Assassins Creed II Sells 9mil, But Ubisoft Reports Net Loss

18 May 2010 at 21:17:32 by Peter Parrish

Publisher Ubisoft has today released its sales and earnings figures for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2010.

As has been the case with the vast majority of financial reports from game publishers this year (Activision-Blizzard aside), the news is not great.

Despite the high sales of Assassins Creed II (almost 9 million) and surprise hit Just Dance (3 million), the publisher reported an annual net loss of 44 million Euros (around $56 million USD.)

CEO Yves Guillemot suggested that the global economy’s “pronounced impact on the videogame industry” in 2009 was the key factor in Ubisoft’s financial results.

PC users may be eager to claim that consumer reaction to the publisher’s unpopular new DRM scheme is reflected in the fiscal report, but this would likely be an oversimplification. Ubisoft’s PC sales accounted for 8% of its total across all platforms, down 1% from 2008.

Ultimately, any impact of PC customers boycotting Ubisoft titles due to DRM is difficult to gauge without a more detailed breakdown of data.

Comment