Ubisoft insists everything is fine despite delays, accusations and confusing projections

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Even as Ubisoft released several successful and well-received games in recent years, the French-Canadian company has had a time of it.

First, and most importantly, there have been ongoing reports of toxic work culture, leadership, and sexual harassment in the study that were first publicized last year. This was reinvigorated in light of similar allegations at Activision Blizzard and allegations that Ubisoft had not done enough in the past year to fix the company’s culture.

Then there are all the delays. Ubisoft has been delaying various games, repeatedly, annually, for some time now. There was Rainbow Six Extraction, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and Watch Dogs: Legion delayed in 2019, and then Extraction delayed again after that. There are the many Riders Republic delays, Far Cry 6 that was delayed for an entire fiscal year, Avatar, the endless tape of Skull & Bones delays, and the Prince of Persia remake, multiple times. Ghost Recon Frontline was announced earlier this month, but its beta version was delayed not a week after that announcement.

For the most part, we are not clear exactly why all these delays occur, although a Kotaku report from July investigated what was happening with Skull & Bones specifically – supposedly a development disaster where no one seemed to know what kind of game they were making and the team was burning.

Then there is the minor issue of the free game issue, which seems to have puzzled the public and investors. In recent earnings calls, Ubisoft has expressed its desire to move away from its commitment to releasing three to four AAA titles each fiscal year and has shown great interest in more free games.

That’s a lot! Anyway, that’s the atmosphere entering Ubisoft’s second-quarter earnings report today, and it certainly seemed like the company was playing defensively. Sure, in terms of numbers, things are looking good enough, even if Ubisoft gave some interesting details. Net bookings increased 14% from last year to € 392.1 million ($ 458.1 million) and sales increased 21% to € 398.5 million ($ 465.6 million). We got some vague metrics on recent games, like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla touted as the “second highest-earning game in Ubisoft history, in less than 12 months” and the first Far Cry 6 sales reportedly online. with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at the same time, a number we don’t have (10 million copies were sold between October 2018 and March 2020).

There were other parts. The Crew 2 engagement is working well, increasing 70% from two years ago (it launched in 2018) and their revenue has increased 53% since then. The Just Dance franchise has sold 80 million units for life. And apparently, people are choosing Far Cry 3 and 5 in part because of interest in Far Cry 6, although exactly how many people are unclear.

But beyond that, Ubisoft’s presentation largely felt like an attempt to calm down amid a pile of negative headlines. On the one hand, his earnings release included an extensive quote on the “evolution of the human resource organization” and his attempts to make “significant and significant progress” in improving company culture, especially through the Ubisoft employee resource groups and a closer look at creative content:

“Strengthening support for ERG is just one example of how Ubisoft is acting on its commitment to become a more diverse and inclusive organization,” the statement read. “Another significant example is that an internal content review committee is now vetting game and marketing content to provide additional perspectives on its content, and a global inclusive game and content team is being created to ensure diversity and inclusion are integrated into the production processes. “

In particular, none of the investors on the call asked about this issue.

CEO Yves Guillemot also felt the need to reassure everyone once again that yes, Ubisoft is in the business of premium AAA games despite its sudden surge in interest in playing for free. Their earnings release noted that 80% of Ubisoft’s investments are focused on expanding premium offerings, and during the call, at one point, an investor ensured that Assassin’s Creed Infinity was not going to be a free game, but would have a meaningful story. -focused content, although the game is still a long way off.

But while the public might have resisted a perceived increase in free play, this was not what bothered investors. What came up over and over again on the call was the problem that free games are lagging, or getting released and not performing as well as Ubisoft advertised them for. Guillemot seemed quite comfortable with the trial and error model, as he said in his opening remarks:

“Looking at our free trades, let me be clear. Our organic value creation model means that we can go through trial and error phases where we sometimes fail, but we always learn, grow, and are better positioned for success in subsequent attempts. While we are never satisfied with our rate of progress, we have a proven track record of building new skills, technologies, and capabilities through our initiative process. Recently, we have reviewed our different initiatives and made the necessary decisions. We trust that applying our iterative process to free-to-play will ultimately create great value, broaden the reach of our brand, and [inaudible] our recurring income. “

But on the call, the issue was raised multiple times, at a specific time in regards to Roller Champions, which is no longer taken into account in the company’s guidance. It’s still planned for this fiscal year (most recently scheduled for 2021 but no firm date yet), but the game has received little marketing lately and it seems Ubisoft isn’t expecting much from the free competitive Roller Derby.

When asked by an investor what was wrong with free games, specifically Roller Champions, and what happened to this content (and therefore investment) if it is released without interest (remember Hyperscape?), Guillemot gave an answer fair. Boilerplate answer that it’s hard to discern what players want from the free game and sometimes they need to take more time to figure it out.

“But what we see is that the reaction of the players in a lot of our free-to-plays is actually a good reaction. Sometimes we have some setbacks in some elements, but that helps us to really adapt. We feel the investment in it. free-to-play is really a very good investment for the company and that will result in a lot of profit down the road. That’s why we take the time to really generate good income and profit in the future. “

A little later, CFO Frédérick Duguet backed off and reiterated the importance of the “iterative” process in free-to-play that Guillemot had mentioned earlier, ensuring that free-to-play was a profitable and growing sector and calling on investors who will trust the process. When the interrogator suggested that Ghost Recon Breakpoint had been shelved due to negative comments, Guillemot quickly disabused them of the notion, it was simply delayed.

Elsewhere in the call, concerns were raised about all the other premium games that have also been phased in in the next fiscal year (starting April next year), Prince of Persia, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Mario + Rabbids. : Sparks of Hope, Skull & Bones, Rocksmith + and Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland. Much of the concerns seemed to center on the fact that Ubisoft has lowered its guidance for the full fiscal year slightly, projecting new bookings flat or slightly below the prior year compared to its previous projection of single-digit growth.

Ubisoft tried to avoid questions about Skull & Bones and the Kotaku report specifically in their report, prompting the following insistence that everything is fine at Ubisoft Singapore:

“Work on the game continues to progress well and the Singapore team passed important new production milestones,” the statement read. “Producing ambitious new IPs is difficult, requires strength and long-term vision. This is how leading franchises in the industry such as Assassin’s Creed and Tom Clancy’s The Division have been created. Ubisoft is passionate about innovation and new technological advancements. and fosters an environment for their talents to thrive and unleash their full potential. “

And the Prince of Persia Twitter account was also trying to avoid worries by letting everyone know that the game is … still in development. Well that’s something!

Despite a fairly constant trend of increasing numbers, Ubisoft is in a very strange place as a company as it tries to turn its ship in different directions, some of them more effectively than others. Their series of overdue headlines don’t inspire confidence, and while franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry have a lot of staying power for the money, it’s hard not to watch games like Prince of Persia, Roller Champions, and Skull & Bones without cynicism or, yes. you have money invested in them, absolute concern. The best Ubisoft can probably do to fix all of this is to release some good games on time.

Meanwhile, company culture issues remain the worst issue on the table and investors aren’t interested in asking as long as they don’t seem to have an impact on bottom line results.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @Patovalentino.



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