Ubisoft in trouble, F1 Manager 2022: The business news of the week

Game News Ubisoft in trouble, F1 Manager 2022: The business news of the week

Ubisoft cancels three games after poor results

The year 2022 will definitely have been complicated for Ubisoft. During its first fiscal semester (April to September 2022), the French firm had already announced heavy losses (190 million euros) and the cancellation of four games (Ghost Recon Frontline, Splinter Cell VR and two other unannounced titles ). The end of the year will not have made it possible to raise the bar, quite the contrary. While its next financial statement will not be unveiled until February 16, Ubisoft was forced to take the lead by publishing this week a communicated to comment on the disappointing sales of its games during the crucial Christmas period. In particular those of the second Mario + Rabbids game and Just Dance 2023: “We are clearly disappointed with our recent performance (…) We were surprised by the underperformance of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope in the final weeks of 2022 and early January. Just Dance 2023 also underperformed “acknowledged CEO Yves Guillemot.

As a result, Ubisoft has taken “significant additional strategic and operational decisions”. The first is the cancellation of three other unannounced projectsin order to “focus on building some of the most powerful Live brands and services in the industry”. The firm also announces a depreciation of 500 million euros of capitalized R&D, which reflects this “need to focus on fewer titles”. Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and The Division are the major brands on which Ubisoft intends to bet, in particular by declining them with “persistent live games” intended to generate recurring revenue. Skull and Bones also belongs to this category, but its launch has once again been postponed from March 9, 2023 to the start of the next fiscal year (April, May or June). Until then, players will be able to embark on a new beta phase. “We believe that players will be positively surprised by its evolution. We have decided to postpone its launch in order to have more time to present the game experience which is much “polished” and balanced and to build its visibility”commented Guillemot. The game should therefore land during the same fiscal year as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Assassin’s Creed Mirage and “other yet unannounced premium games, including a sizable one, as well as promising Free-to-Play titles for some of our biggest brands”.

The consequences of these decisions on the results of the current financial year will be significant: while Ubisoft anticipated an operating profit of 400 million euros, the firm should finally suffer a loss of 500 million euros. To cash in on this, a net reduction in its cost base of more than €200 million is expected over the next two years. This will result in particular in “targeted restructuring” and by “the sale of certain non-essential assets”. The statement ends on a reassuring note: “Ubisoft’s financial position is strong with approximately €1.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents after repayment of the €500 million bond maturing at the end of the month”, can we read. Remember that last September, the Chinese giant Tencent injected 300 million into the Guillemot family holding company. An operation that should allow the founders of Ubisoft to prevent a hostile takeover.

Frontier lowers guidance after F1 Manager 2022 ‘underperformance’

After a mixed 2021, marked by unusual first half losses and disappointing sales for Jurassic World Evolution 2, Frontier Developments was counting on F1 Manager 2022 to raise the bar in 2022. Released August 30 on PC, PlayStation and Xbox , the management game got off to a good start, as a press release from the British studio tells us: “Player engagement during the launch period was solid and in line with our initial expectations”, can we read. On the other hand, its sales during the peak period of the end of the year celebrations did not reach the objectives set. To this day, he counts as nearly 600,000 copies soldwhich is considered by the firm as a “underperformance”.

F1 Manager 2022 is no less “a good first game of an important new annual franchise”, but these results lead Frontier to lower its forecast for the current fiscal year (June 2022 to May 2023). The expected turnover is no longer £135 million, but “of at least 100 million”. A performance that will depend, among other things, on the result of the next games published by the Frontier Foundry label, namely Deliver Us Mars The Great War: Western Front, respectively scheduled for February 2, 2023 and for the course of 2023. Frontier is also preparing an in-house developed Warhammer Age of Sigmar real-time strategy game that won’t be released until Spring 2023 at the earliest.

Frontier expects to release its full balance sheet for the first fiscal half (June to November 2022) on January 19. Today’s press release already highlights that Jurassic World Evolution 2 and Planet Zoo were the best performing contributors over the period.

Veterans of Playground Games (Forza Horizon) found the studio Maverick Games

A new studio is born, and it shows great promise. Present at Playground Games since the birth of the Forza Horizon series, of which he later became the creative director, Mike Brown announced that he had left the Microsoft team to create Maverick Games. A new team, still modest (10 people), but which includes in its ranks other former Playground executives such as Tom Butcher (executive producer), Matt Craven (technical director), Gareth Harwood (technical artistic director), Frasier Strachan (director audio) and Ben Penrose (art director). The workforce is completed by Harinder Sangha, a former Sega and Codemasters, who is responsible for overseeing studio operations, leaving Mike Brown to focus on the creative side.

Already in preparation, their first game will be a “AAA in open world which will be released on PC and consoles”but not necessarily articulated around vehicles, despite the heritage of the team. “Before being someone who likes to drive, I would clearly describe myself as a guy who likes open worlds first and foremost. The game will be open world, it will be AAA, it will be premium, it will have the ambition to win all prices”announces Mike Brown in the columns of gamesindustry. To achieve its ambitions, Maverick Games can count on the support of a London-based investor able to provide financial stability to the studio, which thus intends to grow rapidly to reach 140 employees.

Briefly in the business news of the week

• The Switch was the best-selling console in 2022 on the European continent ahead of the PS5 and the Xbox Series, according to data relayed by GamesIndustry. Overall console sales fell 25% from 2021, with a total of 5.3 million machines sold.
• The top 10 bestsellers of 2022 in the United States have been revealed. In order are Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Elden Ring, Madden NFL 23, God of War Ragnarok, LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga, Pokemon Scarlet/Purple, FIFA 23, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Horizon Forbidden West and MLB The Show 22. It should be noted that digital sales of Nintendo games are not taken into account in this ranking.
• Since its debut in 2018, Deep Rock Galactic has totaled 5.5 million in sales. The cooperative game from Coffee Stain Publishing and Ghost Ship Games has the distinction of posting increasingly flattering figures, with 2022 having been its best year with 2.3 million sales. He also claimed a nice daily average of 113,700 players on Steam.
• Garth DeAngelis, one of the main producers of the XCOM franchise and the recent Marvel’s Midnight Suns, has announced his departure after 14 years at the Firaxis studio.