Bl@de
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Vivendi ups stake in Ubisoft to 20.1 percent, edges toward takeover
- Thread starter Lime
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Spring Drive
Banned
I can't summarize right now but I posted parts of the article with bolded parts here: http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=205420715&postcount=179
michaelius
Banned
It's more like watching Tywin Lannister ducking it out with Walder Frey and slowly taking The Twins ower
If Bolloré helmed Vivendi buy Ubisoft you can kiss Ubi good bye.
If they don't follow the shitty "vision" of Bolloré they will get canned, if they make something with a hint of creativity they will get canned.
They gutted Canal+ group to the point that they're on a path to bankruptcy.
They have shown no interest in understanding the companies' business model they bought and no interest in maintaining coprorate culture.
They will destroy Ubisoft, we will be lucky if we get something as "great" as Infogramme when they finally decide to get out of the mess they themselves created.
If they don't follow the shitty "vision" of Bolloré they will get canned, if they make something with a hint of creativity they will get canned.
They gutted Canal+ group to the point that they're on a path to bankruptcy.
They have shown no interest in understanding the companies' business model they bought and no interest in maintaining coprorate culture.
They will destroy Ubisoft, we will be lucky if we get something as "great" as Infogramme when they finally decide to get out of the mess they themselves created.
Diprosalic
Banned
Ubisoft and their output are garbage and i don't care if this makes them even worse, just hope everybody can keep their jobs.
Spring Drive
Banned
Yves Guillemot said he'd be at E3 next year, though :/
Yes as long as they can turn it into a movie, sell the soundtrack through Universal and promote it on Dailymotion
ROUGE_BLOCK
Member
Man this really sucks any strives Ubi can be made will just be curtailed.
Alx
Member
I'm not too familiar with Vivendi (though I have read bad things about Bolloré), but I like Ubi soft as it is. Sure the way they handle AAA isn't the best, but they are also very creative and always on board for new consoles and technology.
Whatever happens, I hope that won't change, or at least that it will still exist either inside or outside Ubi.
Whatever happens, I hope that won't change, or at least that it will still exist either inside or outside Ubi.
Bl@de
Member
Bollard invests in new ventures to diversify the company and make it bigger. I see no evil master plan there. Something that happens every day. Doesn't say he will direct the games himself and only make mobile pay2win games :/ And if we look at the sales numbers of Ubisoft games and the popularity of releases like Watch_Dogs ... Why should he? Everything is going well and he wants to make money off that.
Silver Arrows
Banned
Spring Drive
Banned
He'll probably won't direct the games himself but ruthless as he is, it's very likely he will fire upper management if they don't align with Vivendi's strategy. I've never seen how Ubisoft does without Yves Guillemot, Serge Hascoët et al, but if that happens I expect a lot of uncertainty, turmoil and some talent exodus (and probably layoffs). It'll be the end of Ubi as we know it
I know it's just conjecture but Vivendi doesn't have a good reputation and no hostile takeover of a major video game publisher has succeded yet
Cheers guys,
I must say though 2013 is probably still too recent (and I concede this is probably my ignorance on the matter) to really see how different AB is being run after getting rid of Vivendis influence. Never thought of Activisions output in recent times being that creative (what COD and licensed games), Blizzards a different matter but theyve always seemed to be good even when owned by Vivendi...
ps3ud0 8)
What ever happened to Bobby Kotick? I remember years ago when he was mentioned ALL the time. Yet nowadays I sometimes forget he is still Activisions CEO.
Spring Drive
Banned
Activision bet a whole lot of money on Destiny (and King), though
He still runs the company. Activision Blizzard overwhelmingly just releases the same franchises year in and year out, so there's not much to talk about with them on a corporate scale unless you want to focus on their TV and eSports initiatives.
I guess there's mobile gaming as well with King, but they're a very casual vendor, so it's overwhelmingly stuff that doesn't hit GAF.
AuthenticM
Member
If the Guillemots were so adamant about being independant, why the hell didn't they secure 51% of the shares of their company when they decided to make them public?
Because that's an unrealistic demand to make
They didn't block the sale of two major Quebec companies in recent months. They won't do anything about a takeover involving two French companies. Despite Ubisoft having two big studios in the province, video games ain't exactly a strategic sector.
