It is reported that Tencent's acquisition of Ubisoft has been temporarily put on hold.

According to foreign media reports, the Guillemo family, led by Yves Guillemot, the current representative of Ubisoft, is unwilling to give up the management rights of the company, which seems to have become a stumbling block to the acquisition.

Recently, Ubisoft's performance has not been satisfactory. Self-developed games such as Assassin's Creed: Mirage have failed in the market one after another, and even Star Wars and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which have strong IP blessings, have also failed well. As a result, Ubisoft's share price fell from €84.6 in February 2024 to €12.33 on January 10, a drop of up to 85%.

The success of new titles is very important to Ubisoft, and they are more important than ever. Ubisoft is trying to turn things around with Assassin's Creed: Shadows, which would give the Guillemo family an advantage in negotiations with Tencent due to its deep financial strength.

The family is said to have made it clear to potential buyers that they want to maintain control of the company. The report added that Tencent is still hesitant to increase its stake in the company, although Tencent's negotiations are designed to prevent "any potential hostile takeover of Ubisoft by other investors."

That's why Ubisoft recently postponed the release date of Assassin's Creed: Shadow to March 20, in order to avoid big game competition as much as possible and increase the likelihood of success.

With that, the focus shifted to Assassin's Creed: Shadows. The takeover battle between Tencent and Ubisoft is expected to begin again after the official launch of Assassin's Creed: Shadow on March 20.

In addition, in the current shareholding structure of Ubisoft, the Guillemo family holds about 15% of the shares, which is the largest shareholder, and Tencent holds 9.99% of the shares, which is the second largest shareholder.

"Assassin's Creed: Shadows" is currently dominated by negative market opinion. At the level of player evaluation, there are frequent problems. It angered Japanese players with its inappropriate representations of Japanese culture, such as the role of the black samurai Yasuke, and sparked a global discussion of cultural respect; There are many historical mistakes that disappoint players who pay attention to historical restoration; The microtransaction system has also raised concerns among players about the gaming experience.

The practice of making Yasuke, a black samurai, one of the protagonists, sparked widespread controversy. Some players and scholars believe that this choice may be disrespectful to Japanese samurai culture when it is advertised to be based on real history, especially in the scenes of black people wearing samurai costumes and beheading Japanese people in the game's promotional screens, which makes Japanese players feel angry and humiliated, and are accused of cultural appropriation.

Although Ubisoft claims to have worked with experts and conducted historical research, there may still be some cultural inaccuracies in the game. For example, the depiction of the life and behavior of samurai and ninja may not be accurate enough, or there may be simplifications or errors in the explanation of some historical backgrounds, which affects the accurate communication of history and culture in the game.

At the same time, some media questioned the continuation of Ubisoft's canned assembly line skinning gameplay, believing that the game was not innovative enough.

In addition, the game has also been mired in praise controversy. After the release of the latest trailer, players found out that Ubisoft used AI robots to swipe positive reviews and falsely claim that they would buy the game, which made players extremely disgusted. And Ubisoft's CEO insisted on positive reviews and promising sales during the earnings call, in stark contrast to the strong negative feedback from the player community, further fueling the controversy surrounding the game.

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