Just minutes before it was set to deliver its financial results for the first half of its 2025-26 fiscal year, Ubisoft mashed the brakes on the whole thing, postponing the release of its results to an unspecified future date. The company also requested that European exchange Euronext halt trading of the company’s shares and bonds from November 14 until the publication of its results.

  • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Man, they have had some really good IP over the years and somehow managed to ruin all of it.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      That’s what you get when you don’t want to pay people for their work and try to keep teams together. The newbies aren’t going to care about the rich history of the games they’re banging out code for at 3 AM on a Saturday.

  • kosure@sh.itjust.works
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    2 hours ago

    Yikes bikes. Obviously the writing has been on the wall for a minute. But I didn’t realize it would happen in one minute.

  • arc99@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Most likely they fucked up their report and they’re using the rules of the exchange to suspend trading until they fix the mistake. But Ubisoft has been running on fumes for some time now, shitting out the same 3 or 4 games over and over again so I doubt their financials are that great.

  • TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works
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    12 hours ago

    Ubisoft is a textbook example of what happens when you pin your companies revenue on a small handful of IPs and milk them to the absolute fucking limit. I like assassins creed, but I’ve played enough of them for the rest of my life. Make something new my dudes.

    • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 hours ago

      They have so many great IPs that are just gathering dust or in development hell, yet they keep milking the same few games every year.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      5 hours ago

      It’s what happens when you operate your company with an accountant mentality. The focus is 100% on money, and 0% on creativity.

      They always realize too late that customers won’t just give you money, you have to offer them something decent in exchange, but accountants don’t know how to do that, which is why you NEVER let accountant craft the business strategy for a company.

      If they try to offer suggestions, you scream at them to get back to their hole and count the money like they’re supposed to, and when their opinion is needed, it will be solicited, which will be NEVER.

    • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      You cheer this on, but what are the odds that saudi arabia buys them up?

      How many things do you want owned by the worst country bar none for human rights? (yes I am aware the US is racing to catch up, but is nowhere near as bad per capita).

        • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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          10 minutes ago

          That one Steam user will be hyped as fuck.

          Finally, a games company that praises the glory of the regime.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        I’m not sure how much I should care. I haven’t bought a Ubisoft game in decades anyway. They don’t make anything I need, so it’s not like it’s an inconvenience to boycott.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          5 hours ago

          Every now and then someone calls for a boycott, and I say that I’ve already been boycotting them all my life, and didn’t even know it.

          Alternatively, sometimes there are calls to boycott something, and it turns out I’ve been boycotting them for years over some old atrocity. For instance, United Airlines gets boycotted regularly, but I’ve been boycotting them for decades, for lots of other shitty behavior (destroying guitars, beating up doctors who refuse to give up their paid-for seat, etc.), as well as having the highest fares in the business.

        • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          You don’t think the saudis having a great deal of control over the content your fellow countryman engages with has any effects you should care about?

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            You underestimate my level of cynicism at this point. You also underestimate my disrespect for the average gamer. If they’re not lapping up one form of propaganda, they’re lapping up another.

            • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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              17 minutes ago

              Absolutely the case, but we can’t throw nuance to the wind just because bad things will continue to happen. SA propaganda is definitely note worthily worse than many other forms.

              Whats more, I feel that gaming generally is more focused on trying to use marketting dark patterns to encourage spending than pushing any messages typically. This makes them, in my mind, even more vulnerable as they won’t even be expecting it as their viewpoints change over time.

            • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Where did you read me saying it was their fault, or that I expected them to stop it?

              I said neither thing.

              All I am saying is it’s something to pay attention to, and its not good when media sources are bought by the saudis.

              Why keep this in mind? In case there is ever somewhere that does make this relevant. Like maybe it should be in the eyes of the public more such that its a political talking point so regulating agencies are less happy with letting companies be sold to SA.

              • FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                You took a leap from someone being excited about a company they hate hypothetically being bought, down their throat because they’re not as worried as you are about the hypothetical odds of the buyer being Saudi Arabia, and what downstream effects that might have on American culture.

                It’s just a weird thing to press someone on

                • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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                  23 minutes ago

                  You took a leap from someone being excited about a company they hate hypothetically being bought, down their throat

                  I’m just going to stop you right there. You’re reading in a whole lot of malice into a pretty benign comment pointing out why someone might care in spite of not caring about their games.

                  and what downstream effects that might have on American culture.

                  I don’t believe any specific country was named in the context of that point. The USA was only brought up to preempt comments derailing the point of my comment by bringing it up.

      • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 hours ago

        Yeah, it happens to prevent a mass sell-off because of speculation.

        Even if the news is positive, postponing is enough to make people speculate, so it’s a valid reason to halt trading.

        Although I doubt it’s gonna be positive news for shareholders.

      • Kjell@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        It happens sometimes. Usually it is when there are rumors that will have a significant impact on the stock. In that case the stock can be halted until the company gives a statement about it. I’m not sure if it is the company can halt it, I think they can request it and provide information why it should be halted and then it is up to the stock exchange to determine. And the stock exchange has its own rules for when to halt the trade.

        I expect Ubisoft to update during the next week or perhaps already during the weekend and then the trading can continue.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      20 hours ago

      Oh it has, but the implications become clear when you look at the ones that did. Like evergrand…

  • dbtng@eviltoast.org
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    1 day ago

    The only games in my Steam library that I can’t play are Ubisoft.
    Fuk Ubi. Forever. I would be happy if they went under.

    • mirshafie@europe.pub
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      1 day ago

      The Sands of Time series and Beyond Good and Evil are incredible, and they’re on gog. I’m thinking of getting them, but I have no desire whatsoever for anything that Ubisoft, EA or Activision makes.

    • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      The only Ubi game I play is Just Dance Now. Sadly I can’t think of a non-Ubi alternative to that gameplay :/

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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        21 hours ago

        The rabbit hole goes deep on this one.

        I found it surreally hard to find new dance game - until I discovered that much of the player community had (I guess?) moved to an open source game engine called StepMania.

        I play StepMania happily enough, now. It is nice how many different songs I can now add with community contributed step configurations.

        • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Hmm sadly that’s a very different gameplay to Just Dance, here’s an example. In JD they record dancers with motion capture, and you need to follow that choreography, while the game tracks your accuracy with a phone, console controller, or camera.

          So it needs a bigger production team than FLOSS indies can probably manage :c

  • zerofk@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Either way, he recommended that everyone “freak the fuck out for the next few days and speculate as much as possible until they announce something,”

    Advice after my own heart. Freaking out and speculating are always the best move.