Paris (France) (AFP) – Strong performances from major franchises, including an “Avatar” tie-in game and the juggernaut “Assassin’s Creed,” bolstered struggling French games giant Ubisoft’s third-quarter results, the company said Thursday. Revenue reached 318 million euros ($380 million) in October-December, marking a “solid” period that “exceeded our expectations,” according to chief executive Yves Guillemot in a statement.
Ubisoft’s star has fallen with investors in recent months due to a mixed reception for some new titles, as well as the announcement of a far-reaching restructuring and cost-cutting drive. Shares in the group have lost almost 95 percent of their value over the past five years, hitting their worst single-day performance in January with a 40-percent collapse.
On Thursday, Ubisoft reported that its preferred “net bookings” measurement, which excludes revenue from deferred sales, climbed 12 percent year-on-year to nearly 340 million euros in its third quarter. The growth rate was even higher over the first nine months of the financial year, rising 17.6 percent to reach 1.1 billion euros. Major contributors to this sales growth included the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed series, released last year, as well as the “Avatar” film tie-in game “Frontiers of Pandora,” which was updated to coincide with the release of the latest episode of the James Cameron saga in December.
The company plans to release two mobile games from popular franchises “Rainbow Six” and “The Division” by the end of March. However, Ubisoft also confirmed its January forecast of an operating loss of around one billion euros for the full financial year, a setback attributed to multiple delays and cancellations announced alongside the details of its restructuring.
The challenges for the company are far from over, as it recently faced a three-day strike involving several hundred of its 3,800 French employees. The walkout was triggered by the termination of work-from-home provisions. Ubisoft’s restructuring plans will reorganize many of its studios worldwide into an industry-first system of five “creative houses,” each dedicated to developing a different genre of game.
The company is also making “key leadership appointments, including external hires of experienced, respected industry veterans” to head these creative houses, Guillemot noted on Thursday. In January, Ubisoft announced that it was launching a third round of cost-cutting aimed at finding 200 million euros in savings over the next two years. The company also revealed plans to lay off up to 200 of the approximately 1,100 positions at its Paris headquarters.
These reductions follow studio closures in various locations of its global network, including San Francisco, Osaka, Stockholm, Leamington in Britain, and Halifax in Canada. As France’s largest games company, Ubisoft currently employs around 17,000 people worldwide, having cut more than 3,000 positions in recent years.
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