Ubisoft Throws Shade During It's Quarterly Earnings Call

It’s not often that a company uses a quarterly earnings call to throw shade, but then again, it’s not often that the industry is rocked by the layoffs of over 800 employees from one of the largest developers and publishers in the world.

The company throwin’ shade is Ubisoft, where the company reported a very strong third quarter. Net bookings over the last nine months were up by 13.5 percent, which was accompanied by a 58.1 percent boost in their PC business, thanks in large part due to the success of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Far Cry 5. Throw all these numbers together and Ubisoft walked away with a sweet 1.351 billion euros. Good news for the investors for sure, and anyone who’s deeply invested in the success of this company for some reason.

In the call, they also talked about their future: specifically, they confirmed that between April 2019 and March 2020, the company plans to launch three to four more triple-A level games. None of these games were named, but we know it won’t include an Assassin’s Creed game (they’re skipping 2019) and The Division 2 is releasing just before the listed dates, so, whatever these four games are they’ll probably be at least kind of surprises, although a new Splinter Cell game certainly seems likely, or perhaps another Watch_Dogs.

That said, the real gem of the call was this little tidbit from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot:

"Ubisoft is building its organizational structure for the long term. Leveraging the ownership of our IPs and studios, we are striving to provide a fulfilling working environment so that our talented people can realize their full potential and to deliver players beneficial experiences that go beyond pure entertainment. Therefore, we are confident in our ability to continue to grow and increase our profitability over the coming years."

So they’ve been successful, but instead of firing 800 people, they’re going to invest their earnings back into their people? What a wild and unconventional idea.

I think Activision just took Ubisoft’s place in the top three worst gaming companies. Congratulations on the promotion, Ubi.