Star Wars Outlaws, the release of which has been highly expected from Ubisoft, did not sell as much as the company had believed, and thus Ubisoft’s share price has gone down to 10-year low. The open world adventure game that was released in the highly successful Star Wars franchise was anticipated to be a commercial triumph for Ubisoft but the actual inventory sales numbers have underwhelmed both shareholders and critics.
As per the reports from Reuters, at this stage Ubisoft’s share price is at $16.80 level, it has touched the lowest level in last one year and it has declined more than 85% in last six years. Poor sales of Star War Outlaw at its release and declining users engagement with XDefiant, which is a free to play title for the company, are among the reasons that have led to this financial loss.
Star Wars Outlaws: High Hopes, Low Returns
Star Wars Outlaws has not been able to get the projected number of players even though the critics have endorsed the game positively. The original forecast sales targets that Ubisoft had set for the current fiscal year ending of March 2025 were at 7.5 million but have been revised downwards to 5. 5 million. These poor results could not be expected taking into account the great expectations towards this game as one of the leaders of video game industry yearly releases, and the overall positive attitude of gamers and game critics.
Worsening it, the CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot while conducting a quarterly call in July disclosed that Star Wars Outlaws had been launched with the highest marketing budget in the entire Ubisoft company and within the Star Wars video game series.
The expectations were high, marketing budgets were strong, whereas sales failed to meet these expectations, making Ubisoft to find itself in a very tight corner. However, as the company copes with this problem, it is high time to reconsider the business model and look for the ways to appeal to the audience once again and make investors and players trust the company and its games.
