdom and shipping to France, and came upon the idea of a mail-order business around computers and software. Their mother said they could start their own business this way as long as they managed it themselves and equally split its shares among the 5 of them. Their first business was Guillemot Informatique, founded in 1984.
They originally only sold through mail order, and then were getting orders from French retailers, since they were able to undercut other suppliers by up to 50% of the cost of some titles. By 1986, this company was earning about 40 million
French franc
The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...
s (roughly at that time).
In 1985, the brothers established Guillemot Corporation for similar distribution of computer hardware.
As demand continued, the brothers recognised that video game software was becoming a lucrative property and decided that they needed to get into the industry's development side, already having insight on the publication and distribution side.
Ubi Soft (formally named Ubi Soft Entertainment S.A.) was founded by the brothers on 28 March 1986.
The name "Ubi Soft" was selected to represent "ubiquitous" software.
Ubi Soft initially operated out of offices in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, moving to
Créteil
Créteil () is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Créteil is the ''préfecture'' (capital) of the Val-de-Marne department as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Crà ...
by June 1986. The brothers used the chateau in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
as the primary space for development, hoping the setting would lure developers, as well as to have a better way to manage expectations of their developers.
The company hired Nathalie Saloud as manager, Sylvie Hugonnier as director of marketing and
public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...
, and programmers, though Hugonnier had left the company by May 1986 to join Elite Software. Games published by Ubi Soft in 1986 include ''
Zombi'', ''Ciné Clap'', ''Fer et Flamme'', ''Masque'', and Graphic City, a
sprite editing programme.
As their first game, ''Zombi'' had sold 5,000 copies by January 1987.
Ubi Soft also entered into distribution partnerships for the game to be released in Spain and
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
.
Ubi Soft started importing products from abroad for distribution in France, with 1987 releases including Elite Software's ''Commando'' and ''Ikari Warriors'', the former of which sold 15,000 copies by January 1987.
In 1988, Yves Guillemot was appointed as Ubi Soft's
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...
.
By 1988, the company had about 6 developers working from the chateau. These included
Michel Ancel
Michel Ancel (; born 29 March 1972) is a French video game designer. He is best known for creating the '' Rayman'' franchise and was the lead designer or director for several of the games, including ''Rayman Origins'' and its sequel ''Rayman Leg ...
, a teenager at the time noted for his animation skills,
and Serge Hascoët, who applied to be a video game tester for the company.
The costs of maintaining the chateau became more expensive, and the developers were given the option to relocate to Paris. Ancel's family which had moved to Brittany for his job could not afford the cost of living in Paris and returned to
Montpellier in southern France. The Guillemot brothers told Ancel to keep them abreast of anything he might come up with there.
Ancel returned with Frédéric Houde with a prototype of a game with animated features that caught the brothers' interest. Michel Guillemot decided to make the project a key one for the company, establishing a studio in
Montreuil to house over 100 developers in 1994, and targeting a line of
5th generation consoles such as the
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and th ...
and
PlayStation. Their game, ''
Rayman
''Rayman'' is a franchise of platform video games, created by video game designer Michel Ancel for Ubisoft. Since the release of the original '' Rayman'' game in 1995, the series has produced a total of 45 games across multiple platforms.
The ...
'', was released in 1995.
Yves managed Guillemot Informatique, making deals with
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
,
Sierra On-Line
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genr ...
and
MicroProse to distribute their games in France. Guillemot Informatique began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. They entered the video game distribution and wholesale markets and by 1993 had become the "largest" distributor of video games in France.
Worldwide growth (1996–2003)
In 1996, Ubi Soft listed its
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...
and raised over in funds to help them to expand the company.
Within 2 years, the company established worldwide studios in
Annecy (1996),
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
(1996),
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
(1997), and
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
(1998).
A difficulty that the brothers found was the lack of an intellectual property that would have a foothold in the United States market.
When "widespread growth" of the Internet arrived around 1999, the brothers decided to take advantage of this by founding game studios aimed at online
free-to-play
Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...
titles, including
GameLoft
Gameloft SE is a French video game publisher based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games with a special focus on the mobile games ma ...
; this allowed them to license the rights to Ubi Soft properties to these companies, increasing the share value of Ubi Soft five-fold. With the extra infusion of , they were able to then purchase
Red Storm Entertainment
Red Storm Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and studio of Ubisoft based in Cary, North Carolina. Founded in November 1996 between author Tom Clancy, manager Doug Littlejohns, and software development company Virtus Corpo ...
in 2000, giving them access to the ''
Tom Clancy's'' series of stealth and spy games.
Ubi Soft helped with Red Storm to continue to expand the series, bringing titles like ''
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon'' is a series of military tactical shooter video games published by Ubisoft. In the series, the player is in charge of a fictional, newly conceived squad of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers from Delta Company, 1st Ba ...
'' and ''
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six'' (often shortened to ''Rainbow Six'') is a tactical first-person shooter video game franchise by Ubisoft, based on the novel ''Rainbow Six'' by American author Tom Clancy. Critically and commercially successful, the ...
'' series.
