Ubisoft turns back to Steam in deep crisis
Ubisoft's situation is becoming increasingly serious after weak sales figures for "Outlaws": The return to Steam should help, writes CEO Yves Guillemot.
(Image: Ubisoft)
Ubisoft is sliding deeper and deeper into a corporate crisis: Following weak sales figures for the open-world game "Star Wars Outlaws", the French games company has decided to postpone the upcoming "Assassin's Creed Shadows" from November 12, 2024 to February 14, 2025. Under economic pressure, Ubisoft now wants to return to Steam.
This was announced by CEO Yves Guillemot in an internal letter published by Insider Gaming magazine. For a long time, Ubisoft preferred its own launcher and exclusive agreements with the Epic Games Store. Recently, however, many Ubisoft games have returned to Steam, at least with a delay. Starting with "Assassin's Creed Shadows", Ubisoft wants to release its games on Steam on day 1 again.
Ubisoft crawls back to Steam
In the meantime, Ubisoft had even turned its back on Steam completely. In 2019, the French publisher began removing its games from Steam. This was followed by a small turnaround in 2022, when titles such as "Assassin's Creed Valhalla", "Far Cry 6", "Riders Republic", "Rainbow Six: Extraction" and "Monopoly Madness" were released on Steam, at least retrospectively.
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Although Steam has the most users as the largest PC platform, it charges comparatively high commissions of up to 30 percent –, a sum that a Ubisoft manager once described as "unrealistic". In the Epic Games Store, on the other hand, Ubisoft only has to cede 12 percent of the sales generated with its games, while on its own platform Ubisoft Connect, Ubisoft keeps all of the sales. Apparently, however, it does not pay off for Ubisoft to forego the large Steam audience.
No advance access, no "agenda"
Guillemot's internal letter also mentions other strategic issues that could now be addressed: Future Ubisoft games should again be made available to all players at the same time. In some previous games, pre-orderers of premium editions were sometimes granted earlier access, which could cause displeasure in the community. In "Outlaws", there was even an exclusive mission for pre-orderers, which went down particularly badly with the gaming community. Those who pre-order "Assassin's Creed Shadows" will receive the first expansion for free instead, writes Guillemot.
Guillemot apparently also wants to appease the community with supposedly political statements: "We are an entertainment company. As such, it is not our goal to support a particular agenda," writes Guillemot. Ubisoft's CEO is apparently alluding to criticism of the black character in "AC Shadows": Yasuke, one of the two playable characters in "Shadows", is a historically documented samurai with African roots.
Development of "Outlaws" continues
At management level, the "improvement of our production is to be accelerated", the internal letter continues. Guillemot also wants to improve communication. In addition, the Supervisory Board is to investigate how company processes can be improved.
Meanwhile, Guillemot does not want to write off "Star Wars Outlaws" just yet. According to the internal letter, the development team is already working on improving the sneaking mechanics in "Outlaws" and incorporating more save points. "I am confident that these updates will significantly improve the gaming experience and make 'Star Wars Outlaws' a must-have game and a long-term sales success," writes Guillemot. He is placing his hopes above all on Black Friday and the Christmas sales.
Ubisoft under pressure
Ubisoft is in a precarious economic situation: several releases in recent years have failed to meet the French publisher's expectations. The best example of this is "Skull and Bones". Ubisoft's pirate game was realigned several times in the course of development before it was launched on the market after a long delay to mediocre reviews at best.
In the past 12 months, Ubisoft's share price has plummeted by 60 percent. Due to its weak position, Ubisoft is generally regarded as a potential takeover candidate for larger games companies.
(dahe)