Ubisoft CEO Declares Cost Reduction Plan a Success After Firing 100 People

Yves Guillemot, CEO and Co-Founder of Ubisoft, mentioned that Ubisoft’s cost reduction program is progressing well and is currently ahead of schedule. This statement was retrieved from a recently published financial report which was published two weeks after the January layoffs.

Ubisoft has published its third quarter financial report of 2024 which shows a decrease in net bookings compared to last year. The statement reads “back-catalog net bookings were down mid-single digit year-on-year”. However, the first nine months of fiscal year 2024 is doing much better than the same time period last year.

Ubisoft also mentioned that they want to focus on open-world games as well as games-as-a-service games. One of such coming up is Assassin’s Creed Shadow, which is set to launch in March. According to the financial report, pre-orders are doing well for the game.

One thing mentioned in the financial reports talks about cost base reduction. The statement says that the fixed cost base reduction should exceed €200 million by the end of the fiscal year. The statement follows this by saying that the reduction was “thanks in part to the closure of four production studios in high-cost geographies and targeted restructurings at three other sites”.

Guillemot calls the good progression of the cost reduction program a result of “disciplined execution” and that they plan to do more in order to go beyond their initial target by a “significant margin”.

Ubisoft has previously announced studio closures which impacted hundreds, if not, thousands of people. The most recent one is the closure of its Leamington studio in January 2025. This studio worked on major titles such as Star Wars Outlaws and Far Cry 5. In 2024, Ubisoft closed down its studios in San Francisco and Osaka in preparation for XDefiant’s servers closing in June 2025.