WEBVTT - Ubisoft and the Skull & Bones Debacle 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.680 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonvin Strickland. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.960 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.200 are you. I am on the road to recovery myself. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.439 I hope all of you are well well. Back in 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:31.320 November of twenty twenty, I did a three part series 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.600 about the history of the video game company Ubisoft or 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.839 you be Soft, depending on how you want to pronounce it. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.599 They pronounce it different ways within the company itself, so 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.720 there's no universal agreed upon pronunciation, so I'll probably say 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:52.520 Ubisoft anyway. The video game company actually traces its history 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.160 back to farm machinery for reels. I'm not going to 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.560 go into everything that I covered in those twenty twenty episodes. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.120 You could easily go back and listen to them if 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.520 you like. I do think that's a fun bit of 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.560 trivia to consider. Now. The company was founded in France 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.000 back in the late nineteen eighties by a group of 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.560 five brothers, the Guillelmo Brothers. One of them, Eve Guillelmo, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.560 remains CEO to this day. And I'm going to go 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:21.399 over a little bit of the stuff I talked about 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.600 in those episodes just to kind of remind us. All But, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.280 like I said, if you really want to dive into 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.399 the history of Ubisoft, then check out those episodes that 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.960 published in November twenty twenty to get the full story. 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.280 All right, let's get back to like kind of an overview. 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.000 So the studio became known for several game franchises, ranging 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.240 from Rayman, which was the earliest big franchise for the company, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:52.240 to Assassin's Creed and far Cry in more recent years. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.640 They expanded tremendously in the nineteen nineties, in part because 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.400 the company made lots of acquisitions. They bought up lots 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:05.360 of other game developer studios. Notably, they purchased a development 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.760 company in North Carolina called Red Storm, and in two thousand, 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.880 UBI Soft required red Storm and in the process got 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.919 access to games with Tom Clancy's intellectual property. So I'm 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:24.079 talking about stuff like Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and Rainbow six, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.240 among others. The Tom Clancy games would become kind of 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.280 bedrock for Ubisoft over the years, like a very strong 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:35.240 foundation for the company. The two thousands saw Ubisoft Dodge Duck, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.919 Dip Dive, and Dodge various attempts to acquire the company. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.880 First up was Electronic Arts or EA. They showed interest 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.680 in Ubisoft for quite some time. EA purchased a fifth 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:54.040 of Ubisoft's stock at one point, but EA never actually 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.359 made an overt move to acquire the company. There was 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.200 obviously some feelers out there, but nothing ever coalesced into 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.519 like a hostile takeover or anything like that, and by 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.920 twenty ten EA had sold off its shares of Ubisoft. 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.960 But that experience had a really big effect on Ubisoft itself. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.200 The company had played things a bit more conservatively then 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.560 they might have otherwise, and didn't make as many big 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.720 choices while under the potential threat of an acquisition. The 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.760 thing is the EA move was just the first time 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.600 uvie Soft was under the potential shadow of a hostile takeover. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.000 A similar situation unfolded in twenty fifteen when another large 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.320 French company called Vivendi started scooping up shares of Ubisoft, 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:44.400 more shares than the brothers Guielmo themselves owned. Vivendi threw 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:49.200 its weight around and demanded that Ubisoft include Vivendi executives 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.520 on Ubisoft's board directors, but the brothers were able to 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.640 drum up enough support among other shareholders to keep that 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.000 from happening, because even though Vivindi owned more stock than 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.720 the brothers dead, the brothers were able to rally other 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.240 shareholders to support them. Now, the battle for control of 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.880 the company lasted about three years, at which point Vivendi said, fine, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.320 keep your stupid company. We're selling our shares and we 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.200 won't buy them back for at least five years. Then 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.080 maybe then we will come back. We'll just have to 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.760 wait and see. And at that point, Vivendi held nearly 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:24.919 thirty percent of all the shares in the company, so 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:30.160 it was a truly significant amount. And since then another 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.800 company bought up a bunch of shares and would be soft. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.360 That would be the Chinese mega corporation Tencent. I'm sure 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.120 we won't see history repeat itself again. Right, Well, we'll 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.880 probably mention Tencent again before we end this episode today. 