So, Ubisoft appears to be in dire straits.

By a bed of their own making and subsequent soiling, but nevertheless. Let's imagine we push Yves over and tie him up next to the potted plants he keeps in his office. Probably a ficus.

And we're holding a board meeting that will determine the future of Ubisoft. What would you do?

Here's my take:
1) Play Shy Guy Says with several studios. But instead of rampant closures and firing everyone, it's rather like the decolonization of Africa. Leave behind a guide on how to operate an independent studio and a blessing of some cash to get started. But really the key may be to reduce all operations back to 3 major studios and cutting the fat.

2) There's an assload of dormant legacy IP. Sell it or revive it.
Might and Magic, rabbidless Rayman, Graphic City, a lot of acquired studios and IP, which have been dormant for over a decade. What good is it doing if it isn't being used?

3) Fire anyone who seriously suggests that NFTs are a wave of the future and close any project involving them. This one is self explaining.

4) Negotiate a contractual cancellation of Skull & Bones between the Singaporean government. There's little to no chance that whatever the game turns out to be can make a return on investment. This is what is known as cutting a loss, and I can't imagine a tax break big enough to be worth it, unless Ubisoft Singapore has been operating free under subsidy.

5) Diversify before fatigue sets in. I can't imagine that 3 AssCreed projects in such a short time is going to help the health of the franchise. And whatever became of the boring shooters?

*facepalm*

I was ready to engage on Skull & Bones, but forget it.

Nothing. It is also yet another of your pointless threads.

This game is going to be total trash. They should have scrapped it many years ago, and they still should scrap it now too.

It became trash at the same moment then they tried to separate it from AC IV: Black Flag, which is a great game (and a much better game than this Skull & Bones trash game will be, if it gets released).

? In the postwar of WW1 and WW2, Africa was claimed by many countries, and then later on those claims expired or many countries declared independence. Is this not what decolonisation is? The reverse of colonialism?

" idiotic feminazi, tranny, forced pseudo-diversity bullshit and as the saying goes: Get Woke, go Broke "

Here we go again.

The outrage cult with its buzzwords is marching on... LOL.

Well apparently they don't anymore. :D

That said - I wouldn't mind a few Ubisoft releases here. Most notably the Anno series, but yeah - good riddance.

Hard to respond on that without crossing the line into politics, but it's fair to say that the granting of independence to those countries didn't exactly result in prosperous thriving countries, so I personally would avoid that analogy.

You'd be better off looking at corporate divestments and companies that thrived better as smaller, more agile units than as part of larger conglomerates. The best, recent example I can think of being Accenture (Anderson Consulting), which was hived off from Arthur Anderson and is now incredibly successful in its own right (while Arthur Anderson imploded after Enron)

Wow. How can you criticise decolonisation as leading to bad governance when the self-determinined structures of the time of whatever form they were, were destroyed by the colonists?

Anyone in the UK should probably avoid talking about prosperous thriving countries at the moment.

If you re-read my post, you will see that I didn't do anything of the sort. Political discussions are against the CoC of this forum.

I merely made a statement of fact and explained why I wouldn't use that analogy and suggested one that makes more sense in the context of the thread.

But you did respond, and with a pitying phrase towards ex-colonised countries. How is that not political? But you knew that. I appreciate that that wasn't the main point of your post.

Several countries of course won their independence through a war of independence, they were not necessarily "granted" it. Maybe that was a mistake too?

Look, I'm not going to engage with that beyond saying that my statement is clearly factual, not political and uses neutral language. That's the last I'll say to you on the matter as anything further could be construed as political.

ON TOPIC, I agree with Darvond that Ubisoft should sell its unused IP and potentially hive off some studios. The company has a creative deficit that should be addressed.

Let's sing!
This is payback for Assassin's Creed DLCs. Let them panic until selling themself to somebody or another big changes that may push them to release more games on GOG.

I never heard of Skull and Bones much less of its ties to Singaporean government, but if the game is turning as bad as is being reported here I agree they should scrap it as early as possible to cut their losses. And also the other stuff Darvond suggested.

These are very good news (except to a bunch of their employees that could become unemployed without deserving it)

Remember when Blizzard had no games here and it looked like hell would freeze before they as much as acknowledge Gog existed? Then they made a series of bad decisions, found themselves struggling for money and suddenly they were far more receptive to releasing their games here. At least those that did not have Battle.net fully ingrained into them.

So maybe this situation will bring DRM-free enlightenment to Ubisoft. Or maybe it won't but they'll persist in their buttheaded path until they are forced to sell their IPs and games, in this case anything can happen. Games could go to better companies like THQ Nordic, but also to the likes of MS and Rockstar. Anyway there's at least a chance that after changing hands they will be in possession of a more reasonable (hopefully favorable to DRM-free) owner.

Dang, I almost missed it.

I swear to you, ultra social conservatives do more to promote the "woke" movement than people subscribing to it.

The overwhelming majority of the time, those issues would silently fly under the radar for me (being the areligious white heterosexual cis-gendered male that I am), but every once in a while, you'll see people screaming about the fact that minorities are getting some attention and reminding me that those minorities need love, because if some people had their way, many minorities would be a sub-class of people.

If they'd like to successfully discredit the "woke" movement, all they'd have to do is shut up for a couple of years so that the mainstream forgets that discrimination exists, but that'd be like expecting a cactus not to be stingy.

So good job ultra socially conservative dudes, keep reminding us in the mainstream that the "woke" movement is here for a reason.