Ubisoft’s VP of live operations has finally broken her silence regarding the issue of the publisher’s potential hostile takeover by Vivendi by stating that “It[Ubisoft] wouldn’t be the same.“.
During an interview with PCGamesN, Anne Blondel mentions that the company’s independence is what was behind its success.
I know for a fact, having been there for 20 years, that if you [separate] us from our independence, if you take away the way we like taking risks and inventing new stuff, well it’s not going to be the same Ubisoft–for me, it wouldn’t be the same.
I know what made us so successful for 30 years, is being super independent, being very autonomous
She further adds that the company’s independence provides it with the ability to take risks and give all of it’s players diverse experiences.
Sometimes we take a lot of risks, you think about The Crew, that was a risk. People would look at that like, ‘Maybe it’s not going to work, another racing game, what are you thinking?’ Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, all those kinds of titles.
The looming hostile takeover has been under industry speculations for a good while now, with Vivendi consistently acquiring more stock. Ubisoft, which up till now has always been a family run corporation, has made several attempts to safeguard the aforementioned independence by buying back more and more shares and additionally appointing independent directors for the board.
Ubisoft’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, had made it very clear recently that he will definitely not continue to be the CEO under a Vivendi owned Ubisoft.
In comparably happier news, Ubisoft has officially revealed its 30 Days of Giveaways event, which is taking place in celebration of both Christmas and Ubisoft’s own 30th birthday.