The company got a foothold in the United States when it worked with
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
to develop ''
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell'' is a series of stealth action-adventure video games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels that were endorsed by Tom Clancy. The series follows Sam Fisher, a highly trained agent of a ...
'', an
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...
-exclusive title released in 2002 to challenge the PlayStation-exclusive ''Metal Gear Solid'' series, by combining elements of ''Tom Clancy's'' series with elements of an in-house developed game called ''The Drift''.
In March 2001, Gores Technology Group sold
The Learning Company
The Learning Company (TLC) was an educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and productivity ...
's entertainment division (which included games originally published by
Brøderbund,
Mattel Interactive
Mattel Interactive (Known as Mattel Media until 1999) was a video game publisher and software distributor.
History
Mattel originally founded the company as Mattel Media in February 1996, as an aim to expand into the multimedia unit by producing ...
,
Mindscape and
Strategic Simulations
Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit from its founding in 1979 to its dissolution in 1994. The company was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official compu ...
) to them. The sale included the rights to
intellectual properties
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
such as the ''
Myst
''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
'' and ''
Prince of Persia'' series. Ubisoft Montreal developed the ''Prince of Persia'' title into ''
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time'' released in 2003.
At the same time, Ubi Soft released ''
Beyond Good & Evil
''Beyond Good & Evil'' is a 2003 action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Xbox and GameCube platforms. The story follows the adventures of Jade, an investigative reporter and m ...
'', Ancel's project after ''Rayman''; it was one of Ubi Soft's first commercial "flop" at its release alongside a 2003 release market and which since has gained a
cult following.
Around 2001, Ubi Soft established its editorial department headed by Hascoët, initially named as editor in chief and later known as the company's Chief Content Officer. Hascoët had worked alongside Ancel on ''Rayman'' in 1995 to help refine the game, and saw the opportunity to apply that across all of Ubi Soft's games. Until 2019, most games published by Ubisoft was reviewed through the editorial department and personally by Hascoët.
Continued expansion (2003–2015)
On 9 September 2003, Ubi Soft announced that it would change its name to Ubisoft, and introduced a new logo known as "the swirl". In December 2004, gaming corporation
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm. Ubisoft referred to the purchase as "hostile" on EA's part. Ubisoft's brothers recognised they had not considered themselves within a competitive market, and employees had feared that an EA takeover would drastically alter the environment within Ubisoft. EA's CEO at the time,
John Riccitiello, assured Ubisoft the purchase was not meant as a hostile manoeuvre, and EA ended up selling the shares in 2010.
In February 2005, Ubisoft acquired the ''
NHL Rivals'', ''
NFL Fever'', ''
NBA Inside Drive
''NBA Inside Drive'' is a series of video games based on National Basketball Association, published by Microsoft Studios. Its main competition was ''NBA Live'', a series from Electronic Arts.
Games
NBA Inside Drive 2000
The first game in the s ...
'' and ''MLB Inside Pitch'' franchises from
Microsoft Game Studios.
Ubisoft established another IP, ''
Assassin's Creed'', first launched in 2007; ''Assassin's Creed'' was originally developed by Ubisoft Montreal as a sequel to ''Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time'' and instead transitioned to a story about
Assassins and the
Templar Knights
, colors = White mantle with a red cross
, colors_label = Attire
, march =
, mascot = Two knights riding a single horse
, equipment ...
.
In July 2006, Ubisoft bought the ''
Driver'' franchise from
Atari for a sum of €19 million in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most assets. Within 2008, Ubisoft made a deal with Tom Clancy for perpetual use of his name and intellectual property for video games and other auxiliary media. In July 2008, Ubisoft made the acquisition of
Hybride Technologies, a
Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
-based studio. In November 2008, Ubisoft acquired
Massive Entertainment
Massive Entertainment AB is a Swedish video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Malmö. The company has been fully owned by Ubisoft since 2008. The studio is known for ''Tom Clancy's The Division'', ''The Division 2'', '' Ground Con ...
from
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
. In January 2013, Ubisoft acquired ''
South Park: The Stick of Truth'' from
THQ
THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initi ...
for $3.265 million.
Ubisoft announced plans in 2013 to invest $373 million into its Quebec operations over 7 years. The publisher is investing in the expansion of its motion capture technologies and consolidating its online games operations and infrastructure in Montreal. By 2020, the company would employ more than 3,500 staff at its studios in Montreal and Quebec City.
In July 2013, Ubisoft announced a breach in its network resulting in the potential exposure of up to 58 million accounts including usernames, email address, and encrypted passwords. The firm denied any credit/debit card information could have been compromised, issued directives to all registered users to change their account passwords, and recommended updating passwords on any other website or service where a same or similar password had been used. All the users who registered were emailed by the Ubisoft company about the breach and a password change request. Ubisoft promised to keep the information safe.
In March 2015, the company set up a Consumer Relationship Centre in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The centre is intended to integrate consumer support teams and community managers. Consumer Support and Community Management teams at the CRC are operational 7 days a week.
