It's been a rough 12 months for Ubisoft, as their share price has collapsed by more than 50% since September 2023. The French developer has released some well-known games in the last 12 months, but many failed to gain the traction needed and have faded into the background.
At a recent investor call, per the Wall Street Journal, a minority investor called for the company to go private and install a new management team. This comes as Ubisoft was delisted from the Stoxx Europe 600, which will make it even harder for them to find investors.
Over the last year, Ubisoft has released The Crew Motorfest, XDefiant, Skull & Bones, and Star Wars Outlaws. All have quickly faded from mainstream consideration.
Skull & Bones flopped out of the gate, while The Crew Motorfest struggled to make the impact that its predecessor did on the racing genre. While XDefiant had made a big splash, the shooter did not have the staying power to be the smash hit Ubisoft needed it to be.
While Ubisoft has the ongoing success of Rainbow Six Siege and the Assassin's Creed franchise sells well, their new projects are struggling to make much of an impact.
Being a publicly traded company, Ubisoft is in the tricky position of trying to please investors and return profit at a point where the gaming industry is slumping from it's pandemic peak.
Ubisoft shares are down 81% in the last five years, as investors fail to see value in continuing to back the gaming giant.
The French publisher was a powerhouse of gaming innovation and basically invented the big map, towers, and strongholds formula that made both Assassin's Creed and Far Cry such successes in the late 2000's. Since then though, things have stagnated creatively for Ubisoft, and there is a sense their main franchises are coasting on past glories rather than winning new fans.