In recent years we have seen a renewed focus by major gaming companies to merge with or acquire smaller developers and publishers. Ubisoft has supposedly been proposing a number of potential acquisitions and mergers with various parties, however they reportedly “mostly got laughed at.”

In a Tweet released by Jeff Grubb, the industry insider claimed that Ubisoft has unsuccessfully been trying to expand through mergers and acquisitions, saying:

“Ubisoft definitely already did the rounds proposing acquisitions and mergers with other similar companies, and it mostly got laughed at. It's just too unwieldy. Its strength was its distributed development structure, and now that is an albatross.”

Commenting further on this situation, Grubb gave his own perspective on the matter, saying “I hope it tries to ride it out because I think it might hold onto more people than if it tried to ‘slim down’ for an M&A. Either way, though, it seems grim. Making games is a rough business.”

When asked by one respondent “Could we see a big downscaling and focus on a few core franchises?” Grubb responded simply by saying “I think everything is on the table.”

2022 was not a great year for Ubisoft, with the publisher suffering from a number of controversies, game delays and cancellations. Unfortunately, 2023 looks to be off to a less-than-stellar start, with 3 more games cancelled and Skull & Bones once again being pushed back for the 6th time. It will be interesting to see whether Ubisoft does end up finding a partner to merge with – and whether this would ultimately be a good move for the publisher.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Ubisoft’s plan? Should they try and weather the storm? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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