Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot Appears To Hint That More Layoffs Are Coming To Company After It Shut Down 'XDefiant'
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot hinted that more layoffs are likely coming to the company after it announced it shut down XDefiant and were laying off around 300 people.
In a blog post written by Ubisoft’s Chief Studios and Portfolio Officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert, the company announced, “Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market. As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it.”
She then explained, “Concretely, that means that as of today, new downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available. Season 3 will still launch, and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025, out of appreciation for both our dev teams who worked on it and for XDefiant’s active players.”
Waubert then explained that not only was the company shutting down XDefiant, but it was closing its San Francisco and Osaka production studios.
She wrote, “Even if almost half of the XDefiant team worldwide will be transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft, this decision also leads to the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney.”
An all-staff email penned by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was then leaked by Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming.
In the email, Guillemot justified the game’s closure and the layoffs, “We wanted to take a firm and clear decision to enable us to concentrate our investments and forces on more profitable projects.”
He then hinted at possible more layoffs as the company will have more “targeted restructurings.”
He said, “I am well aware that, given the current context, such announcements may worry you, and that’s understandable. The entire industry is facing similar difficult decisions, yet often the scale of the impact is much larger. Our organization has allowed us to limit the impact of these kinds of decisions and make more targeted restructurings, and all our efforts are focused on trying to maintain this course and philosophy. We will continue working on evolving our organization to adapt it to market changes, and with a long-term perspective in mind.”
READ: Ubisoft Discounts 'Star Wars Outlaws' By $20 Ahead Of Release To Steam
Furthermore, Guillemot revealed that the company will allegedly be making significant changes across the board.
He shared, “In the coming days, some members of the Executive Committee will reach out to you. Cécile Russeil will share new initiatives aimed at addressing some of the questions raised by Ubisoft XP. Marie-Sophie de Waubert will present initiatives to bring back a daily focus on creation, ensuring fewer unnecessary processes and more time dedicated to what truly matters to each of us: making the best games possible. Alain Corre will provide updates on the launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, progress made in strengthening our relationship with gamers, particularly regarding The Crew Motorfest and Star Wars Outlaws.”
The shuttering of XDefiant came after Ubisoft admitted the game’s sales had missed expectations.
At the end of September, Guillemot revealed, “We also had behind expectations for XDefiant, which we will give you a bit more detail at the end of October.”
A report from Henderson in August claimed the game’s concurrent player counts were either around 20,000 or well below it.
Henderson noted that one source informed him that “the game has been struggling to obtain 20,000 concurrent players across all its platforms.”
Another source shared, “They [Ubisoft] would probably be happy with that number.” This suggested that the concurrent player number counts were much lower than 20,000.
READ: 'Assassin's Creed' Executive Producer Reveals AAA Games Need To Sell 10 Million Copies To Break Even
XDefiant’s Executive Producer Mark Rubin would confirm player counts were down in the middle of October while addressing a rumor that the game would be shut down after Season 4 due to low player counts and low sales.
Rubin wrote on X, “To be crystal clear there are NO plans to shut down after season 4. I’ve literally been in meetings as of last week to discuss our Year 2 plans.”
He continued, “But, right now we are super focused on improving the technical experience (which includes netcode) and adding more content for Seasons 3 & 4.”
However, he then admitted that player numbers are down, “We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left.”
XDefiant is not the only loser that Ubisoft has hacked up this year. Star Wars Outlaws has not performed well. Guillemot admitted the game had “softer than expected sales.”
When it released to Steam in November it failed to hit even 2,500 concurrent players.
It’s been rumored by French-speaking YouTube channel ORIGIMAI that Ubisoft shut down its Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team as well.
Using YouTube’s translate function, the ORIGAMI host states, “In recent days at Ubisoft Montpellier, we are transporting boxes from one floor to another and it is quite a symbol because it is that of dissolution, not announced to the public, but completed of the team Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.”
The host went on to share that the decision to disband the team was made shortly after the game released at the beginning of the year. It released on January 18, 2024 to Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.
He said, “It was clear in the spring, in fact. A few patches, a DLC, and we are packing up.”
Maybe the biggest disaster for the company was Skull and Bones. YouTuber Endymion reported that Ubisoft allegedly spent between $650 million and $850 million to develop the game.
Endymion shared, “I was also told that the project that ruined Ubisoft was not actually Outlaws or Shadows. It was actually Skull and Bones.”
“My sources told me they have seen multiple different versions of the game that were each completely different over the years. They said that they were told that the budget that was spent on Skull and Bones, it ranged somewhere from $650 to $850 million over 10 years,” he added.
“And that Skull and Bones failed so badly for Ubisoft it was the actual reason why they’re dying the way that they are,” he said. It’s not actually Outlaws and Shadows if you can believe it. So they sunk a legendary amount of resources into that game and it clearly did not work out for them at all.”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot infamously described Skull and Bones as a AAAA game and attempted to justify the game’s price tag of $70 during the company’s Q3 sales call for fiscal year 2024 back in February about a week before the game’s release.
He was asked by one investor, “Could you, maybe, unpack for us the decision to price it at [$70]? You’ve certainly emphasized that it’s designed for a lot of live services. What drove the decision to make the game pay to play when that could presumably limit the size of the player base and thereby PRI in the game?”
Guillemot responded, “You will see that Skull and Bones is a fully-fledged game. You can see it on the market today. It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, AAA, AAAA game, that will deliver in the long run.”
The game released on Steam in August of this year and only hit an all-time peak of 2,615. In the past 24 hours it only hit a peak concurrent of 353 players.
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