Ubisoft facts for kids
Logo since May 2017
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Administrative headquarters in Montreuil
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Formerly
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Ubi Soft Entertainment SA (1986–2003) |
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| ISIN | ISIN: [https://isin.toolforge.org/?language=en&isin=FR0000054470 FR0000054470] |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 28 March 1986 |
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| Headquarters |
Saint-Mandé
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France
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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| Products | See List of Ubisoft games |
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| Services | Ubisoft Connect |
| Revenue |  €1.814 billion (2023) |
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Operating income
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€-500.2 million (2023) |
| €-494.7 million (2023) |
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| Total assets | €4.670 billion (2023) |
| Total equity | €1.482 billion (2023) |
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Number of employees
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19,410 (2023) |
| Subsidiaries | See List of Ubisoft subsidiaries |
Ubisoft Entertainment SA is a French company that makes and publishes video games. It is based in Saint-Mandé, France, but has game development studios all over the world. Some of its most famous game series include Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rayman, and Tom Clancy's.
Contents
How Ubisoft Started
Early Days and First Games (1986–1996)
In the 1980s, the Guillemot family in France helped farmers with their businesses. The five brothers – Christian, Claude, Gérard, Michel, and Yves – learned a lot about sales and management. They realized they could sell other products, like computer software and video games.
They noticed that buying computers and software from the United Kingdom was cheaper than buying them in France. So, they decided to start a mail-order business. Their first company, Guillemot Informatique, began in 1984. They sold products at much lower prices than other suppliers.
By 1986, this business was doing very well. The brothers saw that video games were becoming very popular. They decided to start making their own games, not just selling them. So, Ubi Soft (later known as Ubisoft) was founded on March 28, 1986. The name "Ubi Soft" meant "ubiquitous" software, suggesting it would be everywhere.
Ubi Soft started in offices in Paris. They hired talented people to create games. Their first game, Zombi, sold 5,000 copies by early 1987. Yves Guillemot became the company's chief executive officer in 1988.
A young artist named Michel Ancel joined the team. He was known for his amazing animation skills. Ancel and his friend Frédéric Houde created a game prototype that excited the brothers. This led to the creation of a new studio in Montreuil in 1994. Their big game, Rayman, was released in 1995 and became a huge success.
Growing Around the World (1996–2003)
In 1996, Ubi Soft offered shares of its company to the public. This helped them raise over $80 million to expand. Within two years, they opened new studios in places like Annecy, Shanghai, Montreal, and Milan.
The company wanted a strong game series that would be popular in the United States. Around 1999, with the rise of the internet, the brothers started game studios for online games. They also bought Red Storm Entertainment in 2000. This gave them access to the Tom Clancy's series of spy and stealth games. Ubisoft helped Red Storm expand this series with games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. They also worked with Microsoft to create Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell for the Xbox in 2002.
In 2001, Ubisoft bought the entertainment part of The Learning Company. This included popular game series like Myst and Prince of Persia. Ubisoft Montreal developed Prince of Persia into Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which came out in 2003. At the same time, Ubi Soft released Beyond Good & Evil, another game by Michel Ancel.
Expanding Even More (2003–2015)
On September 9, 2003, Ubi Soft officially changed its name to Ubisoft and introduced a new logo called "the swirl." In 2004, another big game company, Electronic Arts, bought a large part of Ubisoft's shares. Ubisoft called this a "hostile" move, meaning they didn't want it. However, Electronic Arts later sold their shares in 2010.
Ubisoft created another major game series, Assassin's Creed, which first launched in 2007. This series was originally planned as a sequel to Prince of Persia. In 2006, Ubisoft also bought the Driver game series from Atari. In 2008, Ubisoft made a deal with Tom Clancy for the permanent use of his name for video games. They also bought other game studios like Massive Entertainment.
In 2013, Ubisoft announced plans to invest $373 million in its Canadian operations. They wanted to improve their motion capture technology and online game services in Montreal. By 2020, they planned to have over 3,500 employees in their Montreal and Quebec City studios.
In July 2013, Ubisoft announced that its network had been hacked. This meant that information from up to 58 million accounts, including usernames and encrypted passwords, might have been seen. Ubisoft told all users to change their passwords and said that no credit card information was taken.
Fighting Off a Takeover (2015–2018)
Around 2015, a French media company called Vivendi tried to buy Ubisoft. Vivendi bought many shares in Ubisoft, which the Guillemot family did not want. Yves Guillemot said it was important for Ubisoft to stay independent so they could keep their creative freedom.
Vivendi also took over Gameloft, another mobile game company owned by the Guillemot family. This made the Guillemots even more determined to protect Ubisoft. They asked for more Canadian investors to help prevent Vivendi from taking over.
Vivendi kept buying more shares, getting closer to owning enough to take over the company. However, in November 2017, Vivendi announced they would not try to buy Ubisoft for the next six months.