Attempted takeover by Vivendi (2015–2018)
Since around 2015, the French
mass media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit informati ...
company
Vivendi
Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...
has been seeking to expand its media properties through acquisitions and other business deals. In addition to advertising firm
Havas
Havas SA is a French multinational advertising and public relations company, headquartered in Paris, France. It operates in more than 100 countries and is one of the largest advertising and communications groups in the world. Havas consists of ...
, Ubisoft was one of the first target properties identified by Vivendi, which as of September 2017 has an estimated valuation of $6.4 billion.
Vivendi, in two actions during October 2015, bought shares in Ubisoft stock, giving them a 10.4% stake in Ubisoft, an action that Yves Guillemot considered "unwelcome" and feared a
hostile takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to t ...
.
In a presentation during the
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016 (E3 2016) was the 22nd E3, during which several hardware manufacturers and software developers and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily re ...
, Yves Guillemot stressed the importance that Ubisoft remain an independent company to maintain its creative freedom. Guillemot later described the need to fight off the takeover: "...when you're attacked with a company that has a different philosophy, you know it can affect what you've been creating from scratch. So you fight with a lot of energy to make sure it can't be destroyed." Vice-President of Live Operations, Anne Blondel-Jouin, expressed similar sentiment in an interview with ''
PCGamesN'', stating that Ubisoft's success was partly due to "...being super independent, being very autonomous."
Vivendi acquired stake in mobile game publisher
Gameloft
Gameloft SE is a French video game publisher based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games with a special focus on the mobile games ma ...
, owned by the Guillemots, and started acquiring Ubisoft shares.
In the following February, Vivendi acquired €500 million worth of shares in Gameloft, gaining more than 30% of the shares and requiring the company under French law to make a public
tender offer
In corporate finance, a tender offer is a type of public takeover bid. The tender offer is a public, open offer or invitation (usually announced in a newspaper advertisement) by a prospective acquirer to all stockholders of a publicly traded corp ...
; this action enabled Vivendi to complete the takeover of Gameloft by June 2016.
Following Vivendi's actions with Gameloft in February 2016, the Guillemots asked for more Canadian investors in the following February to fend off a similar Vivendi takeover;
by this point, Vivendi had increased their share in Ubisoft to 15%, exceeding the estimated 9% that the Guillemots owned.
By June 2016, Vivendi had increased its shares to 20.1% and denied it was in the process of a takeover.
By the time of Ubisoft's annual board meeting in September 2016, Vivendi had gained 23% of the shares, while the Guillemots were able to increase their voting share to 20%. A request was made at the board meeting to place Vivendi representatives on Ubisoft's board, given the size of their shareholdings. The Guillemots argued against this, reiterating that Vivendi should be seen as a competitor, and succeeded in swaying other voting members to deny any board seats to Vivendi.
Vivendi continued to buy shares in Ubisoft, approaching the 30% mark that could trigger a takeover; as of December 2016, Vivendi held a 25.15% stake in Ubisoft. ''
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
'' reported in April 2017 that Vivendi's takeover of Ubisoft would likely happen that year
and ''Bloomberg Businessweek'' observed that some of Vivendi's shares would reach the 2-year holding mark, which would grant them double voting power, and would likely meet or exceed the 30% threshold. The Guillemot family has since raised its stake in Ubisoft; as of June 2017, the family held 13.6% of Ubisoft's share capital, and 20.02% of the company's voting rights. In October 2017, Ubisoft announced it reached a deal with an "investment services provider" to help them purchase back 4 million shares by the end of the year, preventing others, specifically Vivendi, from buying these.
In the week before Vivendi would gain double-voting rights for previously purchased shares, the company, in quarterly results published in November 2017, announced that it had no plans to acquire Ubisoft for the next 6 months, nor would seek board positions due to the shares they held during that time, and that it "would ensure that its interest in Ubisoft would not exceed the threshold of 30% through the doubling of its voting rights." Vivendi remained committed to expanding in the video game sector, identifying that their investment in Ubisoft could represent a capital gain of over 1 billion euros.
On 20 March 2018, Ubisoft and Vivendi struck a deal ending any potential takeover, with Vivendi agreeing to sell all of its shares, over 30 million, to other parties and agreeing to not buy any Ubisoft shares for 5 years. Some of those shares were sold to
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the wo ...
, which after the transaction held about 5.6 million shares of Ubisoft (approximately 5% of all shares). The same day, Ubisoft announced a partnership with Tencent to help bring their games into the Chinese market. Vivendi completely divested its shares in Ubisoft by March 2019.
Since 2018
Since 2018, Ubisoft's studios have continued to focus on some franchises, including ''Assassin's Creed'', ''Tom Clancy's'', ''Far Cry'', and ''Watch Dogs''. As reported by ''
Bloomberg Businessweek
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'', while Ubisoft as a whole had nearly 16,000 developers by mid-2019, larger than some of its competitors, and producing 5 to 6 major AAA releases each year compared to the 2 or 3 from the others, the net revenue earned per employee was the lowest of the 4 due to generally lower sales of its games. ''Bloomberg Business'' attributed this partially due to spending trends by video game consumers purchasing fewer games with long playtimes, as most of Ubisoft's major releases tend to be. To counter this, Ubisoft in October 2019 postponed 3 of the 6 titles it had planned in 2019 to 2020 or later, as to help place more effort on improving the quality of the existing and released games. Due to overall weak sales in 2019, Ubisoft stated in January 2020 that it would be reorganizing its editorial board to provide a more comprehensive look at its game portfolio and devise greater variation in its games which Ubisoft's management said had fallen stagnant, too uniform and had contributed to weak sales.
