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Reuters: Vivendi takeover of Ubisoft to take place this year

Kill3r7

Member
Microsoft buying Ubisoft makes a lot of sense with both going the Games as a Service route and Ubisoft certainly makes a lot of games that cater to the Xbox audience and will help fill holes in Microsoft's first party situation

I don't think the Xbox division will ever get the approval from the higher ups to make that kind acquisition tho

No it does not. The only way it makes sense is if MS went third party. Ubi games are popular but they are very expensive.
 

LordKano

Member
Let me also remind you that almost everything that Vivendi bought ended up either being trash/bankrupt or bought their independance away.
 

Patchy

Banned
Wait you mean a hollow, cringeworthy speech by the CEO at E3 actually doesn't do anything in the face of a hostile takeover?

Oh you mean Yves going on about creativity and independence? Yeah, I laughed at that.

You run UBISOFT, the last 5 years have proved exactly what kind of company you are.

I have zero sympathy.
 

TimeSage

Member
Ubisoft will still exist so if your hoping this will shut them down your mistaken. They'll still pump out games and you'll still bitch about Ubi.

I really don't care about the future of ubisoft.The only games i bought from ubi is Farcry games and BG&E. So when i wait for so long for a sequel to BG&E only to see this shity company bring it back from the basement just to use it as sacrifice sheep.
 
Yeah, they weren't getting stock to wait forever.

If Ubisoft doesn't want to be bought by Vivendi, their best option is a merger or selling to someone else.

Not necessarily. Companies purchase shares in others all the time, in order to reap benefits of profits via dividends or gains when the other company's share price increases.

Vivendi has something like 230 million euros of unrealized gains from their purchase, last I checked.

Granted, not every company eclipses the 25% ownership of another, but I wouldn't say this is an absolute guarantee of a full bid especially since Vivendi said as much in its disclosure when it crossed that threshold.

But things can change, as we know :)
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
Exactly what? We got a healthy dose of small games from Ubi for the past couple of years. I forgot about Valiant Hearts.
Gone Home aside, these are games released 3+ years ago, and even EA throws out a token creative game like Unravel occasionally.
 

Compsiox

Banned
Gift the Rainbow Six/Tom Clancy IP to Blizzard before it all goes down so we can still have the Siege we know and love.
 

Marcel

Member
Oh you mean Yves going on about creativity and independence? Yeah, I laughed at that.

You run UBISOFT, then last 5 years have proved exactly what kind of company you are.

I have zero sympathy.

I mean they have creative aspects of their company as have been pointed out by many others. Ubi Art games are filled with commendable ideas (though people who are mentioning Grow Home like some great treasure are overstating its importance.)

But the homogeneous, bland franchise games that they milked dry tell another side of the story. I'd be lying if I said I'd miss Ubisoft but the industry will soldier on, as it always does.
 

Instro

Member
I'm not super fond of Ubisoft games, but they seem to be the only major pub putting big budgets into new IP, and funding passion project type stuff. Being owned by Vivendi doesn't really sound like any kind of positive for them.
 

Peroroncino

Member
what does this mean for BGE2?

Too early to tell. If, by the time of the takeover, the game is in an advanced state of production, it will more than likely be released, if it's still in early state however, they can kill it off without too much of a financial loss if they deem it too risky.
 

chefboy

Neo Member
So from my understanding Vivendi getting Ubisoft would likely mean a lot of stuff gets canned. Doing so would likely turn people off from Ubisoft. Exactly why does Vivendi even want Ubisoft? Especially if they're likely to make changes that could have a negative result? Buy them, drain them of whatever value and then drop them once they're no longer worth as much and then move on?

This has been the EA strategy for a decade. Maxis is dead, and Bioware might as well be. all of their talent left after the EA acquisition, and it shows. I expect the same thing to happen at Ubi. the good news is they didn't have much talent to begin with. I kinda liked the AC and FC series, but in a "I'll get it when it's $20 or less" way. So will we really notice any changes? What, they'll go from bad to awful?
 