Finally, on March 20, 2018, Ubisoft and Vivendi made a deal. Vivendi agreed to sell all its shares in Ubisoft and not buy any more for five years. Some of these shares were sold to Tencent, a large Chinese company. Ubisoft also announced a partnership with Tencent to bring their games to the Chinese market. Vivendi completely sold its shares in Ubisoft by March 2019.
Tencent's Investment and Recent Years (2018–Present)
Since 2018, Ubisoft's studios have continued to focus on popular game series like Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy's, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs. In 2019, Ubisoft decided to delay some of its planned game releases to focus on making existing and upcoming games even better. In January 2020, Ubisoft announced changes to its game development process to create more varied and exciting games.
In 2020, Ubisoft made changes to address workplace issues. Some staff members left or were fired as a result. Yves Guillemot made changes to improve the company's environment.
In February 2021, Ubisoft announced it would focus less on only releasing big "AAA" games. Instead, they would also focus more on mobile and free-to-play games. Later that year, they started calling games made by their own studios "Ubisoft Originals."
In 2021, Ubisoft announced they would be making an open-world Star Wars game. This was a big deal because it ended another company's exclusive rights to make Star Wars games.
Ubisoft has also been exploring blockchain technology in video games. In December 2021, they launched Ubisoft Quartz, a program that lets players buy unique digital items for games using a special cryptocurrency. This idea received a lot of criticism from players.
In July 2022, Ubisoft canceled several games, including Splinter Cell VR and Ghost Recon Frontline. In September, Tencent invested more money into the Guillemot family's holding company, increasing their voting rights within Ubisoft. Yves Guillemot said Tencent would help bring Ubisoft's games to China and help with the company's finances.
In January 2023, Ubisoft canceled three more unannounced games due to disappointing financial results. Yves Guillemot asked employees to be careful with spending and focus on delivering high-quality games on time. This led to some union workers at Ubisoft Paris calling for a strike, asking for better salaries and working conditions.
As part of a deal for Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard, Microsoft gave Ubisoft the rights for cloud gaming of Activision Blizzard's games in October 2023. To save money, Ubisoft reduced its number of employees in 2023 and 2024.
How Ubisoft Makes Games
Ubisoft Connect
Ubisoft Connect is an online service for Ubisoft's PC games. It used to be called Uplay. It lets players earn rewards for completing challenges in games. It also helps manage digital copies of games and allows players to connect with each other.
Ubisoft Connect now supports playing games across different platforms and saving your progress. When it first launched, some games required players to always be connected to the internet to play. This caused problems if the internet went down. Ubisoft later changed this, so games only need to check with the servers when they start.
Game Engines
Ubisoft uses several special tools called "game engines" to create its games. These engines are like the foundation or framework for a game.
Ubisoft Anvil
Ubisoft Anvil is a game engine made by Ubisoft Montreal in 2007. It was first used for the original Assassin's Creed game. Since then, it has been used for most Assassin's Creed games and other Ubisoft titles like Ghost Recon Wildlands and For Honor.
Disrupt
The Disrupt game engine was also developed by Ubisoft Montreal. It is used for the Watch Dogs games. This engine was built almost from scratch and allows for very detailed graphics and effects. Parts of it were originally planned for a Driver game.
Dunia Engine
The Dunia Engine is based on an older engine called CryEngine. Crytek first created CryEngine, and Ubisoft used it for the first Far Cry game in 2004. Ubisoft later got the rights to the Far Cry series and the CryEngine.
For Far Cry 2, Ubisoft Montreal changed the CryEngine to include things like destructible environments and more realistic physics. This improved version became the Dunia Engine. It has been updated many times and is used for all future Far Cry games. The Dunia 2 engine, introduced with Far Cry 3 in 2012, made games run better on consoles and added more complex visual features.
Snowdrop
The Snowdrop game engine was created by Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft for Tom Clancy's The Division. This engine uses a "node-based system" that makes it easier to connect different parts of the game, like graphics, artificial intelligence (AI), and missions. It is also used in other Ubisoft games such as South Park: The Fractured but Whole, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, and upcoming games like Star Wars Outlaws.
Ubisoft Games
Ubisoft has learned that games where players can easily switch between playing alone and playing with others are more fun. This led the company to focus on games that are connected online. Ubisoft even talks about its history as "before The Division" and "after The Division" because that game was one of the first to require a constant internet connection to play.
Movies and TV Shows
Ubisoft started its Ubisoft Film & Television division in 2011. At first, they made movies and shows based on their games. Now, they also create other types of entertainment about video games. Some of their productions include the live-action movie Assassin's Creed (2016) and the TV series Rabbids Invasion (2013) and Mythic Quest (2020–present).
Images for kids
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The evolution of the Ubisoft logo.
See also
In Spanish: Ubisoft para niños
