Rocky Posted December 14, 2024 Share Posted December 14, 2024 Compared to the gaming landscape when Wildlands was released, the current financial landscape is a mess. Back then, in comparison, money was aplenty for game development and marketing. You only have to look at the lavish expense Ubisoft went to promoting their games at E3 compared to more recent years. Now there's a risk of a Ubisoft financial buyout looming its ugly head again and risking the future of Ubisoft, and by association, also the future of Ghost Recon. I've quickly summarised my concerns in this article about the risk of a Tencent takeover here. Worrying times for Ghost Recon fans! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted June 21, 2025 Share Posted June 21, 2025 (edited) Glad to see things on GRN back up and the forums cleaned of all the weird spam! But who could ever have seen this coming?! Seriously, if you think about it, the only iterations of the Ghost Recon franchise that were any good happened when a Developer Studio were allowed more control over the development and the marketing reflected that -- rather than Ubisoft's top down design churn with all the prevarication about what they were offering. Whatever happens in a buyout can't be any worse than the track Ubisoft has been on for over a decade -- and could be a lot better,Ghost Recon had great IP that still has an enormous appeal but a now scattered following, that if taken to the task of delivering what was once offered in titles like OGR, GRAW, Future Soldier, and Wildlands could be an epic win for the franchise. A closer look at the current arrangement with Tencent shows how intransigent and dysfunctional Ubisoft management is, and how clearly they're circling the drain. Any resolution and clarity about the future of the IP would be better than where things are now... Edited June 21, 2025 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobblers Posted July 31, 2025 Share Posted July 31, 2025 It seems like we've been talking about UBI's mismanagement for quite sometime, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. Maybe a takeover would be good for GR? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted July 31, 2025 Author Share Posted July 31, 2025 So much bad news about Ubi recently, with employee court cases, financial mis-management etc etc. It's hard to believe they could fall from such great heights as they have some incredible IPs that gamers flock to every new instalment. I get the games industry is tough, but they had a very strong position and a huge market of loyal fans. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted November 17, 2025 Share Posted November 17, 2025 (edited) On 31/07/2025 at 06:30, Rocky said: So much bad news about Ubi recently, with employee court cases, financial mis-management etc etc. It's hard to believe they could fall from such great heights as they have some incredible IPs that gamers flock to every new instalment. I get the games industry is tough, but they had a very strong position and a huge market of loyal fans. And the news just goes from bad to worse -- it does look like the Ubisoft is truly circling the drain... Loyal Fans, a gigantic market, amazing IP, and enormously talented Studios burned to the ground for over a decade... This last point -- what Ubisoft did to its Studios especially demonstrates just how completely the Publisher burned its bridges. A Publisher that micro-manages Studio development where previously enormously successful and popular IP was made without that oversight and micro-management, and it gets so bad key and even lead talent that built those Studios and their IP leave, after repeated demonstrations of poorer and poorer sales, bad reviews etc. -- is no different than if a Print Press Publisher were to micro-manage what an Author writes... Can anyone imagine if Penguin, Random House, or Sphere were to have told Tom Clancy, "The story line is okay, but we want all the main characters to be trans circus clowns and drag queens...and we don't want any realistic depictions of conflict, we want cartoon depictions that are humorous, and we'll have our Ghostwriter do it for you..."? And they did this after Tom Clancy and written his third best seller... Would that work? This is not to suggest there isn't a valid market for whatever it is a Publisher might want, or in the case of Ubisoft prefer and to develop alternative IP that targets that market or idea -- but to to so completely subvert and obviate Studios and talent that have demonstrated they understand their genre, market and audience as well as Red Storm and Massive Entertainment did (and studios like Grin and Crytek that worked so hard and were just getting there) -- is beyond appalling... That Ubisoft did this, relentlessly, across its entire Studios portfolio & IP stack, in the face of decades of enormous Fan & Review criticism, tanking sales, -- shouldn't make any of the current outcomes a shock or surprise to anyone. Hopefully, the IP will be acquired by a party or parties that understand the enormous squandered potential, and/or will put someone in charge that does as there remains an enormous hole in the Tactical Realism and Stealth gaming market that hasn't been filled filled with competent 'AAA' titles for over a decade... Edited November 17, 2025 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 (edited) And now from bad, to worse, to literally as bad as it gets: Ubisoft stock crashed (again) and is now not only lower than it was over twenty years ago after the IPO dip when the company went public, it's now lower than it has ever been (Yahoo Finance) (hit the "All" button to see the entire stock history) erasing all the company's gains, and even making ZeroHedge headlines. With its massive debt, repeated government and private bailouts, a massive private bailout from Tencent -- and the company still can't even pay the bills, it should be no surprise the Ubisoft has lost all investor confidence. If a family member burned through money in the manner it was done here; they'd not only be unemployable, they'd be in prison and disowned. If Red Storm had run their studio like this, there never would have been a Ghost Recon. In fact, the only other entity that gets away with this scale of dysfunction and malfeasance for this long, is government... The silver lining has to be we're that much closer to someone else owning Ghost Recon IP or even better the Tom Clancy IP in entire, and it seems very unlikely whoever that may be could do as poorly with literally every example that can be made of what not to do. As a fan of primarily Red Storm and all the ground they broke in tactical realism game design; I'm sad this has gone the way it has, but it will be a relief when the page finally turns -- if only Ubisoft had just remained a Publisher... Here's to hoping we may again have 'The best of the best!'