According to the Financial Times there is speculation that the big profits from Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed not only fared well for its bank account, but may have also raised the market value of the company beyond the reach of others who were thinking of taking over the France based game company–namely Electronic Arts.
The Financial Times stated, "The success of Assassin’s Creed has helped Ubisoft increase its market value to ($4.3 billion), making it all that more expensive as a target."
At the moment, EA owns 20% of Ubisoft, but it has been long been known within industry circles that Ubisoft is resistant to either a buyout or a hostile takeover by EA and would rather operate under their own management and direction. So for now, Ubisoft can breath a sigh of relief.
Sales for Assassin’s Creed evidently took Ubisoft by surprise as original estimates by the company were hoping for 3 million units by March of 2008. Instead, the projection figures for the game have been expanded to 5 million units with sales reaching $1.2 billion.
EA has been known to be always on the hunt for the acquisition of other game companies–to the consternation of critics who accuse EA of merely buying up ideas instead of developing more of their own.
As time goes on, it seems that there will be less independent game developers out there due to economics–it’s getting much more difficult to survive and compete for sales in an ocean filled with gigantic game business behemoths.
[via next-gen]
