An old version of the finished game leaked. But the reception, based on “rumors”, is that it’s the best AC game since Black Flag…
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Zaslav’s axe struck again, and after the firing of the WB Games head, three different studios were also given the boot.
Player First Games’ MultiVersus suffered such significant losses that it’s no wonder the door closed.
Monolith has a respectable 30-year history, several quality games, a legendary patented Nemesis game mechanic, and well, nothing to show for the last 8 years.
For some strange reason, Rocksteady was spared for a little longer.
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This might be a new record for how quickly an AAA game has become a PS+ monthly game or joined subscription services, approx. 4 months after its release. Even faster than Immortals of Aveum, which at least had a new studio and a new IP.
Whatever the case with Dragon Age: Veilguard, such a quick entry into subscription services will likely polarize the AAA field even further.
If consumers sense that a game will flop, they won’t buy it at any price, but will instead wait for deep discounts or its inclusion in subscription services. If, on the other hand, a game succeeds, it can sell 10M+ copies without going into discounts deeper than -20% (case: Baldur’s Gate 3), as players know the game won’t go into deep discounts or subscription services for years.
Digital distribution has certainly been an interesting phenomenon in the PC and console market.
First, it extended the sales tail of all games and leveled out front-loading. Almost all games won.
Then competition, and especially the number of game releases, increased, and the popularity of subscription services grew. Subscription service deals were good because the money was ‘free’. Most games/studios won.
Now, with competition intensifying further while the market has not returned to growth from the ‘corona hangover’, the AA market has been wiped out. It seems that on the AAA side too, the PC and console market will increasingly resemble the “winner-takes-it-all” reality of the mobile game market.
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Applovin short report. Posting this here because it mainly advertises in games and there isn’t a dedicated company thread, or at least search didn’t find one.
It seems to secretly download other games in the background. Based on the report, it appears to be some kind of malware. The CEO also has a background in similar operations previously.
No position, but I’m following out of interest.
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Steam reached over 40 million concurrent users for the first time.
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Digital Bros / 505 Games released a new report yesterday, and although the company has previously announced that it will renew its entire strategy, lay off staff, and try to survive, in light of the figures, the continuation of its operations remains uncertain.
NET REVENUE AT EURO 43 MILLION (-8.7%)
NET LOSS AT EURO 3.5 MILLION
NET FINANCIAL DEBT AT EURO 29.7 MILLIONCONFIRMED FULL YEAR OUTLOOK EXPECTING DECREASING REVENUE BUT
CONSTANT EBIT
In May, a God of War-type game from the Metroid Dread developer, Blades of Fire, will be released, but the game is apparently an Epic Store exclusive on PC. The soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, to be released at the end of the year, will either save the company or finally drive it into the ground.
DigitalBros still owns 20% of another problem patient, Starbreeze.
DigitalBros’ stock has risen over 50% from its lows, but I find it hard to see why the company still has a market capitalization of 180M euros with this performance. It wouldn’t be surprising if the difficulties continue throughout the year and by the end of the year, the whole thing is sold to Embracer and merged with Milestone.
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Scopely, owned by Saudi Savvy Games, acquires the game businesses of Niantic, developer of Pokemon Go, for $3.85 billion.
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All sorts of rumors are swirling around Ubisoft, and next week will be even more exciting when Ass Creed Shadows is released.
IGN got its hands on AJ Investments’ latest letter to management and owners. They are not happy with the recent rumors and are still considering legal action.
Bloomberg, on the other hand, reported that Ubisoft’s management is planning a spin-off and would be launching a bidding process to finance the new company.
Ubisoft Entertainment SA is looking to bring in investors to a new entity that will include some of its core video-gaming intellectual property, including Assassin’s Creed, according to people familiar with the situation.
The company is considering selling a minority stake in the venture and has contacted potential bidders, including current shareholder Tencent Holdings Ltd. and funds globally and in France, where Ubisoft is based, the people said. Ubisoft has asked for preliminary bids to be made as soon as this month, the people added, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. Ubisoft Entertainment SA is looking to bring in investors to a new entity that will include some of its core video-gaming intellectual property, including Assassin’s Creed, according to people familiar with the situation.
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A little bit of industry history again; in a recent interview with John “Wild Bill” Stealey, the topic being MicroProse 1982-1993. The interview focuses on the business side.
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AC Shadows reviews are out. Some like it, some don’t, but at least a bigger catastrophe was avoided.
For comparison, previous releases
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Sounds like a pretty standard Assassin’s Creed game. Player reviews will of course be low due to trolls, and sales figures are unlikely to break the bank, but it pretty much met my own expectations.
From Newzoo’s PC market (via PC Gamer):
Almost a billion PC players
The results are extrapolated from a yearly in-depth survey of 73,000 players, alongside data from over 10,000 games. From this NewZoo says that the PC market is growing at a steady rate, with an estimated 873.5 million players in 2023 rising to 907.5 million in 2024.
… but 92% of the hours spent playing went to games older than two years.
And the data further shows, in NewZoo’s own words, that these 908 million “PC players are heavily skewed towards older, live service games.”
The data shows that from January 2024 to December 2024, 67% of player hours on PC were spent on a game that was six or more years old. A further 25% of player hours were spent on games that were two to five years old, and the remaining 8% of time was spent on games that are less than two years old.
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Now the rumors have been confirmed, Ubisoft plans to split itself.
UBISOFT ACCELERATES ITS TRANSFORMATION BY LAYING FOUNDATION
FOR NEW OPERATING MODEL WITH THE CREATION OF A SUBSIDIARY AND
INJECTION OF €1.16BN OF CASH FROM SELECTED INVESTOR TENCEN
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No takeover bid for Ubisoft came from the Tencent/Guillemot axis. Now, the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game brands are being pushed into a new subsidiary, into which Tencent is simultaneously investing €1.16 billion and receiving a 25% stake in return. Time will tell if this new company will eventually be spun off as its own independent company on the stock market.
It remains to be seen if the stock market will be excited about this arrangement tomorrow. According to Capital IQ, Ubisoft’s enterprise value is currently around €3.1 billion. Of course, with that investment of over a billion, Tencent is partly trying to artificially boost Ubisoft’s overall value upwards 
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What’s the core of the matter there? What’s left for the old Ubisoft? Is it profitable at all?
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This worked for Embracer. The stock price rose about 200% from its lowest levels in 2023 until the spin-off of Asmodee this year. I bet that Ubisoft’s stock price will also climb clearly above 20 before the carve-out happens at the end of the year.
This differs significantly from Embracer’s solutions..
Now, in practice, a “directed share issue” was arranged for Tencent, in connection with which Tencent gets 25% of the company’s most important assets and pays a billion for this to Ubisoft, of which it already owns a significant part anyway.
The ownership structures of the companies are already quite peculiar.
The new subsidiary to be established (Ubicent) is a non-public company, and Ubisoft’s current shareholders own only 75% of it. So, this is a fairly large dilution.
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Ubisoft must believe that 75% of that entity yields more than 100% ownership of these divestable assets.
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For once, the timing might have gone right (purely by luck). It’s been about 36 hours since my Ubisoft purchases.
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That’s what I thought too.
And -20% on the board.
And body text.
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