... "Maybe the time is not, quite yet... But those are the worlds promising untold opportunities... Beckon..." -Carl Sagan Edited January 27 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 (edited) Wow! (more here) Just wow, and not in a good way... Red Storm Entertainment only had an estimated 130 (at most) people before the layoff -- so that leaves the studio with 10-25 people by generous estimates. What's beyond astounding is the complete lack of introspection at the decision making level at Ubisoft, for decades... With over €2 billion in government and commercial bailouts, positive stock cash flow (as well as enormous tax credits of nearly an additional billion CAD$ at Canadian taxpayer expense) Ubisoft can't even pay its debts and bills, no less clear a small profit in just one lucrative market sector, no less the most lucrative market sector where it used to lead... There are many small indie teams of six to ten that make more -- not on just one game, than the entire company! That Ubisoft is firing the people that actually produce, while the executives that have made decades of astoundingly bad decisions (the same bad decisions multiple times) that brought the company to its defaulting on everything state, still pay themselves enormous salaries tells the story... Going forward from here; why would anyone buy this company's stock, or bail it out again? The dumpster fire called Ubisoft looks more like a red hot target for a massive employee (and investor) class action lawsuit for malfeasance.... This is as disgusting as it is sad... RSE RIP... Edited March 24 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 MathChef has had a lot of inside info on the goings on at Ubisoft and posted this interesting video at the end of March: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN_f1NqOhk8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 (edited) Some potentially good news here, some of what sounds like conjecture, but Mathieu (MathChef on YouTube) is uniquely connected in France and has been talking to people at Ubisoft for over 12 years -- but the forum won't allow me to post the YouTube video link... Edited April 26 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 Mathchef has another vlog up on YouTube -- I'll try and link it below but the forum has been blocking me. Mathieu has been literally the only source I can find for any information on Ghost Recon Over, which from what he offers in his latest sounds interesting and promising, but also disappointing. The key takeaways include: more of a focus on tactical realism which sounds good, but, apparently Ubisoft (no Studio named) is 'taking heavy inspiration' from Ready Or Not, which is a bit of a mixed bag if you know any of that game history -- and why not take inspiration from, oh IDK a game that everyone has been asking for and talking about for, what, twenty-five years, like Ghost Recon? Ready Or Not being a CQC Police game that is in fact completely derivative of SWAT 4, vastly less popular than the game that inspired it, with a very checkered history seems a very questionable source of 'heavy inspiration' -- unless Ubisoft is just looking to repeat history from a new direction... It's hard to be hopeful and impossible to be optimistic with a look at Ubisoft's decades long history of going full Nero with: Studio burning, IP burning, career burning, money burning, and the repeated and complete abuse of trust of loyal paying customers.... Oh well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted June 11 Share Posted June 11 (edited) And yet the carnage just continues translating slimy corporate speak to plain spoken farm boy: over 400 more people will be canned, most if not all of them Asset Artists & Developers, as Ubisoft continues to burn staggering amounts of money on executive salaries to the ground and it's stock price now literally circles the drain, well below the post IPO all time low over fourteen years ago, and is now in delisting territory... The company's Administration is that incompetent... This is the always story of too much money and too much hubris -- where entitled, rich endowment children that are not very capable people run businesses and government -- the outcome is always horrible for everyone and everything in their path. The good news for the people in the way of the Yves Guillemot's wrecking ball and asset stripping operation reorganization -- is the talented and motivated exit this sad chapter into a more opportune world for independent game developers with tools, tool chains, AI, low cost and free publishing platforms, with an audience hungry for labor of love games. Hopefully all that want to seize the day, see opportunity, never look back and never so much as talk to big publishing or collaborate with anyone that does. It's certain Yves Guillemot will pay himself an enormous bonus for his amazing achievement in asset stripping reorganizing the company, Nero like burning the company's stock literally to the ground, firing and laying off more people and closing more studios than the two largest publishers combined, destroying more original (and some of the most successful) IP, and burning more bailout money (close to $1T USD now) than some countries have seen as loans from the IMF over the course of their entire history... Icky and sad, and even sadder to say it would probably be better if all the Clancy IP was wholly owned by just about anyone else... Maybe Ghost Recon: 'Over' is just a very prescient, sad and ugly pun... Edited June 13 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 (edited) And now this as well as other leaks that the project 'Over' may in fact be over before it even begins... With so many on the administrative payroll at Ubisoft (that aren't facing mass layoffs) it brings to mind what a departed Developer circa Wildlands said, where everyone actually producing content operationally has six or more people 'managing' their work -- that ratio likely has not improved which would only accelerate the money burn, and burn-out of people that actually create games. Editorial Comment: Ubisoft should have remained a publisher and never ventured into Studio acquisition and management, there were warning signs from get-go that it was a asset-stripping operation and an avalanche over-the-top hubris. Edited June 20 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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