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:47.800 There are a few other things I want to mention 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.640 before we pick up where we left off in late 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.560 twenty twenty at the end of the last episode of 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:58.200 that series. First up, the video game industry is notorious 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.479 for its crunch culture. Not just do be soft, I 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.360 mean like the industry in general is known for this, 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.200 and that is as a game is in development, particularly 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.000 as you get later in its development cycle, companies have 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:18.000 been known to pressure developers into working longer hours, sometimes 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.360 giving up weekends or really in extreme cases, discouraging them 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.440 from even going home. Then, as you might imagine, this 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.520 becomes a stressful and unpleasant situation. In more recent years, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:35.320 we've seen employees and allies of employees push back against 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.040 the whole crunch culture of the video game industry. And 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.480 to be clear, crunch is not just something that happens 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.160 in the video game industry. It happens in lots of industries, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.680 you know, like overall developers, not just in video games. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:52.839 It happens there, but it can happen in lots of 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.880 other situations as well. Now, in some instances, staff who 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.919 work at video game companies have actually unionized to create 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.880 more leverage with their respective companies. There's a union among 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.400 Ubisoft Paris developers, for example. But there are other Ubisoft 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.280 offices all around the world, and some of them are 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.880 unionized and some of them aren't. And Ubisoft was no 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.440 stranger to crunch. In fact, in the early days of 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.640 the company they actually located their office in a chateau 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.039 in Brittany, France, and this was a sort of a 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.240 ploy to lure young developers to work for Ubisoft and 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.080 you know, not necessarily want to go home at the 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.960 end of a long day. And it worked at least 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.800 until the costs of maintaining a chateau proved to be 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.680 a bit too steep and were eating into profits, and 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.800 then they relocated to Paris. On a related note, Ubisoft 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:50.440 had identified something pretty concerning so by twenty nineteen, through 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.599 the various studios that the company had acquired over the years, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.440 which again are all over the world, right, Ubisoft figured 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:04.600 that it employed around sixteen thousand developers. That's astronomical, that's 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.400 such a huge number of developers, and it was spinning 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.880 out triple A video game titles at a rate that 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.800 left competitors in the dust. And in case you're not 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.720 familiar with the term triple A video game, that's just 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:21.800 a big budget, major release right like Assassin's Creed typically 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:26.480 falls into Triple A video game category. Things like Halo, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.440 you know, or Grand Theft Auto. These are triple A 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.920 video games. You might get spinoffs that are not triple A, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.880 but the main entries all fall in the Triple A category. Ubisoft, however, 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.240 though it was releasing more Triple A games than any 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.440 of its competitors were, was not releasing a linked rise 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:49.160 in revenue and from a net revenue generated per employee perspective, 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.480 as in, how much money are we making? If we 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.840 say we've got X number of employees, we're making why 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.160 amount of money? How much were we making per employee? 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.200 They were were starting to lag behind others. In other words, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.600 other companies were making more money per employee. Maybe not 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.880 more money overall, but per employee, they were making more 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.080 money than Ubi Soft was. So Ubisoft started to kind 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.120 of pump the brakes a little bit on Triple A 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.840 video game development, because that developing a Triple A video 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:22.960 game is uber expensive. And this was partly to give 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.920 development teams more time to polish games, and it was 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.720 also partly to try and focus on alternatives to these huge, 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.439 flashy and expensive Triple A titles, like what other types 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.760 of games could we make that would be less expensive 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.280 and more profitable. Now, the second thing that I want 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.679 to bring up before I move on to what's been 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:49.319 happening at Ubisoft since November of twenty twenty is that, Ubisoft, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.800 like a lot of other companies, began exploring ways to 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.240 make games an ongoing revenue generator. So in the old days, 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.080 you would head off to the game store you know, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.840 or whatever, and you would buy a copy of the 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.360 game you wanted, and that was it, right end of transaction. 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.040 You purchased your game, and then you brought it home 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.880 and played it. Maybe sometime later, the game company would 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.920 release an expansion pack to the game you had purchased, 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.080 and you could go out and buy that and it 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.520 would add some more content to the game you loved. 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.600 But that was about it. Like that was the only 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.800 options open to a video game developer company, and even 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.600 that meant that you still had to pour resources into 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:34.920 developing and releasing an expansion pack. By twenty twenty, a 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.160 lot of things had changed in the video game industry. 