Stemming from a wave of sexual misconduct accusations of the
#MeToo movement in June and July 2020, Ubisoft had a number of employees accused of misconduct from both internal and external sources. Between Ubisoft's internal investigation and a study by the newspaper ''
Libération'', employees had been found to have records of sexual misconduct and troubling behaviour, going back up to 10 years, which had been dismissed by the human resources departments. As a result, some Ubisoft staff either quit or were fired, including Hascoët, Maxime Béland, the co-founder of Ubisoft Toronto, and Yannis Mallat, the managing director of Ubisoft's Canadian studios.
Yves Guillemot implemented changes in the company to address these issues as it further investigated the extent of the misconduct claims.
In 2020, they announced that they would be making an open world ''
Star Wars'' game. The deal marked an end to EA's exclusive rights to make ''Star Wars'' titles.
Ubisoft stated in its end of 2020 fiscal year investor call in February 2021 that the company will start to make AAA game releases less of a focus and put more focus on mobile and freemium games following fiscal year 2022. CFO Frederick Duguet stated to investors that "we see that we are progressively, continuously moving from a model that used to be only focused on AAA releases to a model where we have a combination of strong releases from AAA and strong back catalog dynamics, but also complimenting our program of new releases with free-to-play and other premium experiences." Later that year, the company announced it would start branding games developed by its 1st-party developers as "Ubisoft Originals".
In October 2021, Ubisoft participated in a round of financing in
Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands (Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd) is a Hong Kong-based game software company and venture capital company founded in 2014 by Yat Siu.
It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from 23 January 2015 to 9 March 2020.
Nota ...
.
After earlier stating their intent to explore blockchain games, Ubisoft announced its Ubisoft Quartz blockchain program in December 2021, allowing players to buy uniquely identified customization items for games and then sell and trade them based on the
Tezos
Tezos is an open-source blockchain that can execute peer-to-peer transactions and serve as a platform for deploying smart contracts. The native cryptocurrency for the Tezos blockchain is the tez ( ISO 4217: XTZ; sign: ꜩ). The Tezos networ ...
currency, which Ubisoft claimed was an
energy efficient cryptocurrency. This marked the first "AAA" effort into blockchain games.
Tencent invested another into Guillemot Brothers Limited, the company that holds part of the Guillemots' ownership of Ubisoft, in September 2022. This gave Tencent 49.9% ownership in this holding company and increased the Guillemots' share of voting rights within Ubisoft to about 30%. Yves Guillemot said that Tencent would be working closely with Ubisoft, helping to bring their games into China while assisting in paying off Ubisoft's debts and preventing the company from potential buyouts.
Subsidiaries
Former
Technology
Ubisoft Connect
Ubisoft Connect, formerly Uplay, is a
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other s ...
,
digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service for PC created by Ubisoft. First launched alongside ''Assassin's Creed II'' as a rewards program to earn points towards in-game content for completing achievements within Ubisoft, it expanded into a desktop client and storefront for Windows machine alongside other features. Ubisoft later separated the rewards program out as its Ubisoft Club program, integrated with Uplay. Ubisoft Connect was announced in October 2020 as a replacement for UPlay and its Ubisoft Club to launch on October 29, 2020 alongside ''Watch Dogs: Legion''. Connect replaces UPlay and the Club's previous functions while adding support for
cross-platform play
In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is c ...
and save progression for some games. It includes the same reward progression system that the Club offered to gain access to in-game content. Some games on the UPlay service will not be updated to support these reward features that they previously had under the Ubisoft Club; for those, Ubisoft will unlock all rewards for all players.
Uplay/Ubisoft Connect serves to manage the digital rights for Ubisoft's games on Windows computers, which has led to criticism when it was first launched, as some games required
always-on digital rights management, causing loss of save game data should players lose their Internet connection. The situation was aggravated after Ubisoft's servers were struck with denial of service attacks that made the Ubisoft games unplayable due to this DRM scheme. Ubisoft eventually abandoned the always-on DRM scheme and still require all Ubisoft games to perform a start-up check through Uplay/Ubisoft Connect their servers when launched.
Ubisoft Anvil
Ubisoft Anvil, formerly named Scimitar, is a proprietary
game engine developed wholly within
Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft Divertissements Inc., doing business as Ubisoft Montreal, is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Montreal.
