If I want to say which triple-A factory is the most difficult for me this year, it must be Ubisoft in France.

Ubisoft's stock price plummeted last month, reaching its lowest level in a decade, with a total market capitalization of only $1.99 billion, while in 2018, Ubisoft's market value was $12.3 billion, a direct drop of nearly 9% in six years.

Seeing the stock price plummeting, Ubisoft's executives couldn't sleep, and sent a message overnight to inform employees to return to the office: at least 3 days a week. Employees who have been working remotely for a long time in the past 5 years have also been stimulated, and the soul of the old district has awakened instantly, and the backhand is a protest strike, finding something to do for Ubisoft leaders, highlighting an anti-Tiangang.

No, in October, the shareholders were already considering selling the building, proposing to sell Ubisoft to Tencent and the founding family, which can only be said to be a super-first-class manufacturer.

@彭博社

Is Ayu still at risk of making it through?

If you want to evaluate the most "historical" game of the year this year, the vast majority of people blurt out Sony's "Star Attack", which cost about $400 million, was taken off the shelves at the speed of light two weeks after it was launched, and the revenue was 0, presenting a sketch to everyone.

But if you really talk about seniority, "Star Attack" has to go a little later, and it just so happens that the R&D cost of "Blue Sea and Black Sails" has also been exposed in the past two days, which was once advertised by Ubisoft's CEO as the first 4A-level game - made for 10 years, the cost is about 650 million ~ 850 million US dollars, and it has become the culprit of Ubisoft's financial collapse.

This money is equivalent to the cost of 2 "Star Attack" or 20 "Black Myth", even if you go to the entity, you can build 2 bird's nests or several 4A-level scenic spots, and you can even buy a cruiser and become a pirate yourself. As a result, as a Gaas game, the current peak number of online users on Steam is only 381.

As for the quality of the game itself, it is obviously not up to such a cost. Players wanted to be able to play as a pirate like Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, humming a little tune and dancing a gang during the voyage, but Black Sails had players play as a pirate ship, burning and looting was not felt, gang jumping was an execution animation, and pirates were not allowed to swim in the water.

It is understood that "Blue Sea and Black Sails" has gone through many internal projects and version iterations, from the DLC of "Assassin's Creed: Black Flag" to multiplayer naval battles, and later saw the explosion of "Sea of Thieves", and wanted to make the same paragraph, but finally found that it didn't work and changed it back. In short, this game has bounced 7 times in 10 years, the project management is chaotic, the high-level internal friction is serious, and a lot of sunk costs have been paid.

In addition to the management problems exposed by "Blue Sea and Black Sails", "Star Wars: Outlaws" and "Assassin's Creed", which have attracted more attention this year, are mired in political correctness.

Take the newly released "Star Wars: Outlaws" as an example, its degree of correctness is far higher than it seems on the surface, according to Ubisoft's anonymous employees, Ubisoft internal requirements to set the heroine of "Star Wars: Outlaws" as an all-race character, that is, to look like black, but also to have the shadow of Asian, Indian, but also white characteristics, there is a kind of "colorful black" beauty.

And this game also takes care of the concept of animal protection, and the animals in the game cannot be killed. After playing Black Monkey, the anchor with 5 million fans abroad came to experience "Star Wars: Outlaws", fired a few shots at the animals, and after finding them safe and sound, he directly put on a mask of pain and began to doubt life: "This is a game designed for children." ”

Come to think of it, this "Star Wars: Outlaws" is a collaboration with Disney, and Disney can be called the vanguard of political correctness, and the famous scenes of "The Little Mermaid" are still vivid and lingering.

In the end, the sales of "Star Wars: Outlaws" did not even reach one-third of the expected sales, and the Ubisoft stock was blown up in an instant, and the above "strike" farce was born.

The new works that have been launched have been praised one after another, and the trump card that has not yet been launched is not optimistic - "Assassin's Creed: Shadow", my friend, you are the real anti-X hero.

Ubisoft's choice of the black Yasuke as one of the protagonists of the game is quite "political", but there are only a few records of Yasuke in the official history of Japan, which is just a domestic servant that Nobunaga received curiously.

And Ubisoft directly launched the "History Book of Years" skill to revise Japan history, shaping Yasuke into a high-status samurai, and the Japanese commoners in the game had to bow when they met Yasuke, and Japan players broke their defenses one after another. Later, Thomas, the game's historical consultant, was also dug up for academic fraud and was revoked by the University of Tokyo, and Ubisoft also publicly apologized to the Japan community.

A wave of unsettled waves, seeing the poor response, Ubisoft immediately launched the figure of "Shadow", in an attempt to "pass the test", but the one-legged torii in the figure is also a precise thunder, many Japan netizens popular science: The one-legged torii carries the pain of the Nagasaki nuclear explosion.

If that weren't enough, Ubisoft is releasing a promotional video of Yasuke the Black Decapitation Day in the heart of Akihabara, which is no less anti-sky than playing Zhang Wei's "Sunshine Rainbow Little White Horse" in New York's Times Square.

After a reverse promotion, the pre-orders of "AC Shadow" were only 7% of that of "Valhalla", which shocked the jaws of Ubisoft's executives, and the game also urgently jumped to February next year, thinking about whether the game could be launched before the end of this fiscal year, so that the financial report could look pretty.

It's a pity that in February next year, it will be heavyweights such as "Monster Hunter Wildlands", "Civilization 7", "Kingdom Salvation 2" and "Dragon 8 Gaiden", so "Assassin's Creed Shadow" will most likely continue to skip tickets.