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.440 The Internet was essentially the facilitator for this change, because 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:47.200 now companies could stagger out downloadable content or DLC. Some 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.600 of that DLC could be free, but a lot of 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.079 it would usually require at least a small fee to purchase, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.760 and the transaction mechanism could be inside the game itself 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.840 and would hit the player just they were on the 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.720 verge of getting that dopamine release, but it's being denied, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.440 so like you can't beat that final stage Boss Babe, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:13.000 if you spent five bucks or a new mega bazooka thingy, 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.960 you can manage it. And a lot of companies, including Ubisoft, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.760 experimented with free to play games or freemium games. So 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.280 with these titles, you don't even have to buy the 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.640 base game at all. It's free for you to download 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.160 and play, but for it to be fun or to 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.480 flesh it out, you might have to pay some cash 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.319 to buffet up a bit. You know, the best freemium 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.319 games are fun to play even if you never spend 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:45.319 a dollar on them, but that's kind of counter productive 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:47.760 for the companies that make these games because they need 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.400 to be able to generate revenue or else they go 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.240 out of business. So ideally, you create a game where, yeah, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.520 it's fun to play even if you never sink any 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.040 money into it, but if you do sink money into it, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.360 it's more fun. Or in a lot of cases, it's 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.760 not that it's more fun, it's just it's less frustrating, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.480 which is kind of a grim way to look at things. 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.880 But that's how this free to play business model works. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.720 The base game is free, but all the cool stuff 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:20.599 is locked behind micro transactions. Then we get to the 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.480 third element, the least pleasant of the three, and that's 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.760 to put it lightly. So, word got out that Ubisoft 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:36.000 had a toxic corporate culture, absolutely rife with instances of 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.640 sexual harassment and discrimination, and this was company wide. Like 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.559 a lot of the discussion was focused on Ubisoft Paris, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:49.640 the home office for Ubisoft, the headquarters, but allegations spread 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.120 throughout the company and its various offices in places like 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.720 Canada and the United States and Singapore and things like that. 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.680 And word was that the company these human resources department 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:08.320 had effectively attempted to dismiss any allegations that executives in 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:14.480 particular were guilty of either you know, doing acts of 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:19.559 sexual harassment or ignoring acts of sexual harassment, essentially allowing 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.840 it to happen. Now, possibly the reason why HR was 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.319 not really paying attention to this is that those accusations 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.360 went way way up the leadership chain in the company, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.439 including but not limited to the creative director for all 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.800 of Ubisoft, a guy who had the ultimate yay or 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:44.240 nay on essentially everything that was under development within the company. Eventually, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.560 news of these allegations in Ubisoft got out to the 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.360 public and the French authorities launched an investigation into the company. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.760 Now the company couldn't afford to turn a blind eye 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.480 to what was going on after all, these these bombshell 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.160 news reports were coming out, and soon the media would 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:05.839 start to cover a series of dismissals and resignations as 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.280 various Ubisoft executives were shown the door. That's kind of 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.840 where I left off in November twenty twenty, so let's 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.720 pick up again to see what's been going on with 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.640 Ubisoft since then. Now, I'll go ahead and mention the 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:20.760 reason I decided to do this episode in the first 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:26.120 place is because recently those French authorities detained a group 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:31.520 of former Ubisoft executives based off serious accusations of illegal conduct, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:37.640 primarily in the form of sexual harassment or some reports 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:43.520 reported as outright sexual violence. The investigation, which is technically ongoing, 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.200 it's been a really lengthy and thorough one, as reported 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.960 in the French newspaper Liberation or Liberacion I guess I 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:56.240 should say Libee is how it's often referenced. A French 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.880 union representing video game workers brought allegations against various ex 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:05.440 ub Soft employees back in twenty twenty one. Now, this 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.400 was after the scandal at Ubisoft. I know, I'm going 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.600 back and forth on the pronunciation. It's driven me crazy too. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.520 Just know that as you hear me say ub Soft 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.880 or ub soft and you're going crazy, I'm also going crazy. Anyway, 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.760 let me get back to that. So, this was after 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:24.520 the scandal at Ubisoft became public news. Two other individuals 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.480 also approached police with accusations. They obviously were not named, 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:33.960 because if you're naming the victims of sexual violence in papers, 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.120 that's not typically a good thing to do in the 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.280 middle of an investigation. So the police launched their own investigation. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.359 They interviewed more than fifty current or former Ubisoft employees, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.640 and the whole thing took a place over the course 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.560 of more than a year, and the detainment happened on 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.760 October third and October fourth, which of twenty twenty three, which, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.200 as I record this and publish it was last week. Now. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.920 Among the five people detained was a guy named Serge Hascut, 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.160 whose name I have butchered. I'm gonna be butchering lots 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.160 of names. I mean, they're all French names, and I 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.160 am not a French speaker, so my apologies for that. 