The studio was founded in April 1997 as part of Ubisoft's growth into worldwide markets, with sub ...
in 2007 for the development of the first ''
Assassin's Creed'' game and has since been expanded and used for most ''Assassin's Creed'' titles and other Ubisoft games, including
Ghost Recon Wildlands,
Ghost Recon Breakpoint and
For Honor
''For Honor'' is an action game developed and published by Ubisoft. The game allows players to play the roles of historical forms of soldiers and warriors such as knights, samurai, vikings, controlled using a third-person perspective. The game ...
.
Disrupt
The Disrupt game engine was developed by
Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft Divertissements Inc., doing business as Ubisoft Montreal, is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Montreal.
The studio was founded in April 1997 as part of Ubisoft's growth into worldwide markets, with sub ...
and is used for the ''
Watch Dogs
''Watch Dogs'' (stylized as ''WATCH_DOGS'') is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Ubisoft, and developed primarily by its Montreal and Toronto studios using the Disrupt game engine. The series' eponymous first title was rel ...
'' games. The majority of the engine was built from scratch and uses a multithreaded renderer, running on fully deferred physically based rendering pipeline with some technological twists to allow for more advanced effects. Developer Ubisoft Montreal spent four years creating the engine. Parts of the engine was originally intended for another game in the ''
Driver'' franchise.
Dunia Engine
The Dunia Engine is a
software fork
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. The term often implies not merely ...
of the
CryEngine
CryEngine (stylized as CRYENGINE) is a game engine designed by the German game developer Crytek. It has been used in all of their titles with the initial version being used in ''Far Cry'', and continues to be updated to support new consoles and ...
that was originally developed by
Crytek
Crytek GmbH is a German video game developer and software developer based in Frankfurt. Founded by the Yerli brothers in Coburg in 1999 and moved to Frankfurt in 2006, Crytek also operates further studios in Kyiv, Ukraine and Istanbul, Turkey. ...
, with modifications made by Ubisoft Montreal. The CryEngine at the time could render some outdoor environmental spaces. Crytek had created a demo of its engine called ''X-Isle: Dinosaur Island'' which it had demonstrated at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo 1999
E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publisher ...
. Ubisoft saw the demo and had Crytek build out the demo into a full title, becoming the first ''
Far Cry
''Far Cry'' is an anthology franchise of first-person shooter games, all of which have been published by Ubisoft. The first game, '' Far Cry'', was developed by Crytek to premiere their CryEngine software, and released in March 2004. Subsequen ...
'', released in 2004. That year,
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
established a deal with Crytek to build a wholly different title with an improved version of the CryEngine, leaving them unable to continue work on ''Far Cry''. Ubisoft assigned Ubisoft Montreal to develop console versions of ''Far Cry'', and arranging with Crytek to have all rights to the ''Far Cry'' series and a perpetual licence on the CryEngine.
In developing ''
Far Cry 2
''Far Cry 2'' is a 2008 first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A top-down shooter version for mobile phones was developed and published by Gameloft. It is th ...
'', Ubisoft Montreal modified the CryEngine to include destructible environments and a more realistic
physics engine
A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer gr ...
. This modified version became the Dunia Engine which premiered with ''Far Cry 2'' in 2008. The Dunia Engine continued to be improved, such as adding weather systems, and used as the basis of all future ''
Far Cry
''Far Cry'' is an anthology franchise of first-person shooter games, all of which have been published by Ubisoft. The first game, '' Far Cry'', was developed by Crytek to premiere their CryEngine software, and released in March 2004. Subsequen ...
'' games, and ''
James Cameron's Avatar: The Game'', developed by Ubisoft Montreal.
Ubisoft introduced the Dunia 2 engine first in ''
Far Cry 3
''Far Cry 3'' is a 2012 first-person shooter game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the third main installment in the '' Far Cry'' series after '' Far Cry 2''. The game takes place on the fictional Rook Islands, a ...
'' in 2012, which was made to improve the performance of Dunia-based games on consoles and to add more complex rendering features such as global illumination. According to Remi Quenin, one of the engine's architects at Ubisoft Montreal, the state of the Dunia Engine as of 2017 includes "vegetation, fire simulation, destruction, vehicles, systemic AI, wildlife, weather, day/night cycles,
ndnon linear storytelling" which are elements of the ''Far Cry'' games. For ''
Far Cry 6
''Far Cry 6'' is a 2021 first-person shooter game developed by Ubisoft Toronto and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth main installment in the ''Far Cry'' series and the successor to 2018's ''Far Cry 5''. The game is set on the fictional Cari ...
'', Ubisoft introduced more features to the Dunia 2 engine such as ray tracing support on the PC version and support for AMD's open source variable resolution technology, FidelityFX.
Snowdrop
The Snowdrop game engine was co-developed by
Massive Entertainment
Massive Entertainment AB is a Swedish video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Malmö. The company has been fully owned by Ubisoft since 2008. The studio is known for ''Tom Clancy's The Division'', ''The Division 2'', '' Ground Con ...
and Ubisoft for ''
Tom Clancy's The Division
''Tom Clancy's The Division'' is an online-only action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published in 2016 by Ubisoft, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is set in a near future New York City in ...
