Ubisoft is confident that it will remain independent during industry acquisitions
If you’ve been interested in the video game industry until recently, you probably already know that 2022 has been defined by one word: acquisitions.
Started by Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of the Grand Theft Auto series, announced last January it would acquire mobile giant Zynga for nearly $13 billion. And a week later, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Activision Blizzard, the company that made Overwatch and Call of Duty, for $68.7 billion, and two weeks later, Sony announced that it would acquire Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2. 3.6 billion dollars.
In all of this, analysts and fans alike speculated on other possible acquisitions that could happen, and names like EA and Ubisoft were at the center of these discussions. But Yves Guillemot, president of Ubisoft, who faces company-wide accusations of workplace cheating and more, said he was confident the company could remain independent in its quarterly earnings report yesterday.
As Eurogamer reported, Guillemot said, “We have always made decisions in the interests of our stakeholders—players, employees and shareholders.” “So Ubisoft can remain independent. We have a large portfolio of talent, industrial and financial scale, and strong IP.”
However, Guillemot does not rule out the possibility that Ubisoft will be acquired by another company.
“If there is an offer to buy us, we will consider it for the benefit of the board and all stakeholders,” he said.
Similar to Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard and its consequences, theoretically, the company that acquires Ubisoft would take on employee evictions and accusations of workplace misconduct.
For more on this, check out this December’s report on employee churn in progress within Ubisoft. The report comes after a summer when employees were dissatisfied with handling internal scandals with Ubisoft executives. A new report last July found that many Ubisoft employees were dissatisfied with the way management handled “Me Too”, and in October 2020, 25% of Ubisoft employees said they had experienced or witnessed workplace cheating.
