On September 24, Ubisoft abruptly canceled its appearance at the Tokyo Game Show and postponed all press previews of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Wednesday, we learned why. Anti-DEI backlash has sent the company spinning.
The Paris-based video game publisher pushed the release of its biggest game of the year from November 12 to February 14 of next year—and warned investors that net bookings would no longer exceed the 2.3 billion euros of last year, but come in at a disappointing 1.95 billion euros. That sent shares lower Thursday, continuing a rough year for the company (UBI.PA). Year to date, shares are down 57%, which has stirred up some activist investors to call for a sale.
The bookings’ shortfall was, technically, due to the delay and disappointing sales of Star Wars: Outlaws. However, the underlying reason for both of those, at least in part, is the far-right opposition to diversity and inclusion.
Outlaws, which has a female lead character, received mostly solid reviews from professional critics; but many players gave it a zero rating out of 10 on Metacritic, citing “forced DEI narratives” and claiming the developers “spent more time on the woke culture than on the story and gameplay.” Some players were also unhappy with the optional season pass model that tacked an additional $40 onto the game’s price for extra missions. (The season pass/downloadable content model has been a popular one in the industry for many publishers, and is used in Fortnite and Dark Souls 3.)
That review bombing, driven by anti-DEI backlash, seemingly worked—and set off a chain of events that led to Wednesday’s announcement.
“We believe Star Wars Outlaws was impacted by a coordinated effort that sought to troll Ubisoft games specifically and Star Wars content in general,” wrote Michael Pachter of Wedbush in an analyst’s note. “This is a case of a rare incel victory that led to Ubisoft having to take down its numbers.”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot addressed the controversy directly in announcing the revised guidance.
