The Australian Central Bank keeps the interest rate at 4.1%

2023-10-03 08:17:32

“Ubisoft” launches the game “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” in the hope of achieving profits

The giant French video game group, Ubisoft, is counting on the expected launch next Thursday of a new part of its game, “Assassin’s Creed,” which takes place in Iraq, to ​​regain profits, after facing several crises, including a decline in sales and an unprecedented strike at the beginning of this year, leading to the postponement of… Offering a number of its games.

According to Agence France-Presse, the company, after witnessing a decline over several years, expects strong growth in its annual revenues, by also relying on a game adapted from the world of “Avatar” that it intends to launch in December, although it was originally expected at the end of 2022. .

Charles-Louis Blancad, an analyst at Medcap Partners, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse: “The group faced disappointments over a period of four to five years. Because it postponed the launch of a large number of its games.

Ubisoft announced in May that it had entered the “red zone” for the fiscal year 2022-2023, incurring a net annual loss of 494.2 million euros, equivalent to 523.17 million US dollars.

The company now has less than 20,000 jobs, compared to more than 20,000 jobs at the end of September.

However, it promised to return to achieving profits during its current financial year.

Blanad expects the company, which created many games, including “Raying Rapids” and “Just Dance,” to launch more of its products.

He believes that these upcoming games will clearly improve the group’s financial situation and help it return to what we knew it a few years ago.

The company has adopted a strong commercial approach to the game “Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” which will be offered for 50 euros, equivalent to 52.71 dollars, while the price of any new game usually reaches 70 euros, or about 73.80 dollars.

The release of “Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” which takes place in Baghdad during the ninth century, represents an essential step in ending a turbulent phase that the company faced.

Recovery in the stock market

In a movement rarely launched in the video game sector, the video game workers union and the Solidere Informatics organization in January issued a strike call for all French entities affiliated with Ubisoft. Condemning the policies adopted by the group’s management.

In the summer of 2020, there was a harassment scandal involving former employees in the company, which left its effects on the group, especially by damaging the employees’ confidence in their management.

There is another element that played against the company, which was the postponement of the launch of the “Skull and Bones” game, after it was initially scheduled for November 2022.

Despite the above, the group headed by Yves Guimaud witnessed a number of positive developments, including the signing of an agreement at the end of August with its competitor, Activision Blizzard, aimed at convincing the British Competition Authority to pave the way for Microsoft to acquire the American company.

If the acquisition deal is successful, which is going well so far, Ubisoft will regain the rights to its online games, “Cloud Gaming” and “Cloud Streaming,” including successful international games such as “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.”

In an interview with the Financial Times published at the end of September, Guimmo said: “We believe that a large number of games will be available over the next five to ten years, via streaming, and they will also be produced via cloud services instead of physical media. This is what prompted us to move forward with the deal with Microsoft.”

The cloud market is still nascent, but its value could reach more than eight billion dollars by 2025, according to Newso, while the global video game market is estimated at about $300 billion, according to Accenture. .

The agreement with “Microsoft” allowed the French group to recover in the stock market, while its shares had fallen to approximately one-third in two years.

The value of Ubisoft, amounting to about 3.9 billion euros, is still low due to the large consolidation movement taking place in this sector, but the French group is protecting itself at the current stage, through the alliance it concluded last year with the Chinese group that is the number one in the world in video games, “Tencent.” ; To ensure that the Guimmo family continues to control the company.

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