''. The core of the game engine is powered by a "node-based system" which simplifies the process of connecting different systems like rendering, AI, mission scripting and the user interface. The engine was used in ''
Tom Clancy's The Division 2
''Tom Clancy's The Division 2'' is an Online game, online-only Action role-playing game, action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The sequel to ''Tom Clancy's The Division'' (2016), it is set in ...
'' and other Ubisoft games such as ''
South Park: The Fractured but Whole'', ''
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle'', and ''
Starlink: Battle for Atlas''. The engine is next-gen ready and will be used in Massive's ''
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora'' and a ''
Star Wars'' open-world game.
Games
According to Guillemot, Ubisoft recognised that connected sandbox games, with seamless switches between single and multiplayer modes provided the players with more fun, leading the company to switch from pursuing single-player only games to internet connected ones.
According to Guillemot, Ubisoft internally refers to its reimagined self as 'before ''The Division'' and an 'after ''The Division''.
In an interview with ''
The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...
'', Anne Blondel-Jouin, executive producer of
''The Crew'' turned vice-president of live operations,
noted that ''The Crew'' was an early game of Ubisoft's to require a persistent internet connection in order to play.
This raised concerns for gamers and internally at the company.
Film and television
Ubisoft initiated its
Ubisoft Film & Television division then named Ubisoft Motion Pictures in 2011. Initially developing media works tied to Ubisoft's games, it has since diversified to other works including about video games. Productions include the live-action film ''
Assassin's Creed'' (2016) and the series ''
Rabbids Invasion
''Rabbids Invasion'' (french: Les Lapins Crétins : Invasion) is a French computer-animated television series based on Ubisoft's '' Raving Rabbids'' video game series. It is a co-production of Ubisoft Motion Pictures, TeamTO and CNC. The show w ...
'' (2013), and ''
Mythic Quest'' (2020–present).
Litigation
2020 sexual misconduct accusations and dismissals
From June to July 2020, a wave of sexual misconduct accusations occurred through the video game industry as part of the ongoing
#MeToo Movement, including some of Ubisoft's employees. Ashraf Ismail, the creative director of ''
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla'', stepped down to deal with personal issues related to allegations made towards him; he was later terminated by Ubisoft in August 2020 after their internal investigations. Ubisoft announced two executives that were also accused of misconduct had been placed on leave, and that they were performing an internal review of other accusations and their own policies. Yves Guillemot stated on 2 July 2020 that he had appointed Lidwine Sauer as their head of workplace culture who is "empowered to examine all aspects of our company's culture and to suggest comprehensive changes that will benefit all of us", in addition to other internal and external programs to deal with ongoing issues that may have contributed to these problems. Specific accusations were made at Ubisoft Toronto where the studio co-founder Maxime Béland, also the vice president of editorial for Ubisoft as a whole, was forced to resign by Ubisoft's management due to sexual misconduct issues and led some employees working there to express strong concerns that "The way the studio—HR and management—disregards complaints just enables this behavior from men." Tommy François, the vice president of editorial and creative services, had been placed on disciplinary leave around July and by August, Ubisoft announced his departure from the company.
Spurred by these claims, the newspaper ''
Libération'' had begun a deeper investigation into the workplace culture at Ubisoft. The paper ran a 2-part report printed on 1 and 10 July 2020 that claimed that Ubisoft had a toxic workplace culture. A component of that workplace was from accusations related to Hascoët.
The issues identified by ''Libération'' and corroborated by employees from other studios suggested that some of these problems had extended from the human resource heads of the company ignoring complaints made against Hascoët, using sexual misconduct and harassment to intimidate those who criticized him, on the basis that the creative leads were producing valuable products for the company. On 11 July 2020, the company issued a press release, announcing departures which include the voluntary resignations of Hascoët, Yannis Mallat, the managing director of Ubisoft's Canadian studios, and Cécile Cornet, the company's global head of human resources. Yves Guillemot temporarily filled in Hascoët's former role.
A following report from ''
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Tele ...
'' by
Jason Schreier
Jason Schreier (born May 10, 1987) is a journalist and author who primarily covers the video game industry. He worked as a news reporter for ''Kotaku'' from 2011 to 2020 and was recognized for several investigative stories, particularly on the ...
corroborated these details, with employees of Ubisoft's main Paris headquarters comparing it to a
fraternity house
North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas in which fraternity and sorority members live and work together. In addition to serving as housing, fraternity and sorority housing may also serve to ...
. Schreier had found that the issues with Hascoët had gone back years and had affected the creative development on the ''Assassin's Creed'' series and other products as to avoid the use of female protagonists.
Ubisoft had already been criticized for failing to support female player models in ''
Assassin's Creed Unity
''Assassin's Creed Unity'' is an action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released in November 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and in December 2020 for Stadia. It is the ...
'' or in ''
Far Cry 4
''Far Cry 4'' is a 2014 first-person shooter game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the successor to the 2012 video game ''Far Cry 3'', and the fourth main installment in the ''Far Cry'' series. Set in the fictional ...
'', which the company claimed was due to difficulty in animating female characters despite having done this in earlier games.
