Vivendi Increases Stake in Ubisoft, Amidst Takeover Fears

@divinejester: blizzard broke free, they had no choice but to sell. Vivendi are well known for hostile and aggressive takeovers.

@divinejester: During the blizzard "takeover" they ran out of money and had a massive dept to pay and was forced to sell or they would have bankrupted themselves.

@suicidesn0wman: Oh no. Gaming will surely never be the same without a soulless company releasing its fodder every year. Game market crash incoming without Ubi.

@cornbredx: Normally, I would agree, but this is Ubi, and it's never looked so good. I will surely raise a toast when they eventually get driven into the dirt by Vivendi. Long overdue.

@Thanatos2k: restructering in there own ways, would result in job losses, people no longer happy within there job because the freedom ubisoft employees had goes. Vivendi would come in and 're seance so much stuff in there own way, force there aggressive tactics on gamers from Microsoft and other transaction types towards fans who buy there games. Nothing good can come from this and anyone wishing I'll will on ubisoft or any dev should be ashamed to even think they are a real gamer. So you pick up a pad, but any real gamer appreciates that every dev out there has had some positive affect on the industry.

What example does this also set to if this goes ahead, it leaves the industry open to more aggressive hostile takeovers and others will attempt it to. I hope it never happens to a developer you enjoy, you will see the frustration many Ubisoft fans will be having as well as all those who end up having to leave Ubisoft when it was there way of life for so long.

@Thanatos2k: A lot people's complaints about this are just mimics. They see others that know it's not a good thing say so, but they don't actually know why.

Vivendi has a history of hostile take overs. They did this with several companies including Activision who were able to pay them to **** off because they turned over several profitable franchises (and good on them for it even if I don't like some of their games).

Vivendi is the reason Sierra now belongs to Activision as far as I recall, fun fact. Vivendi took over Sierra I think before Activision. Technically Sierra no longer exists, much like Atari. It's a shell of what it used to be now although the way Activision is handling it could be cool unlike the company that calls itself Atari now a days (I forget what company it is that bought Atari out last and changed it's name to Atari because their brand went down the toilet).

Vivendi aren't even particularly profitable on their own (or, they weren't last I really paid attention to them). Last time I paid attention to them they were hugely in debt. I don't know this for a fact, but it's possible after Activision bought it's freedom back that may have saved Vivendi. I suspect also this is why they are turning around to Ubisoft now. They seem to look for successful companies and then latch onto them. For good or bad. I guess in the case of Activision it actually worked out quite well for them, and now they want to do it again with Ubisoft. I honestly don't remember, though, what they impose when they do take over. Historically looking back from the outside it didn't seem to work out that badly for them or Activision all things considered. Sierra did close down, but that may not have been because of Vivendi- I really don't remember.

Vivendi is a European media conglomerate and what this could mean for Ubisoft is they will be refocused to make games to synergize with Vivendi's existing properties (whatever those are). Granted that's just speculation at this point. Who knows what they want from Ubisoft at this point. They certainly won't be helping Ubisoft in any case, and in some ways the way the buy out of Gameloft was positioned it sometimes almost comes off personal. If you think them making Assassin's Creed every year is bad (which isn't all they make, but that's what people like to whine about) just wait until that happens. Or you won't notice because Ubisoft won't be making games you care about anymore. Who knows.

But it also seems a little underhanded to me. It could be that Yves actually wants Vivendi to buy them out, but on the surface is saying otherwise. This creates a narrative of the evil buy out and gives some amount of interest and good grace back to the company for people who care about such things. Maybe it's profitable for them to create that narrative. That seems like a silly thing, but anything is possible.

For the record I don't think that last thing is true. It's just a really weird thing going on between Vivendi and Ubisoft right now and I wouldn't put it past them to secretly be on board with what is happening.

Wow, I said a lot. My point is that I don't particularly care for what Vivendi has done in the past. They certainly are not out to help Ubisoft, but who knows, maybe they'll just leech off of them, but impose nothing further. Or maybe this is Ubisoft's plan all along since they want to start branching out and create synergies with movies. All of these and more are possible outcomes.

That all being said. Most of these comments are coming from the fact that so many are asking for Vivendi to kill Ubisoft. I think that's completely uncalled for. Ask Ubisoft to change, sure, but wishing for the death of a company because you don't like some of the choices they make, or your upset about their mistakes, is very childish and self serving. It doesn't actually benefit anyone.

@johnnyboy787: I doubt Vivendi has any plans to dismantle Ubisoft as they sold their stake in Activision-Blizzard. They probably believes they could turn Ubisoft into another cash cow like Activision-Blizzard, then sell Ubisoft and move on to another publisher.

@bernard978: You're wrong. It totally can, and under Vivendi it will.