Ubisoft Sales Nearly Double in First Quarter
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
)Interesting, and quite disappointing if it's true given my opinion of their DRM.
One thing I will point out though is that this is their claims, it doesn't nessicarly mean that it's true. Companies in trouble oftentimes claim to be in good shape and making tons of money when they are not, in order to attract investors, continue projects, and hope to turn things around. Stuff like this was a big factor in things like the "Enron Scandal" and the economic recession in general when a lot of companies were eventually shown to be giant piles of debt despite what they claimed on paper, leading to the whole issue of goverment bail outs and the so called "golden parachute" for the executives at the top of such companies so they wouldn't lose their personal fortunes as a result.
Agree or not, I personally simply think it's uncanny that they are under fire for the DRM, we've been hearing tons of complaints about it in connection to things like "Assasins Creed 2" and the latest "Settlers title", and EA is apparently parting ways with them... and yet on the heels of all of this they are somehow claiming unprecedented profits.
Video gaming is one of those industries that is notoriously closed in how it gets things down, and it's finances (as i've criticized before), even if the market winds up taking this at face value, I am personally a bit skeptical (though understand, my skepticism does not mean that I'm nessicarly right either, but in my gut this just doesn't feel right).
One thing I will point out though is that this is their claims, it doesn't nessicarly mean that it's true. Companies in trouble oftentimes claim to be in good shape and making tons of money when they are not, in order to attract investors, continue projects, and hope to turn things around. Stuff like this was a big factor in things like the "Enron Scandal" and the economic recession in general when a lot of companies were eventually shown to be giant piles of debt despite what they claimed on paper, leading to the whole issue of goverment bail outs and the so called "golden parachute" for the executives at the top of such companies so they wouldn't lose their personal fortunes as a result.
Agree or not, I personally simply think it's uncanny that they are under fire for the DRM, we've been hearing tons of complaints about it in connection to things like "Assasins Creed 2" and the latest "Settlers title", and EA is apparently parting ways with them... and yet on the heels of all of this they are somehow claiming unprecedented profits.
Video gaming is one of those industries that is notoriously closed in how it gets things down, and it's finances (as i've criticized before), even if the market winds up taking this at face value, I am personally a bit skeptical (though understand, my skepticism does not mean that I'm nessicarly right either, but in my gut this just doesn't feel right).
I was just thinking, those figures have to be from console sales only. Ubisoft ain't about to admit their PC sales are tanking because of some DRM thing....dududf said:
Well I suppose it's easy to turn a profit when you make games that don't work and ignore the customer's complaints. Of course, you really only to get play that card once.
I hate Ubisoft but I won't deny they make very good games.. sometimes.
Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assasin's Creed 2 were both big improvements on the previous installments.
Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assasin's Creed 2 were both big improvements on the previous installments.
Ubisoft sales have increased because they have become evil, the more evil you are in the games industry the more sales you seem to get. Take EA for example, they used to be evil and made a ton of money and then they became nice and sales declined!.
Take it away Bobby Kotick.
"Hello Shareholders, Look at your CEO now back to me, now to your bank balance now back to mine, sadly, its not like mine.
But if you stopped actually supporting your games and stopped listening to gamers wants your bank balance could like mine.
Look down! back up!, your on a boat made from gamers souls with the CEO your company could be like, look at my hand I have IW bonus money to be redistributed.
I FLOGGED A DEAD HORSE!"
Take it away Bobby Kotick.
"Hello Shareholders, Look at your CEO now back to me, now to your bank balance now back to mine, sadly, its not like mine.
But if you stopped actually supporting your games and stopped listening to gamers wants your bank balance could like mine.
Look down! back up!, your on a boat made from gamers souls with the CEO your company could be like, look at my hand I have IW bonus money to be redistributed.
I FLOGGED A DEAD HORSE!"
Hmm...it's strange to double your profits in a quarter, is it not?
I worked for a watch repair for a little while, and at one point, their profits doubled and the company took credit for it.
It turned out that a major competitor had shut down, and that's where the extra business was coming from...later still the extra business trickled off, as the new customers found better quality work elsewhere.
My point is I bet this is a combination of number cooking, unspent loans and first day sales.
I worked for a watch repair for a little while, and at one point, their profits doubled and the company took credit for it.
It turned out that a major competitor had shut down, and that's where the extra business was coming from...later still the extra business trickled off, as the new customers found better quality work elsewhere.
My point is I bet this is a combination of number cooking, unspent loans and first day sales.
It's a copyright protection scheme, and a lovely little feature designed to stem piracy. It forces PC users to be online everytime they play, and the game simply stops if the connection fails (or Ubi's servers go down).lizards said:
Guys, don't fret. The reality is that profits were destined to rise no matter what. Why?
Because of the recession: Ubisoft had a terrible year in 2009 and deliberately delayed the releases of games like Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed 2 because of it. They were bound to bounce back and by doing this they made a moderate bounce look like a huge bounce. I found a Kotaku article reporting in the first half of 2009 alone their profits dropped by more than 50%. In May UbisoftGroup's press release said sales for the full year had fallen by 18%; a bit of trickery there because they must have realised doing the maths for others and posting the summary of '50%' as they had done earlier was a mistake. An 18% drop in sales doesn't say anything about the drop in profits for the full year. They're leaving it to shareholders and critics to go looking through the spreadsheets to calculate the profit drop for 2009, which probably is just over 50%.
So when they report a profit increase for the first quarter of this year of 94% over 2009, that's a 94% increase of a 50% drop; meaning they haven't actually recovered from it; they're still below the margin they dropped from. They would be there if they had increased the sales on PC, but they didn't and everyone knows why. Everyone except Ubisoft.
Because of the recession: Ubisoft had a terrible year in 2009 and deliberately delayed the releases of games like Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed 2 because of it. They were bound to bounce back and by doing this they made a moderate bounce look like a huge bounce. I found a Kotaku article reporting in the first half of 2009 alone their profits dropped by more than 50%. In May UbisoftGroup's press release said sales for the full year had fallen by 18%; a bit of trickery there because they must have realised doing the maths for others and posting the summary of '50%' as they had done earlier was a mistake. An 18% drop in sales doesn't say anything about the drop in profits for the full year. They're leaving it to shareholders and critics to go looking through the spreadsheets to calculate the profit drop for 2009, which probably is just over 50%.
So when they report a profit increase for the first quarter of this year of 94% over 2009, that's a 94% increase of a 50% drop; meaning they haven't actually recovered from it; they're still below the margin they dropped from. They would be there if they had increased the sales on PC, but they didn't and everyone knows why. Everyone except Ubisoft.