Ubisoft collected many losses in the past months with its controversial releases in the gaming market. Games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars: Outlaws failed to deliver and were far below the company’s expectations. Due to the multiple losses, the controversies inside the company, and the players’ growing distrust in the company, many saw Assassin’s Creed Shadows as the company’s all-or-nothing. Apparently, the title that reached players in the last Thursday (March 20) has the potential to help the company to survive the crisis.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Brings Some Positive Numbers to Ubisoft At Last
Ubisoft Entertainment shares jumped Monday after its latest AC: Shadows garnered 2 million players less than a week since its release. The game quickly surpassed the launches of “Assassin’s Creed Origins” and “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, players have the open-world RPG game where they can fight as a shinobi Assassin named Naoe, or as a samurai, Yasuke, in feudal Japan. Ubisoft originally sought the launch for November, but it was postponed to give developers more time to polish the game.
The delays removed what could have been a revenue stream for much of Ubisoft’s fiscal year, which closes on March 31. The company reported a slump in net bookings in recent quarters as investors and gamers waited for the big release.
Past Saturday, the company revealed the 2 million players market in just a few days of release. The game quickly overcame the launch numbers of AC: Origins, and AC: Odyssey which were the most succesfull AC games in the recent years. The firm also revealed that pre-orders for the game were solid.
In light of this, Ubisoft shares in Paris climbed more than 11% on Monday. However, the stock is down nearly 30% over the past months as Ubisoft was plagued by game setbacks and investor pressure to go private.
Ubisoft Goes Through Restructuring
The sales of “Star Wars Outlaws” during the holiday season disappointed the company and its free-to-play “XDefiant” was not enough to attrac players and justify investments. The company had to cut the game’s development which resulted in more than 270 job cuts as Ubisoft closed its San Francisco and Osaka production studios.
Ubisoft is closing its Leamington studio in the U.K. and downsizing locations in Newcastle, Düsseldorf, and Stockholm, impacting 185 employees. Meanwhile, Slovakia-based hedge fund AJ Investments, with under 1% stake, claims support from over 15% of shareholders to push for a sale. CEO Yves Guillemot stated that advisors are exploring strategic options.
The apparent succesfull release of AC Shadows brings some relief to the company and investors. However, only time will tell if this will be enough after multiple losses in the segment.
Yes it can! 🙂