Two more words about "Assassin's Creed Shadows", "Assassin's Creed Shadows" was previously the protagonist of Japan, but around 2020, I suddenly received news that I was going to change to a black person, you know, there was a violent law enforcement incident that killed a black person (once shouted "I can't breathe" slogan).

Although it cannot be said that the two are directly related, 20 years later, Ubisoft did create a large number of new DEI positions internally, and has been expanding DEI positions to this day, such as Ubisoft's internal group called B.E.A.U, which focuses on promoting the spread of Black culture within the company. Recently, it has also launched a diversified training program around the world, which is only for women.

Touched a mysterious country in the East

Even earlier, Ubisoft was hit hard by internal gender discrimination that caused its stock price to plummet. After a few years of reverse precipitation, the core characters have left batch after batch, and the quality of the game is also getting worse and worse, and there is no new idea.

Just like the anonymous Ubisoft employee broke the news, the current 3A studio has been occupied by DEI: identity politics, partisanship and disagreement have made many teams and studios unable to get up, and now it has developed to the extent that it is not allowed to be questioned, and its purpose is to force industry elites and company executives to step down through the public opinion field so that inexperienced DEI people can occupy the magpie's nest.

In other words, the public opinion environment within Ubisoft has been dominated by political correctness, and management and HR have also been morally kidnapped. The market performance of a product should be the focus of management, but in this environment, saying the wrong thing can lead to being scolded, fired, or even ruined in the industry, which is the most deadly. This phenomenon is actually a structural crux of big business and big empires, causing manufacturers to gradually break away from the mass base, and everyone is at risk and no longer take risks easily.

The good news is that Ubisoft is also frantically working on remedial work, such as "Assassin's Creed Shadows" is going to be released on Steam for the first time, the team is also interested in changing the appearance of black people before the launch (it is impossible to delete it), and its CEO has to publicly say that he does not support certain issues. In the end, it is obviously impossible to change his life against the sky, otherwise the shareholders would not have been clamoring to sell the building.

Vivendi, help

In fact, Tencent and Ubisoft have a relatively deep relationship.

As early as 15 years ago, Vivendi's hostile takeover of Ubisoft was only one step away, in which Tencent played an important role and saved Ubisoft.

Since then, Tencent has also invested in Ubisoft several times, increasing its stake in Ubisoft to nearly 10% (without joining the board of directors), second only to the 15% stake of Ubisoft's founding family. And has launched a number of cooperation with Ubisoft in China, such as "The Division 2" and "Rainbow Six: Siege" The national server was taken over by Tencent, and an assassin IP mobile game of "Assassin's Creed: JADE" has also appeared in the lineup of Level Infinite.

Now Tencent and the Mojito family are considering joining forces to acquire Ubisoft, although it is still only in a very preliminary stage, and the acquisition is only one of the many strategies to deal with the shrinking market value, but the news still made Ubisoft's stock price rise by 30%, and Ubisoft did not shy away from the news in response.

However, as everyone guessed, Ubisoft's nearly 20,000 employees only have such a little production capacity, and Tencent has a lot of money, but it is not stupid. As well-known industry whistleblower Tom Henderson hinted, if the acquisition is completed, Ubisoft could face a reduction of around 30%-40% of its workforce.

This estimate is not an exaggeration, and it is even a bit conservative. Ubisoft is now ridiculed as a France state-owned enterprise, and France is using Ubisoft to cultivate digital technology talents, which can provide a large number of jobs for itself and other countries, and the government is subsidized. For example, for the aforementioned "Blue Sea Black Sails" project, Ubisoft signed an agreement with the Singapore government, and the money can be used, but it must recruit local people to make original IP to promote the maritime culture of Southeast Asia.

This year's Paris Olympics also gave the Assassin's Creed picture

From a divergent point of view, this actually shows at least two problems, one is that the reason why Ubisoft can expand without brains is largely due to the financial subsidies of local governments. Second, Ubisoft has never dared to do anything to those people who engage in DEI, and because of this, it is impossible for Ubisoft to label itself an "anti-government" label.

Of course, if it really comes to the point of acquisition, Ubisoft is not entirely a burden.

In addition to the well-known series such as "Assassin's Creed" and "Watch Dogs", Ubisoft also has popular IPs such as "South Park", "Lehman", and "Heroes of Might". If Ubisoft really faces disbandment, these IPs will be auctioned individually, and when everyone is crazy about grabbing them, their prices will only rise. So, in a way, it might be a good price to pack it up and sell it now.

Secondly, Ubisoft still has an advantage in the industrialization of triple-A games. Although the debut of "Black Myth: Wukong" this year has made people see the huge potential of China's triple-A game market, objectively speaking, the entire industry is still some way from true triple-A industrialization, and it is far from reaching the level of mass production. Ubisoft's "Yuyu cuisine" and excellent art are a reflection of its high degree of industrialization, and the self-developed engine and global collaboration capabilities behind it are assets that cannot be ignored.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is supported by 16 Ubisoft studios around the world

Everything is false, everything is allowed, and what was once an Assassin's Creed is now a heavy dogma that binds Ubisoft. Acquisitions are not a one-size-fits-all solution, and Ubisoft still needs to address its own problems at the root. I don't expect Ubisoft to go back to the adventurous and innovative era, but at least get down to business. It doesn't seem helpful to say more, the choices of the market will tell us all the answers.

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