Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has reportedly apologised to staff for a recent comment in which he stated that "the ball is in your court" regarding getting the major publisher back on track.
As reported by Kotaku, Guillemot took part in a company-wide Q&A session with Ubisoft staff and opened the meeting by apologising for his previous comment, stating “I heard your feedback and I’m sorry this was perceived that way". The apology was alleged in response to an up-voted question which read “the ball is now in our court—for years it has been in your court so why did you mishandle the ball so badly so we, the workers, have to fix it for you?”.
The drama follows news that Ubisoft had cancelled three unannounced games, delayed the troubled live-service title Skull and Bones for the sixth time, and announced extensive cost-cutting measures to take place over the next two years. The company stated that software sales over the 2022 holiday period were “markedly and surprisingly slower than expected”, citing Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023 Edition as key examples of games that underperformed against expectations.
In direct response to Guillemot's initial comments, Ubisoft Paris — the company's headquarters — has been called upon by trade union Solidaires Informatique to strike on January 27th, with the union stating that Guillemot had tried to shift the blame of the company's failures onto its employees.
It's unknown whether the strike will still go ahead in light of Guillemot's apology, but one thing is for certain: things are not looking great over at Ubisoft.
What do you make of Yves Guillemot's comments and subsequent apology? Let us know with a comment below.
[source kotaku.com, via pushsquare.com]
Comments 47
"I'm sowwy, pwease don't stwike."
Now he got bad karma.
One problem with Ubisoft games is they go in sale within 1-3 months of release. If it happens once in a while fine but it's become so common it's become a meme.
@Zimon Totally agree! I was shocked how often and low the original Mario rabbids went on sale, considering it involved Nintendo IP. Wishing I waited on sparks of hope now as not played it as much as I wanted these past months, more fool me
Not very surprising. Nintendo audience rarely buy sequels on same system. The huge success of Splatoon 3 took everyone by surprise.
"sorry this was perceived that way" is quite different than "sorry". Seems like the same lack of accountability as exhibited in his initial comment.
@Zimon Exactly. I got Mario + Rabbids for dirt cheap not terribly long after it released and Starlink for £20 just a few months after it launched for around £70 (and it dropped even further than that shortly after). Sparks of Hope is the only recent Ubisoft game I have any interest in and knowing how fast their games drop in price I can’t justify buying it anywhere near close to full price.
They shouldn’t complain about the low sales of Mario Rabbids 2. I bought the first game at launch and they discounted the price by over 50% only 3 months later. No way people will go through that again.
@Zimon
The sales are the only reason I've bought any of them!
I didn't buy Sparks of Hope because I have too many other games to play right now.
"I heard your feedback and I’m sorry this was perceived that way."
That's not an apology. Just like the non-apology for a culture of sexual abuse, which is also the fault of the higher-ups rather than the lower-level staff, which is apparently still a problem within the company, and which was a big reason I didn't buy the game.
Want to show you're genuinely sorry? Resign.
Stop making ***** with utterly charmless rabbids.
and is Rayman dead?
Ubisoft CEO : I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry...
Me : Whaaaaat...???
It is incredibly obnoxious that such a fun game as Sparks of Hope is being dragged by Ubi. It has sold well and the reviews are really positive pretty much everywhere. They either had wildly unrealistic expectations for revenue from the game, or they are finally feeling the impact of their poor practices. Probably both actually. Sparks is not to blame for a gap between Assassins Creed games meaning less revenue and delaying games over and over resulting in less revenue. Not to mention consumers waiting a little before buying it. They’re just shifting blame because they’re finally feeling the heat from bad decisions and a great game is getting ***** on. I would love to see more games in this series but their bad business practices probably stopped that.
Perhaps gamers are feeling burn out on the franchises. How many times can Ubisoft rinse and repeat the likes of Far Cry, Just Dance and Assassin's Creed before we've seen enough?
Ubisoft might as well have a pound sign at the start of their name, they are up for sale and he is waiting for poor figures at the end of the financial year so then has an excuse to make people redundant. Then he will streamline the company to make it look more profitable for the next big company to come and swallow them up.
