Ubisoft Announces 2.9% Decline in Net Bookings

Oh, man. So, I was reading this thing about Ubisoft—like, the big French gaming company, right? And apparently, their net bookings dropped a bit by, like, 2.9% over the last three months up to June 30th. Honestly, not huge, but enough to raise some eyebrows. They raked in €281.6 million (or $330.8 million if you’re more into dollars) during this chunk of the year, which they say isn’t quite hitting the mark. Hard to pin down if it’s bad luck or what, but seems like Rainbow Six: Siege didn’t quite hit the target and, oh yeah, this big partnership got pushed to next quarter instead of happening now. Bit of a bummer, really.

The cool thing, or maybe the silver lining, is their back catalogue sales are, like, doing pretty well. We’re talking €260.4 million ($305.9 million) from that stuff—up 4.4% compared to last year. Not too shabby, kinda like finding cash in your old jacket’s pocket.

So, here’s a twist: Ubisoft’s mixing things up with these so-called Creative Houses. Sounds fancy, huh? But it’s like splitting into different groups or something. The first one is backed by Tencent—yeah, the Tencent—announced earlier. Yves Guillemot, the main guy at Ubisoft (CEO and all that jazz), chatted about it and seemed pretty upbeat.

He was like, “Hey, we’re shaking things up with this new biz model, calling them Creative Houses. They’ll give us all sorts of new gaming things—more focus, accountability, you name it.” Who knows, maybe this will make each part think more creatively and do better business-wise.

Anyway, the first of these new setups is all about their big hitters like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. The leadership team just got announced and, I mean, guessing it’s a big deal for them aiming to be more, I dunno, agile? Focused? While hoping everything stays stable and creative in the long run. Here’s hoping, right?