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.360 Let's just blame my ignorant American tongue. Anyway, Serge had 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.120 served as the creative director for all of Ubisoft for 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:24.920 many years, so this was the person who had the 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.800 year nay say for pretty much everything. The other person 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.680 who was named was Tommy Francois, who had been vice 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:37.840 president of editorial and Creative Services. I'll talk more about 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.000 those charges, the allegations, and the ongoing investigation, and then 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.200 get into what else Ubisoft has been up to over 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:57.920 the last few years. But first let's take a quick break. Okay, 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.080 we're back. So before the break, I'm mentioned that the 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.320 creative director for UBI Soft, Serge Pescut or Serge I'll 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.120 just say, because I know I'm butchering the name, and 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.400 Tommy Francois, the vice president of editorial and Creative Services, 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.040 had been detained by French authorities. The French authorities did 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.480 not identify the other three people they had detained as 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.120 part of this investigation, so I do not know their identities. 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:27.160 There were several high level executives who left UBI Soft, 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.400 like in twenty twenty as part of the big scandal, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:34.400 So there are multiple options as to whom those three 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.760 could be. Initial reports indicated that the police had detained, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:43.359 but not formally arrested these five former UBI Soft employees. 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.400 From what I can tell, they have made no arrests 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:48.840 so far. Like I tried to follow up on this 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.080 and see what was going on, and I did look 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.320 at some French publications, obviously translating them into English using 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:01.000 Google Translate because my French is terrible. But the lawyer 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.760 who represents the plaintiffs, you know, the people making the accusations, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.880 have made it has made it clear that the charges 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.960 are really serious, and that they're not limited to just 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.760 these five individuals, and that, in fact, the charges point 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:20.000 to a systemic problem within Ubisoft itself, and the departments that, 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.760 at least on the surface, were meant to provide employee 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.040 protection were really nothing but a way to protect the 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.560 company and to squelch any efforts by employees to speak 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.680 out about the toxic culture and harassment that they faced. 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:38.720 It's really ugly stuff and it's still ongoing, and maybe 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.360 there will be arrests that follow as part of this 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.280 ongoing investigation, but as it stands, right now as I 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.960 record this, I am unaware of any actual arrests. But yeah, serious, 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.800 serious stuff, and I'm sure I'll touch on it again 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.600 because there are allegations about a different arm of Ubisoft 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.720 that recently came to light. Leave that behind now and 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.640 talk about other stuff in the company. So, while Ubisoft 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.080 was embroiled in this scandal, it still faced the challenge 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.040 of developing and publishing games right. The world did not 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.520 come to a halt as it was dealing with this. 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.760 They were trying to forge a new strategy and perhaps 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.160 reverse a trend of diminishing returns like I had talked 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:27.640 about before. So in February twenty twenty one, Ubisoft held 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.080 an investor call to talk about the company's performance in 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.240 twenty twenty and what it planned to do moving forward. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.960 The chief financial officer, Frederick Dugway, I think, emphasized that 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.080 Ubisoft would not be leaning as heavily on triple A 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.080 titles as the company had in the past. So to 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.240 quote him, he said, quote, we said for a number 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.840 of years that our normal template is to come with 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.040 either three or four triple A games, So we'll stick 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.200 to that plan for fiscal twenty twenty two. But we 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.240 see that we are progressively continuously moving from a model 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.720 that used to be only focused on Triple A releases 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.520 to a model where we have a combination of strong 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:13.040 releases from Triple A and strong back catalog dynamics, but 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.439 also complementing our program of new releases with free to 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:22.119 play and other premium experiences. End quote, so again indicating 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.639 that games as a service was something that the company 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.919 was really interested in. This, by the way, games as 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.560 a service has kind of had a really rocky go 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.040 of it as of late, Like a lot of game 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:39.000 studios are reevaluating that approach because a lot of players 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:44.080 have kind of rejected that version of games. They don't 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.879 like the idea of being sold to again and again 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.480 and again just to play a game they wanted to play. 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.679 That's not to say that it can't work, but that 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.840 it requires a very careful approach for it to work 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.440 well and for players to feel like it's fair and 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.960 not predatory. So it's a very tough line to walk, 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:07.359 and not a lot of games are able to do 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:12.080 it super well. Also, to touch on something else he mentioned, 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:17.080 he said talked about the back catalog of games as 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.399 it stands, Ubisoft's back catalog is an incredible contributor to 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.560 their revenue, Like something like more than ninety percent of 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.720 the game sold tend to be games from the back catalog. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.280 And it may not surprise you to know that Ubisoft 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:38.560 is also looking into releasing remastered versions of some of 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.360 their older games because people want to play them, and 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.639 that's a way of generating more revenue by updating the games, 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.919 giving people what they want, you know, making everything look pretty, 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.960 maybe fixing some gameplay issues that existed in the original 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.800 version of the game, and charging you know, seventy bucks 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.280 a copy or whatever. The company was also starting to 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.760 really eye mobile games as a possible opportunity for growth. 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.840 At that time, less than ten percent of Ubisoft's business 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:15.159 came from mobile games. But Tencent had made and a 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.760 significant investment into Ubisoft, and Tencent is a company that 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.280 has a deep investment in mobile games, and the fact 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.600 that they were investing into Ubisoft suggested that things might 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.520 change soon. There might be more of a focus on 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.119 mobile games moving forward. However, it turns out that if 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.399 there was going to be a dramatic shift for Ubisoft, 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.480 it hasn't quite happened yet. Not that Ubisoft hasn't been 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:44.120 developing mobile games, but they haven't really changed as far 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.800 as how much they contribute toward revenue, at least not significantly. 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.840 All Right, so let's talk about some of the titles 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.000 that have been released since I published my episodes in 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:59.720 November twenty twenty. Now, Remember the strategy here was to 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.960 back away a little bit from Triple A games and 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.880 focus more on things like freemium type stuff. But also 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.080 remember video game development cycles can last years and years 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.879 and years, so it can take some time before you 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:18.119 start to see a dramatic strategy reflected in actual releases. Right, Like, 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.000 a change in strategy might take a while to be 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.840 evident in a company's releases because so many games were 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.720 still already in the development phase while the announcement was made. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.720 So Assassin's Creed Valhalla came out right around the time 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.240 I was publishing my episodes in November of twenty twenty. Now, 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:43.800 the Assassin's Creed franchise is enormous. The major games, they're 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:45.879 like thirteen of them, so there's more than a dozen 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.840 games in the main series. Then you've got like around 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:54.200 twenty spinoff games on top of that. The basic concept 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.840 behind the Assassin's Creed games is that there's this millennia 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:02.480 old conflict between two groups. You have the Assassins on 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.720 one side and the Templars on another side, and generally speaking, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.560 the Assassins are all about free will and choice, the 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:17.440 Templars are all about creating order, and both sides are 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:22.560 wanting to see sort of a peaceful existence, but it's 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:25.680 through two different directions. So the Assassins believe that only 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.720 through free will can you really have true peace, and 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:31.920 the Templars believe that only by locking folks down into 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:35.480 a very orderly system can you actually guarantee piece. And 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.000 that's where the maiden conflict comes from. There's also all 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:42.000 this stuff about a precursor to human civilization and some 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:46.880 science fiction elements of various items that when assembled would 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:51.520 give incredible power. It gets pretty convoluted. Complicating this even 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.880 more is that while the Assassin's Creed titles are set 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.760 throughout history, there's a modern day component to the story. 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:03.120 So typically in an Assassin's Creed game, you play as 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:06.200 a modern day person who more often than not, is 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:10.359 a descendant of some historical character who was involved in 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.320 this ancient conflict between Templars and Assassins, and using some 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:19.159 science fiction technology, you're able to inhabit the ancestral memories 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:24.679 of these people from your ancient past, and in the 0:24:24.720 --> 0:24:26.879 process you uncover some of the mysteries that are at 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.000 the core of the struggle between the Assassins and the Templars, 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.600 mostly like trying to get an idea of where some 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:40.480 of these sci fi artifacts from this precursor civilization could 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:42.680 be hidden. Now, I've only played a few of the 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:46.800 Assassin's Creed games. Personally, I find the historical segments to 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:50.359 be far more enjoyable to the modern day ones. I 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:52.920 find the sci fi stuff kind of silly and convoluted, 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:57.520 and the historical components are maybe only slightly less goofy, 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:01.480 but I just find them more enjoyable that That's just my 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:05.880 own personal opinion of the games anyway, Valhalla, as I'm 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:10.400 sure you can imagine, taps into Norwegian history and mythology. 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:14.160 The historical segments are set in the late ninth centuries 0:25:14.200 --> 0:25:17.399 of the late eight hundreds of the Common Era, and 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:20.960 if we go by historical chronology, that would mean this 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:25.960 is the fourth game if you look at the historical segments. 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:29.120 If that's how you order the Assassin's Creed franchise, which, 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:31.720 by the way, there are obviously lots of different ways 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:34.840 you could order the franchise. Most of them end up 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:37.879 making everything make no sense. But if we were to 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:40.480