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Guillemot's purchase 2 million shares of Ubisoft

I haven't always been UbiFan#1, and I still refuse to buy any of their PC games with that UPlay trash forced on me, but credit where it's due, they're willing to take risks and experiment with some crazy ideas and make them work. I don't like any of their sequelitis infested main AAA series, but they do such a great job with their "smaller" stuff.

Good on the Guillemots. Anything that makes it harder for Vivendi to come in and burn the place down.
 
Vivendi would be disastrous. Even though I'm not a fan of most of Ubi's output and don't appreciate the direction they go with their franchises, they have a rather diverse portfolio and often try new stuff. Under Vivendi they'd become a parody of themselves.
 
MontyBrown said:
Why are people supporting Ubisoft?

All their games are the same, they push out the most boring tripe there is. Each of their games using the exact same design philosophies and mechanics.

They need a shake-up.
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Can you elaborate on how Mario + Rabbids is the same as Assassins Creed: Origins? Care to elaborate on the similarities between Child of Light and Rayman?

I get it, some of their series' are reallllly similar to each other in structure, but lets not go overboard and claim that's all they do. They try plenty of new things as well.
 
If the Guillemot family bought 2 million shares for 112.5 million Euros and that only amounts to 1.75% of the company, then Vivendi's shares would be worth well over 1.7 billion Euros if my math is correct. I'm happy that they are buying up stock in their own company and making it difficult for a takeover but at the same time they are increasing Vivendi's share values
 
Haven't been the biggest fan of Ubisoft the last ten years, but a Vivendi acquisition wouldn't be good for anyone.
 
Trials of the Blood Dragon showed more creativity in a single cutscene than some franchises have had through their entire lives. Those small, often experimental titles were refreshing and cool, even if I not always liked them. Child of Light, for example, is unlike anything else I've played, and I love it so much. Even something like Grow Home, which I didn't enjoy, had its own personality and style, so I appreciate its existence. There's a lot of variety there.

It'd be sad to see Ubisoft die, or change for the worse. Let's hope Vivendi doesn't achieve its goal here.
 
Good on Yves, doing everything in his power to keep Ubisoft the way it is. No company is perfect but I'm sure the employees have had a feeling of dread as Vivendi has been creeping closer and closer.

Hopefully this lets them feel some pride in their own company and products and become better and better for it.
 
MontyBrown said:
Why are people supporting Ubisoft?

All their games are the same, they push out the most boring tripe there is. Each of their games using the exact same design philosophies and mechanics.

They need a shake-up.
Click to expand...

Rainbow Six Siege is the best competitive FPS on the market by a long shot.
 
They are one of the more creative and general risk taking publishers out there that is also multi-platform. I hope they fight off any Vivendi takeover.
 
Think it's time to retire that Monty Brown post...I highly doubt they have any intention in adding anything more to the discussion
 
Their games can be very samey but I generally really enjoy their output. They'd probably be my favorite third party and they usually are the first to at least try with Nintendo systems
 
Human Trashcan said:
Jesus guys let's not pretend Wildlands, Far Cry, AssCreed and Watch_dogs aren't all the same game at this point. Yeah they have diversity too but all their big open-world games follow the exact same formula. Dude had a point. Obviously I'm not in favor of a hostile takeover by Vivendi though so good on Guillemot.
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Wildlands have bulletsponge enemies was a myth.
 
Everyone who thinks this will have a positive outcome on the company or gaming in general is delusional.
Everyone that thinks that Ubisoft lacks innovation is also wrong. Please tell me another big company with the amount of new IPs or revamps or old IPs like Ubisoft? Yeah, they get a lot of shit for their "open-world formula" but their influence in today's landscape is undeniable.
Personally, I had a great time with the first Watch Dogs. Far Cry 3 is an amazing game. Their support for Rainbow Six Siege has been great.
 
I know Ubisoft catches a lot of shit but you have to really respect a move like this. They really enjoy what they do and don't want anyone coming along trying to fuck that up.
 
I seriously fucking open Vivendi goes under and never gets close to grabbing Ubisoft.

I want Ubi to push through and actually make it out. They have made some of my most favorite games recently.
 
Vital Tundra said:
I know you have a legitimate question but....

"Vivendi's net cash plummetted to $540.355 million as of March 2017, down 1253% since 2015 where it had $7.31 billion net cash."

They don't seem like the smartest company.
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I get the financial aspect I just wanted to see the individual companies which they invested in so I could find out if their loss of cash on hand can be attributed to poor investments vs poor management
 
MontyBrown said:
Why are people supporting Ubisoft?

All their games are the same, they push out the most boring tripe there is. Each of their games using the exact same design philosophies and mechanics.

They need a shake-up.
Click to expand...

Please name all the Ubisoft games you know.

And if your first reply is "Assassin's Creed is the same as Watch Dogs", you automatically lose.
 
IcyRhythms said:
I know Ubisoft catches a lot of shit but you have to really respect a move like this. They really enjoy what they do and don't want anyone coming along trying to fuck that up.
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I have to agree. Ubisoft is a bit of a strange beast in my opinion. On the one hand, they do try a lot of different things, and I have to give them credit for that. On the other hand, I absolutely hate the way that many of their bigger franchises tend to stick to a formula that leaves many of their games feeling bloated. They'd probably be my favorite third party if they had the balls to rip up that formula and rebuild their franchises from the ground up. That said, I'm buying a copy of Mario and rabbids as soon as I can get to the import stores in akihabara and I'll almost definitely pick up South Park on day one. I'm also heavily leaning towards buying origins even though I was done with the franchise after the disappointment of 3 and the fan favorite AC4 did absolutely nothing for me.