I might be wrong but you know....
"I'm sorry you were offended".
Well maybe if your games didn't go dirt cheap after a couple weeks makes people would actually have incentive to buy them at launch.
I find it amazing they even bothered to do the, "I'm sorry you got offended," non-apology given all the significantly worse stuff that Ubisoft just completely got away with.
Sure you are.
Article subheading: "I heard your feedback and I'm sorry"
Actual quote: "I heard your feedback and I’m sorry this was perceived that way"
That is not an apology and I don't know why NL chose to present it as such. This is how bad people continue getting away with bad things.
That’s not even a proper apology, it’s just him shifting the blame back to the people saying that we “misinterpret” what he said and that he is sorry that we do not have the IQ to understand what he said.
Is Just dance from Ubisoft? Oke.
lazy overpaid CEOs seem to not understand the concept of crap rolling up hill. Those at the top have the greatest responsibility. That is the entire point.
I literally bought Just Dance 2023 at full price and it was discounted to $25 the next week!
And the game is so GARBAGE. They turned Just Dance Unlimited into Just Dance+ and removed 75% of the songs and kept the same pricing. In addition, it lags so bad on the Switch, and they removed so many features from previous games just to “re-introduce” them as “new” features as free updates.
Just Dance 2023 is literally the WORST game...and I LOVE that series and have bought every single one (and have an active subscription to the unlimited thing which is now useless as they scammed us by launching a different subscription service for 2023 version!)
But Just Dance 2023 is utter trash!
It's hard to blame people for waiting to buy a game when the company has a bad habit of cratering prices quickly after launch, which is just an insult to loyal customers who buy these games ASAP.
That probably means M+R is dead as a series now, which tracks with the historical trend of Mario RPG series dying off. Ugh.
Ubisoft is stuck in a sludgy tar pit of chasing money making trends without imbuing their titles without any sort of actual passion to make them distinct from the competition. Or rather, what start out as passion driven projects get bogged down by company mandates to make them as safe and derivative as possible. At least that’s how I see it. Anything halfway inspired like Fenyx Rising or Mario + Rabbids seems doomed for not pulling in Calling of Duty numbers. Whatever happened to that gorgeous Ubiart engine they made for Rayman and Valiant Hearts? At any rate, the culture there seems deeply troubling and I wish nothing but the best for the devs in the trenches.
@glaemay Took no one by surprise, Splatoon 3 is one of their biggest franchises.
"I’m sorry this was perceived that way" is not an apology and NintendoLife shouldn't call it that.
It might have something to do with the fact that people all over the world have less disposable income than they did a year ago, that Ubi's games are known for going on deep sales in short order, and that in gaming generally RRPs are too high, especially in light of season passes and in-game purchases.
I feel even more justified in not giving Ubisoft my money after that non-apology.
I never really cared about Ubisoft's games much so I started out indifferent. The original Mario+Rabbids didn't do much for me so I wasn't planning on getting the sequel to begin with. Arlo's video about why he wouldn't be reviewing it mirroring my own feelings about ActiBlizz just kinda solidified it. And spoiler alert, it wasn't the employees or the games being bad that were the reasons, it was the take no responsibility CEO. The same one who just hit his people with a "sorry you feel that way" after getting called out for throwing all the blame at his employees. YOU are in charge. YOU are the reason for the failures. YOU need to fix YOURSELF. Start with the non-apology garbage.
Now here's a company that Nintendo should buy. Sony is buying companies, Microsoft is buying companies. Nintendo should as well. They already work very well together (Mario Rabbids games).
A quick Google search shows Ubisoft only has a market cap of 2.41 Billion Euros. Nintendo's is 52ish Billion Euros.
Assassin's creed. Rainbow 6. Splinter cell. Watch dogs. Far cry. Beyond good and evil. Prince of Persia. Star wars license. No more heroes. Red steel. Ghost recon. Call of Juarez. Driver series. Rayman. Star trek. Starlink. Trials. South park.
All those could be on Nintendo. AND Nintendo could right the ship.
People always complain about Nintendo's pricing model but at least I know that I won't get ripped off for being an early adopter.