Ubisoft employees, in Schreier's report, said that in the following ''Assassin's Creed'' games which did feature female protagonists at release, including ''
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
''Assassin's Creed Syndicate'' is an action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 23, 2015, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on November 19, 2015, for Microsoft Windows. It is th ...
'' and ''
Assassin's Creed Origins
''Assassin's Creed Origins'' is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series, following 2015's ''Assassin's Creed Syndicate''. ...
'', there were serious considerations of removing or downplaying the female leads from the editorial department. This was due to a belief that Hascoët had set in the department that female characters did not sell video games. Further, because of Hascoët's clout in the company, the developers would have to make compromises to meet Hascoët's expectations, such as the inclusion of a strong male character if they had included female leads or if they had used cutscenes, a narrative concept Hascoët reportedly did not like.
Hascoët's behavior among other content decisions made by Hascoët had "appeared to affect" the quality of Ubisoft's games by 2019; both ''
Tom Clancy's The Division 2
''Tom Clancy's The Division 2'' is an Online game, online-only Action role-playing game, action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The sequel to ''Tom Clancy's The Division'' (2016), it is set in ...
'' and ''
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint
''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint'' is an online-only tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris and published by Ubisoft. The game was released worldwide on 4 October 2019 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, and on 18 De ...
'' "underperformed", which gave Ubisoft justification to diminish Hascoët's oversight with the aforementioned January 2020 changes in the editorial department and gave its members more autonomy.
There remained questions as to what degree CEO Yves Guillemot knew of these issues prior to their public reporting; employees reported that Hascoët has been very close with the Guillemot brothers since the founding of the editorial department around 2001 and that some of the prior complaints of sexual misconduct had been reported directly to Yves and were dismissed.
''
Gamasutra
''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...
'' also spoke to some former and current Ubisoft employees during this period from its worldwide studios, corroborating that these issues appears to replicate across multiple studios, stemming from Ubisoft's main management.
Ubisoft had a shareholders' meeting on 22 July 2020 addressing these more recent issues. Changes in the wake of the departures included a reorganization of both the editorial team and the human resources team. 2 positions, Head of Workplace Culture and Head of Diversity and Inclusion, would be created to oversee the safety and morale of employees going forward. To encourage this, Ubisoft said it would tie the performance bonus of team leaders to how well they "create a positive and inclusive workplace environment" so that these changes are propagated throughout the company.
Ahead of a September 2020 "Ubisoft Forward" media presentation, Yves Guillemot issued a formal apology for the company on their lack of responsibility in the matters prior to these events. Guillemot said "This summer, we learned that certain Ubisoft employees did not uphold our company's values, and that our system failed to protect the victims of their behavior. I am truly sorry to everyone who was hurt. We have taken significant steps to remove or sanction those who violated our values and code of conduct, and we are working hard to improve our systems and processes. We are also focused on improving diversity and inclusivity at all levels of the company. For example, we will invest $1 million over the next five years in our graduate program. The focus will be on creating opportunities for under-represented groups, including women and people of color." Guillemot sent out a company-wide letter in October 2020 summarizing their investigation, finding that nearly 25% of the employees had experienced or witnessed misconduct in the last 2 years, and that the company was implementing a 4-point plan to correct these problems, with a focus to "guarantee a working environment where everyone feels respected and safe". The company hired Raashi Sikka,
Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...
's former head of diversity and inclusion in Europe and Asia, as vice president of global diversity and inclusion for Ubisoft in December 2020 to follow on to this commitment.
In September 2020
Michel Ancel
Michel Ancel (; born 29 March 1972) is a French video game designer. He is best known for creating the '' Rayman'' franchise and was the lead designer or director for several of the games, including ''Rayman Origins'' and its sequel ''Rayman Leg ...
left Ubisoft and the games industry to work on a wildlife preserve, stating that his project ''
Beyond Good & Evil 2'' at Ubisoft and ''Wild'' as Wild Sheep Studio was left in good hands before he left. As part of their coverage from the sexual misconduct issues, ''Libération'' found that Ancel's attention towards ''Beyond Good & Evil 2'' to be haphazard, which had resulted in delays and restarts since the game's 1st announcement in 2010. The team considered Ancel's management style to be abusive, having dismissed some of their work and forcing them to restart on development pathways. While the team at Ubisoft Montpellier had reported on Ancel's lack of organization and leadership on the project to management as early as 2017, ''Libération'' claimed it was his close relationship with Yves Guillemot that allowed the situation to continue until 2020 when a more indepth review of all management was performed in wake of the sexual misconduct allegations. Ancel stated he was not aware of the issues from the team and asserts his departure was stress-related. In November 2020, Hugues Ricour, the managing director of
Ubisoft Singapore
Ubisoft Singapore Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean video game developer and studio of Ubisoft based at Fusionopolis. The studio was founded in 2008 and has contributed to the majority of ''Assassin's Creed'' games. It is currently leading the developme ...
, stepped down from that role after these internal reviews and remained with the company.