I still think they need a bit of a shakeup, but vivendi aren't the company to do so.
 
Paz said:
"Vivendi's net cash plummetted to $540.355 million as of March 2017, down 1253% since 2015 where it had $7.31 billion net cash."

I THOUGHT I WAS BAD WITH MONEY
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This also made me feel better about some recent financial decisions haha...

Stay strong Ubi, resist the overlords!
 
HP_Wuvcraft said:
Please name all the Ubisoft games you know.

And if your first reply is "Assassin's Creed is the same as Watch Dogs", you automatically lose.
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I just looked at Ubisoft's wiki list of games and it really is crazy how varied thier portfolio is. Personally I'd love to see them come out with more Blood Dragon / Call of Juarez Gunslinger esque games.

Totally forgot they did Rocksmith and Trials too.
 
Wow. Rarely have I seen a single post so derail a thread. Can we ignore it now and just talk about the Vivendi takeover attempt?


I really hope that Ubisoft is able to fight off Vivendi. On the positive side Ubisoft stock is almost double what it was in January.
 
Recommended reading. (Although slightly off topic)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/for...reholder-Sues-Activision-Over-Vivendi-Buyback

http://www.reuters.com/article/acti...suit-for-record-275-mln-idUSL2N0T93CI20141119

Vivendi will buy your company, milk the IP for all it is worth, cancel IP with just "ok" sales, rarely release new IP, focus on shitty licensed games, and then screw the regular shareholder and unload the company (or saddle it with debt) when the chips are down.

Evidence: see Activision or a Gameloft.

You DO NOT want them buying your company.
 
outunderthestars said:
Wow. Rarely have I seen a single post so derail a thread. Can we ignore it now and just talk about the Vivendi takeover attempt?


I really hope that Ubisoft is able to fight off Vivendi. On the positive side Ubisoft stock is almost double what it was in January.
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And with their recent, and successful, release of Mario + Rabbids including the buying of shares by the Guillemots, they hopefully postponed a new round of shares being bought by Vivendi and make it harder for them to acquire the company outright.

I mean, their shares have been going up for five years now, with the occasional downwards trend, making it more and more costly for a bigger company like Vivendi to actually take it over.

While Vivendi loves to spend 6 billion dollars, by the evident fact it did so to acquire several other business, I very much doubt they want to spend 6 billion again on a single entity. Ubisoft's marketcap is 6.2 billion today but I doubt the sales of Mario + Rabbids have been accounted for in this number, although I hope to hear what it did soon enough. Combined with the upcoming releases of Assassin's Creed: Origin and the new South Park, their stocks might do even better in the next couple of months, possibly jacking up the prices of stocks even more.

If Ubisoft is keeping up this winning slate, it's going to be harder and harder for Vivendi to buy the company.
 
Wagram said:
How does that even happen? Jeez.
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Pretty common. You're getting nothing by holding onto cash. It's actually probably costing you since interest rates are negative.

Better to invest and make tiny gains than hold on and lose on average 50bps
 
Another thing showing that Vivendi is bad for business, two years ago they bought Dailymotion, a notable contender of Youtube and Twitch in France (where gaming streaming was strong on the plateform because they paid streamers 3-4x what paid Twitch or Youtube).

Since they bought the company, they stop investing (which is a key to growth in this sector) in it leading to a massive drop of unique visitors (40M in 2017 vs 130M in 2015), 70% of the employees left (they promised to up the staff to 400 people, they are stuck at 280 at the moment) and 60M€ loss in the financial results.

Source (french): http://www.numerama.com/business/286393-methode-bollore-dailymotion-degringole.html

No wonder why Guillemot doesn't want to be bought by Vivendi.
 
I guess this makes it tougher for Vivendi, but Guillemot's still have a ways to go before they can breath a sigh of relief it seems. Between the Guillemot and Vivendi they now own over 40% of the stock.

I'm assuming they both will continue to try and buy more stock as they are able to. Not sure how much more the Guillemot's are able to purchase to make it harder for Vivendi but they are definitely not going down without a fight.

I hope they continue to fight and they find a way to hold off Vivendi. I'm not a huge fan of some of their AAA games but I recognize they have a lot more diversity than most of the big Publishers and are much more willing to invest in new IP, work on smaller projects, and work on passion projects.
 
I got bored of Ubi's output some years ago, but I'd much rather the company was owned by people with actual passion than a massive media conglomerate.

Kamisori said:
Another thing showing that Vivendi is bad for business, two years ago they bought Dailymotion, a notable contender of Youtube and Twitch in France (where gaming streaming was strong on the plateform because they paid streamers 3-4x what paid Twitch or Youtube).

Since they bought the company, they stop investing (which is a key to growth in this sector) in it leading to a massive drop of unique visitors (40M in 2017 vs 130M in 2015), 70% of the employees left (they promised to up the staff to 400 people, they are stuck at 280 at the moment) and 60M€ loss in the financial results.

Source (french): http://www.numerama.com/business/286393-methode-bollore-dailymotion-degringole.html

No wonder why Guillemot doesn't want to be bought by Vivendi.
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Goddamn. That explains that.

I found myself watching a trailer on Dailymotion the other day and wondered if I'd fallen through a time portal. That site fell off the radar real hard.
 
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