Vivendi has announced that it has increased its equity stake in Ubisoft and Gameloft, two French companies with internationally-recognized know-how in video games, to respectively 10.39% and 10.20%.
On October 20, 2015, Vivendi held 11.60 million Ubisoft shares and 8.68 million Gameloft shares. These shares were acquired on the market for a total amount of respectively 244 million euros and 34.41 million euros and financed through the Group’s disposable cash.
According to the press release, these investments are part of a strategic vision of operational convergence between Vivendi’s content and platforms on one hand and the Ubisoft and Gameloft productions in video games on the other.
Speaking to GamesIndustry, Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot claimed that Ubisoft will have to fight in order to preserve its independence.
“We’re going to fight to preserve our independence. We should not let this situation – nor any future actions by Vivendi or others – distract us from our goals. Our best defence is to stay focused on what we have always done best – deliver the most original and memorable gaming experiences.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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I guess Ubisoft just wasn’t sh*tty enough before
Our best defence is to stay focused on what we have always done best – deliver the most original and memorable gaming experiences.”
The last few releases have certainly been memorable. But I think most people would like to forget.
Get away from those seriously retarded focus group tested games. What made the Tom Clancy games (Ghost Recon / Splinter Cell / Rainbow Six) great? It certainly wasn’t koop or multiplayer. And now you release a broken koop Ghost Recon and an AAA MP Rainbow Six? Have you guys seriously lost your minds? Just because those focus group testers want more CoD or Battlefield? Remember what made those games big, and remember what made this little niche publisher into a leading publisher of video games. seriously.
Focus group testers are one of the biggest cancers of gaming.
Ubisoft R.I.P. if only they go with F2P model on all the new games.
what good is owning 10%? to get you name on the title screen or in the opening credits?
If their only defence is to make good games.. they are DOOMED. Game over man.
Vivendi games made pretty bad decisions in the past but they also published some of the best games ever made. At this point both Ubi and Viv are just greedy corps.