You obviously have no idea of what Ubisoft's output outside of Assassin's Creed is, don't you?
You should look up Ubi Art, among other things.
Spring Drive
Banned
You can't grow to thousands of employees and studios in pretty much every developed country in the world by keeping ownership of all your capital. Not in a reasonable amount of time
There's a big difference between buying the company outright (or even a controlling stake in it) and buying a minority stake in the company. I agree that it would be crazy for any of them to buy Ubisoft in full, but if one of the console makers felt that a Guillemot-run Ubisoft would be a better complement to their business than a Vivendi-run Ubisoft, then it may make sense for them to buy a minority shareholding to make that happen. I don't think it makes much difference to MS or Sony who's in charge at Ubisoft, but for Nintendo there is a strategic benefit to having at least one western third party providing full support to their hardware. Whether that benefit is worth taking a 1.3b+ stake in the company is a different matter, though, and Nintendo aren't exactly known for throwing their money around like that.
Not trying to be pedantic, but the spilt was announced mid-2013 and Destiny came out just over a year later, theres no doubt in my mind that whatever contract was agreed berween Activision and Bungie was under Vivendi ownership.
I wasnt trying to take this on a tangent, just trying to appreciate what Vivendis influence could be on Ubisoft by using the illustration of how they changed AB. Im not convinced it will be purely negative, though Ubisoft strikes me as a far more creative entity than Activision (not including Blizzard in this) - I do have concerns just wanted to understand how rational those were
EDIT: I should say my concerns revolve around the areas that arent tentpoles, the AA games so to speak or the ones that cost so little they dont need executive purview (like Grow Home)
ps3ud0 8)
Vivendi has been prety much cancer to everything they've touched and there's a reason Universal and Activision Blizzard got out of under their thumb.
Vivendi was basically going to use Activision as a debt elimination vehicle to get rid of their bad books. They did not care about the morale or creative destruction it would have caused, all they cared about was moving some numbers from here over to there, aka a lot of bullshit with short term stock market fuckstains.
It's likely if they are successful in taking over Ubisoft, Ubi will end up this way.
Also, some people forget - in another timeline, Vivendi owns Steam and Half Life. They tried to claw back Half Life and if they had gotten a judgement in their favor, Valve would have likely been forced to be acquired by Vivendi as a poison pill settlement.
StrongBlackVine
Banned
I own Child Of Light and Valiant Hearts. 2 small creative games doesn't balance out the big budget trash.
That was old management, this one is more akin to Ebola with hemorrhaging vital liquidity from all pores while the host quickly dies.
Team leaders and management should update their linkedin and resumes because if the takeover happens they'll be out faster than Ubi will lose customers.
AuthenticM
Member
No it wasn't. They were the owners of a private company. They didn't answer to anyone but themselves.
Why?
Would have cost a lot of money. Also not sure how it'd work under French law.
Nintendo is in a similar situation. They can technically be hostile takeovered at any moment, and MS execs have talked before that Bill almost just did that to get into the games industry. They've been slowly buying up their own stock for a while now.
You are deluding yourself.
To be fair virtually every major public corporation is susceptible to a hostile takeover. Some are less likely than others due to their size/market value.
Schnozberry
Member
I'd rather Nintendo took the billion+ that it would take to make this happen and created an open endowment for independent and mid sized studios to pitch them games that they want to make for Nintendo Platforms, with the understanding that Nintendo would fund development and retain publishing rights to the games.
Nintendo already does that to some extent (with companies like Next Level Games, Monster Games and various smaller Japanese studios), and they should continue to do so where good opportunities exist, but buying a stake in Ubisoft wouldn't be the same as spending money directly on development. They'd be exchanging one liquid asset (cash) for another liquid asset (Ubisoft shares) and, as Ubisoft is a profitable company, they can expect dividends from that asset and potential growth in the value of the asset. Securing Ubisoft support for NX would be a secondary benefit of shifting the composition of their asset portfolio, and would potentially give them the benefit of 500 million a year worth of games appearing on their system without having to actually pay for any of the R&D directly. That said, even for a company with Nintendo's cash reserves, it's a huge asset purchase for them, and there's nothing in their history to suggest they'd make a move like this.
Spaced Harrier
Member
Vivend.io
Spring Drive
Banned
Vivendi now owns 95.94% of Gameloft's shares and 95.77% of voting rights, will change the Board of Directors on June 29. Gameloft are reportedly mad about that
This is an insane idea.