The French trade union
Solidaires Informatique initiated a class action lawsuit against Ubisoft in relation to the allegations; Solidaires Informatique had previously represented workers in a case of workplace concerns at French developer
Quantic Dream
Quantic Dream SA is a French video game developer and publisher based in Paris. Founded in May 1997, Quantic Dream has developed five video games: ''The Nomad Soul'' (1999), ''Fahrenheit'' (2005), ''Heavy Rain'' (2010), '' Beyond: Two Souls'' ...
. At the trial in May 2021, ''
Le Télégramme
''Le Télégramme'' is a French-language daily newspaper from the Brittany (administrative region), Brittany region of France, based in the commune of Morlaix. It has been founded in 1944 and still exists to this day, although circulation is exper ...
'' reported that very little had changed within the company, as many of the HR staff that were part of the problem remained in their positions within the company, both in its France headquarters and its Canadian divisions. Employees reported to the newspaper that nothing had changed despite the new guidelines.
In response to this report, Ubisoft stated that "Over a period of several months, Ubisoft has implemented major changes across its organization, internal processes and procedures in order to guarantee a safe, inclusive and respectful working environment for all team members." and "These concrete actions demonstrate the profound changes that have taken place at every level of the company. Additional initiatives are underway and are being rolled out over the coming months."
Solidaires Informatique and two former Ubisoft employees filed a 2nd lawsuit within the French courts in July 2021. As translated by ''Kotaku'', the complaints states that Ubisoft "as a legal entity for institutional sexual harassment for setting up, maintaining and reinforcing a system where sexual harassment is tolerated because it is more profitable for the company to keep harassers in place than to protect its employees". The complaint names some of those identified during the initial 2020 accusations, including Hascoët, François, and Cornet, as directly responsible for maintaining conditions that promoted the harassment.
In July 2021,
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Viven ...
was sued by the
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing
The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) (formerly known as the ''Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH)'') is an agency of California state government charged with the protection of residents from employment, housing and public ac ...
(DFEH) on accusations the company maintained a hostile workplace towards women and discriminated against women in hiring and promotions. Among other reactions, this led to the Activision Blizzard employees staging a walkout on July 28, 2021 to protest the management's dismissive response to the lawsuit. About 500 employees across Ubisoft signed a letter in solidarity with the Activision Blizzard employees, stating that "It should no longer be a surprise to anyone: employees, executives, journalists, or fans that these heinous acts are going on. It is time to stop being shocked. We must demand real steps be taken to prevent them. Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions." Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot sent a letter to all Ubisoft employees in response to this open letter, stating "We have heard clearly from this letter that not everyone is confident in the processes that have been put in place to manage misconduct reports" and that "We have made important progress over the past year".
This reply prompted another open letter from Ubisoft employees that derided Guillemot's response in that "Ubisoft continues to protect and promote known offenders and their allies. We see management continuing to avoid this issue", and that the company had generally ignored issues that employees have brought up.
The employees' response included 3 demands of Ubisoft management, ending the cycle of simply rotating the troublesome executives and managers between studios to avoid issues, for the employees to have a collective seat in ongoing discussions to improve the workplace situation, and establishing cross-industry collaboration for how to handle future offenses that includes non-management employees as well as union representatives.
In August 2021, a group of Ubisoft employees formed a workers' rights group,
A Better Ubisoft, to seek more commitment and action from the company in response to the allegation from the past year. The group asked for having a seat at the table to discuss how the company was handling changes and improvements to avoid having these problems come up in the future. ''
Axios Axios commonly refers to:
* Axios (river), a river that runs through Greece and North Macedonia
* ''Axios'' (website), an American news and information website
Axios may also refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Axios, a brand of suspension produ ...
'' reported in December 2021 that there was an "exodus" of Ubisoft employees leaving the company due to a combination to lower pay and the impact of the workplace misconduct allegation.
Ubisoft Singapore
Ubisoft Singapore Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean video game developer and studio of Ubisoft based at Fusionopolis. The studio was founded in 2008 and has contributed to the majority of ''Assassin's Creed'' games. It is currently leading the developme ...
began to be investigated by Singapore's Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices in August 2021 based on reports of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination within that studio, following a July 2021 report published by ''Kotaku''.
Other lawsuits
* In 2008, Ubisoft sued Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM), a
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
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 2012, Ubisoft was sued by John L. Beiswenger, the author of the book ''Link'' who alleged
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
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 their guilt.
* In December 2014, Ubisoft offered a free game from their 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
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
and
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
over Ejoy's ''Area F2'' game which Ubisoft contended was a
carbon copy
Before the development of photographic copiers, a carbon copy was the under-copy of a typed or written document placed over carbon paper and the under-copy sheet itself (not to be confused with the carbon print family of photographic reproduc ...
of ''
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege'' is an online tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on December 1, 2015; the game was ...
''. 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.
References
External links
*
{{Subject bar, d=y, n=y, commons=y
1996 initial public offerings
Companies based in ÃŽle-de-France
Companies listed on Euronext Paris
French companies established in 1986
Multinational companies headquartered in France
Seine-Saint-Denis
Video game companies established in 1986
Video game companies of France
Video game development companies
Video game publishers