The new thing being launched by Ubisoft and Tencent to take control of Ubi's biggest games now has a name: It's called Vantage Studios, and it's a "creative house" that will take responsibility for the future of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six properties.
Vantage Studios is made up of "thousands of experienced developers" based in Ubisoft studios in Montreal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia, and "represents a first step in Ubisoft's ongoing transformation," the company said in today's announcement. It will also apparently be the first of multiple such "creative houses," the overall goal of which "is to facilitate stronger and deeper connections between developers and players."
"This streamlined approach allows for both a higher level of autonomy for developers and a shorter pathway between gathering and implementing player feedback, while still offering the benefit of Ubisoft's expertise, services, tools, and tech," Ubisoft said.
There aren't any details on how all of this reorganizing will actually work, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't strike me as a little bit like the ol' deck chairs on the Titanic thing. The past several years have not been good for Ubisoft, which has seen its share price crater amidst workplace misconduct scandals, struggles to get games released, and too many misfires among new projects.
Tencent seemed eager to make a move on an easy target, but the founding Guillemot family has proven impressively determined not to relinquish control, just as it was 10 years ago when Vivendi tried to take over—which is what brought Tencent on the scene in the first place.
The deal between Tencent and Ubisoft that birthed Vantage Studios always struck me as kind of an odd compromise that didn't change much. As it was announced earlier this year, Tencent holds a roughly 25% stake in the new subsidiary, but Ubisoft retains full control: In fact, the co-CEO of Vantage is Charlie Guillemot, the son of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot—his partner in the big office is Christophe Derennes, a Ubisoft veteran who's been with the company for more than 35 years.
So it's a name and not much more at this point, but hopefully we'll get more insight into how Ubisoft's operations will be impacted by this new operation soon: The company's H1 financial report, where I would expect Yves and co. to say something more substantial about it, is set for November 13.
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