Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six drive strong Ubisoft revenue growth

1,700 employees laid off as part of cost-cutting measures

Ubisoft

Ubisoft released its earnings report for the financial year that ended in March 31, 2024, posting a strong revenue growth of 26.8% compared to the previous year – revenues amounted to a sum of €2.6 billion EUR in total.

North America remained the company’s strongest market, accounting for exactly half of its net bookings, while console games were once again the most important business area with 56% in the same metric. Contributions from consoles and PC grew by a lot year-on-year due to mobile net bookings plummeting heavily – they only made up 6% in this period.

Ubisoft highlighted the performance of the Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six franchises as a major driver behind this growth, stating that both IPs saw more than “30m unique active players” throughout the year.

Metrics for the tactical shooter are certainly impressive with net bookings growing by more than 50% and playtime per user shooting up as well. Ubisoft hailed its “excellent results in terms of acquisition, activity, viewership and monetization this year.”

Less noise was made around its “quadruple-A game” Skull and Bones with sales and most key metrics remaining unmentioned – once again Ubisoft chose to only highlight its daily playtime and solid player retention, echoing previous statements regarding Skull and Bones’ success.

Given its current employee count of 19,011, it’s clear that Ubisoft laid off around 1,700 workers since embarking on its current cost-cutting program 18 months ago. Annual costs have already been reduced by about €150m EUR with €50m EUR more being targeted in the coming years.

CEO Yves Guillemot commented that “Ubisoft is back on track” and that FY2024 “marked a pivotal first step in our turnaround, showcasing solid performance and the first benefits of our transformation toward a more balanced and recurring business model, one supported by multiple revenue streams. The year also demonstrated the strength and value of our key assets including our talented global teams, a diversified portfolio of high- quality franchises that drove our back-catalog revenues to all-time highs, passionate communities of fans across franchises, cutting-edge proprietary technologies and a unique position in the gaming industry that enabled us to sign profitable partnerships. At the same time, we continued to adapt to a fast-changing industry and made further progress on transforming the organization at all levels.”

Future company strategy will revolve around open-world adventures and live-service games with hopes being attached to Star Wars Outlaws in the first category and XDefiant, Rainbow Six Mobile, and The Division Resurgence in the second.

Ubisoft recently revealed Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the series’ long-awaited trip to feudal Japan.