With the number of companies laying people off, it's not surprising that the video game industry has also followed suit. Microsoft was the first company within the industry, with Bethesda, 343 Industries and The Coalition seeing layoffs. Now, it seems that Ubisoft might be the next. Yesterday, there was an unverified report on ResetEra that Ubisoft was shutting down its operations in Benelux on April 1. This was accompanied by an excerpt, reportedly from an email by the management.
"As we all know, the market is constantly evolving and as an organization we need to keep up with it," said the alleged email. "At this time, Ubisoft is facing several challenges due to external factors, such as the decline in sales volume of physical games in favor of digital sales, the centralization of marketing by digitizing all our communication channels, the shift from major retail releases to F2P, mobile and seasonal games and less major physical shows.
"To meet the challenges of the future, Ubisoft's management has decided to close a number of subsidiaries in Europe. Unfortunately, the Ubisoft Benelux entity is subject to the intended closure with most employees departing as of April 1st, 2023. Due to the closure, Ubisoft BV will fully outsource the current distribution of physical games in the Benelux to a distributor to be announced at a later stage."
At the time, it looked like only one office in Benelux was shutting down. However, when NME reached out to Ubisoft, the company's statement was phrased in a worrying manner. "Ubisoft’s publishing group is working on a strategic reorganization of its European business subsidiaries," said the statement to NME. "This process is ongoing and we don’t have any more detail to share at this stage.”
It's unclear what exactly this "strategic reorganization" is or what effects it will have, but given the constant news about companies laying people off, it could inadvertently mean that some people could lose their jobs and more offices could be shut down. However, we'll only learn about any possible layoffs when and if they happen.