Ubisoft has approved the transaction of a colossal deal worth €1.16 billion with the Chinese company Tencent as the tech firm’s owner, which will, as per the announcement, radically rearrange the entire publishing business with its AAA franchises of Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six among others. This news has caused a stir in the gaming world, and gamers reacted in different ways, from caution and working with an optimistic approach to simply chaos and crying among the fans of the affected games.
This is more like a big announcement, isn’t it? What we have here is a situation that involves Tencent, the emperor of the gaming ecosystem, taking over one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. Tencent is already very strong in the Western gaming market, and honestly? The players’ emotions have made the situation even more entertaining.
Some of the gamers see this news as a positive and that it might not be easy to digest but one should definitely listen first. A user has remarked “On the bright side, better games will start to come. They have already touched the bottom, so the only way is up!” and to be honest, this is really a solid point. Ubisoft has been trying hard to satisfy gamers but the journey has not been smooth. One more participant coined the phrase “woke sins,” and while some are upset about the unoriginality, others might interpret it as a sign of the change taking place in the company’s studios that the former is complaining about.
Despite this, there are still many people who believe that the worst scenario is on the way. A very worried gamer is among those believers and he expressed his concern with this statement: “Looks like Ubisoft will fire every worker and all studios will be moved to China as soon as tencent takes over Ubisoft completely.” That’s indeed a quite strong hypothesis and one could say that the prediction is somewhat exaggerated, however, it is not hard to comprehend their fear. The thing is, when a deal of such a big scale is done, it hardly ever does not lead to reorganizing and laying off staff, which is why it is such a scary scenario for both developers and players who are fond of particular teams working on their beloved franchises.
The financial aspect of the deal has confused people as well. Many spectators couldn’t help but wonder how Ubisoft could possibly ask for such a high price, with one declaring the deal to be “overpaying” while another commenting “I wouldn’t pay that much. The current owners are not even worth a kopeck for their incompetency.” Ouch! That is indeed a harsh statement, but it is also a reflection of the frustration that many feel about the recent decisions of Ubisoft’s management.
The speculation about what Tencent would actually do with Ubisoft’s IPs is the most thrilling thing. One user speculated “Tencent only care for right to titles. They have enough power to remake anything from ground up. We can expect massive ancient china AC in near future.” A game in the AC franchise set in ancient China is actually very cool and the public might really be scared that the giant will not invest in the core experience of the game and just take the easy route of mobile games and gacha mechanics. Additionally, a comment asserted “So what we said way back was right and tencent are gonna rip apart Ubi to get to AC and other IPs to be turned into more mobile gachaslop.” Many gamers are afraid that their beloved franchises will be transformed into money-makers through the medium of mobile games.
There is also an odd conspiracy theory aspect, with one user saying, “Conspiracy theory – the boards or CEOs are being paid behind the scenes to destroy their companies and brands by introducing ideologies and bringing in devs who masquerade as tolerant and virtuous and thus change the product into something that does not appeal to its main customer base in order to make the games of the major IP holders who are ripe for buyout.” That sounds like pure conspiracy theory, but at the same time, it indicates that some players are really that sensitive to the current situation in game development.
The emotional reactions are really mixed up. A gamer simply wrote “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Lmao it was nice to know you Rainbow Six,” this is perhaps the best representation of the essence of despair and the dark humor that gamers often use when they are presented with news of great change in the industry. On the contrary, another player put forward a counteroffer saying “£10 and a bag of sweets, any flavor you want for the rights of Assassin’s Creed,” and honestly? It may even be a better deal given Ubisoft’s recent history.
It is quite clear that this potential acquisition is a major turning point for Ubisoft. The brand that offered us the likes of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Splinter Cell could not take the opposite way. Optimists think it is a return to greatness, pessimists fear it is the vilification or rather, the Tencent-ization of their cherished ones that has PlayStation and Xbox gamers worried about similar trends.