Harmen

Member
For all the hate Ubi gets here, they are one of the very few big gaming third parties producing new AAA ip's on a regular basis, built on fresh ideas with a vision. Also, despite certain gameplay elements bleeding over into several of their series, within their major series they also still tend to take some risks as well. Not to mention the smaller games they produce every now and then.

There are many aspects of Ubisoft I don't like, but I honestly think the hate on gaf is overblown given the things they do right.
 
Also, even if Vivendi does execute on a full hostile takeover, why would it want to totally change Ubisoft's business model with all the success it's had lately? I don't really buy that angle.

That would seem counter-intuitive as it's ultimately making an investment to maximize its profits, and I think Ubisoft is on the right path in that it's taking more care in its longer-running franchises plus launching new IP that people are buying.

Just my 2 cents.
 

dex3108

Member
Vivendi buying Ubisoft means that Ubisoft wil earn tons of money but creativity will be killed. No more For Honor, Steep, Child of Light, Grow Home, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman...
 

Marcel

Member
For all the hate Ubi gets here, they are one of the very few big gaming third parties producing new AAA ip's on a regular basis, built on fresh ideas with a vision. Also, despite certain gameplay elements bleeding over into several of their series, within their major series they also still tend to take some risks as well. Not to mention the smaller games they produce every now and then.

There are many aspects of Ubisoft I don't like, but I honestly think the hate on gaf is overblown given the things they do right.

Overblown? I'd say the general Ubisoft hate has actually softened. Just look at any thread about the various Watch_Dogs 1 or Far Cry 3 controversies to see what I mean. Any mean things said about them now are in tame by comparison.
 
I'll welcome our new UbiTHQNordic overlords.

I was thinking maybe Deep Silver would be a good pairing for Ubi, but even then I don't know if they (or their parent company Koch Media) have the money to keep Vivendi at bay. Maybe Tencent would be a good partner, as they don't seem to mess with the companies they acquire.

This is the same Ubisoft that released, at least, one AC every year from 2007-2016.

Annual Assassin's Creed hasn't necessarily left, it may have only skipped a year.

They didn't release an AC in 2008, although on average there has been more than one release per year.


Exactly what? They all came out in the last few years. You can pretend Grow Home, Valiant Hearts or Child of Light were not interesting and high-quality experimental little games if it makes you feel better, if that's what you're going for, I guess?

I've a fair few issues with Ubi over the years, but they're one of the most consistent publishers and easily one of the best when it comes to investing in unique games and new IPs.
 
This is the same Ubisoft that released, at least, one AC every year from 2007-2016.

Annual Assassin's Creed hasn't necessarily left, it may have only skipped a year.

True, but Ubisoft did at least notice maybe things were getting to be a bit much and slowed it down. What is Vivendi buying them for? Solely because someone suggested diversification? To help prop up an insane growth model demanded by shareholder?

The fear imo, is that look how Ubisoft is when they only have to answer to themselves. If they all get bosses and now have to answer to them, do you think that will make things better or worse when it comes to annualized franchises that desperately need some time off yet still make bank despite midling reviews or in getting smaller, indie-like games greenlit?
 

DMONKUMA

Junior Member
Man, it would be truly terrible to go from a company not interested in developing BG&E2 to a company not interested in developing BG&E2.

Well you're going from having an actually chance of it to be release to having it be shut down and gone. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
 
I'm not super fond of Ubisoft games, but they seem to be the only major pub putting big budgets into new IP, and funding passion project type stuff. Being owned by Vivendi doesn't really sound like any kind of positive for them.

The games people use to defend creative Ubisoft are getting old:

Rayman Origins 2011
Rayman Legends 2013
Child of Light 2014
Valiant Hearts 2014
Grow Home 2015


I wonder where are new Rayman games ? What happened to people who made Child of Light or Valiant Hearts ?

They had creative period when they green lighted a lot of more artistic stuff but that seems completely gone in last years.
 
are you from the year 2014 ?

Sorry a bit late in the thread but can you explain what you meant? Ubisoft have definitely taken more experimentation and even stopped the yearly Assassin's creed release but it's just the worst case scenario of another company buying ubisoft since I feel like it could go either way.
 
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