All my Switch Ubisoft games (Mario x Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game) were bought on sale, and I have more wishlisted. Very thankful for those, but I can see how their constant sales can hurt their earnings.
@Bunz I thought the same. There seems to be an inability these days to take it on the chin and just say sorry for what you did.
Now it's "I'm sorry you're offended/upset by what I said", like it's my problem they are an idiot.
I still think that Sparks of Hope suffered from bad timing. Ubisoft should have waited two or three months before releasing it, because that was a packed period in the market for the Switch with many, many good games coming too close one to another
This company has such a distinct history of discounting their games so much in the eshop that I have no incentive to buy them at release anymore. I’m getting the rabbids game, but it’ll be the complete digital edition for 19.99 or less.
It’s a bad practice for the business that turned into a bad expectation from me the consumer.
@glaemay Weird take. Nintendo themselves generally do not release same console sequels, but when they do they are generally very profitable (Pokemon Black and White, Sun and Moon, Scarlet and Violet, Mario Galaxy 2, Xenoblade 3, and Fire Emblem Fates all came out on the same system as their prequels and had comparable or better sales), and I cannot think of a serious analyst or publication that was forecasting anything but a slam dunk for Splatoon 3.
There was no chance I'd buy Sparks of Hope at full price when I only just got Kingdom Battle gold edition earlier this year at a huge discount. Even as a casual observer you know how common good sales are from them.
Also the title is misleading. "I'm sorry you misunderstood me" doesn't qualify as an apology as far as I'm concerned. It's probably second only to "I'm sorry you're mad" as worst non-apology.
@YinYangYoshi Strike? He's worried about his workers leaving the company, they would easily find a better paying job elsewhere.
@Zimon They put their games on sale because they want to remove the barrier of entry to sell you microtransactions later down the road. Of course, this harms the overall sales of their product as the customers are trained to wait a couple months to get a much better price, or wait longer to get a "Complete Edition".
I never buy 3rd party AAA games day 1, unless it's something very specific that I want to support or play with my friends. But, I do buy Nintendo games day 1 physical, without a worry in the world, as they are never on deep sale.
While we're talking about Ubisoft and Nintendo in specific, in my opinion the whole "Gold Edition" thing on Sparks of Hope harmed their sales. This tactic might work on your average gamer, but on Nintendo platforms people expect a full game on the cartridge without any extra catch.
@Uncle_Franklin Not like Rayman was ever a big seller, he would never be able to save Ubisoft. And at this point they are too far behind to reinvent Rayman in 3D or something. I mean, they could try, it would be great if they did, but I doubt they can pull it off to great success and sales.
Ubisoft games are just...ugh..only reason I got Rayman Legends is because of what happened to the devs during the Wii U version. I got the first Mario + Rabbids game, and...it's..."ok"....but has tons of issues. I struggled to beat it because of this and didn't even bother finishing the DLC part. Apparently these issues are in my system only, too...like...wtf?
So yeah, not buying the sequel...probably just not gonna buy anything Ubisoft related in general...they always have issues and Ubisoft refuses to fix them.
Just Dance income stream for them has to be taking a real hit. 2023 has Just Dance+ subscription service which is far, far inferior to their previous Just Dance Unlimited. Ubisoft already has the game 50% in the eShop, killing profit margins, and now their subscription income stream should be greatly reduced as there is so little value to consumers with Just Dance+. Personally, once my trial is up, I'm not subscribing until a ton more songs are added. They really shot themselves in the foot by virtually killing one of their biggest cash cow series.
Ubisoft need to re-structure their studios, they need a better mix of AAA, AA and smaller, more experimental games, they've achieved it before, they used to do well releasing their big AC games alongside Rayman Origins/Legends and also their indie games like Child of Light, a return to that approach would work wonders for them.
The new AC apparently being like a traditional, smaller Creed game like the older ones is a good sign, but mostly, they need to get away from their utter obsession of every game needing to be a huge open world, Rayman, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia all suffered for not fitting this mould so were left on the scrap heap, linear is not a dirty word and they might be pleasantly surprised how much of an audience is still out there for them.
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