LogIn"I'm sure you have many questions for which we have no answers yet."
By now, it's fair to say that Ubisoft's announcement last week about the creation of a new subsidiary in partnership with Tencent has raised far more questions than it has provided answers.
"What's going to happen to the original Ubisoft?" "What will the new company's structure look like?" "Who's going to lead it?" "What happens in two years when Ubisoft might lose control over the direction of three of its key game series?" – these are just some of the many questions the gaming community is asking as they try to understand the troubled studio's future.
Unfortunately, it appears there are no clear answers on the horizon, as Ubisoft itself has no concrete plan or roadmap for what could be one of, if not the biggest, deals in the company's history.
Ubisoft
According to an internal memo shared with Ubisoft employees by Zone 1 Managing Director Christophe Derennes and obtained by Insider Gaming, the studio's executives cannot answer the all-encompassing question of "What's next?" as of yet, with Derennes explaining that they need more time to figure out the roadmap, with the next few months dedicated to developing a transition plan.
He noted that the only plan they had at the moment was to announce the new subsidiary's upcoming formation, with further details expected to be worked out by summer. Once that's done, Ubisoft will begin implementing the new model, with a longer timeline to complete the transition. Until then, however, you can expect questions about the fate of the existing structure, the impact on the studios, and many other uncertainties listed above to remain unanswered.
"I'm sure you have many questions for which we have no answers yet," he wrote. "Your MDs have also been just recently briefed on this announcement, and like me, don't have any more information than I do. However, as always, we will try to keep you updated on our progress as we go along and share the latest decisions as soon as we can. In the meantime, we are looking forward to this opportunity of rebuilding a new and stronger Ubisoft, and of maximizing the contributions of all our people."
To his credit, Derennes did provide some new details about the deal in his memo, clarifying that Quebec, Saguenay, and Sherbrooke studios will move entirely to the new entity, Montreal project teams will be split between the new entity and the current Ubisoft organization, and the studios in Toronto, Winnipeg, Red Storm, and Blue Mammoth will remain part of the existing structure.
At this point, it's worth mentioning that after Ubisoft's deal with Tencent was announced, the company's stock dropped by more than 15% when markets opened on Monday, erasing all the gains the company had made since late February. If there's one thing investors typically dislike, it's uncertainty, and given that even Ubisoft itself can't provide details on how the de facto transition of ownership of its most valuable IPs will be handled, there's a strong possibility the company's stock could continue to fall, potentially hitting its lowest point in over a decade.
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