Ubisoft shares drop after Star Wars Outlaws release, investors angry
in view of Star Wars Outlaws' Following the release, developer Ubisoft's stock has been sinking. Yesterday, Ubisoft's stock price fell 7% in a day to €13.67, which is about $15.09. Today, It is even lower€13.24, or $14.62. This is almost certainly due to the lackluster performance of Star Wars Outlawsa major release for the company that Ubisoft calls its “The greatest marketing campaign everThis marketing campaign included flying YouTube reviewers to California, giving them lightsabers and other toys, sending them to Disneyland, and even sending them whale watching, which sounds weird, but then again, I'm not a marketing expert for a video game company. But all their pampering didn't get them good press, and while some reviews hid their criticisms as much as possible, it was obvious Star Wars Outlaws Was A buggy, poorly designed mess With lousy graphics and ridiculously bad AI.
Star Wars Outlaws needs some patches to deal with bugs.
When such incidents happen it becomes difficult to work secretly. pic.twitter.com/62n00T4Wx4
— kami (@Okami13_) August 26, 2024
Predictably, not many people gave a shit about this game, or so it seems. There's been no report from Ubisoft yet – which in itself is a sign of poor reception; if there was they'd be shouting it from the rooftops. Star Wars Outlaws It was a huge event – but other sources indicate a soft release. According to TrueTrophies, which surveys the games being played by PlayStation 5 users using a “representative sample of 3.1 million active PSN accounts”, Star Wars Outlaws Was #25 in its first weekin games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty: Moder Warfare II, Elden Ring, Rocket Leagueand of course, Black Myth: WukongSports journalist like to hate And The hate that gamers love, Black Myth: Wukongwhich was then in its third week of release, was at #4, twenty places higher than the film that had just been released Star Wars Outlaws, this week, Star Wars Outlaws drops three spots to #28! Meanwhile, new releases Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions debuted at #10 while Black Myth: Wukong Stayed at #4. Ouch. In the meantime, Chris Dring Sports Industry The report said that its sale in Britain Star Wars Outlaws were 55% lower than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor,
We don't have digital data yet. And this is just the U.K. But… It was a weak launch for Star Wars Outlaws at U.K. retail. Launch sales were 55% lower than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. That was 15% higher than Ubisoft Massive's previous game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (G.F.K. data).
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) September 3, 2024
Perhaps even more interesting than Ubisoft's stock drop is the reaction of its investors. An article from That Park Place (from which I got most of the above information), AJ Investments – a Nashville-based real estate investment firm and a “significant minority shareholder” in Ubisoft – sent it to Ubisoft's board of directors an open letter Expressing deep dissatisfaction with the company's current performance and strategic direction, they suggested that Ubisoft either go private, replace CEO Yves Guillemot and the management team, or sell the controlling stake held by the Guillemot family to other investors, threatening a proxy fight. AJ Investments appears particularly angry with the Guillemots, accusing them and Chinese company and Ubisoft shareholder Tencent of doing all of this to deliberately devalue Ubisoft's shares so they can buy up more shares on the cheap, thereby gaining even more interest in the company.
Aside from the funny business of alleged stock devaluation, AJ Investments’ complaints include a “low revenue outlook for Q2 2024” and Ubisoft’s “postponement of the release ofRainbow Six Siege And Block in the 2025 lineup.” (I looked it up, and I think they're referring to the two mobile games, Rainbow Six Mobile And Division Resurrection.) They also point out that Ubisoft's stock prices have “dropped more than 40% over the past year.” I don't blame them for being angry; Ubisoft has made some stupid moves lately. Star Wars Outlaws It looks like a leftover PlayStation 2 game that was too buggy to be released fifteen years ago, and their next big game, assassins creed shadowThere has been a lot of bad publicity ever since its first trailerresult of Severe disability. and Yves Guillemot didn't help matters Insulting gamers to criticize Ubisoft's games. I can understand why they think it's intentional, but it's the same thing all these conscious companies do.
It will be interesting to see how this potential proxy war plays out and what effect it has on the rest of the video game industry. There seems to be a lot of pushback from investors on VoK Entertainment because it costs them a lot of money. It hasn't done much in the film industry yet, but video game investors are flocking to get involved.
Let us know in the comments what you think will happen in a potential Ubisoft proxy war!
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