BibiMaghoo
Member
If it does happen, I hope they call the new company Ubiloft.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Yeah, as an independent studio.
SketchTheArtist
Member
This.
They're going to gut the studio and drive it into the ground (they have short-term visions) then probably sell it when its close to bankruptcy to get some last profit out of it.
Spring Drive
Banned
Not to mention that Ubisoft/Yves Guillemot wrote a letter to Vivendi, asking them to explain which synergies they saw between themselves and Ubisoft, and Vivendi hasn't answered (Source)
Otakumegane
Member
I don't understand all these people somehow thinking that Nintendo will buy some Ubisoft stake.
What does Ubisoft bring to Nintendo?
-Some ports of needed 3rd party franchises
-Perhaps some creative projects like Rayman/ZombiU that work for a while but then get ported to other consoles anyway.
Either way, having Ubisoft on board porting everything doesn't really increase the appeal of their hardware to a significant degree compared to the competition, and if Ubisoft continues to make best sellers this really only benefits the hardware of Sony and MS more than it could ever benefit Nintendo.
Now we can think darker.
What can Ubisoft falling to Vivendi mean for Nintendo?
-In the worst
case scenario lets assume that Ubisoft is totally gutted, a major talent exodus occurs and the studio stops finding commercial success due to poor game quality. This means that Nintendo, whose main software selling point relies on their first party doesn't lose that big of a hit, and any potential licensing fees are dwarfed by what those games give to Sony and MS. It also means that in comparison, the competitor platforms manage to look worse due to this total breakdown in quality and how they sell by the strength of their 3rd parties. TLDR: All of them lose in this case but the others manage to lose "more".
Now of course this is talking only about the worse case where Ubisoft just gets totally shelled, but either way, Nintendo doesn't not gain much by risking this kind of move, nor do they stand to lose a great deal if they choose to do nothing. So they do nothing.
If ANY of the major 3 were to buy out a stake, it would be Sony and Microsoft but only if they could get exclusive rights to some key franchises which would cost a ton of capital and probably at that point is pretty much a takeover therein of itself. Anything less and your other major competitor still gets all the same games you do so what's the point?
The inverse of situation is largely the same, if both choose to do nothing and the worst case scenario still happens, you lose some but the other guy loses near an exact amount in terms of # of games and their quality. All in all, it either requires some serious muscle power in terms of $$ or you both stand to lose and there's no reason to really take a risk on that.
If it would have benefited any of the major 3 they would have already done it.
What does Ubisoft bring to Nintendo?
-Some ports of needed 3rd party franchises
-Perhaps some creative projects like Rayman/ZombiU that work for a while but then get ported to other consoles anyway.
Either way, having Ubisoft on board porting everything doesn't really increase the appeal of their hardware to a significant degree compared to the competition, and if Ubisoft continues to make best sellers this really only benefits the hardware of Sony and MS more than it could ever benefit Nintendo.
Now we can think darker.
What can Ubisoft falling to Vivendi mean for Nintendo?
-In the worst
best
Now of course this is talking only about the worse case where Ubisoft just gets totally shelled, but either way, Nintendo doesn't not gain much by risking this kind of move, nor do they stand to lose a great deal if they choose to do nothing. So they do nothing.
If ANY of the major 3 were to buy out a stake, it would be Sony and Microsoft but only if they could get exclusive rights to some key franchises which would cost a ton of capital and probably at that point is pretty much a takeover therein of itself. Anything less and your other major competitor still gets all the same games you do so what's the point?
The inverse of situation is largely the same, if both choose to do nothing and the worst case scenario still happens, you lose some but the other guy loses near an exact amount in terms of # of games and their quality. All in all, it either requires some serious muscle power in terms of $$ or you both stand to lose and there's no reason to really take a risk on that.
If it would have benefited any of the major 3 they would have already done it.
retardedrockstar
Member
My morbid curiosity exceeds my love for climbing towers.
SketchTheArtist
Member
Yeah, Bolloré doesn't care about Ubisoft's vision (or any of the company they're buying). His main focus is getting bigger and making as much money as possible. It's a pretty boring outlook on things. Money's cool, but I'm more of a creative-type. It's just a number for me.
