Ubisoft, one of the biggest third-party publishers in the games industry, is forced to navigate troublesome waters. Following several less-than-successful game releases, such as the long-delayed Skull & Bones, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and more recently, Star Wars Outlaws, the company’s stock crashed hard.
To turn the tide around, Ubisoft made some sweeping changes to its strategy. First, it canceled its Tokyo Game Show 2024 appearance and planned Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a prelude to the game’s delay from November 2024 to February 2025. The additional time is meant to help avoid the same fate of Star Wars Outlaws, allowing for more polish, even though the new Assassin’s Creed game will debut in the middle of an absolutely stacked month (Civilization VII and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 on the 11th, Avowed and the first episode of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage on the 18th, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and Monster Hunter Wilds on the 28th).
Ubisoft is also bringing its games back to Valve’s Steam on day one, starting with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Despite all these changes, there is one small investor in the game publisher who’s pushing hard for the sale of the company. Reuters got in touch with AJ Investments and saw a letter that includes the following excerpt:
We call on the management of Ubisoft to allow the sale of the company to third parties or private equity firms at a fair price.
AJ Investments owns less than one percent of the game publisher. However, it claimed to have gathered support for its initiative from 10% of Ubisoft’s shareholders.
The subject of a Ubisoft sale is a recurring one in the industry. A few years ago, the company had to contend with the attempted takeover from Vivendi. Then, in September 2022, Tencent invested €300 million to raise its stakes in the company up to 49%. The most obvious buyer would, therefore, be Tencent itself.
