A screenshot of Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

Ubisoft, the company behind Star Wars Outlaws, XDefiant, Assassin’s Creed, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, saw its stock price drop 7% in a single day as it faces pressure from investors to take the company private as well as reports of soft sales for Star Wars Outlaws.

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

The stock price has fallen to a low of €13.67. Specifically it fell over 7% in the past day. According to Yahoo! Finance, the stock price has declined over 16% in the past five days. It is down over 41% in the last three months and nearly 30% in the last six months.

In the last year the company’s stock price is down over 50%. In the last five years it has declined over 81%.

Stock price for Ubisoft via Yahoo! Finance

The most recent stock drop comes in the wake of Star Wars Outlaws reportedly having soft sales as well as Slovakian investment firm AJ Investments urging the company to go private.

First, it was reported that Star Wars Outlaws sales were performing much worse than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in the United Kingdom. Games Industry Head Christopher Dring detailed that Star Wars Outlaws “launch sales are 55% lower than what Star Wars Jedi: Survive did.”

He added, “It was 15% bigger than Ubisoft Massive’s last game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.”

Christopher Dring on X

This data was seemingly reflected in a report from True Trophies that detailed that the game only hit 25th place in its Top 40 Most Popular PlayStation Games chart the week it debuted.

The outlet’s Kes Eylers-Stephenson shared, “#25 is just below the middle of the chart and it sits behind pretty much every major and middling live service game in terms of popularity right now. Normally, these are the early 20s spots where PS Plus’ indie games debut — not new AAA open-world games.”

In its second week on the chart, the game fell to 28th place. For comparison, Concord was 29th on the chart during its Early Access and Open Beta weekends. Astro Bot and Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions both debuted in the top 10 in their first week on the chart. Astro Bot was 8th while Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions was 10th.

A screenshot of Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

On top of what looks like poor sales, AJ Investments sent an open letter to the Board of Directors of Ubisoft urging the company to go private or sell to a strategic investor. In the letter, the investment firm specifically took issue with Ubisoft’s lowering of its revenue outlook for its second quarter, when Star Wars Outlaws released.

The firm wrote, “The recent quarterly results, which included the postponement of key games like Rainbow Six Siege and The Division into the 2025 lineup and a lowered revenue outlook for the Q2 2024, have heightened our concerns about the management’s ability to deliver value to shareholders over the long term. Share price of Ubisoft have decreased by more than 40% over the last year, compared to rise of its competitors and indexes.”

After detailing how they believe the company should be valued between €40 and €45, the firm posited the reason it is not there is due to current management, “Ubisoft at current state is mismanaged and shareholders are hostages of Guillemot family members and Tencent who take advantage of them. Management is focused on pleasing investors with beating quarterly results and not focusing on long-term strategy to provide exceptional experience for the gamers.”

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

Interestingly, the letter accuses Tencent and the Guillemot family of purposely degrading the company’s stock price so they can purchase shares to take full control of the company. The letter asserts, “We believe that Guillemot family and Tencent are discounting potential value of Ubisoft in order to buy more shares at lower valuation and eventually take full control of the company at heavily discounted valuation. We value the great work that has been done by the Guillemots over the decades in the Ubisoft but now is time to move on and restart the business with new shareholder approach and new management/CEO.”

According to the letter, the Guillemot family controls more than 25% shares in the company and around 29.63% of the company’s voting rights.

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018), Ubisoft

In order to improve Ubisoft, the firm suggests the company be taken private by the Guillemot family and Tencent in order to “allow the company to address its issues away from the public market pressures and make necessary changes without harming minority shareholders, retail investors, and pension funds that are victims of these efficiency problems and mismanagement by current leadership.”

They also urge that Ubisoft sell off a number of its studios, “Ubisoft should consider selling its studios that possess talent but are focused on non-core games, thereby allowing Ubisoft to streamline operations and focus on its main IPs.”

Those main IPs they want the company to focus on include Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and the various Tom Clancy titles such as Splinter Cell. Finally, they want the company to hire a new CEO.

If these demands are not met, the investment firm threatened, “We will use the French minority law to collect enough shareholders to start proxy fight and initiate SALE PROCESS of Ubisoft to increase shareholder value for all shareholders.”

A screenshot from XDefiant (2023), Ubisoft

What do you make of Ubisoft’s stock price dropping?