Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft cofounder and CEO, was recently asked a question about the Stop Killing Games initiative by a shareholder, and in what became a booming bit of news, Guillemot revealed a new Ghost Recon game is in development! How’d he get there from the initial inquiry, you might ask. Well, I reckon I ought to fill in the blanks.
First off, the Stop Killing Games campaign’s goal is to stop video game publishers from rendering online games unplayable after they cease providing official support for the titles. It was Ubisoft’s decision to “sunset” the hit online racing game The Crew that initially set the ball in motion for Ross Scott, who went on to create the SKG petition/campaign in an attempt to prevent further removal of games that players believed they owned and could play for life.
Ubisoft’s response to the campaign finally arrives after the petition has reached over 1.4 million signatures in support, and that’s just in the EU. There have been many similar petitions created all over the world in support of Ross Scott’s rallying cry to protect what gamers have paid for! Regardless, the petition has attracted support from industry trade organizations and EU politicians to boot, so it’s clear why shareholders would be interested in knowing Guillemot’s take on the situation and how it will affect their investments (It’s ironic how they’re concerned about their investments, when the issue surrounds the investments of gamers being affected).
Guillemot stated, “Regarding the petition, we operate in a market,” which is kind of a cop out because… so do all studios, publishers, developers, etc., and that’s no excuse to choose greed in the short-term sense over the longevity of the company’s customer base through mutual trust and goodwill. Then again, Ubisoft is a business, and they do need to turn a profit, but I can’t imagine that running some old servers or making the servers public for their older online titles would be too damaging to their bottom line.
Guillemot went on to say, in regard to their previously released titles, that players are “forewarned that eventually the game may be discontinued,” and that when the studio temporarily dropped the price of The Crew 2 to $1 back in 2024, it was an act of goodwill to give players of the previous game the chance to switch to the new title before the first one was killed. Though at the time, many fans of the original title, as well as other news-savvy gamers expressed that it felt more like a publicity stunt to garner good will from those past fans that had already moved on from the studio due to other glaring issues surrounding micro-transactions and the like in regard to the company’s other franchises.
“You provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point, the service may be discontinued… Nothing is eternal, and we are doing our best to make sure that things go well for all players and buyers, because obviously support for all games cannot last forever. But that’s an issue that we’re working on. That’s something that the industry at large is working on, to minimize impact on players.” Guillemot continued.
The CEO followed this up by indicating that the tools and necessary software to make live-service games become obsolete as technology changes and expressed that this was the primary reasons why studios could choose to put out new versions, rather than continue providing official support for older titles. It does feel as though Guillemot may be missing part of the point, and that lies in the fact that Stop Killing Games have been upfront about the fact that they aren’t asking the studios to provide official support forever, but rather to “implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary.”
In the same shareholder meeting, Guillemot and Ubisoft’s CFO Frederick Duguet very casually hinted at the upcoming release of a new Ghost Recon title alongside the previously announced The Division project in the works. In reference to future profit share, Guillemot mentioned “capitalizing on upcoming launches, such as The Division and Ghost Recon,” while Duguet mentioned the investment from Tencent was being put towards “future development of other major brand names,” using Ghost Recon as the prime example.
With Ubisoft in the hot seat and trending down a not-so beloved path of corporate greed and poor executive decisions, fans like me of what the company used to be, and the wonderful and storied franchises they’ve created, I am desperate for a win from the studio. I want the next Ghost Recon and The Division to be the best ones in the series yet, complete with superb tactical gameplay, tons of customization and innovation, and for them not to be bogged down in overwhelming micro-transactions and live-service elements that will drive the nails into their coffins. These are special games from what was once a very well-respected studio, and as an older gamer, I really hope they can see the light and turn things around before they get “sunset” themselves.
